SUNDAY 06/06
The last stay in a B+B in Dublin was nearly a disaster as the proprietor  double booked the room I was in. I arrived the Saturday evening, checked in, and went out to eat. After I left, a couple who had booked the room showed up and apparently got quite angry. It was partly their fault though as they were several hours late and although they said they had sent a deposit for the room, the owner had never received it… Anyway, they had booked for three days and I was only there for one so the guy fixed me up in another house that belonged to a friend and it was cheaper too, so I didn't complain too much.

The ferry crossing back to Holyhead was in better weather than the crossing outbound but this time the ship was packed with people and soon there was nowhere to sit unless you had got there early. I did but unfortunately, a family of four with the two 'kids from hell' planted themselves next to me for the entire trip. The little boy in particular was a nightmare - screaming in tantrums when he didn't get his way and just screaming for the hell of it the rest of the time. Rolf Harris is often quoted as having said "kids… don't ya just luv'em???" in one of his 'learn to swim' safety films. By the end of the 3 hour trip I could have happily drowned one myself.

Arriving back in Holyhead I set off in the vague direction of London, stopping briefly in Llanberis at the foot of the Snowdonia Park. There you can find a greasy spoon café called Pete's Eats that the walkers and climbers flock to for the giant mugs of tea and huge portions of fried food. Having not eaten all day again I felt obliged to call in. The inside is festooned with pictures from climbers and other nutters in various states of undress from all over the world and the café also doubles up as an internet café with information about the weather and so on being of prime interest to the climbers.

Another major attraction in the town is the Dinorwig hydro-electric power station. Cheap off-peak electricity is used to pump millions of gallons of water to the lake in the mountains and then can be used to generate power on demand at times of peak usage. As such, it doesn't generate any extra power (in fact it loses power through the inefficiency of pumping the water up the mountain) but is a useful storage facility that can plug a gap during tea breaks in Coronation Street - when for 3 minutes, 12 million people rush out and turn on the kettle all at once.

After that, it was a straight run along the A5 back through Shrewsbury and on to the M6 back to London.