Nipping to North Wales

We’ve moored the boat up for a few weeks and followed the sun in Hollie the van for a few days of calm along the Welsh coastline. Bennar Beach Campsite is just south of Shell Island (which closed for the winter last weekend) and it’s just a short distance along a boardwalk to the sandy beach that stretches 7 miles from Barmouth to Shell Island.

Ian’s been exploring. Somehow his walks always end up further than planned, so his 5.5 mile beach stroll to Barmouth turned into 8.5miles with the unexpected addition of roads and fields! I think the dog was as footsore as Ian was by the time they got back to the van. At lunch time they sat by the dunes watching the RNLI practising the launching and recovery of a Shannon class relief lifeboat, “John Metters”13-26.

The Shannon class all-weather lifeboats don’t have propellers and are powered by 650hp twin waterjets with a top speed of around 25 knots (29 mph; 46 km/h) and a range of 250 nautical miles (460 km). These boats have reinforced hulls and can be recovered from any suitable location by the boat beaching itself on to sand or a slipway. It’s then winched up on to an ingenious trailer system that’s fitted with a turntable allowing the boat to be rotated ready for an immediate relaunch.

As some may know, I’m a bit of a beachcomber. This time I found loads of shells and a big jellyfish (yuck) but, thankfully, not a lot of rubbish this time. I’m a bit disappointed that the birdlife is a bit sparse, but perhaps that’s a reflection of the season and they’ve all flown to warmer climes as it’s a bit nippy in North Wales. I did find a WWII pillbox (DFW/3 Type 26). This square version of pillbox was intended to be used to cover river crossings or similar open viewpoints. Of the seven standard designs created in 1940, this was one of the least favoured, possibly due to its compact size (3m x 3m). I would say that it’s a testimony to the durability of the reinforced concrete that it’s in such good condition, but then again, there’s evidence that the Bedouins of southern Syria and northern Jordan were using concrete in 6500BC!

You probably saw the news about the big aurora storm on the 10th of October, so you can guess where Heather was; down on the beach trying to capture that elusive incredible shot! It was an impressive storm and there were a few big puddles to find reflections in. Ian was finally convinced to get out of the nice warm van, the rays have to be visible to the naked eye before he’s interested in stepping into the cold night air (what a whimp!) as evidenced below wearing my bobble hat (it was 3 degrees celsius). (Hang on – who had a dip in the sea despite the chill October weather – Ian’s no whimp!!)