Review of the Walks, the Path, the Project

And now, having completed the path (well, more or less: see below), here are some overall views on it.

It took rather a long time. This is because we were otherwise engaged, shopping, gardening, going away or simply walking somewhere else.

With hindsight, doing the path in the way we chose wasn't all that clever. Sure, it allowed some nice little circular walks at the outset, but we left the most difficult (in terms of logistics) until the end, and had all those annoying little joining-up bits to do. And there are just a few tiny little bits we didn't cover because we took an alternative parallel path or something, but we're allowing ourselves that. Advice to those planning the whole path in bits is to be more systematic from the outset, which needn't mean always starting from where you last left off. It would also have worked out better if we had started off with longer walks.

This walk being complete, watch out for the new and more ambitious sister blog of the North Wales Path.
Now the awards:

Best Pub

There are a few pubs on or close to the path, and all provided a reasonable standard of pub fare (steak pie, fish & chips, etc.) but by far the best pub was the White Eagle at Rhoscolyn, although not on the Path itself, visited on our South Holy Island walk.

Most Convenient Pub

A good runner-up for Best Pub because it is on the Path but also on the A5025, therefore a good base to start the walk in either direction, is the Pilot Boat Inn. Food and drink very acceptable both times (Traeth yr Ora and Completing North-East) we visited.

Best Cafe on the Path

Wavecrest, Port Swtan/Church Bay without a doubt.

Best Artwork on the Path

Dic Evans Statue at Moelfre

Most Welcome Shelter

The very small cave on the beach at Porth Eilian (although that reflects the weather that day).


Biggest Disappointment

The alleged "tea shack" which we expected to find at the end of our Inland Sea walk.

Best Walk

The roller-coaster Cemaes-Borthwen walk.

Best Introductory Walk

Rhosneigr - Rogers volume 1 walk 13. The coastal path is full of variety and this little circular walk encapsulates quite a lot of that variety in a single walk.

Guidebook

It has to be Rogers volume 1 and 2. Although we have sometimes criticised the occasionally out-of-date content, these are handy guides to walks of the right length for us, and don't have to be slavishly followed. The official guide, also by Rogers, contains much of the same content but no return routes and is just a little too thick to be convenient; ours isn't well bound and pages fall out.

We usually took an OS map as well.

We rarely in practice needed the books to avoid getting lost, the path being reasonably well signposted when in countryside.

Beaumaris to Menai Bridge

This, our last walk, had required some co-ordination involving bus timetables, pub opening hours and, crucially, tide tables. This was because we aimed to do the alternative route along the beach between Gallows Point and Glyn Garth. Now this alternative route isn't mentioned in the Coastal Path guidebook and you may not find it on the current website, but it's there in our laminated map published in 2002 by Menter Mon and others, described as "Newly designated coastal path (permissive) access subject to tidal restriction".

We really did want to go that way because, without it, this walk would not have been very coastal at all. So, after lunch in the Liverpool Arms at Beaumaris (good standard pub fare), we set off along the beach about an hour before low water. And a warning: the tide really did need to be that low, and still going out, for a safe and comfortable walk, i.e. not scrambling on seaweed-covered rocks. It wouldn't be passable at all at high water. No doubt this is why it's not now an 'official' part of the walk.

One of the nice things we have found about the path is its variety, and this stretch was different again. It's a walk along a rocky beach, under steep cliffs which are clearly still being heavily eroded, interspersed with a few stony bays, and covered with primeval oak forest. Rocks are the twisted schists of the Mona Complex we've seen elsewhere, overlain by boulder clay which is also evident on parts of the beach.

We passed the Gazelle Hotel where we could have had another drink, but didn't. This was the start of a punishing ascent up a winding road to join the 'official' path at Llandegfan. Not that we would have known it - this stretch being rather short of the usual friendly Coastal Path signposts. The walk along an inland road through a little village was just that - not a particulalrly coastal feel, but with good views of Snowdonia.

And onwards to Menai Bridge, a town which once boasted a generous number of pubs - but currently both the Mostyn Arms and Liverpool Arms are closed, and not all the others open all day.

This completes the path for us! A review post to follow.

South Stack to Trearddur

Today's walk wasn't a neat circular walk from a guidebook (although Rogers volume 2 walk 12 takes in part of the same route). In fact this seven-mile section of the Coastal Path occupies only a page of text in the official guidebook - which is undeserved, when it is an interesting, remote but apparently well-beaten section of the path.

