Pembrokeshire May 2016

So here we are again, this time in not so sunny Wales. It did brighten up though and the awful hat I'm wearing was because it was windy rather than cold. This is on Saturday, we walked around Dinas Head,near Fishguard.

At the trig point all looking a bit windswept

The beach in the background is where we are heading for

Taking a breather on the beach at Cwm yr Eglwys.

This is all that's left of the little  church. It was destroyed in a storm in 1858. Must have been quite a storm.

The walk finished with a drink at the pub. It was a shame it was so windy.

We've been to Little Haven several times but have never managed to get to Skoma Island, famous for nesting sea birds, especially Puffins. Waiting for the boat, Skoma in the background. Only 250 people are allowed on the island each day. The boats hold 50 people and run hourly, so the island never feels crowded. Your time on Skoma is limited to 5 hours,which sounds a lot but the time just flew by.

Waiting for the boat with Skoma in the back ground

Skoma Island

 As you can see, I'm wearing another manky hat. The weather was glorious but still windy. It looks very spacious but we were really crammed on.

 

  So here it is our first sight of a Puffin.

It's a different one, honest!

 There are no facilities on Skoma, so you have to take everything you might need with you. They are mega strict about where you can walk. Puffin and Shearwaters are ground burrowing birds so if you wander too far from the path you run the risk of crushing the poor things.

Lunch time.

 Not a bad view for lunch time

These buggers keep popping up!!

 What we weren't expecting were all these bluebells. The whole island was just covered in them

 There was some pink campion mixed in with these bluebells.

 

You can just see two little birds here.







I'm not sure what these are but they were beautiful

 Having a bit of a chinwag.

You can just seethe other bird in the burrow.

 Just dancing beak to beak.

The main land from the wardens accommodation.

Something had made us all laugh, probably me in that hat!!

 
This is the view from the bottom of the road where the house is. Not too shabby eh?

Lanzarote March 2016

I've just noticed that I never published this blog. I was convinced I'd done it because I remember what I wrote, but it's not there so here goes.

 So here we are again, another year, another holiday. Lanzarote this time. We usually have good weather but this year it was very windy, cool and not very sunny!

We went to a market in a town called Teguise. On the way from the car park we have to walk past a "garden" full of the most weird stuff. This is just a small sample of the crap on display.

 Some of it look like it's there for a voodoo ritual but mostly its just plain bonkers.

The beaches on Lanzarote are not really very nice. There are a couple of man-made beaches which are OK but the only really sandy ones are in the National Papagayo Park. There are no facilities but the beaches are lovely and generally deserted, apart from a few nudists!! Bit chilly for them in February though.

There is a local attraction called Hervidoras. It is basically a huge outcrop of rock that has been worn away by the pounding sea. When the sea is rough the waves roar in through the rocks. It makes an incredible noise and the spray can be quite impressive.

Afterwards we drove down to a little fishing village for a drink. No beach at all but very pretty especially in the late afternoon as the sun is beginning to set.

Waiting for his beer.

 Lovely photo of Val and Med

 Lots of volcanic rock here.


Charlotte and Rog had found a bar high above the beach and thought it would be a great place to have a drink and watch the sun set. They did fabulous cocktails too.
Mine was a Long Island Iced Tea.

Val had a Strawberry Daiquiri

Looking out to sea behind the wind shields.

 Here we are waiting for the sun set.

 Here it is!. In the short time we were there it clouded over and we saw naff all.

  Nice bar though.

This was our room.As you can see the furniture is very dark. The curtains were very dark maroon and that is the only window. When it got dark we couldn't see a bleedin thing because the only lights were those cone shaped things with the weediest light bulbs in them. We had to get dressed in the corridor as that was the brightest light. 

 Outside was ok except that when the pump for the pool came on all the water spilled over into the little pool in the foreground which then over flowed onto the patio so we were paddling around in it.

 It got really hot on this sheltered sun terrace

The kitchen.... with the garden table! The villa was advertised as sleeping 8 which it did but the table only seated 4, so we had to lug this in from the garden so we could all sit down together. You can probably also see that the one wall cupboard could only be accessed by people with excessively long bendy arms. The cooker was one of those induction jobbies, a PITA!. Nothing on this planet would make me buy one of those. We spent longer trying to work out how to use it than we did cooking on it.

Everywhere you go someone is trying to make money. This bloke was making these little stone art things. There were hundreds of them, some were quite good but most just looked like piles of stones.

These pretty parrots were quite happy on this little perch outside a resturant  making the tourists laugh by saying silly stuff.

 There's something a bit creepy about talking birds, like they know more than they let on!.

Enjoying the one day of sunshine.