Every year we are asked to put together a private training day or adventure for somebody. This particular client first came to us in 2016 and asked for a 50km day in the mountains of Snowdonia for him and his friends – which we put together and executed one cold day in November.
This year he wanted to push it a little further, and asked for something a little more exciting. After compiling a few route options they picked a run along the Anglesey coastal path – but how to get them to the start?
We had spoken to the team at Rib Ride earlier in the year at a North Wales outdoor tourism event where we were both delivering sessions. After a bit of planning and holding out for the weather we came up with a plan – a dawn pickup on the Menai Straits and then hooning it over to a point 51km further up the coast where we could jump (literally) ashore and start the run.

The morning of the trip promised calm weather on our side of the island and everything was set for the trip. We climbed aboard and set off along the Menai Straits out past Beaumaris and Penmon before turning westward, the sun breaking through low clouds over the Carneddau behind us.

As we pulled away from the relative shelter of Red Wharf Bay and Moelfre the sea became a little rougher, crashing over waves and steering into the swell as we neared our destination – Point Lynas and the hidden cove of Porth Eilian.

We motored into calmer water as we entered the cove, and our skipper carefully placed the bow on the beach, giving us a short window where we could disembark and get safely ashore before the waves carried him over to the rocks. Once on dry land we set off – retracing our outward route on through the fields, dunes and beaches of the western shore of Anglesey.

The rest is a bit of a blur, as they put down a good pace from the very start. We dodged falling pheasants and were showered by lead from a shoot next to the Dulas estuary and fought through overgrown paths above Moelfre. We hit the halfway point at Red Wharf Bay in good spirits, refuelling on everything from chicken soup to marzipan stollen (doing events this close to Christmas does make food shopping a little more interesting). I had thought that the big climb from Traeth-coch to the hillfort of Bwrdd Arthur was going to be one of the most challenging sections – but I hadn’t reckoned on the energy-sapping boulders of the beach section before Beaumaris Continue reading →