We relied on Coastal Path signs throughout, with no trouble at all here. We noticed that a few of these now also bear a logo for the Wales Coast Path: just as we're nearing completion of this path, a much more ambitious target awaits.

Anyway, from South Stack cafe we followed the path down towards the roadway, then into a field and roadside path that later crossed the road again and took us towards Penrhyn Mawr. Here we saw lots of blue butterflies and hairy caterpillars.

Picture shows Penrhyn Mawr, gorse and heather in the foreground, Llyn to Bardsey on the horizon, encroaching weather front above.

The cliffs here are not so high but very dramatic, the weathering of twisted hard rocks resulting in so many jagged edges, with frequent inlets and gullies worn into features of the rock structure. A tide race was to be seen at Ynysoedd y Ffrydiau (also pictured), with a few fishermen taking advantage at the water's edge.


Going on, we later descended into Porth Dafarch where we had our picnic, as a few children on the sand pretended it was still summer. This beach had a little burger van and a Beach Warden, but public toilets were closed. The path after this alternates between circling headlands and following the road, eventually descending into the more built-up environs of Trearddur.

A striking large house here is Craig y Mor, perched on rocks overlooking the sea. Designed by Dublin architect F. G. Hicks for the Smellie family, this imposing construction was completed in 1921.

We picked a few blackberries here, then just outside the RNLI shop were able to buy an Anglesey ice-cream from a van before walking across the newly-enlarged promenade across the beach, to where we had reached on our South Ynys Cybi walk.

For us, this walk now completes, not just Ynys Cybi, but the whole of the western half of Anglesey's path.

Carmel Head

We finally finished the North West corner today with Rogers Volume 2 Walk 9, on a generally dry day but with the odd threat of drizzle in the air.

Unlike our last visit to Ynys y Fydlyn, this time the tide was low enough to get onto the little island, then look into the cave in the cliff (pictured).

Walking on up the cliff, we disturbed what must have been several hundred grouse in the bracken. This being the glorious twelveth, we wondered if they were now fair game. Probably not - this bit of path being closed from 14 September confirmed their having just a little longer to go.

We stopped at Trwyn Cerrigyreryr for our picnic, this corner of Anglesey offering a fine view almost all the way round. It was too hazy to see any land over the sea, but seems like this might offer both Ireland, the Isle of Man and northern England when the conditions are right.

This walk had disconcertingly too many bird-picked remains of sheep carcasses. Just one on a walk is bad luck, three seems like somebody's carelessness.

Llanfachraeth

Today was a good day - dry, warm, but not too hot. We aimed to cover Rogers Volume 2 Walk 10, but with an extension to take us to where we reached on an earlier walk.

We set off from Llanfachraeth according to Rogers' insructions, but these country back roads weren't as quiet today as we ususally find. This being a nice Saturday in the peak holiday season, and in the proximity of caravan parks and beaches (see below), we did have to stand by the side of the road rather often to let by the 4x4s, caravans, trailers, etc..


Where Rogers told us to ignore the sign to 'Porth Tywyn Sandy Beach', our diversion took us exactly that way. Joining the coastal path northwards at Porth Tywyn, which traces the base of fields set back a little from the beach, we could see that this beach was popular, but probably less crowded than the average bucket-and-spade beach (pictured). Sand also a little whiter than on most Anglesey beaches - perhaps the influence of blown Holyhead Mountain quartzite?

We followed our diversion northwards to Porth Trefadog (second picture), then doubled back to Porth Tywyn.


The path here passed through Porth Tywyn/Sandy Beach caravan park, then past Penrhyn Bay caravan park. While we are no experts, these seemed to be rather upmarket caarvan sites. Both had little shops, the former being virtually on the path - although being what they are, the opening hours cannot be guaranteed to cater for all coastal path walkers.

Only after that did we get back on to Rogers' trail. Once we had left the caravan sites behind, the terrain changed markedly, and soon we were following the Alaw estuary in a much quieter environment, butterflies everywhere.

Rogers 2006 edition requires a bit of updating here. Where he says at the bottom of page 60, "Keep along the field edge to a ladder stile which leads onto a short access track", by now the access track has been extended towards us, so that in fact you are on it straightaway, not at a field edge. This ladder stile, and a number of others on this stretch, have since 2006 been replaced by kissing gates. We also didn't follow his little diversion away from the coastal path at the tidal pool, because our over-riding objective was to cover the path itself all the way to Llanfachraeth.

