Wheels Around Europe . . . . . . . : The Hunt For Dry October (and a search for Red Squirrels...........) see what I did there ?

Friday 18th October and Saturday 19th October

With two days annual leave booked for this week and a weather forecast for heavy rain showers, I decided not to set off yesterday as planned, and guess what ? there was wall to wall sunshine most of the day !

Still a wander around Trentham Gardens was not a bad way to spend a few hours.

So today I set off for the beautiful Welsh island of Anglesey.

I am in search of some autumn tree colour, beaches and red squirrels, whether I get to see any remains to be seen.

My sister Julia and I came here regularly as young children and stayed on a farm somewhere nearby, whilst I don't remember much of the island, I do remember many of the names of the bays and beaches we came to and dug sandcastles and rummaged in the rock pools on the beaches.

First stop today was Newborough Forest and Beach Nature Reserve.

It's down in the south west corner of the island and there is a £5 parking charge for the day. But it's well worth the money. The forest is famous for its red squirrels.

But none were to be seen today sadly, they're all sheltering from the weather instead of gathering nuts !

There wasn't much autumn tree colour either as the forest is planted with fir trees of the evergreen variety, so another fail there.

I did see some nice colour on the drive here though.

There is also a fabulous sandy beach walk along towards Ynys Llanddwyn island.

This is a small island separated from the main island at high tide but accessible at low tide.

There was about an hour to go before the tide was sufficiently out to get across when I was here so didn't wait around.

It actually stayed dry for the walk along the beach which is very welcome, Louis loved it of course, all those new smells to investigate, he was in doggie heaven.

We headed back through the forest and that was a lovely walk too.

An added bonus of this place is no mud, the forest was planted on sand dunes to stabilise them, so Louis was mud free when we got back and that makes a nice change !

I just needed to get some sand off him which was quite easy.

Unfortunately overnighting is not allowed on the Newborough Forest car park and I didn't want to risk it so moved on later in the day.

I'm now parked up for the night at Trearddur Bay which has a carpark where motorhomes can overnight just across the road from the beach and sea.

I'm sure it would be quite picturesque if I could see anything through the driving rain !

The rain started about tea time and hasn't let up since.

Fortunately Louis is flat out on the sofa after his exertions on the beach earlier so the last thing he wants is to go out.

TV and an early night for us then.

Well, I didn`t get to see the squirrels as they were hiding and the trees were mostly evergreen fir but it was still a great trip.

Louis`s doggie blog

Instead of my Dad having all the fun, I going to have my say as well !
You may know we travel around in my kennel with wheels on. I know there called wheels because I heard him call them that.
Dad sits in one of the chairs at the front and the kennel moves somehow ?
Not sure how, but it only moves when he`s sat there.
The purpose of moving is to take me to places where there are lots of new smells for me to investigate.
Today we went somewhere where there were supposed to be some squirrels for me to chase, these were to be different to the ones I have in my garden, a different colour I think. Anyway they didn`t come out to play so I had to make do with the new smells I found.
Afterwards he said I wasn`t to chase them anyway so there`s no fun in that !
There was a nice beach too and there were many smells there but I couldn`t find any lovely rotting dead fish to roll in though. But I still enjoyed my walk.

Here are some photos from our day at the beach ...............