It was raining heavily as we started our final day of our tour around North Wales. With another washout day predicted, we decided to just tour along the coast and try to stay away from the mountains. The main point of interest in today's tour was the
RAF museum based in Caernarfon airport which is the only RAF museum in Wales. Again we took to A5-A4086-A498-4086. When we approached A4086/A498 junction, I thought of continuing on A4086 to experience the Llanberis Pass again. With pouring rain and poor visibility at the mountain base, I was quite certain that the weather up in the mountain would be treacherous especially for a bike. After contemplating the idea for a few seconds and checking with my wife, I decided it was too big a risk to take. From Caernarfon we took A499 southbound to get to the Caernarfon airport which was on the coast.
The RAF museum was nothing more than a medium sized shed. Inside the museum, the eye catching display is that of a RAF Mountain Rescue helicopter. There were displays of training jets that were used during the War time. Apart from these real-life displays there were posters related to RAF squadrons' planes and fighter planes' wreckage from the War. I had expected the museum to be bigger than it actually was and considering the £6.50/person fee I felt it was a big rip-off.
After having our lunch at the airport cafe/canteen, we continued our day tour of the coast. We stopped at the beach at Dinal Dinlle. Situated on the Caernarfon Bay this beach was sandy and was a long one too. It was very blustery for us to spend any more than a few minutes. We walked upto the waves touched the water, collected a few pebbles found on the beach and were on our way.
A499 was pretty boring and flat. By now the rain had subsided. As a biker I'm always wary of diesel spills on wet roads. I chose a riding-line close to the median-line to stay away from the diesel spills that I found in the middle of the road for the most part of A499. We took to B4417 heading towards Nefyn. By now the rain had almost stopped and it gave us the opportunity to spend a few minutes at the beach in Nefyn. The Welsh coast, at least, the northern parts has nice sandy beaches throughout. If not for the horrible weather, I think people would be flocking to these nice beaches. In Nefyn, there is a beautiful golf course by the Irish Sea. We parked our bike and went for a long walk on the golf course. As we neared the coast, we could see the waves crashing into the rocks found a few meters from the shore. This was a beautiful sight and I would pick the waves that had the chance to break to the top of the rocks.
We continued on the twisty B4417 following the coast. Our next scheduled stop was Aberdaron. Riding on B4417 was rewarding but as there farms dotted all along this route, I'd to be extra cautious as the roads had mud from the farm vehicles. At some point on B4417, we had to take an unidentified road heading towards Aberdaron. These unidentified roads were interesting to ride but their quality wasn't great. We reached Aberdaron and chose a view point looking at the Cardigan Bay. By now, the sun had come out and we were happy to spend more time enjoying the scenary. We also took to other unidentified roads taking to the nearby coastal villages that were situated on hill top.
Following the coastal roads, we took B4413-A499-A497 to visit the ruins of Criccieth Castle. As it was already 1830 and about 40 miles to our B&B taking the mountainous route, we decided to view it from the shore front. I decided to take the scenic A497-A498-A4086-A5. River Glaslyn (Afon Glaslyn in Welsh) runs along this route and offers nice photographic opportunities at Pont Aberglaslyn. Following the previous day's heavy rain, the river had swollen and was carrying the mountain mud with it. The difference between a clam river and a swollen fast moving river was pretty evident. We had seen the river a couple of days earlier and it appeared to be very calm. We could see what effect continous heavy rain could do to the mountain rivers. After taking photos and spending some time enjoy watching the river, we returned to our B&B. Just as we left Pont Aberglaslyn, I noticed the fuel reserve warning. As we only had to do 17 odd miles to our B&B decided to carry on as it would still leave us with another 8 or 9 mile fuel window.
For our dinner, we went to a restaurant in Betws-Y-Coed to taste some local food. Our tour of the North Wales was almost over. I think we managed to cover quite a lot given the weather. We'd have loved to take a "rover bus pass" that would have enabled us to do some mountain walking. Never mind, there is always next time. I would miss the Llanberis Pass for sure.