Oh, and as for Llanfachraeth meaning 'church at the little beach', that's rather fanciful (that would be Llandraethbach). It's the more straightforward 'church of Machraeth' - see, for example, llanfachraeth.com.

More gaps

One of the problems of having aimed to do the whole path, but by a series of nice circular walks, is that it leaves a few annoying gaps where the circles didn't quite join up. So we started addressing that today.

First we walked through Rhosneigr, covering what we called "the little bit in the village" that we missed on the earlier Rhosneigr walk, and joining up to where we got to on the Traeth Crigyll walk. Rhosneigr is fairly busy at the height of the holiday season with a High Street of shops that serve the holiday trade and that is more than a little village of this size would normally sustain.

Euler famously worked out that he couldn't traverse the seven bridges of Königsberg once and only once while getting back to his original starting point. A simpler but similar problem faces the Coastal Path walker faced with the little section, east of the Inland Sea, between Four Mile Bridge and Valley. In our case, this joined up where we got to at Valley on both Penrhos and Valley trips on the one hand, and at Four Mile Bridge on both Inland Sea and South Holy Island walks, on the other hand. Unlike our two urban walks today, this was more like a coast!


Then finally we went on to Holyhead, to walk through the town, joining up our previous Breakwater Country Park walk with the other end of the Penrhos walk. This took us past the official start and finish of the Path at Holyhead Church (pictured). Strangely, in contrast to the rest of our travels, the path itself is not signposted at all through the town here...

Progress (3)

As before, blue is what we've done.

Today's walk has joined up the east coast with the north such that, while we still have Carmel Head to do, we have now covered the path from Penmon to the White Ladies.

We really do expect to do the lot by the end of 2011!

Completing North-East

A nice day today - dry, not that warm and a breeze on the coast. We started off with lunch at the Pilot Boat Inn (see previous post), then took the path down towards Traeth Dulas. Old Red Sandstone, which outcrops here, was evident in walling along the trackway down to the beach. Picture shows Afon Goch from the footbridge at the head of the beach (with ducks).

Once across the beach, we were well away from the noise of traffic and people, hearing only birds and sheep. In fact, after leaving the beach (where we saw one couple) until in sight of Point Lynas, we didn't see anybody else on the path. This really was remote.

After passing Llanwenllwyfo Church and a few ups and downs on a country road, the path rejoins the coastine which it follows towards Point Lynas. A lot of up-and-down here as successive bays are traversed, but not as extreme as some on the north coast.

We took the Coastal Path Official Guide this time, but it was hardly necessary as the path is well marked throughout this section. Much of this stretch is a permissive path closed on certain days of the year; according to a sign it looks like these are just a few days in October to January, when they shoot - and the game birds were much in evidence today.

No return path? We did this with a car at each end: an extravagance we have never needed before on the coastal path.

Penrhos and rail access

We did this trip on Sunday by train: arriving at Valley and returning from Holyhead, one of a few stretches of the footpath accessible in this way.



Setting off from Valley station, we crossed the Stanley Embankment along the A5. A spring tide was flowing into the Inland Sea - and how! We've seen this in the other direction in an earlier post , but this was as if a huge plughole had been opened in an otherwise flat and extensive sea. The picture doesn't quite do justice to the 2m fall visible in the sea just below us.

Penrhos Coastal Park was busy enough, then once past the viewpoint at Gorsedd-y-Penrhyn the walk was quieter.

The path passes 'The Battery' a structure which looks as though it might have housed cannon overlooking the bay, but about which there's not much written that we have been able to find.

Arriving at the port, we crossed the Celtic Gateway Bridge to the town before returning to the station for the return trip.

Access by train is the advantage, but on the whole we have to say this is not one of the most scenic stretches of the path.

Ynys y Fydlyn

Sunday 12 September was good day - dry, sunny and a bit breezy - when we did this walk. We followed exactly Rogers volume 1 walk 10, except that, the tide being in, we didn't get onto Ynys y Fydlyn itself.

At the bay, we were greeted by a seal. Although they are meant to be common enough around Anglesey, this was the first time on these walks that we can say we definitely saw one.

