Day 6: The beach circle

The Ynyslas Nature Reserve / beach

This morning we woke up to what had been the most cloudy day. I was worried about going to the beach. But yesterday it had been cloudy when we left and by the time we got to the castle it was sunny and beautiful. So I was hoping it would be much the same today. We started driving. And sure enough, by the time we got partway there it was sunny.

The GPS would not bring up the Nature Reserve that we were going to, but I had looked at the map and we even brought the atlas along, so we figured it could not be that hard to find. I missed one of my turns, but we got back on the right road and drove directly there. When we parked in the sand, there were only a couple of cars there with us. Michael had told us that this was a secluded and quiet beach. Actually that is why we had decided to come to this one rather than the one on the other side of the river/inlet.

We had to walk up and over these large sand dunes. It was a descent hike. But once we were there the kids saw the sea and were ready to go. We walked over the large rocks there at the edge and across the damp, swampy sand area. Zeb headed straight for the sea. The girls got distracted by picking up shells.

As we explored a few more people started to come. The girls and I headed out to the water's edge and with our shoes off stepped into it. I had figured that it would be icy cold. But it actually wasn't too bad. Much warmer to me than the Pacific Ocean had been.

We all picked up a few shells and walked in the water a bit. We found a crab and several other sea creatures. We did not bring buckets or chairs. I know that the girls would like to go back to the sea and just play sometime. But we had other things on our list to do today. So we decided to head back to the car. By now there were actually quite a few people there. Several of them were flying kites or building castles. Back in the parking lot there was even an ice cream van selling treats.

Michael had told us that going to the beach was not a hard thing to do here, as there is no place in the UK that is more than 40 miles from a beach. This is an interesting thing to consider for someone who is from in NE.

Corris Craft Center:

After the beach we headed up to the Corris Craft Center. We did not know exactly what to expect from this as English is not always the same as our English. Words mean different things in different places. This was a short and easy drive. We parked and got out to explore. There were several octagonal buildings, each one was a different shop. There was also an ice cream / tea shop and the all important bathrooms...or as they call them here toilets.

There were so many things there that I would like to have gotten. One shop was a toy shop, one a tourist shop, a paint your own pottery shop, a glass blower, a chocolate/candy shop, a candle maker, a shop that makes all sorts of wooden things, and a soap maker.

Nearly every shop had something I would have bought. The glass blower shop was one of my favorites. They had this beautiful dragon. I really wanted it. But there was no way that it would have gotten safely home with me. They also had glass flowers that I would have loved to have.

The pottery shop also had lots of things I wanted. There were dragons, and castles, and the woodland faced mask. I did buy something here, there was a bunch of little mushroom houses. I decided I needed one of these and that I could get it home safely. So that was my purchase for the day.

Dolgoch Falls:

After we had finished looking around here, we went on to Dolgoch Falls. This was also just a short drive. But of course we went down to a B-road to get there. So driving was a little more of a challenge. We stopped at the car park and walked up to the first of the falls. The walk there was beautiful. We walked along the stream and under the train bridge. This was a little fall when compared to the one we saw the other day.

Just to the left of the falls was a cave. “The Cave of the Brave” Michael had told us to walk into it without a torch. He wanted to see if any of us were brave. He of course told us that it was perfectly safe. It was a bit on the muddy side, but the kids headed in while I took a few pictures of the falls. After Zeb came out I went on inside. It was dark and wet inside, but it did not go back all that far. Then it opened up to a secret little place. There were plants and trees growing. They of course had to fence it off. When we got home Michael said that they had done that because people had been dropping things down from the top of the falls when people down below called out.