For most of you from Gwynedd, it seemed to be a right of passage, learning or attempting to drive on ‘Black Rock’. Who remembers that first time behind the wheel, trying to keep it in a straight line on a three hundred meter wide piece of sand whilst trying one’s best not to make a fool of yourself by making the car look like an ill kangaroo.

Yes, that’s the place, Black Rock Sands for our short visit today. Nothing has changed much down there, still plenty of cars driving up and down the beach, plenty of ‘donut tracks ‘ in the sands, Alas the Lewis Hamilton  boy racers wannabee  like it here as well.

Black rock is a vast expanse of sand on the western side of the river Glaslyn with Portmeirion and Harlech on the other side. Its a very interesting piece of coastline for us as we are not used to such flat open spaces. At one part , the north bank , the tide is so far out I cannot even see it mind you I am well overdue for an eye test. The banks themselves are amazing, akin to a collection of golden yellow fields with contours, water courses, flats and small rises. Its easy to see how one could get trapped easily with a rapidly rising tide .

It was a dull, overcast day , a tad windy but it’s certainly the place for a good brisk walk with any direction possible. I was accompanied as usual by Crazy Nel or ‘Two tail Nel’ as we call her now, Sali Bach who really did not want to come out of the pick up today and my dear wife who always dresses for the occasion. Nel was on form terrorising all the seagulls, she still thinks she can catch them by doing an impression of a cheetah’s  0-60 in 6 seconds,  not a hope Nel, when will you learn. Dear wife was not impressed by having so make her way across a couple of very light water courses in her sparkling doc martins- with heels I must say , yes doc martins with heels, you heard correctly the first time. For those of you who know dear wifey you will agree that this is the equivalent of Bear Grylls dressing down and wearing a pair of flip flops. God only knows how her usual heels would have fared. To her these are a proper pair of  hiking boot – with a heel.

Mother Nature had yet again been busy on the artistic side, creating all sorts of wonderful shapes in the sand , sculpturing at its best, I could walk around all day just looking at these masterpieces, I can see why artists sit and gaze at nature for their inspiration, makes complete sense.

Ciara , Dennis and whoever this last storm was called had certainly left their mark there , you can see clearly how their cold winter breath has cut vertical steps in the dunes similar to a warm knife through cold butter , as the saying goes ‘shifting sands of time’

On the way back we called in the lovely village of Borth y Gest with its picture postcard harbour , always worth stopping off there and sampling the delights of one of their intimate  cafe’s after a nice long walk. We popped our heads in to the  ‘SeaView’  only to find a few people in there, what more would one expect on a dull February afternoon.  We had a couple of coffee’s and a lovely piece of cake to share before heading back to Rhosydd.

This really was what you might call a classic winter walk on a nice quiet beach, the sort of thing you see in the latest  Boden catalog.

I will be writing a separate blog on all cafe’s we visit so please keep an eye out for this.

bye for now .

G xx