Onto the island

Now that the Welsh government has changed the 'rules' about exercising, we were able to make a longer bike ride and be able to 'rest and refuel' along the way (aka have a picnic). So with that in mind, we loaded up a pannier and set off down the hill towards the coast.

Via a short detour through the High St in Bangor, where all remained spookily quiet and closed.

Crossing the bridge onto the Island felt like a major shift.

Once through Menai Bridge, we climbed up above the coast, where the views of the straits and mountains beyond were gorgeous.

After some long lanes and hamlets, before we knew it, we'd arrived back down at sea level at Beaumaris, where we had the full panorama of the water and mountains beyond, to ourselves.

There can't have been many sunny Saturdays in May, where you could lay out on the grass by the water here and had the entire place to yourself, but today was one of those times. Apart from the odd dog walker, it was just us, the view and a honey sandwich. Incredible.

There was a brutally steep climb up past Pen-y-Parc on the way back, but it repaid itself with a long downhill section through Llandegfan.

Back by the water, the tide was coming in as we pulled in at Menai Bridge.

The other big news here is that fish and chip shops are allowed to open for take-away service. It's not something we'd normally do, but it felt so novel (and we still had 12km up hill to go to get home!).

Never has a sausage and chips tasted so good! What a treat, to sit and eat in the sun, by the water's edge.

We actually stopped for about an hour, enjoying the food, warmth and views, but finally, set off back for the mainland.

Having come via the (quiet) main roads, we opted to return via the cycle track as it was now later in the evening and likely to be less busy.

We needed a short stop halfway home, but otherwise we both felt quite good, given the fact that we'd done over 40km already.

This perked us up for the final section and we arrived back at The Cottage at around 8pm. It was the longest time (over 6 hours!) that I've been away from The Cottage since March 2nd! It felt like I'd just returned from a week-long expedition!

Showers, hot food and drinks were all had in quick succession. What a 'holiday' day!