Plenty of places to pick blackberries here, too.

Traeth Crigyll

On Sunday 8 August we undertook the Traeth Crigyll walk in Rogers Volume 2 walk 14 – a longish circular route although substantially less than half covers the Coastal Path itself.

The walk begins over Tywyn Trewan, which is an ancient common. If you live in the right (also ancient) parish, you can graze your animals, collect firewood and turf here – provided it is for your own use. We didn’t see anybody actually doing so. Part of Rogers’ route takes a bee-line across the common where there is no path, heading for Cerrig Cynrig. He mentions an old gate, which is indeed there, but doesn’t mention the stile nearby, which, once spotted, is a much clearer target to head for when wending your way along sheeptracks between spiky gorse. This was when we began to think that our Rogers Volume 2 (revised edition, 2006) was perhaps a little out of date.

This theme continued as we followed the fairly under-used path around Llyn Traffwll (pictured). The “tumbled down bridge” described by Rogers must now be completely tumbled away as we found a new wooden plank bridge. Later, after the “small reed filled pool”, we really did go astray. Rogers doesn’t identify the fork in the path shortly after this. We took the more obvious left fork, which actually did lead to a ruined cottage, which is the next waypoint. Eventually realising we were on the wrong line, we had to retrace our steps to take the right fork which does lead to a footbridge but the ruined cottage supposedly here isn’t very obvious.

Once on the beach at Cymyran, we were on the Coastal Path once more, where we had reached on our Inland Sea walk, and the route back became clear enough along a quiet but extensive sandy beach and dunes.

This was an interesting walk. The inland stretch seemed less popular; we saw hardly anybody despite the good walking weather and the path did not look much used. The jagged rock features protruding from marshy land in places were striking. The path markers on the ground were more helpful than the guide book – but perhaps this is a little harsh on Rogers who after all has a later edition out.

Llanddwyn: Another little gap

We have walked along Llanddwyn Beach before but not, it seems, since starting this project.

On Sunday May 10, we started at the roundabout by Newborough, the one with the marram grass sculptures in the car park where we had also started out for Abermenai and Aber Braint. A camera-shy Great Spotted Woodpecker kept us company on the way down to the beach. Turning right, we continued along a busy beach until reaching the path towards Malltraeth, before Ynys Llanddwyn. Here we doubled back along the trail through the woods which is actually marked as the Coastal Path, then back to our starting point.

Filling in another small gap, and some new leaflets

On Friday 8 August we sought to fill in small gap in our coverage of the Coastal Path, between Porth Trecastell (Cable Bay) and Porth Cwyfan. When we started out on doing the coastal path, this little bit wasn't necessarily part of it, and it's not shown in our 2005 edition of the OS Explorer 262 map, either. The "at the time of writing" in the Official Guide seemed a little tentative, too.

Still, we needn't have worrried as the path was clear enough on the ground. A little sign says it's permissive path, which means (in this case) you can use it any time but the 10th of December each year.

Having walked round over the headland from Porth Trecastell as far as Llangwyfan-isaf, we tried to make a circular walk of it by returning first along the road past Plas Llangwyfan, then crossing the A4080 towards the small church of St. Mary's Llangwyfan. We found that the first footpath to the left indicated on the Explorer 262 wasn't there, or at least didn't have an entry from the road, so we proceeded to the next one, just after the church. This brought us back via farmhouses Rhosmor and Cnwc, towards Porth Trecastell. We also found that the path down to the beach isn't the straight line suggested by Explorer 262: it is necessary to turn sharp left to leave the rocky crag to your right before proceeding along a track at the base of this sandy valley.

A number of Stonechats seen on this walk.

We have also come across some new leaflets of circular walks - available here as pdfs or by post from here. We've covered many of these walks, or bits of them, already. First impressions of these leaflets not very good - walkers like us need to know the length and difficulty stright off, which unlike many of our guidebooks, these don't give.

Cemlyn - Cemaes

Today, 24 May, was the first day of the 2008 Anglesey Walking Festival, but that wasn't why we went for a walk - just that we had the time and weather forecast seemed much worse for the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend. The weather today turned out ideal: blue skies, sunny and dry but a stiff easterly breeze all the way.

This was a long walk by our standards, combining, roughly Rogers Volume 2 walk 7 and walk 8, making a total of nine miles.

