A Simple Life of Luxury

Sunday dawned wet and miserable, but I decided that I shouldn’t let such weather put me off going for a walk so headed off to the Cadair Idris an an attempt to get First to Find on some geocaches.

First stop was at Llyn Cau and by the time I got there I was drenched, I found the cache though and the log book was empty so that was FTF number one for the day under my belt. Next was an Earth cache looking at the glacial striations on a roche moutonee. All fairly basic glacial geomorphology, but nice to look at anyway and it will certainly make people without a geological background think about how the landscape in the part of Wales was formed.

I then made the long walk up the Minfford path and another FTF on a geocache at the top of Craig Amarch. From here I walked up to the summit of Cadair and then back down the Pony path a little way and off to a cache at the top of Cyfrwy arete. the rain and murk cleared briefly whilst I was here, giving me a nice view down to the Mawddach estuary. The weather soon closed back in though so I took a short cut past some impressive pillow lavas to the Minffordd track and bac down the way I came.

By the time I got back to Llyn Cau the rain had cleared and there were more people venturing out onto the hill. It was a good day though, 4 geocaches, 2 FTF’s, 7 miles and about 3 hours of walking… My boots were still killing me though.

Anna, Morgan and I had fun on Saturday at a reunion of some old geology students from Aberystwyth. It wasn’t students from our year but students from a couple of years behind us who we taught / demonstrated to and went on several field trips with.

It was good to see them all, even if many of them have gone on to be more qualified and do jobs related to their degrees… Despite this I think they were secretly envious of the fact that we still live in this part of the world! We managed to avoid the geological aspect of the reunion and the even drinking by just meeting them for lunch in Clarach.

Morgan was as usual the centre of attention and ended up playing in the river. It would have been nice to go out in the evening with everyone as well, but getting a baby-sitter isn’t that easy at the moment as Morgan isn’t settling into bed too well.

Maybe now that we’ve met up with everyone again we’ll make a bit of an effort to stay in touch. Many of us facebook accounts which has so far been helping everyone keep up to date.

The wind picked up once we got home so I managed to fit in a windsurf session in the evening too.

I certainly didn’t think we’d be diong this so soon but we’ve started to think about which primary school Morgan will go to. It’s not actually that long until he will have to start (April 2009) so we thought we’d better start thinking about it.

The main trouble (if you can call it that) in Ceredigion is that there aren’t really any ‘bad’ schools. Our main choice is going to be whether he goes to a catagory A (Welsh language first language) or catagory B (English first language). I really want Morgan to be bilingual but worry a little about sending him to a Welsh school as maybe me and Al will be excluded slightly.

We went to see Comins Coch School (catagory B) last week. It’s a lovely school that seemed to be on our wavelength. It also has a breakfast & after school club which while not a reason to selest a school is a useful facility for families where both parents work, and would sway our vote if torn between 2 schools. The other option is Borth. This is a catagory A school and is of course our local school. It was always our intention to send Morgan here, supporting our local school and all that. However, it seems that all the children his age living in Ynyslas will be going to Comins Coch. I have also heard conflicting reports about Borth School.

We have got an appointment (tuesday 10th at 9.30am for Al’s info!) to go and see Borth next week now so I will try and keep an open mind until we have had a look round and met the staff.

I’m sure we’ll let you know what we decide so watch this space!

Most people come to this part of the world for the beaches or the hills, but I came across a blog this morning from someone who appears to have come here to admire the litter bins!

You can read his blog entry here

Just came across this from the Borth Surf Masters earlier this year…. Just goes to show that the surf here CAN be good from time to time.

Another windless day here on Sunday so the windsurf demo day wasn’t likely to be much fun so we headed off for a family day out and some geocaching in Wales.

First stop was Llanrhystud for a walk along the beach to the interesting Craiglas Limekilns and the first cache of the day. Getting there took a little whioe due to Morgans insistence to climb over every stile himself, but the sun was shining so the walk along the coast was nice. The cache was easily found.

Cache number two was a quick cahce and dash by the side of the A487 on the way to Aberaeron. Once in Aberaeron we had a picnic near the river and I ran off to find two more caches in the woods. We then drove of for anothr cache and dash near to Llanaerchaeron, followed by what was supposed to be a fun little cache for Morgan - a Duck Hunt along the banks of the River Aeron near Talsarn. Unfortunately Morgan fell asleep just before we got there so I went off to find the 5 little ducks that gave me the co-ordinates for the final cache on my own while Morgan and Anna had a sleep in th car.

By now the rain was on its way so we headed home (with a stop for an ice cream) after a successful day with 6 new caches under our belts.

Forgot the camera again though so here is an old photo of Llanrhystud.

Elvis Spotted at Ynyslas….. Yep, it’s true, he was here enjoying a party on Saturday evening along with a few other diodgy looking characters.

