Pwllheli to Criccieth

Picking up where I left off last time, today I was accompanied by my friend Alan. The weather was a degree cooler than it had been for the bulk of the Lleyn Peninsula walk, and definitely breezy, but it was not bad once you got moving and kept moving!

The knack to today's walk was not to stick to the A497 too much. There were times when it was unavoidable, but at least in those areas there is a decent footpath running alongside. It was on the main road for the initial stage out of Pwllheli, but we were soon able to drop back towards the beach and follow the path along the sand dunes.

This is an area for holiday parks, and whilst Butlins may be long gone, the idea of it survives with caravan sites and other holiday camps all seeming to offer the same sort of facilities. They may have their place I suppose, but if I go on holiday, I like to see an area, not just an enclave of it.

Basically, it was a case of follow the path close to the beach until you reach Penychain, then back onto the main road. At this stage, I took a detour slightly inland to the village of Llanystumdwy, a village which would simply be a dot on the map were it not the home of the only Welshman to have been Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.

Lloyd George was the great Liberal Prime Minister during the First World War, and after the war, he won the subsequent General Election, formed a coalition Government with the Tories, which unfortunately put the Liberals out of Government until........

It's hard not to spot Lloyd George's connection with the village - there's the school where he would have been educated, the chapel where he would have worshipped, there's a museum decicated to him in what was his home, and just a whisker away from the village is his grave and memorial. That was also the venue for our lunch stop, not on the grave itself, but just alongside, with profound apologies to anyone who feels that too disrespectful. It was certainly not intended to be.

Just along the road from the gravesite, there's a path which drops down back over the road and railway and onto the beach. There, Criccieth Castle is clearly seen ahead of you, and it's journey's end for today's relatively short stage of the walk. A visit to the castle was a must - being a member of CADW, I can get in free. It turns out that both Alan and I had spent childhood holidays here and had visited the castle back then, and it was good to re-lived some of our respective memories. But boy, if it had been breezy on the walk, there was a positive gale howling through the castle grounds. I'll have to go back and have another look when the weather isn't quite so fierce, but I promise that it will not be another 30 years until my next visit.

Arriving in Criccieth also means that the Lleyn Peninsula is now complete. There's a lot more of the walk to do, but it feels that the next stage of the walk will be the next chapter of the story. Indeed, it will, for Criccieth is right down at the bottom corner of the map which has been so useful since Caernarfon.

Thank-you, Lleyn Peninsula, I certainly know where to spend some days out now, but with the coastline of Cardigan Bay in sight, there are more adventures ahead in that direction.