Fortunately I had high strength Ibuprofen tablets in the car and they at least let me drive all the way to Barmouth, though when I got there I could hardly walk and was limping along as my leg wasn’t working properly.
The issue wasn’t helped that I had booked a room on the 4th floor of a hotel with no lift, only narrow winding stairs with sharp turns… It was not fun going up and down them all weekend.

30th April 2022 – Mawddach Trail – Western Lab Cache – The Last Haul – cache #5766
The Mawddach trail is a route from Barmouth to Dollgellau mainly along the old railway line, but the start of it is in Barmouth beneath the existing railway by the statue of the Last Haul

30th April 2022 – Honeycomb Weathering at Barmouth GC87RM5 – cache #5767
This was the first Earthcache I have ever really disagreed with, The Last Haul is a statue made out of a block or Carrara marble recovered from a shipwreck in Barmouth Bay.
The setter was trying to tell us that the holes in the statue were caused by hundreds of years of atmospheric weathering, when actually they were caused by 200 years of being bored into by marine creatures when the block was at the bottom of the sea. It is a prime example of an earthcache put out without proper research by a CO more interested in the number of caches they own than the quality of their caches

30th April 2022 – Mawddach Trail – Western Lab Cache – Barmouth Bridge – cache #5768
One of the notable features of Barmouth is the bridge across the bay, so we decided to walk across it, (or limp across in my case)

30th April 2022 – Barmouth Bridge GC7B6PQ – cache #5769
Barmouth Bridge is actually a railway viaduct across the bay, the bit across the main channel is iron and stone, but the majority of the length it is a wooden structure.
I reckon if you stand on the edge of the railway you could touch the trains as they go past. Angel78 was dead against me trying this as she thought it would result in serious injury… I had two reasons for thinking this was not the case, firstly that the speed limit for trains was 20 miles per hour so you could see which part of the train you were touching and avoid protrusions that would clatter into you, and secondly, if the conjunction of rail and path was really dangerous there would be a higher fence to stop interactions between the two.
The cache is a virtual in the middle of the bridge

1st May 2022 – An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth Lab Cache – Impressing the female students. – cache #5770
We drove round the coast to Aberystwyth, it was an awful lot further round the coast than it would have been going the shortest route, but we like the seaside 🙂
When we got to Aberystwyth we parked at one end of the sea front, and walked along to the other end, had a coffee / hot chocolate at the Harbour Entrance, and then walked back again – there were a couple of sets of Lab caches along the promenade, one we did walking one way, and the other we did walking back again

1st May 2022 – An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth Lab Cache – The Bathrock Shelter – cache #5771

1st May 2022 – An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth Lab Cache – The Bandstand – cache #5772

1st May 2022 – An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth Lab Cache – The Book – cache #5773
A sculpture to depict the history of story-telling from word of mouth to the printed page. A book was chosen because Aberystwyth houses the Welsh National Library

1st May 2022 – Reading The Stones GC99PYN – cache #5774
An earth cache based on the slate and marble the sculpture is made from

1st May 2022 – An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth Lab Cache – The Royal Pier – cache #5775

1st May 2022 – Aberystwyth stone circle earth cache GC5AEJA – cache #5776
Another earthcache that I had issues with, the stone circle was put there for the Eisteddfod back in the 1860s and each stone comes from a different part of Wales, so trying to lump the stones making up the circle into one geological type is ridiculous… another earthcache put out without proper research

1st May 2022 – A walk along Aberystwyth Promenade Lab Cache – Aberystwyth Harbour/Marina – cache #5777

1st May 2022 – A walk along Aberystwyth Promenade Lab Cache – Aberystwyth War Memorial – cache #5778

1st May 2022 – A walk along Aberystwyth Promenade Lab Cache – Royal Pier – cache #5779

1st May 2022 – A walk along Aberystwyth Promenade Lab Cache – Bandstand – cache #5780

1st May 2022 – BONUS for An Accessible Adventure in Aberystwyth GC9H6BW – cache #5781
Fortunately the bonus was near the car, so we didn’t have to walk miles more to find it

1st May 2022 – A walk along Aberystwyth Promenade Lab Cache – Kicking The Bar – cache #5782

1st May 2022 – Machynlleth- Ancient Capital of Wales Lab Cache – Y Plas Gates – cache #5783
On the way back from Aberystwyth we went the direct route which took us through Machynlleth, where we stopped off to pick up this set of lab caches

1st May 2022 – Machynlleth- Ancient Capital of Wales Lab Cache – Owain Glyndŵr’s Parliament House – cache #5784

1st May 2022 – Machynlleth- Ancient Capital of Wales Lab Cache – Clock Tower – cache #5785

1st May 2022 – Machynlleth- Ancient Capital of Wales Lab Cache – The Royal House – cache #5786

1st May 2022 – Machynlleth- Ancient Capital of Wales Lab Cache – Y Plas – cache #5787

1st May 2022 – Mawddach Trail – Eastern Lab Cache – Pont Y Wernddu – cache #5788
After Machynlleth the route took us to Dollgellau and we headed for the toll bridge over the estuary back to Barmouth, which passed a couple of further Lab Locations on the Mawddach Trail

1st May 2022 – Mawddach Trail – Eastern Lab Cache – Llynpenmaen Bridge – cache #5789
The toll bridge over the Estuary, it saves quite a lot of mileage, but it is not for the fainthearted (though it has stood for many a year, I last went across it in 1971!)

2nd May 2022 – Church Micro 8622…Barmouth GC65XE1 – cache #5790
On the last day as we were leaving we walked down the road to one of Barmouth’s many churches and picked up the CM cache for it