Windy day on Llanddwyn

We normally take the first year students into the field pretty early on in the first semester. Let's not wait with showing them what North Wales has to offer! This year, however, the weather forecast for the day we were supposed to have our first trip was absolutely awful. Heavy rain literally from the very first minute of the trip until the last, combined with rather heavy winds. We cancelled it.

The second timetabled day for a trip like that was a week later. We decided to still do the trip we were  supposed to do on the first day. Maybe we would find an extra day in the second semester, when we could  catch up!

There was a bit of a snag the Friday before. Dei had decided that if we had a 17-seater and a 9-seater, we would be okay. He can drive the former and I can drive  the latter. Jaco would be elsewhere. But the person who had made the booking with the rental company had forgot to be that specific, and just asked for "a minibus and a people carrier". And they had delivered a 15-seater and a 9-seater! And if all the students would show up, that would give us a problem. By about 4 o'clock we had managed to organise that one of the technical staff would show up in one of the School vehicles, in case that was needed. Crisis averted! It was a bit typical that the previous year, we had also had logistic trouble, but for entirely different reasons.

This time, the forecast was dry. That was a great improvement! But the night before I had a slightly closer look at the forecast, and I noticed it warned of heavy wind. Oh dear! And we would be at Llanddwyn, which is about as exposed as you get. But we still went with it.

Not all the students showed up. So Gareth, who had come to save us from there 15-seater debacle, could just go back to Menai Bridge. And we went off to Llanddwyn!

We didn't only have the wind to deal with; there was also the matter of the tide. High tide would be uncomfortably early in the afternoon. Dei suggested we would do a little spiel in the shelter of the woodland, and then walk in one go all the way to the very end of the peninsula, where the best exposure is. We were not entirely sure if we would be able to go there! It is very exposed, and with winds like that you probably have a storm surge. But we could briefly make it onto the beach.

Dei doing the spiel in the woods

Some horses interested in Precambrian geology

Student admiring waves rather than a spectacular conglomerate

The waves were spectacular

Got a bit close

From there we looked at a very old lump of limestone, and then we took advantage of the shelter provided by the church ruin to have a spot of lunch. One of the students had brought a big Tupperware full of home-made cookies! That was amazing.

After that, we looked at a succession of mudstones with interspersed sandstones. And a fossil volcanic bomb. And then it was time to get off the peninsula before it would turn into an island! Ideally, we would have looked at some oceanic basalts, but we skipped that for this time. Safely on the mainland, we had a good look at some pillow lavas. And then we called it a day! And we decided to walk back through the woods, for reasons of shelter. There are even prettier pillow lavas further along the beach, but we weren't overly keen on being sandblasted.

Leaving just as Llanddwyn is still a peninsula (notice the water coming in on both sides)

I hope the students had a good time! It wasn't ideal, with the strong wind and the unfortunate tide, but it was sunny and spectacular, and it was a nice group. Next month we’ll do the next episode!