The Walk that Wasn’t

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This was a walk with a difference - I didn’t walk. “What?” I hear you cry “You fraud, you charlatan! Hang your walking boots in shame”. Let me present the case for the defense. The Wales Coast Path (WCP) is very long and has to cross all kinds of terrain and land under many types of ownership. This occasionally means that it does not always track the shoreline - sometimes it’s not even close. Even now, continuing negotiations and refurbishment means the route changes like it did on the Caernarfon-Bangor leg. For this leg, it had very limited parts that didn’t involve walking along a road. Some of the road was along the shoreline and some were country roads with no pavement but the majority was alongside the main road. Call me old-fashioned, but it never feels like a country walk when there is traffic hammering past you at 60mph only a few metres away. I consulted my Official Guide and it said “Nonetheless, some walkers may choose to take a bus or taxi for all or part of this Day Section, or it could be cycled”. I rest my case.

When I bought my bike, it was with a view to using it to do return journeys when solo walking. This was the first time it had been pressed into service - albeit for a round-trip. The weather forecast was good - a little too good. I had got into trouble on the hottest day last year so I slapped on some factor 45 and filled a couple of water containers. I set off early for the 70 mile drive to Caernarfon and got there about 8:30 am. I unloaded the bike from the car and loaded up all the gear onto the bike.

Ready to roll from the Caernarfon Castle

I’ll pause here to just to go through the setup as it was different to my walking one. Normally, I use a Mindshift Horizon 34l backpack which has a rotatable camera section for easy access. Into this I put my Fuji XT-4 with 16-80mm mounted, the 70-300mm and the 1.4TC or fast prime. I could have still used this but it is a big bag and I didn’t need the storage. It came down to a choice of removing the rotation belt of the Mindshift bag and using on its own or using a Peak Design Everyday Sling 6l. I decided to go with the Sling but configured as a waist pack. I kept the same load-out.

My bike is a 2020 Tern Vektron S10. It’s really designed as a commuter bike, but it has a useful feature set for my slightly different use. It is electric as I am a) not all that fit, b) Wales is all about the hills, c) I needed to haul photo gear, d) I expected to have just walked 10-15 miles before I use it. It can fold into my boot without needing to drop the seats or use racks. It has a decent spread of gears and a stated 34-68 mile range. It also has a strong rear rack and can take panniers meant for its bigger cargo bike siblings like the HSD. On the downside, it doesn’t have any suspension. The fat tyres give some compliance but compact bikes like the aforementioned HSD or the Riese and Mueller Tinker would be comfier but they don’t fold as small.

I parked in Slate Quay Car Park again, under the commanding walls of Caernarfon Castle. I loaded up the bike pannier with a few spares, tools, locks and the lightweight rucksack I use for non-photo walks. It contains “stuff that might come in handy” and the second water container. I also loaded a bidon that fits on the bike frame. I attached the camera bag around my waist and pushed it back behind me. I put the bike into eco mode as I had never gone this far and I didn’t want to run out of battery just as I got to my most tired. It claimed 84 miles of range. The route I planned should be 30 miles. I was wearing technical cycling clothing but trying not to look the full MAMIL. I wore mountain biking shorts over the cycling shorts. Between the shorts pockets and jersey back pockets, I had enough places to keep keys, phone, wallet and mask safe and to hand. I had mountain biking shoes that have stiff soles for better pedal grip and power but are still rugged enough for short hikes.

The day was living up to the forecast. The sun was starting to peep over the castle walls. The boats along the quay sat silently at high tide meaning there was no wind to stir the rigging. The air still had a little morning coolness to it, pretty much perfect riding conditions. I headed over the little swing bridge that is also the entrance for the harbour. On the other side is a road that follows the shoreline. It’s not got a path as such but you could walk along the boundary or even the beach depending on the tide and beach surface at some points. It’s just about wide enough for two cars to pass in places which keeps the traffic speed down. I didn’t feel too vulnerable on the bike. Perhaps the biggest danger with the bike is not becoming to destination focussed and keep your mind on looking for a shot. It’s better than being in a car but walking is still more likely to result in taking shots. You have a better eye-line on foot, you are not scanning for potholes or scanning for traffic. Fortunately, my improvised wait bag worked well. I could stop in a safe spot, swing the bag around to the front and get a shot without even having to dismount sometimes. The bag didn’t bounce around on the move though I was a little conscious of its weight.

The views of this North Western facing coast look over to Anglesey and the Newborough Warren. You can see the narrow entrance to the western end of the Menai Strait between the Newborough sand bar and the rock peninsular that is home to Caernarfon Airport. There are not many houses along this stretch. There is a caravan park, a golf club and a boatyard along with a few little parking areas. A tractor towed a small motorboat out of the boatyard with its owners already seated aboard looking over the stern at me as they bounced over the bumpy road on the trailer. They gave me a wave and one of the gentlemen shouted, “I’ve got one of those”. I presume he meant the bike.

