Wednesday 4th May - day 15
It was a good start because there was a convenience store three hundred yards from my camping so I could get food for breakfast. Onwards into Nefyn proper where I managed to misread that wretched 1:25 map again and took a wrong track for half an hour steeply uphill. On a forest road I found out where I was and the only thing was to return to Nefyn. The track was not on the map but appeared to go in the right direction. After a kilometre it just ended in a turning circle. I then had to traverse ground where forest had been felled which is almost impossible.My legs wre scratched but eventually I got back onto the right path - I reckon I had lost an hour and a half.
Later the so called Coastal Path just petered out on a hillside and I had to mess about with compass bearings and ended up in one barbed wire enclosed field and then another. These fields had a single strand of barbed wire, then a banking with a high barbed wire fence and another single strand on the other side. I did manage to get over them without tearing clothing or gashing myself but it had all been time consuming and I felt like the day was a write-off at this stage. I walked on down a road to a village then climbed up to a pass between two high hills on a track. From the top there were tremendous views of the Welsh coast running up to Carnaervon followed by a steep and strenuous 1500ft descent on a zig zagging quarry road with a loose surface; this really was like scree running. I bottomed out in Trefor which had looked like a large village from above so I spurned the first convenience store being sure there would be a cafe, but I walked right through the village and there was not another single shop of any kind.
At least the camp site marked on the map which was my target was still in existence and I am now installed and ready to cook. The day's walking has been the normal seven hours or so but distance on route has been poor - possibly only ten miles or so.
At Trefor I walked off the 1:25 map. I am not normally superstitious, but on this occasion, instead of posting it home I may burn it in the hope that its sacrifice will bring me better luck with my navigation. Yes, I know it's more SKILL I need.
Sent from 3my iPhone
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