Leonardo isn’t the only one hiding messages

Today was a longer stage, around 19 miles, from Northop Hall, back down to the Dee estuary and round to Prestatyn. I woke at 5.30 and tried to get back to sleep but failed. I finally got up at 8.00 and dried my clothes, which I’d washed in the bath the night before, with a hair dryer. Only use I got out of it. I’d had my first wash in four days last night; well a bath actually but one of those tiny ones you can only get your legs in so you have to get the shower down and wave it around the rest of your anatomy. I shaved too. Bloody hell. I was a clean man for 12 hours. 

I set off at ten to nine in decent weather with a cooling wind.

From Northop I dropped down to Oakenholt and along the long coastal road to Prestatyn. As I got closer it was clear that the river was turning into an estuary, with the Wirral peninsular on the opposite side. 

I found a real good cafe in Flint, full of construction workers, and had a superb breakfast for a third of the price it would have cost me at the hotel. And I’d done 5 miles to get a twist on. Tomatoes or beans? Daft question really. Bring on the beans! And the bacon, eggs, toast, sausage, black pudding and cups of tea. With brown sauce! And mustard! Kismet Hardy!!!!!! Don’t you despise dipsticks who use a lot of exclamation and question marks?????? 

Down at valley level the farms took over. One ambitious farmer had started growing ships!!!!!!!

It was brightening and then clouding, getting warm and then cool. Make your mind up please Mester God. 

Some stupid idiot had grown a boat on a grass verge. Wtf as they say on Facebook. It means summat rude. Don’t ask. I said don’t ask. OK it means ‘what the frick’, like they say on Gold Rush. Brilliant programme. ‘Gaaad (that means God in the Klondike). Gaaad thank you for your bounty in releasing these treasures to us. In Gaaad we truss’. Then they take their safety helmets off, lift them up and bash them all together. Because they’re in a circle to pray. Brilliant innit!!!!!!

I was walking down the road and I saw these monkeys on a wall. They didn’t run off so I got close enough for a photo. Only kiddiiiing!!! They’re dead.

The road got closer to the coast and I got a good shot of the Wirral and two islands near Hoylake where Cheggers plays golf I think. Only there was a tree in the way.

It was turning warm to hot and this north coast was sheltered from the wind. I got my head down and cracked on. Sweating like a sweater. 

Cop this bank. How lovely.

And this was a recovered pit head winder from a local pit which was the last deep coal mine in Wales to close, in the 1990s. The mine itself was deep below the Irish Sea. 

When I eventually made it the campsite was bathed in sunshine and looked great. The Clwydian hills behind are my target for the morning. Yeeesss!!!!!!!!!

Did you spot the hidden message????? No!!!!!

Clue – first photo in this blog. 

Night night.