A plentiful breakfast, a hot shower and a late check out, meant that the morning rain had passed us by by the time we got our bikes out of the van and loaded up for the coming tour of Holy Island. Well fed and equipped for some time 'on the road', we set out into a brightening day with our tent in the panniers and leaving the hotel luxury behind.
There wasn't much traffic about as we zoomed around the coast and over to South Stack.
Fresh tarmac from the RSPB reserve gave us some mega downhill speeds on the way to the North Stack Breakwater, followed by a zig zag around the marina.
Our pre-planned route on the GPS made sure we were heading the right way and all was going well, until we turned up towards Holyhead town...
The wheels didn't fall off, but the chain did! It lay snapped on the road as Clare ground to a halt.
Although neither of us had ever repaired a broken chain, we were prepared for this potential tour disaster. I had previously broken a chain in the Ogwen Valley. Having limped back to The Cottage, we resolved to purchase the required tools and chain links to facilitate a repair should this happen further from home. So with the scantest of instructions, we fathomed out what to do, with Clare taking on the business end of the operation, while I offered support! Our first attempt got the chain on and repaired, but threated incorrectly, so we had to actually break it again to rethread! After a very satisfying repair, we discovered that we've also packed some thin gloves in the repair kit to avoid getting oil on our hands! Too late!
Onwards we went, avoiding the Holyhead town as best we could!
Instead we discovered a whole new beach we'd never even seen before. I was well keen to a quick drink stop by this point.
Further new beaches appeared on the east of the island as we headed north toward the Stanley crossing.
Just before the embankment where we'd cross over to the main island near Valley, a few spots of drizzle, convinced us we should stop for a cuppa. The rain never came, but we took shelter in a garden shed and had a brew anyway.
We've surfed several times on the wave that forms below the Stanley Embankment, but I'd never seen the 'upstream' end, where the water flow out of the inland sea.
It was utterly mesmerising to watch - as if the whole ocean was emptying down a plug hole!
We skirted around the town of valley and came to rest near Rhoscolyn beach at a very nice campsite called Outdoor Alternative (very much recommended for a quite eco-friendly kind of stay). It turned out that we both knew the owners or at least had mutual friends, which was a lovely welcome.
There had been talk of an evening swim, but food seemed like more of a priority - we'd cycled near 30km after all!
Instead, we got the tent up, put on some fresher clothes and biked up past the beach to the White Eagle pub for some dinner. We were almost out of luck as they were fully booked, but Clare charmed them into letting us sit on the terrace to eat, which in actual fact was much better than being indoors as it was a mild evening and meant that we had sea view.
It was almost raining and almost dark as we rolled back down the hill to camp by headtorch... Sleep came quickly...
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