Monday 26th July 2010: Anglesey Sea Zoo

Another dull and rainy morning so we decided on the "Anglesey Sea Zoo" down by the Menai Straits.

This is an Aquarium for local cold water species and even though it isn't on the scale of "The Deep" it is very imaginatively done and interesting, and better still, your tickets last for a whole week!

Some of the tanks are open topped like this one in the entrance.

And it had a lot of fish in it! they were very tame and of course you could see in through the glass wall panels too.
In the next room were some rather unusually shaped tanks, these four year old lobsters were in a triangular one.
And to our surprise they had a very active octopus, the ones at the Deep are very hard to see as they tend to hide.
Not so this one, it seemed positively keen to have it's picture taken
There were several tanks containing flat fish, this one looks almost human!
The flounders are very good a camouflage, when this one settled down on the bottom it virtually disappeared.
Wolf Eeels, smaller than the ones in the deep, but a lot more active
There is a really good "Shipwreck" Gallery that we failed to get good photos of as it was chock full of visitors, but since we have a ticket that lasts a week, we will go back and have another try at that.

There is one largish panoramic tank like "The Deep" and this is it, very good too.

The cafe there is worth visiting, Pat had a fisherman's pie, with white fish, prawns, smoked haddock, savoury white sauce, broccolli, mashed potato and salad.

I had a Ploughmand lunch (with ham) and they were both delicious.

Before going back to camp we drove to the end of this little road and I took this shot of the private little harbour with Caernarvon Castle in the background, and of course the cloud covered mountains.

The sun came out late afternoon so after a salad tea we went for a short evening ride along the upper coast road from Dulas to Amlwch, this is the view down onto Point Lynas.

It had been a very pleasant day.

Sunday 25th July 2010 Penrhyn Castle

With a rather erratic weather forecast we decided to play safe and visit penrhyn Castle where we could go round the house if it rained and the gardens if not
It isn't a real castle of course, it was built by evil people who made a fortune out of owning slaves in the carribean that worked their sugar plantations, and Welsh workers who were actually little better off quarrying slate for them.

In those days sin really paid handsomely (just like now!)

Since it was dry and mild we decided to visit the walled garden which is one of our favourites
There are two ornamental lily ponds here, and they are attractive, if a little overgrown with mosses and water plants
There are of course some fine lilies, which Pat photographed repeatedly
Though the garden isn't as attractive as it was in springtime, there are still plenty of flowers to catch the eye, and the nose too with some fine scents
There are some very large fuschias, many times bigger than the ones at home.
and some species that I didn't recognise (not that I'm an expert of course)
Bottle Brush plants? well they certainly look like them, don't they?
We had lunch in the Tesco Extra in Bangor them went back onto Anglesey and drove down to the edge of the Menai strait, look at the low clouds over the mountains!
And despite the mist Pat got a good shot of Caernarvon Castle
Then it was time to return to the van and give Garfield a treat for his 18th Birthday, his favourite, a bag of peeled prawns and some tuna steak, he loved it!

He doesn't look all of his 18 years, does he?

Happy Birthday Garfield, and many more of them we hope!

Saturday 24th July Pili Palas, as the weather was awful!

After such a lovely day yesterday it was a bit disappointing to wake to constant drizzle this morning, but we had a plan, we would go to see the butterflies, animals and insects at "Pili Palas"

They have an excellent butterfly area where you can see them at every stage, here is one emerging from its pupa

They will land anywhere they fancy, as this one has on the shoulder of this visitor
There are some lovely tropical flowers in the butterfly house and Pat was having a field day with her new camera, till the battery ran down and she had to get a pass out to go and search for her spare battery in the car!
But she was soon snapping away again as here
And here is another of the fine images she took
There were butterflies all around, you see different species every time you visit, it a great place on a wet day
Here is one I took using flash on the Nikon
And another on one of the fruit feeding stations
This young lady was handling a snake and she soon collected a rather uncertain audience, though before long they wanted to handle the snake too.
And a chap came through with this miniature "Dragon" on his shoulder
There are bigger lizards and snakes in a special area, some really fine specimens, too
And some of the insects are amazing, you wouldn't want locusts on the privet in your garden!
And how about this amazing insect that disguises itself as leaves?We had a great morning there then drove up to Holyhead to shop in the Morrisons Supermarket there, then back to the caravan as the weather was still awful, so a rest and a good book where the order of the day.

Friday July 23rd Bodnant Garden

A sunny morning so off promptly over the Britannia Bridge onto the mainland and north to visit Bodnant Gardens, one of out favourites.

This is the view down onto the house and the mountains behind from the car park

First unusual plant was near the entrance, look how blue the stems are!
This is a victorian garden, so on a Friday some of the lady volunteers dress in Victorian costume to greet the Visitors, a nice touch.
once inside you get a grand view of the house, which is still a private residence, not open to the public
There were some really attractive poppies among the thousands of plant varieties in the garden
Look at these beautiful yellow lilies
Pat got this rather nice shot of a butterfly on this Echnia, there were lots of bees too of course and plenty of human visitors including a large German contingent.
Down at the bottom of the valley there is a fast moving stream and this old mill, which mercifully houses the loos!
This is out favourite of the ponds, the lower pin mill and lily pond
An there were some really attractive lilies just coming out.
Here is snappy happy Patty at the upper lily pond, a fantastic place, isn't it?
And last but not least lunch in the cafe.

Welsh sausages, cabbage, carrots and mashed potatoes with gravy, a pot of tea for Pat, and a Latte for me!

Then back to camp for a rest!

Thursday 22nd July: Moved to Anglesey

We woke to rain and of course a wet pack, but at least got off site by 8:32 AM.

It was a 172 mile journey along the Welsh coast along single carriageway roads and frequent steep hills, but we made good time and Pat took this shot when we stopped briefly for a cuppa

At several points the road came within sight of the coast, here is another of Pat's images
We arrived on site mid afternoon, and had a rest till tea time, then just had a short drive down into Moelfre where this stream attracted our attention.

They must have had a lot of rain for it to be swollen like this, last time we were here it was just a trickle

It was a lovely quiet evening down there with just a couple of people either messing around with boats or simply enjoying the view
And the bees were making their last collections of the day, so it was time to return to the van for an earlier bedtime!

The site was less than half full, which we found very surprising, as the one we left this morning was very full.