The Long Weekend

The Queen's Jubilee brought about one of those special weekends that you need to make the most of. Anxious to avoid the crazy traffic jams that had been forecast, Kirstine and I headed for the relative ease of a trip to Anglesey and the wonderful hospitality of our friend Marcus Demuth.

Our mission for the weekend was to do as much rockhopping as possible. This could be useful practice for dodging sea ice during our forthcoming trip to East Greenland. Over the first day the gaps we paddled, surfed and wriggled through became narrower and shallower. Gentle swell surging amongst the reefs kept us entertained throughout the first day but as we landed we could see bad weather coming in.

It rained for most of the night and by the Sunday morning strong winds had set in too. A restful morning and a gap in the rain inspired a walk along the eastern shores of Cemaes and Llanbadrig. The north coast of Anglesey is wild and bleak but littered with carpets of wild flowers.

By the following morning the sun had returned and the wind had dropped too. We grabbed our kayaks and got back to rockhopping. Things began to get a little more ridiculous when we tried to paddle through solid rock. At this point we decided that these were actually our attempts at rocky landings.

Although sad to leave, we headed back home early on the Tuesday but not before making a short trip around the Great Orme at Llandudno. 

More rockhopping and rocky landings were interspersed with kayak caving. Both the Great Orme and Little Orme are riddled with intriguing gurgling caves which gradually become exposed at the tide goes out.