Inland Sea

Today's walk took us along the mainland shore of the Inland Sea between Anglesey and Holy Island, on a hot, dry summer's day.

The original plan was to do Rogers Volume 2 Walk 13, but after lunch at the Valley Hotel (acceptable, nothing special), we decided to start at Four Mile Bridge instead of Cymyran. This involved walking south along the Coastal Path from the B4543 to join the Rogers walk at Tyddyn Cob. We then followed Rogers as far as the alleged cafe (of which more below), turning back then on what was his outward route.

It was close to high tide when we started. This led to some contrast in the views on the way there and back. High tide is more scenic, but there were more seabirds to be seen as the tide fell. (We also saw grouse for the first time on the Coastal Path.)

This seemed to us a much quieter part of the Coastal Path, often much less of a beaten track then we have seen elsewhere (see picture right). It was also less obviously signposted, and there were parts where we really did need the guidebook to know where to look for the line of the path.

In one respect we did find that the Rogers book (see references) needed updating. On page 73 he says, "...until you pass a small building on the right. Soon after this, bear right through a gap in the hedge/fence to join a muddy track...". We did exactly this, which essentially takes you down onto the beach. At the state of tide we encountered it was just passable - at higher tides or in stronger winds it would be more tricky. We realised later that we could have ignored going through the gap and carried on in the field higher up. In fact the Coastal Path Official Guide (same author) says at this point "bear left along a fenced track to join a muddy track...". It did seem that this was a fairly new section of Coastal Path (it's one of the permissive paths) so the "bear right" was once the best way until the new section of path was built to "bear left" onto.
Picture shows field of barley on Path


Rogers also refers to a "little cafe" although later he downgrades it to a "tea shack". It's shown as a little cup of tea symbol on the Coastal Path laminated maps, too. This being at our half-way point, it being a very warm day, and this being one of our longer walks, we eagerly looked foward to this little stop. It was closed.