Cemaes - Borthwen

This walk is Rogers Volume 1 Walk 7 (NB see references link).

We did this on 4 June 2006, a warm, dry, summer's day with blue sky, deep blue sea, and numerous other walkers around. This was a classic walk, just what you imagine a coastal footpath walk to be like, in terms of sea, sky, birds, and industrial heritage.

Picture shows view over Borthwen brickworks.

But it was also more difficult walk (not really difficult, just worse than average by Anglesey Coastal Path standards). The Anglesey Coastal Footpath is typically made up of stretches along the sea shore and stretches along clifftops; this one mixed both, with two or three roller-coaster descents from clifftop to beach level then up again the other side.

The Coastal Footpath website describes this stretch as "stunning" but also "dizzying". Rogers says parts may not be recommended for small children. We see what they mean - we were not dizzy or intimidated but we wouldn't like to have done this stretch in winter or when wet underfoot (and we have done parts of the footpath in much worse weather).

At Porth Padrig we took the beach option (permissive path in red on Coastal Footpath sheet 2). This rather obviously was tidal and the way up at the other end was steep but short.

Rogers (page 53) refers to a "well-defined footpath". It wasn't at all well-defined on 4 June and we followed a more obvious track to the left and had to double back.

The guidebooks don't mention that this takes you past the Llanbadrig Vineyard.

All in all, this was an excellent walk, both because it is one of the more dramatic parts of the coastal path, and because we happened to choose the ideal day for it.