20th September 2012: Anglesey

It was the Famous Five that met at the Edinburgh Wool Mill café at Llanfair PG for the round Anglesey Special Ride. Only five (Dave H, Andy, Ivan, Ray and myself) but what quality for a quality ride. The route out to South Stack RSPB café, by the famous lighthouse, would be a minor variation on that taken by Ivan and I in Jan 2011. The return would mainly be a surprise. The weather threatened rain but little comes although the stiff breeze will feature all through the 35 miles to the South Stack café. Taking cycleway 8, we run down quite lanes parallel to the Menai Straits with panoramic views of Snowdon and the Rivals. Through Newborough, the road takes you through the forest to Maltreath. Here the Maltreath Drain takes the water out of the marsh that extends right into Llangefni. The first minor variation takes us down a "No Through Road" (says the binman) along the estuary. The OS seemed to indicate we can get through and we can by taking a short cut along the foreshore to access the lane out. The next variation involves us ignoring the main road to Aberffaw by taking a tiny road across the sand dunes to access the original trip-trap bridge. It works, and we then have to use the main road to get to Rhosneigr. A very popular town this appears to be with several cafes (open but ignored) and lots of holiday homes; but we press on inland to circle RAF Valley before crossing the causeway to Holyhead Island proper at Trearddur Bay.

Photographs by Clive Albany

We follow the coast climbing over hill and down dale towards the windswept RSPB café for lunch. The choice of hot food is a bit short but it comes quickly enough as we sit enjoying the seaward view. I was remembering that just two weeks prior, I had been sailing around South Stack trying to beat the tidal stream on my way to Cemaes Bay to anchor there before it got dark. We leave and cycle the short uphill distance to see the lighthouse itself where Ivan procures a pink-clad young lady to take the snaps. Off around the mountain, we make our way along the front at Holyhead and turning almost into the seaport itself, we pick up cycleway 8 again to take past the now quiet aluminium smelter to get us across the causeway. Turning left in Valley, we eventually access the B5109 towards Llangefni and Mona's Café. This road is parallel to the old A5 and the busy A55 but there is hardly any traffic as we go down and up dale arriving at Mona's at school chucking out time. Ivan espies the "Gwesty Bull" and as the four of us take tea and cake, he takes a pint of Cardiff ale. There are traffic jams in Llangefni as we leave to ride the short distance back to the car park. I am keen to avoid the obvious way back so we take some more tiny lanes which once again give us 180° vistas of the Snowdon range and the Llyn peninsula. We ride over the A55 footbridge and with 62 miles done we are back at the car park. There were just a few spots of rain all day, the sun came out, there were majestic mountain vistas and sea panoramas, almost no cars, and wonderful countryside, and apart from the one lane out of Rhosneigr, decent road surfaces all day. What more can you ask for on a CER ride - where were you all!

See route map and/or gpx file download.

CA