Three months on from our jaunt around Anglesey, the fine early summer weather had been and gone along with the brief prospect of strong and stable government.
With the world in turmoil around us, we headed back to Wales absolutely sure of only one thing – that we didn't want another train journey as long and interminable as the one back home from Pwllheli last time, which, although scenic, had taken a mind-numbing five hours just to get us as far as Birmingham.
Instead, we took the 'Durness option', that is, pre-booking a cab from the far more accessible Bangor station, which would drop us conveniently at the golf club at Morfa Nefyn, half-way down the Lleyn or Llŷn peninsula, and the end point of our previous leg.
A fine drizzle freshened us up as we emerged from the train and loaded our bikes and bags into the taxi at Bangor, and the weather then deteriorated rapidly as we headed westwards; for once, exactly as had been forecast. Our driver, himself a man of Llŷn, opted to route us south of Yr Eifl on account of the weather, rather than taking the scenic col route that we had struggled up and over on two wheels last time around.
Turning west at Y Ffôr, he explained (and I have since had it corroborated) that we were now on what was originally intended to have been the Road to Ireland. This straight road was apparently built directly to Porth Dinllaen – the idyllic bay on which we had finished our last leg at the Ty Coch pub – which, were it not for Telford's last-minute intervention with the Menai Suspension Bridge, could have been developed instead of Holyhead as a deep-water port for ferries to Dublin – perish the thought.
The weather showed no signs of improving as we passed the various toll-house follies along that grand route, and we were eventually compelled to leave our nice warm, dry taxi as we finally reached the Nefyn and District Golf Club. The trees shivered with us in the wind and rain.