Anglesey Coast Path
Just past ferry customs in Holyhead, Wales there’s a sign for the Anglesey Coast Path. As it turns out, we’re already on it! The line on my app leads directly across the bridge from where I’m standing into town.
Our lodging place is closed in the middle of the day, but when we ring, they kindly let us drop our packs inside.
Since it's not currently raining and we have noplace else to go, we decide to do the 12 mile walk along the path to Treaddur Bay. At Holyhead's lovely modern library, the librarian prints a trail map for us and suggests both a bus route and a good app for transit. We stop in for sandwiches at the convenience shop, and we're off.
Yellow and blue trail signs lead us north and out of town. Within the hour, we're walking over heathered hills and above sharp-angled cliffs. Pink, blue, and yellow flowers growing inches above the low grass quaver in the same wind that fills the shells of my ears.
As the view widens, we can see much of our journey. Eileen points out the direction of Snowdonia and the hills of the Llyn Peninsula, our next couple of weeks. Back across the water, we can make out the Irish coast. Our ferry is still in port at Holyhead.
We climb Holyhead Mountain, great wind-worn rocks with only traces now of what once were parapets. When the wind grows stronger, I thread one of my braids through the back of my cap and tie a square knot with the other. It works: when the bill is caught by a gust, the hat remains attached to my head. Good thing; the cliffs are sheer to the ocean below us.
We spot climbers on a multipitch granite crack that makes my hands itch — but no time today, and I've neither gear nor climbing partner.
Twelve miles is a bit dicey for the first day in brand new shoes. Through some hikers' providence, I find a couple of unused Compeed blister bandages in the gravel path just as I'm wearing a hotspot on my right heel.
In our quick research, I learned that there's just one place we can catch the bus along the route. The bus comes once an hour until 6:19, then not until after ten tonight. We're both conscious of the deadline as we hike.
We're on the fly; we don't know how to pay for buses in Wales yet, and we've only just gotten pounds sterling at the ATM entering the country, so we probably don't have bus fare in exact change.
The coast path follows the many ins and outs of the headlands, skimming the sharp inlets carved into the rock cliffs. I lope in long strides, but both Eileen and I have sore bodies from the many days of intense walking. We start to follow the inner cutoff paths, then hug the road in lieu of yet another bump-out to the cliff edge.
I'm checking the time as we walk, and I think we'll make it. As we get closer, it becomes clear we're running early.
"Maybe a fish and chips by the seashore before we catch the bus?" I propose to Eileen. My body wants the salt, and the calories, after a day chasing the sea air.
But the fish and chips shop is closed; we're early for the season. Treaddur Bay is very small; nothing else seems to be open either. But we do find our bus stop, and not only are we early, the bus is also late.
We are bad at rest days. We got tens of thousands of steps in yesterday in Dublin, and just hiked another five hours today, when we'd planned nothing but the ferry ride. Walking as a habit can be hard to break, and Wales has a contiguous walking route along its entire coast: what could be more tempting, on our first day in a new country?
At the bus stop, we're drooping. The evening is cold, the bus is very late, and the wind is a steady thief of calories our bodies no longer carry.
Eileen has the live update app, thanks to the library, so at least we know the bus is indeed coming. We use the time to check routes, learn more transit schedules. We learn that most buses in Wales can be paid with credit card tap, and that all will let you pay on board. I write. We play a word game on Eileen's phone. We shiver and wait.
When at last the bus arrives, it gets us into Holyhead in just eight minutes: we've walked most of the way around the peninsula, so it's only three miles — but three miles we didn't want to walk.
It's clear on the way home that once we get inside, we won't be going back out for dinner. Not only will we want to rest and get warm, but it's now after seven, and Holyhead is shutting down for the night.
Fortunately, there's a fish and chips takeaway shop just a block before our lodging. We order and sit on the broad window ledges to wait with the locals as the fry cooks prepare order after order of thick-cut potatoes and huge golden fillets of cod.
The takeaway box has little holes in the back, where the heat breathes out in little whispers on my fingers as we walk that final block. Salt and vinegar, the box I carry promises. Heat and salt and pull-apart fish, and a styrofoam cup of tartar. We will be full and warm very soon.
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