Yesterday we made the move from Llandeilo in the south center of Wales to Porthmadog, a coastal town in the northwest.  The drive takes about three hours but we could not check in to our new place until 4:00 so we had time to kill.  We accomplished this by taking a few B roads to some out-of-the-way towns.  The towns were nothing special (the town of Machynlleth where we had considered staying was, in person, particularly not special) but the drive through the countryside was very nice.  We had a pleasant lunch by a river (where we brazenly parked inside a "caravan park") with our peaceful setting either compromised or enhanced, depending on your point of view, by British fighter jets screaming low overhead at regular intervals.  We are not sure if this was a practice area or perhaps an air show in progress but it was kind of cool.  In spite of dawdling we made it into Porthmadog by 3:00 and took a walk around High Street where we have already located two nice-looking gelato shops and a brewery.

Last golf of the trip was today at Porthmadog Golf Club.  The course is unique, to say the least, with a front nine that is pretty standard parkland and a back nine that is almost all links.  We learned quickly to check the scorecard for water obstacles on each hole as, on the very first hole we both hit good approaches to the green only to see the balls inexplicably disappear just as we expected to see them hop onto the green.  Turns out there was a hidden foot-wide ditch just in front of the green sporting enough vegetation that a ball that enters does not return.  We fared better later on a more obvious water hazard, the island green on the par three 7th hole.  There we both, to our mutual surprise, hit our tee shots onto the green and parred the hole.  As noted, the front nine was mostly straightforward, a condition that changed rapidly on hole 10.

Right away you knew you were playing links golf as you could make out the green in the distance but couldn't see the fairway in front of you.  The trend continued as for seven holes we hacked our way over and around dunes, cleverly avoided hitting people sitting on a beach, only losing a couple of balls and generally having a great time.  The last two holes were more like a typical course layout but fun nevertheless.  Craig even birdied the 18th so he finished his Israel, Madeira, Cornwall and Wales golfing adventure a happy golfer.  We ended the round in the bar for beer and wine (as usual, not great but adequate) and counted our first full day in Porthmadog a success.