Mayan Prophecy Countdown

The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the red cave

Well, it was a good choice to stay where I did last night, it rained for most of it and it was cold and raining now, bummer 😦 But, after a brekky of bacon and eggs on toast, I packed up and headed off, nearly dumping the bike when I hit the soft mud under the tree near where I parked, oops!

As I was riding and thinking about what I should do if the rain continues, I managed to locate a cache, it just happened to be right by the road, the kind I like, it was at a layby, tucked into a tree fork. This one had a couple of trackables in it, so I grabbed them to take for a ride 🙂

Now, a trackable is a special type of item that lives in these caches, they are called Geo Coins, if they are coins, or Travel Bugs, if they are an item. As you can see from the following photos, these two have a metal tag, they have a unique serial number on them and they have special instructions sometimes, in this case they want to travel and that is all. By entering the serial number in the geocache website, they can be followed to see where they have been 🙂 They also add up all the kms they have travelled, so in my case I can take them a long way 🙂 There is an option when logging a cache I have found to ‘drop off’ a travel bug, or it can just ‘visit’ that cache and stay with me, that way they get to travel further 🙂

I headed off again and basically took the roads less travelled to get to the north, the rain was heavy then clear, heavy then clear and the countryside was nice and rolling hills and dales. As it was getting close to lunchtime I happened to go past a Little Chef, so I stopped for a feed and a hot drink, well, OK on the food but no hot water system apparently says the sign on the door, so I had a cold drink instead! The fish and chips was basic, but at least it was hot 🙂 While I was here another biker turned up, it was pouring down by now, he reckons he is local and just taking a day ride, but was now giving up and heading home, don’t blame him! As I was heading off, another group of cruisers arrived, also trying to hide from the rain. I have to say though, I am dry, so my choice of clothes is good 🙂

Just down the road a ways, I spotted another cache on the GPS, this one according to the sign near the gate was in a GPS unfriendly area, and the cache information says the same, but I had no issue and it was an easy find 🙂

As I walked back to the bike, it hammered down, yuck!!! But, I had no choice but to continue and I decided right then to cut this back country ride short and find some fast slab and head to Ireland, maybe I could beat the system by going there(and pigs may fly according to Bob when I posted this bit on Facebook)? Of course, trying to find some fast slab out here was next to impossible, there are no real road choices, so it took a fair while of meandering before I could get any kind of pace up. My destination was Holyhead, the port city where ferries leave to Ireland. But, during this time I did see some nice old buildings, with very thick stone walls and some other unusual things as well as I wound my way through small villages every few kms, even a puffing billy train up on the hillside during a dry spell(lol)

Then I spotted another cache on the GPS just ahead near this river and apparently from here you can see Mt Snowden, hmm, I think not, well, I did see the bottom bit of it and I did find the cache. Caches come in different sizes, from big buckets, ammo boxes, lunch box and 35mm film canister size with the smallest called a NANO, This cache was a nano, I usually hate looking for these because they are so small, this one is a tiny metal case the size of your little finger nail, it has a magnetic base, and they can be hard to find in some areas. This one was not too bad, and as you can see, inside is a rolled up piece of paper, this is the log, but due to the wet I decided not to get it out and just signed it electronically online.

It was not long after this that I arrived at the main highway, there was an unusual mobile phone tower here, it was disguised as a tree, including fake bark and branches, quite neat. There was a cache here but although I stopped and took a few photos, there were too many cars parked with muggles for me to find it, bit of a bummer, but there you go, this happens occasionally.

This was quite near my destination and the first thing I needed to do was find out about ferry services, so I headed straight for the port and the booking office. I had a few choices with two different companies, but the one that suited me was the next morning at 9.30am. The others were late that night or 3am, yuck! So, as there was no need to book a ticket, I was given some numbers for B&Bs and found one just up the road about 300m 🙂 I had to take a ride into town though to find an ATM as they only took cash, quite a quaint old town, but the machine worked and I was soon booked in.

Now, it was gone 5pm but I decided to tick off another item on my non-existent bucket list and that is to go find the town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which I believed to be somewhere near here. And it was only 25km away, so in very short order I was doing the photo thing on the trains platform. There was nobody around on this Friday night so I could not get anyone to take my photo and had to make do with a shot from the light pole nearby. It also meant no local to read it out for me, but for those that wish to learn a bit more about it, click on the name of the town above and this link will open up a new page and has a very detailed account of the name and how to pronounce it. And yes, I did find the cache hidden nearby 🙂

Well, that was quick, now to head back for a beer 🙂 But on the way, just past the place I was staying, was another cache called Dublin Bound, this is where people can grab some Travel Bugs to take across the water, this was a tricky one, the end of the log had been sawn off, a hinge put on and the cache placed inside it, a great idea 🙂 But, after parking the bike across the road from the B&B(me not liking a hillside parking spot with a heavy bike), I headed down to the pub, about 100m away for a beer or two and a feed. It was steak night and the ribeye steak was very tender, well liked by me 🙂 Unlike the music though, they hooked in with some DJ’s and the DOOF DOOF music was so loud it nearly bounced the peas off the plate. Not being a fan of that stuff they term music, I packed it in very early and I was not on my Pat Malone either, all the locals were bitching about it, except for the young ones, which means I am showing my age now 😉

Cheers from Holyhead, Wales
TravellingStrom