Bikes, beach and beautiful scenery

Chris had the day off today so we put the bikes in the boot and headed to Wales. The original plan was to cycle around Lake Vynwry again but, after a bit of research last night, I came up with 2 other suggestions: Lake Bala or the Mawddach Trail from Dolgellau to Barmouth. Chris chose Bala as it was the closest, and off we went. 
We arrived to a cloudy, windy and quite chilly Lake Bala and, after eating our sandwiches in the car, we got the bikes out and began cycling. The routes that were pictured on the Internet were very different to reality and we struggled to find a cycle route where we could actually see the lake. After 2 miles, I'd had enough so we returned to the car for Plan B.
The Mawddach Trail is 11 miles long, starts in Dolgellau and has beautiful views along the estuary. I'd definitely recommend it. It runs along a disused train track so it's flat and is car free. Most of it is gravel but it becomes concrete and much easier to ride along as you get closer to Barmouth. You can join at the start or at different points along the trail. We thought we'd joined at the start but we were about 4 miles in as it was only 7 miles to Barmouth.  We crossed the famous Barmouth bridge (very bumpy on a bike without any suspension!!) and then spent a couple of hours enjoying the beach. Barmouth could do with a makeover but the beach was almost deserted and the sun came out as soon as we got to Dolgellau so we were really lucky and had a lovely day making memories.