Brandon O'Brien

Monday, July 22, 2013 @ 8:28 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 26

When I got into town yesterday and saw how amazing the scenery was, I knew I had to spend today covering as much of it on foot as possible. When I was checking it last night, the weather was looking pretty sketchy for today (70% chance of rain and thunderstorms) so I decided I'd get an early start and try to cover as much ground as possible before any rain hit.

I made a quick stop by Sainsbury's to pick up some bread and ham for lunch and then set out for the Great Orme mountain to the west side of Llandudno. There was a little confusion about where the trail actually started but eventually I figured it out. I worked my way up past a ski area (yes, they actually have a ski area here!) and up to some amazing views. Along the way I passed by St. Tudno's Church that has a huge cemetery overlooking the ocean.

From there, the summit of Great Orme was visible and a pretty dauntingly steep climb, but I powered through and went straight up the grassy side without relying on any switchbacks. The views from the top were great. Unfortunately it was rather hazy so I couldn't see too far, but on clear days you can see the Isle of Man 57 miles off the coast.

I'd take haze over rain though. It was about 9:45 now and the skies still looked pretty good. The storms they were calling for weren't making themselves apparent yet. Seeing Conwy in the distance got me thinking... It's only 4 miles (as the crow flies) to Conwy and the castle/city walls. Should I go for it?

Yes, the answer was yes. I could see a hike along the beach that would take me all the way to Conwy. That was reassuring since walking along the roads here seems like a death trap. There's no shoulder at all and what they have as a two lane road should really be a one-way. I'm still amazed at how there aren't more accidents.

While I was descending the mountain to the beach I passed a group of goats grazing along the cliff faces. I snapped some photos and carried on. When I made it to the beach I found some shaded benches and sat there for a bit to eat lunch and enjoy some views of the Wales coastline.

The walk from Llandudno to Conwy was nice. There was a nice path that switched between sand, pavement and gravel. It was about 5 miles along this path to Conwy. After rounding a bend along the path I could see Conwy across the harbor. The castle was on the left and the old town on the right. Surrounding Conwy are the old town walls that you can hike along.

There were some really great viewpoints of the castle from the path and road so I had fun taking some photos. I went up to see how much admission was and it was 5.60 pounds... a little more than I wanted to pay. Instead I found the city wall and hiked around that. I think the city wall offered better views than the crowded castle would have anyway.

By now I was probably about 8 or 9 miles into the hike and was feeling the heat and humidity from the day. I figured it was probably time to head back to Llandudno so I made my way along the beachfront path back to town. When I got back to town I bought some fresh fruit and enjoyed it by the beach. It was about 2:30 by now so I came back to the hostel to shower. Along the way I passed by a book shop offering some cheap books so I picked up a new book for 2 pounds. I figure that will give me something to do tomorrow when I'm bumming it around the beach.

The shower felt fantastic, especially since I had my hiking pants on since I thought it was supposed to be colder and rainy. Turns out the rain never came so I headed down to the beach to read and relax for a few hours until I was ready for dinner.

For dinner I picked up some chow mein noodles from the grocery and came back to the hostel to heat it up. I enjoyed it with a cider and some bread before sitting down to answer emails and work on this blog post.

If tomorrow is another day like today, I think I'm going to head down to the beach and relax there. My legs got a pretty good workout today so a relaxing day wouldn't be too bad.

I've been constantly amazed by Llandudno and how chill of a city it is. If the weather was consistently good like it has been lately, it would definitely be on the top of my places to recommend people visit on vacation.

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Tags: daily journal, wales, llandudno, conwy

Posted from: Wales

Sunday, July 22, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

Last night we drank most of the booze and had some dinner and got our fire going pretty well. I think we both slept pretty well and fortunately it didn't rain on us through the night.

We woke up and did our daily routine of eating, tearing down camp and packing up our bikes. We were on the road by 6:45am. We had to carry our trash out of the park and find the nearest trash can. Next up was fueling up. We still had quite a few miles on the current tank so we wanted to fill up sooner rather than later. We didn't see any gas stations near the park so we had to go about 4 miles out of the way to get some gas. After that we were finally on our way down the coast on Highway 101.

The plan was to head town the 101 until we got to Highway 26 and then take that to Portland where we would ride through the Columbia River Gorge and see some of the sights along the way. When we neared our exit for 26 I saw that Cannon Beach was just a few miles away and wanted to go see it. It had been really foggy and cold and when we pulled up to the beach the view was a little obstructed but it was still cool.

We set off on 26 and after some more rain/fog we finally started to make it to Portland. Riding 30 along the gorge was awesome. There were some highly trafficked spots since it was the weekend, but overall it was a nice pleasant ride. We got to see some cool waterfalls along the way. We both got some stickers of the Multnomah Falls for our panniers.

After seeing those falls we headed out to find lunch. We decided on some Taco Bell and ate that. After filling up we still had a long way to go. The original plan was to head back to the coast and ride 101 all the way down to Redwoods. Since the weather had been holding us back and we were pretty sore, we decided just to take I-5 down to 199 and take that into the park. We were on I-5 for over 200 miles and it was pretty boring. Once we got to 199 things started changing for the better. The weather cleared up and the roads got really twisty. We continued on that for 90 miles until it connected back with 101 and we headed into the park. Ryan had to take the twists pretty slowly since his rear tire was almost bare. We really have to take care of that tomorrow.

We made it to camp around 9:00 and fortunately still had a bit of light to set up our tents. We got to see some of the Redwoods on our way to the campsite which was really cool. The campsite attendant told us there were bears in the area and whatever had any kind of scent needed to be put in the bear box. We both ate and then quickly decided to head off to bed after another long day, about 14 hours in total.

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Tags: motorcycle

Posted from: United States