Moel-y-Don - Llanidan

This isn't a guide book path, but a short walk we did to fill in bits between walks we have done and walks we plan to do, to complete the whole. This was walked on 11 June 2006, a sunny summer's day.

We started at Moel-y-Don, where the coastal path breaks for its largest gap, between here and Llanfairpwll, as the Plas Newydd estate intervenes: rather obviously underlined by the boundary wall running down the side of the road from the A4080.

The walk took us a short way up the road from the Moel-y-Don jetty, turning left along a roadway running parallel to the coast and featuring pink hawthorns. The tide was not in, so we took the shore option. At a right angle in the road, a coastal footpath sign points the way over a stile to the shore. This track is an example of a feature seen elsewhere on the coastal footpath - the remains of a good made road once used to ferry goods by sea, presumably to export agricultural produce. Although grassed over, this looked like it was once well able to take a laden cart down to the shore - and sure enough, at the end of the track there was, on reaching the stony shore, evidence of a substantial quay built out a short way into the Strait.

On the left here, just south of Castell Gwylan, is a lagoon. There is a sea wall and a low lying patch of land inside it. I remember this, years ago, as a green field occasionally flooded after wet weather. The flooding seemed to become more frequent. Now, after two weeks of dry weather, the lagoon is still very wet and permanent. I think this was an area of land claimed from the sea which is now being won back.

The evidence of high-water marks confirmed that this stretch of shore can't be walked at high tide. It is also exposed to prevailing south-westerly winds, as demolished sections of sea wall testify. It could be a salty wet walk in such a breeze.

Before reaching a converted boathouse, a track took us up towards Llanidan church. We turned right at the grassy "roundabout", following the coastal path signs, to return on the inland option via Plas Porthamel. The extra height along this lane gives quite a different view. On the beach, we could see peaks of Snowdonia. Here, the vantage is of almost the whole mountain and the foothills (Coastal Path official guide page 76 has this very well).

Turning right past Plas Porthamel took us back to where we left the road for the shore and we doubled back to Moel-y-Don. Not a long walk, but we didn't have much time that day.