23rd June A tour South on the Mainland

For a change we drove east through Portmadog and down through the mountains to Dollgellau, along the A487 towards Machynlleth, pausing for a break next to the river where there was a great picnic place belonging to the National Trust. I walked along the river bank and took this picture.
Our next move at the junction with the A493 was to head towards the coast to Aberdyfi, which proved to be a very attractive place where we ate our packed lunch in a cute little park area on the seafront. For once it was quite busy as there was a Girls School bus trip in and they were enjoying what seems to be a local entertainment "Crabbing" which uses the following equipment.
A decorated plastic bucket with the words "Crabs!" printed in several places.
A long line, which has no hooks, but a small net bag containing scraps of fish to act as bait.
Here's how its done:First tie the bucket to the line and lower it into the harbour and fill it with water.
Remove the bucket and lower the bait bag, when you feel a crab take the bait, haul it up quickly before the crab lets go.
Place crab in bucket so that number of crabs caught can be counted after a timed period.
When this has been done empty crabs back into the harbour.
As you may imagine these proceedings were not carried out in silence, but accommpanied by loud squeals and much shouting from the fifty or so young girls!
Time to continue and following the coast north next stop was Tywyn where we bought sticky buns and ate in a lay by before moving on
The road rose and gave some splendid views of the estuary with Barmouth at the base of the mountains on a narrow coastal strip.
Rounding the haedland we saw the railway cross the rivermouth on stilts and we crossed a Toll Bridge (60p) to Barmouth.
We turned under the elevated coastal railway and parked by the side of the small harbour and enjoyed a rather fancy ice cream. It appeared that Barmouth was quite small until we rounded the corner of the harbour and dicovered that the seafront ran on for literally miles!
For young families they have everything here, there is even a large apparently permanent fun fair.
From here the coast road ran up the shoulder of the hills and slightly inland to give fine seaward views, with the mountains and Anglesey in the distance.
Down into Harlech there wasnt time to stop, just take a quick shot of the castle before continuing and crossing the second Toll (40p) that took us to Porthmadog and a shopping session.
On returning to camp Idiscovered that the laptop had finally given up the ghost, hence this blog is being updated several days later!