After our visits to Yorkshire and Derbyshire we carried on westwards into Wales and to the island of Anglesey. This is the ancestral home of my brother-in-law Yoss and we have been there many times, mainly staying near Rhosneigr. This time we were a little bit along the coast at Trearddur Bay, a great place to stay with good accommodation and a few decent places to eat.
Our first day of excursions was quite local, firstly to the gallery of Oriel Mon to see the Tunnicliffe drawings (free!!). There was also a wild area outside the gallery filled with wild flowers including spotted orchids,
and then to the Dingle to try and find red squirrels. We have had luck with them there before but this time they were a bit more elusive, possibly due to the fact there was a park-run happening.
This is a very popular area for seeing squirrels and many people feed them from lay-bys on the walkway. We were really lucky though as we bumped into Hue, the squirrel whisperer who is a legend around there and who invited us back to come and really see squirrels, but more of that later!!!
After lunch we decided to visit somewhere we had not been before, the Anglesey sea zoo. This is a small aquarium just over the bridge onto the island. We are not talking San Diego seaworld here but we went with an open mind and weren't disappointed!
It was mostly local sealife in a series of tanks, nothing too exotic but all clearly well looked after and displayed, starting off with some very large lobsters.
Next up were jellyfish, looking like extras from an alien movie.
The tank they were in constantly rotated them round and round and the shapes were changing all the time. It was vey difficult to take photos as it was really dark in the tanks and with the movement I had to screw the ISO up to silly numbers.
We were promised an octopus on the website, one of my personal favourite creatures due to their highly underrated intelligence, but this one was just curled up in a corner and looked sad!
After some sea urchins
there was a tank with young rays in it. These are incredible looking creatures, mainly if you see them from the "underneath" as the cling to the glass. They have a very human-looking expression, although this is totally anthropomorphic projection and they are not smiling!
Next door was a pair of cuttlefish who were very active. The larger male was doing impressions of an elephant and both were pulsating with colour and patterns over their skin.
When I was young I always thought of seahorses as being creatures of exotic coral reefs. I didn't realise that they also live along our coasts where they inhabit the plains of sea grass. They are amazing creatures to look at and seem to be very affectionate to one another, winding their tails together.
Finally we had a tank of big fish, sea bass and sea bream, circulating around in the largest tank.
If you are in the area then I would really recommend a visit here. Its only a short stop but very educational about the aquatic life around the Welsh coast. Next door is also the place where they make Anglesey sea salt!
After that there was a walk through a wild area with signs of earlier wild flowers. We had been here at the same time last year and many flowers were still out. The hot summer has really brought everything forward, which we also saw in the more formal gardens later with many flowers, especially the roses having gone over.
