Slightly windy Wales then back to Brum

Giant badger at the Welsh wildlife centre

Thursday dawned windy and slightly damp, so heading away from the coast seemed to make sense. We hadn’t been north either, so up to the Welsh wildlife centre in Cardigan we went (Welsh wildlife centre). Lots of interesting walks in a variety of habitats, with the opportunity to see many birds, otters and water buffalo! As it was, we did see lots of birds, some we could identify, some not, but no kingfisher and no otter (but that’s not really a surprise!), except as carved wood. Water buffalo we did see, which was a bit unusual, apparently they had been imported as they will eat pretty much everything, so are not as picky as horses and cows, and they are used to rice paddy fields so don’t get foot rot. It would appear they are doing a grand job of maintaining the plant variety, despite not being ‘local’!

View from the Mallard Hide. Don't look much like ducks

Ron. This was actually in the Heron Hide 

We had a lie in on Friday as we had to ring about the boat trip at 11.00, sadly it was still too windy, so puffins were off, a real shame, but no one really wanted to be out if it was too rough! Newport Beach then, a little more of the coastal path where we saved the life of a toad, it was being writhed about by a snake which slithered off as we tried and failed to get phones out to take pictures! Lunch on the rocks watching surfing/life saving lessons for a class of school kids, P.E. Was never like that when I was at school, before walking on the beach, the tide was finally out enough, but it was still windy, my ears can confirm....

In the Bara Brith cafe for tea and...bara brith

Tea and cake at the cafe/art gallery recommended to us on day one. Very pleasant, and the first proper stop for tea and cake all week, surprisingly! Last night, and I was allowed a night off as the club house at the cottage was open. It was good to pop in and see the locals, have a pint of local beer and an unpretentious dinner! With that it was all over, we’d walked miles with amazing views, eaten well, drunk a few glasses of wine, done a jigsaw, played scrabble and completed a few crosswords. What mores is holidaying about?

Walking on Newport beach

The journey home wasn’t as good as the journey there, apart from anything else it was raining, reminding us how luck we’d been, a week in Wales and only rain on one overnight?!

Today we have spent ‘sorting’! What to take to the mobilehome for the first night, this all has to go in the car, to Abi’s, into her car and down to Warminster. So not too much, but we do want to put the van through its paces, cooking, showering, etc, so testing the quality of the handover, and the quality of our memories! Tomorrow is going to be a very steep learning curve, with general stuff like emptying the toilet to specific stuff about power supplied from the solar panel! That’s not to mention actually driving and manoeuvring it!

We will then drive back to mothers to try to fit everything else we want in on Tuesday, staying locally, before heading up to Scotland on Wednesday.

It’s all very exciting!

The toad we rescued after the attacking snake slithered off. There's a bit of blood by his front right foot

Dinas Head is the rising land to the right, our first walk last Monday. That ominous looking cloud didn't bring any rain, but it looked like it might

That little lump of rock in the sea was marked on the map as 'Cat Rock'. We made a special walk along the coastal path to see it. Doesn't look much like a cat to us, the wind had picked up, is was fairly cold and late afternoon, time for tea and cake!

Art! It was an old slate quarry on one of the walks in the Welsh wildlife park