Framedlight

We had been blessed with some early dramatic, stormy skies and I took advantage of this with a solitary excursion to the beach at Trefor, where there is a good view of Garn For and it's quarry. It is about a 1/2 mile walk from the town to the beach passing through a narrow walled footpath sided by pastureland. The beach is rather scruffy and stoney but has a good backdrop of hills.

After spending Saturday in bed and Sunday being a bit feeble, although we did have visitors, the drugs did their job and by Monday I was up and about. Trefor is a small, rather scruffy town on the north west side of the Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales. It has one shop with very little in it, a post office, working men's club, several garages and a bus station which was on the side we were staying, so that we were woken from 6.30 onwards by the sound of diesel engines moving up the street. It is a quarry town and lies under the shadow of Garn For, the smallest of the three peaks of Yr Eifl and the one whose side is scarred by the granite quarry and works. The quarry has now shut. The beach is stony and has a small harbour and a defunct pier closed off for safety reasons. I can see you are all dying to visit. The first three pictures are of the town, changed to monochrome with Perfect Photo Suite. We drove down to Morfa Nefyn, still on the north coast, and walked through the golf cou...

The previous evening I had felt really dizzy while out photographing the sunset and was still feeling a little ropey the next day. We were in such a wonderful place however that we had to look around the Nant-y-Moch reservoir, fringed by the Cambrian Mountains. We drove north after this, passing Ynys Hir bird reserve and the Osprey Centre which Alan visited while I stayed in the van.I realised that I must have some sort of inner ear infection and when we stopped at Aderdovey Alan made an appointment for me to see a local GP who examined me, agreed with my diagnosis and gave me a prescription for tablets. They did not start working immediately and I found that everytime I tried to move I was ill. The next morning we drove into Trefor, where we had booked a cottage for a week, with a bowl propped in front of me - how nice.

The morning of Day 10 we drove up a little way to Trevine where we had stayed one autumn 3 years ago. Going down to the small beach we were followed by members of a painting group who set up their easels among the rocks. We stopped for a little while at Strumble Head.The sky was overcast and dark and we did not see very much - only one seal and no porpoises as we have done before. From there we drove back into mid Wales, to a very primitive and lonely campsite in the midst of the Cambrian mountains, not far from Nant-y-Moch reservoir and the Plynlimon range, home of the rivers Severn and Wye. The sun went down as we were eating and I begun to realise I was not feeling 100%. Trevine Trevine

We launched the kayak from Porthgain, hoping to get as far as Abereiddy, although in the end we only made it to Traethlyfyn. It was a good trip - we saw a seal swimming not far from us which roused the dog from her normal stupor into a frenzy of barking. Needless to say the seal did not hang around. We paddled between the pair of islands and the headland (see photo in previous blog). This was a bit scary as there was a big tidal current between the two pieces of land and we had to paddle like mad to get anywhere. Coming back we realised that we would be carried along in the turbulence and so chose to go through the very narrow space between the islands, which Alan decided would be safer. The concern was that, as we had the dog, we had had to remove the spray deck from the kayak which meant it could easily fill up with water. We made it back to Porthgain in one piece. Again I used the Fuji XE1 for the water shots and kept it in a plastic freezer bag when I wasn't using it. The ...

We had an early start and drove to the beach at Abereiddy. Alan went for a cycle ride and I took pictures of the beach. We then had a quick walk along the headland. Abereiddy is an interesting place and has a huge deep quarry next to the sea, which has now encroached and flooded the workings. There are some ruined workers cottages and a strange round building on a promontory where the ladies of the quarry owners used to take tea! The quarry area was being prepared for an international diving competition and unfortunately had a mass of fencing and workmen round it, so I was limited in the view I could take. Picture 1 was taken with the 14-24mm Nikon zoom and grad filter, the rest with the 16-35mm zoom, the second and last with the Hoya x 10 neutral density filter. The beach at Abereiddy Quarry site at Abereiddy Alan looking for birds View over the islands from the headland

On the Monday morning we took the kayak to West Angle beach and paddled up the Milford Haven Sound to Angle. The day was dull and overcast with no wind and after the rocks and caves we had seen before the kayaking was rather dull, apart from a tour of Thorn Island, an old fort that had been used as a hotel and then as a private residence but now looked deserted and rundown. We packed up and drove to Abereiddy, moving north-west of St David's. My favourite Pembrokeshire place is Porthgain, not far from Abereiddy and we went over there for a walk on the clifftop . We stayed at a farm called Llandigige Fawr in Berea and on our first night had a sunset over the rear of the campsite with mist rising from the ground. Thorn Island Channel marker at Porthgain Fisherman's hut at Porthgain Sunset from the campsite

That afternoon we drove over to West Angle bay where we mooched around the rocks for a bit. West Angle is in Milford Haven Sound and we thought we would come back the next day to kayak up the Sound. We went into Pembroke for fish and chips and came back to West Angle to eat them and watch the sun go down. On the way back to the campsite we passed the oil refinery at Rhoscrowther, which looked very dramatic in the darkness. Thorn Island