The party was in aid of Sarah’s birthday and the start of her new life free from the confines of a 9-5 job. Thankfully the weather held off so the garden was put to good use for football, Giant jenga, unicycling and plenty of other activities.

Quite a few people were there and as far as I know a good time was had by all and much food and alcohol consumed

We decided to give Anna a rest and a day off on her own at home yesterday. Morgan and I headed off complete with GPSr and picnic.

First stop was Machynlleth where we stopped to find the Penyrallt geocache. It was in a nice location overlooking Machynlleth and the Dyfi valley. getting to it was pretty easy, as we managed to park just 90m from it and then had a short walk around the hill on decent paths to find it. It was rated as a four star terrain cache, but is actually much easier than this. As usual once at Ground Zero it took a bit of searching to find it, but Morgan now knows what we are looking for and although not much of a help he wasn’t too much of a hindrance either! The views were nice and we even saw the train which Morgan was pleased about.

We then headed off to Aberdovey to check out the windsurf demo that was going on there. There wasn’t much wind so it wasn’t that exciting (a good thing really as I wouldn’t have been able to get out on the water if there was any wind!). Quite a few people were out though and going OK in the light winds using big boards and big sails.

Morgan and I sat on the beach, played in the sand and ate our picnic. We then headed home. Morgan fell asleep in the car so I stopped off at Shems for a chat and to see his new house and we arrived back home just in time for Morgan to wake up.. A nice father and son day out!

Once again though I forgot my camera, so no photos I’m afraid.

It was another hot sunny day here today so I headed off for a walk along the cliff path. I headed up onto the coast path from Borth, past the war memorial and then down into the small beach at Aberwennol before heading off onto the main section of coast path between Borth and Wallog, high up on the cliffs above the sea.

The sun was shining and it was hot work climbing to the top but the views were worth it. The sea was really clear and blue today so all the rocks and reefy areas could be clearly seen way below me. I then walked across the top and down into Wallog where I explored around the old kiln there and then walked back towards Borth along the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.

I had intended to hide a geocache along the base of the cliffs here, hopefully somewhere around Harp Rock, but although there were plenty of hiding places, finding one high enough above the sea to make it safe from the waves during storms meant that it would invove a bit of a scramble over some pretty unstable cliffs so I thought better of it. I found plenty of hiding places but I didn’t really want to encourage others to scramble around on these rocks.

I then headed back along the shoreline to Wallog and got mobbed by a couple of oyster catchers at one point. then it was back onto the cliff path and over to Clarach. Again the views from here were amazing, looking down onto Clarach and beyond towards Aberystwyth.

I followed the cliff path back towards Borth, hiding a cache on the stretch between Clarcah and Wallog overlooking Sarn Cynfelyn which is believed to be a glacial moraine left after the retreat of glaciers during the last ice age. Legend has it that Sarn Cynfelin is one of several ancient causeways to the lost lands of Cantre’r Gwaelod (The lost lands of Wales).

I also hid another geocache high up on the cliff path between Wallog and Borth. Back towards Borthand there were lots of people out in kayaks and canoes and snorkelling around the rocks. After a walk in the hot conditions a dip in the sea looked rally inviting. All in all a nice easy walk of around 15km and two new caches for the aber-cachers to race to get the First to Find!

Back at home and Morgan had his paddling ppol out in the garden, so I sat with my feet in that rather than jumping in the sea and then watched Lewis Hamilton win the Grand Prix… The perfect way to spend a Sunday.

We’ve just got back from a hot sticky day at Strata Florida. We took a detour on the way there to stop off at a geocache in Pontrhydygroes. The cache itself was easy to find and was just a short walk from the road but involved crossing the Miners Bridge which is pretty high and would have been too scary for Anna… Fortunate then that Morgan had fallen asleep so Anna and her Mum stayed in the car with him whilst I set off to retrieve the cache.

I used to spend quite a bit of time in this gorge, floating down the river and jumping off waterfalls etc so it was good to see it from a different (and much drier) vantage point. Click this link to see some photo of us gorge-walking in this Welsh valley.

Anna saw a lizard on the side of the road whilst they were waiting.

We then headed off to Pontrhydfendigaid and had a wander around the Cistercian Abbey of Strata Florida and had a picnic in the grounds. Next it was time to hide a geocache of our own and set a little puzzle in order to find the co-ordinates. I won’t give too much away here but it should make the find a little more difficult.

It was quite busy there today as the little church of St. Mary’s was open for visitors and an archaeological dig was going on in the field next door. We had fun though and when I say busy I mean busy for the middle of nowhere in Wales!

We then stopped off for a play and an ice-cream in Pontrhydfendigaid before heading home… Time for me to fall asleep in front of the Grand Prix qualifying now!