South Stack

The walk along the coastal path was beautiful - windswept and rugged, but well paved and with a choice of routes. We stuck to the coast line as much as possible, climbing high upon the rocks and gaining a beautiful view of the lighthouse we were headed for and of Parliament House, a disused fog warning station. The route back from the lighthouse, swinging south of the coast, was clearly a path less well trodden and we had to change the route a few times where the gorse and heather had grown over the footpaths. We saw climbers scaling the sheer face of the rocks as Hercules and Hawks from RAF Valley flew overhead. We detoured through Holyhead town on the way back, as we weren't allowed a tender back until at least 3pm anyway. For a little town, we didn't think it was badly appointed, and we stopped by to see the Celtic Gateway Bridge and the Roman Fort there. In the harbour, we grabbed a coffee and cake whilst Ben struck up a conversation with the Harbour Master and Port Liaison chaps about how life on ship worked. As we sailed out, we passed the Skerries, rocks on which the SS Castilian sunk with her munitions cargo and is still therefore the site of a 500m exclusion zone for scuba diving. We passed it several more times that evening because our next port, Liverpool, was so close by that we drifted rather lazily out of Holyhead and hung around there in no rush to sail off.

The evening brought similar delights - a beautiful meal at the Italian restaurant on board and success in the Tea Time trivia winning a reusable straw! It was a nailbiter, going to a tie break question of when the first copyright laws in the UK were passed. Against two other teams, we guesses 1718 and were closest, with the answer apparently being 1709.Read more