Anglesey Activities 24
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Ynys Môn www.croesomon.co.uk www.visitanglesey.co.uk I have an island full of pleasant “memories of Anglesey. What I miss most are the skies, always on the move, and the sweeping winds. Is there a more beautiful place in the world than Llanddwyn Island? Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead ” contents Keith & Kathryn Selfe - Preserving Anglesey 2 Glyn Davies - Photo Artist, Menai Bridge 4 Brian & Fiona Thomas - MooBaaOinc 6 David Jenkins - Copper Mountain, Amlwch 8 David Edwards - Ebb and Flow 10 Gerwyn Morgan - Plas Rhianfa 12 Alison Lea-Wilson - Halen Môn 14 Margaret Wood - Anglesey Rocks and Geo Môn 16 Kathy James & Ken Croft - Nature Bites 18 Kristoffer Hughes - Pagan Druid 20 Map of Anglesey 22 Anglesey Activities 24 Tourist Information Centre Need a bed? Book ahead! Opening Hours:- Mon to Sat: 09.30 - 17.00 Sun: 09.30 - 16.30 Tel: 01248 713177 Email: [email protected] Carreglefn Nursery www.visitanglesey.co.uk Keith & kathryn Selfe Keith & Kathryn Selfe - Preserving Anglesey Anglesey is described as the “Mother of Wales”, dogs and a gargantuan pig. Talk about the “Môn Mam Cymru” in Welsh. It has always been a Good Life”! rich and diversified agricultural area providing, in days gone by, a vast array of staple crops to the more Then came the inspired decision. Kathryn began rugged areas of North Wales. Just take a look making jams and preservatives, using Keith’s palate at the ancient grain and flour mills dotted around the as quality control! He wasn’t too keen on the sweet countryside and it will give you an indication of the stuff but when Kathryn turned to producing literally, island’s productivity. breathtaking chutneys, Keith was in his element. So too were judges at prestige True Taste Awards, with But when Keith and Kathryn Selfe moved to Anglesey a Two Gold Star Awards for her Kiwi Jam, and a one with their family they had diversification and star award for Keith’s favourite – the aptly named productivity ideas of their own as to what this island Lucifer Chilli Chutney. To give you some idea of could produce. They established Carreglefn Nursery. how competitive these Guild of Fine Foods events are, it took 350 experts 34 days to blind taste 7,481 Kathryn is a qualified chef, and Keith, having been a products from 1600 companies – and Lucifer policeman for thirty years, including protection duty beat them all. And the awards from True Taste of the Queen Mother, had always been a very keen of Wales and Anglesey’s Tourism ceremonies gardener with “green fingers”. have kept coming. “Our part of Anglesey, Carreglefn, near Amlwch, “Anglesey has certainly inspired us”, says Keith.“ has a balmy, Gulf Stream climate. It also has great Our children are Welsh speaking, it is a fantastic, safe seaweed with nutrients, and salt is always in the air”, place to be, and the nursery is ripe for expansion.” says Keith. “Things grow here when they shouldn’t. Already on the wish list is converting the garage into It is quite incredible.” a commercial kitchen, marketing their produce to local hotels, and hopefully a supermarket chain. Even more incredible was their decision to invest what they had in growing tropical plants and www.visitanglesey.co.uk produce - kiwi fruit, oranges, spices and bananas - in unheated sheltered poly tunnels, dominating a garden already well populated with ducks, birds, fish, 3 Afon Braint Dwyran www.visitanglesey.co.uk Glyn Davies Glyn Davies - Photo Artist, Menai Bridge Prime Minister David Cameron’s wedding gift to appealing. Depending on how I feel, I know where William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of to roam.” Cambridge, were two books of Anglesey landscape photographs taken and published by Menai Bridge He prefers the western side of Anglesey where the photo artist Glyn Davies. It was an inspired choice, coast faces the Atlantic weather storm fronts, since the royal couple were already the island’s most providing turbulent clashes between land and sea, high profile residents. and the resulting wind sculptured sand dunes and patterns, bluffs, estuaries and changing light patterns. Glyn couldn’t believe it at first, thinking that the The unpredictable fusions of land and sea are wedding gift request was for someone working characteristic of his work. at Number10. Glyn, raised in Cornwall, is however protective about The irony is that Prince William, as a Sea King the whole of Anglesey, and as a keen conservationist helicopter pilot flying in and out of RAF Valley, would has locked horns with those who dare seek to have an entirely different perspective of the Anglesey change the island’s landscapes. coastal terrain, than seen by Glyn Davies through his camera lenses. He shares his visual experiences in print as well. His web site hosts a multitude of images, accompanied “The