Eventually, the coastline turns abruptly South as it flanks the wide and muddy estuary of the Afon Gwyrfai and the Foryd Bay. You lose sight of the river amongst the foliage along the roadside. After a short distance, you have to backtrack East for a while to get to a bridge over the Afon Gwyrfai at Pont Faen. Then you can start to move South and West again back to the southern end of the estuary where Afon Carrog emerges before feeding into the Gwyrfai. This area is open to the estuary and has views over the Y Foryd Nature Reserve and of Caernarfon Airport. I filmed some noisy Oystercatchers chasing each other over the mudflats. At this point the road leaves the coast again and heads South. So far I had been able to cycle the WCP route exactly. However, after a couple of miles the path turns westward along a footpath crosses the Afon Carrog and heads North up the peninsula towards the Airport.

Someone had very kindly Google Mapped the path. It was a footpath that went through a couple of kissing gates. After the river crossing it ran along the top of a dyke until the airport boundary. Riding bikes on footpaths is frowned up here in the UK and I didn’t fancy having to heave 30kg of bike and gear over the gates. Looking at the map there seemed to be second bridge a bit further down which led to a parallel road. I cycled down to the bridge with no problem but there was a large and unyielding fence blocking access of it. A host of sparrows sat on it and mocked me.

I tried a little side path which I thought my go to the other bridge, but this just disappeared into the wood and ended. Caernarfon Airport was originally RAF Llandwrog during WWII and the path led to an old, long-abandoned pillbox. It looked exactly like the kind of place British TV Detectives are always finding bodies - so I retreated rapidly. As I considered my options, a microlight flew over my head. I had scouted this area in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in Virtual Reality flying a microlight, so it amused me that Actual Reality had followed suit.

I was just not going to be able to follow the WCP on my bike. The best I could do was to work around using the road network and get to the other side of the peninsula from the South. It meant some later back-tracking but I wanted to see the little seaside town of Dinas Dinlle which was my best chance of getting some refreshments. So I made my way through the pretty little village of Llandwrog that gave its name to the wartime RAF Station and on to Dinas Dinlle.

I am glad I made this stop. I cycled up to near the airport boundary just to mop up what bits of the WCP I could ride. Dinas Dinlle’s long promenade has great views all around. To the North is Anglesey and the beaches of Newborough. To the South lie the rugged hills of the Lleyn Peninsula (which stand in the way of my next sections of my walk). Looking back East you see the more distant peaks of Snowdonia. I found a nice seaside Cafe and settled in for a latte and a well-earned bacon bap for second breakfast.

I didn’t linger too long at the Cafe. I was now 2 hours into the ride and it was only going to get hotter. It was nominally about mid 20’s ˚C (high 70’s ˚F) but it always feels hotter on the tarmac. The next section of the trip was going to be all about the road. The path follows some local B-roads before running along the A499. If I had been walking, I would have stopped at Pontllyfni about 2 miles on but, on the bike, I really wanted to mark off all this A road slog. This meant going about another 7 miles out to Trefor. The good news was that the mixture of pavement (sidewalk) and long-bypassed road sections had been designated as a cycle path along the whole route. This is a fairly sizeable reduction in terror for a non-hardened cyclist like myself. My route wasn’t particularly hilly by Welsh standards but there was still 1300’ of climbing to do over the day. When you are getting slow and wobbly, it’s so much nicer not to have to share the tarmac with coaches and trucks.

I passed a few defibrillators along the way. Did they know I was coming?

This is a pretty part of Wales and even relatively mundane stretches of road like this are still pretty easy on the eye. A few little towns lie along the route of which Clynnog Fawr, with its ancient pilgrims church of St Bueno’s, is the most scenic. The coastal views tended to be obscured from the road but occasionally it would open up and I think I could see the distant hills of Holy Island, Anglesey that shelter the major port at Holyhead over the hazy flat sea.

Yr Eifl is the central peak of the group of three and the tallest at 564m (1850’)

What was harder to hide are the towering conical peaks of Yr Eifl and its neighbours rising up above you as you get closer. I finally got the turn off to Trefor that sits at their feet. One of the hills is scarred by a quarry that produced granite, most notably used for making curling stones for the winter sport. It was a high-speed ride down the hill to Trefor and a long, slow slog back up to the main road again.

For the return journey, I followed a similar route with fewer detours except for one slight navigational error. I didn’t follow my original plan to use the more direct main cycle route back as I suspected it might be less scenic and hillier. Overall, I did about 35 miles. This is by far the longest ride on the Vektron. Despite being out of its natural environment, it never felt out of its depth. I rode it on tarmac, gravel and grass. It tends to chatter a bit over rough and corrugated surfaces due to having no suspension but it keeps on going. My concerns over battery life were unwarranted. As I got increasingly tired I could just bump up the assistance level a bit more to compensate. Without that help from Herr Bosch, I would still be at the bottom of the hill in Trefor! On the return journey, I kept the assistance higher just to get me home faster. It cycles through Eco -> Touring - > Sport - Turbo -> Off. Despite using the higher assistance levels back, I had still only used about half of the 400Wh battery.

Peak Design Sling Bag on the Rack with everything else in the pannier.

I didn’t need the camera on the return, so I put the Everyday Sling on the rack. This made life easier for my back. The Sling has two side handles designed to mount a Peak Design capture clip. I passed the rack bungees through these to make it super secure. I got back to the castle about 2 pm - still avoiding the hottest part of the day. Still, the Venti Iced Skinny Latte I picked up on the way home never tasted so good.