west coast of Anglesey offers me everything by a detailed blog, capturing in words his as a photographer, because no day is the same”, experiences, the moments, and the sense of says Glyn. “It is constantly changed by light, sea, excitement in producing powerful images of wind, weather and cloud formations. I will always Anglesey’s daily changing Landscape. look or go searching for somewhere which matches my mood on a particular day, and since Anglesey www.visitanglesey.co.uk does present such a variation of landscapes in a relatively small area, I am rarely disappointed. You can look at Bangor and the mountains of Snowdonia, and they could be obscured by black and grey rain clouds, but somewhere on Anglesey there will be a different light and climate. The contrast and variation in landscape and weather is extraordinary and 5 MooBaaOinc www.visitanglesey.co.uk MooBaaOinc Brian & Fiona Thomas - MooBaaOinc Just in case you are wondering. The “Moo” police looking for illegal immigrants allegedly housed represents beef, the “Baa” is lamb and you decide underneath the restaurant floor. “We did find what the “Oinc” means. massive underground holes under the floor when we first came here. It was quite a shock, and so our Collectively, they represent the home grown produce project was a mighty construction challenge”, available in a recently opened farm produce shop, admits Brian. café and restaurant in Beaumaris. There were unused, unsafe lofts above the café, The shop was the brainchild of farmer Brian Thomas but in Brian's imagination it was the ideal space for and his wife Fiona. Brian has done his time on a restaurant . Another, even larger reconstruction farmers' protest lines against Irish beef imports, challenge … but Brian is nothing if not defiant. the low prices paid by supermarkets and meaner All he needed now, was someone to cook! milk prices. He endured the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001, but he is a passionate man, and a champion of A young backpacker was looking to return home Welsh Black cattle, which he breeds with Welsh Lamb to Anglesey with his young family. And as a now at his two Llannerch-y-Medd farms. celebrated Michelin champion, and a Gordon Ramsey scholarship winning chef, Aled Williams, “The specialist butchers on the island gradually formerly of everywhere - Sydney, New York, Ynyshir closed down against supermarket competition”, Hall Machynlleth - was inspired by the Brian and says Brian. “That led to “Farmers' Markets” all over the Fiona dream of not only bringing the “Farm to Town” island, but they were one day affairs and didn’t really in the shop, but their ambition of bringing “Farm to work or pay the way. Farm Shops came along, with Fork” in a restaurant. permanent premises, so that at least you stood a chance of competing with the big stores. And, as There was room enough upstairs to house the I am a proud and defiant Anglesey man, if I could ambition and that was the birth of the Cennin (Welsh draw customers away from the big boys with better for leek) restaurant. Aled had been a long standing produce, then I was happy – very happy.” admirer of local produce. This was his inspiration, and the obvious benefits of helping local producers, and So “MooBaaOinc”, a butchery and local produce returning to his home patch. shop, was born in a Beaumaris shop premises that housed an Indian Restaurant, once raided by the www.visitanglesey.co.uk 7 Parys Mountain, Amlwch Mynydd Parys, Amlwch www.visitanglesey.co.uk David Jenkins David Jenkins Copper Kingdom, Amlwch David Jenkins is very much a mining archaeology extremely challenging working conditions. Max enthusiast, and there is nothing more he likes to Boyce’s colliery steel, pick and shovel had not yet do but travel from his Snowdonia home and spend been invented. hours in the shafts and tunnels of Amlwch’s Parys mountain. This is not born of inspiration, it is a By strategically and systematically digging a pattern passionate dedication for him, and fellow members of exploratory new shafts, one Rowland Pugh, of the Parys Underground Group. a miner, discovered copper ore for the owner, Sir Nicholas Bayley.. He was rewarded with a bottle of There is also nothing more he would like better whisky and a rent-free cottage for a year. That was than to invite you to share his zeal by visiting the the shrewdest investment in Anglesey history. mountain heritage trail and also the Copper Kingdom mining and maritime centres on the Porth Amlwch There are maps of the tunnels and workings, shafts quayside. The exhibition includes a state of the art and vents, which make the London Underground a touchscreen - kids will love it! simplistic navigational experience. With some justification, they claim, that here, in But the relatively crude methods of extraction the sleepy postcard sea resort of Amlwch, a major workings did have an impact.