We started, in fact, at the eastern end of the bar at Cemlyn, and the walk along the shingle bar was not at all comfortable, so we came round the shoreward side of the lagoon before pressing on towards Cemaes.

This section is of couse rather marred by the huge Wylfa Power Station plonked on the coast. Having passed it, we took in the inland path of walk 7 to get to the village of Cemaes. Here we stopped at the Stag Inn. We were warned as we arrived that service could be slow which indeed it was, but the beer was good (Jennings Bitter) and the food reasonable. We took the Coastal Path proper round Wylfa Head, which was the wildest and windiest part of the walk: choughs here as well as the more common seabirds.

We were very glad after returning to Cemlyn to be able to stop at the nearby jam factory for tea and cake!

Aberffraw - Malltraeth

On 18 May we started from Aberffraw village and walked down the estuary following the beach option of the Coastal Path. Going inland later through the dunes, we surprised a hare - and it very obviously was a hare, too, as we were to remark later when we saw the more common rabbits.

The Coastal Path isn't particularly coastal for the next bit, as it passes along the A4080 through Hebron, but on reaching the brow of the hill there is a splendid view of Snowdonia.

We crossed the cob at Malltraeth to join up with where we had reached on an earlier walk to Llanddwyn - while watching the cattle wading through the lagoon.

Progress (2) and a new book

Here's what we've covered (in blue) up to the end of 2007. Maybe there's a chance of completing it all in 2008!

In addition to the books we have been using and referred to earlier (see references), there's another book out about the Coastal Path - All Around Anglesey by Terry Beggs (ISBN 978 184323 715 0). It's a coffee-table book with pictures around the path, not a guide book.

Porth Llechog - Porth Amlwch

Our little walk today took us from Porth Llechog (Bull Bay) to Porth Amlwch (Amlwch Port), and back.

The path here is mostly at the top of jagged cliffs characteristic of much of North Anglesey. It was surprisingly muddy and the day rather gloomy, so much so that after reaching Amlwch we decided to return along the road.

Stanley Embankment and Valley

Our Boxing Day outing didn't follow any of the handy little circular walks in our guidebooks, and wasn't as well-signposted as usual, so I'll have to be more careful in describing the route.

We started at the Penrhos Coastal Park and began the walk towards mainland Anglesey along the Stanley Embankment. At the mainland end, just by the ATS Euromaster tyre depot, a Coastal Path finger sign pointed northwards along the shore and, as high tide had passed, we followed the shoreline. This was a rocky and pebbly beach, starting off with the eclectic boulder clay pebbles we have seen so often around the path. As we progressed, the beach became dominated more by the local rock, with varied hues of red, purple and pink of the 'New Harbour series'.

Just before a small headland, we avoided a path inland to the right with the remains of a signpost but pressed on along the beach. A little farther, at Penrhyn Bach, an angry sign forbade us to walk along the private foreshore and diverted us to a path inland. This short hop took us to one of the few dead ends on the Coastal Path, where it stops at the Alaw estuary - but there was no sign to indicate this.

Turning back, we decided to follow the inland (high tide) alternative path. After returning past Penrhyn Bach onto the beach nearby, the steps up were easy to miss but did have small Coastal Path logo to show the way. The path passes the remains of a well in the field on the left before joining a road where the Coastal Path on the map expects us to turn left then right. We then walked up Gorad Road past a series of interesting concrete electricity posts. There should be a right turn from here, but we missed it at first as there was nothing to indicate the path. Doubling back, it was necessary to turn into the estate of ugly bungalows where we found the pathway, half of whose width was being used by somebody to store a pile of breeze blocks. Over a stile, then following the right boundary of the field, took us to some steps downwards which eventually brought us out round the back of the same ATS Euromaster tyre depot as we passed earlier. Had we been looking for this inland route when we came by in the opposite direction, this wouldn't have been the obvious way to go!

On the way back, the ebb tide was rushing through the flume under the embankment (picture).

There were lots of birds to be seen on this walk - Great Crested Grebe and Egret as well as the more common seabirds, and various ducks and geese at the Penrhos Coastal Park.

Porth Llechog - Porthwen

After a summer doing other things in other places, we got back to the Coastal Path today.

This was ostensibly Rogers Volume 2 Walk 6, but we thought we should start in Porth Llechog (Bull Bay) to avoid parking on a grass verge. It turned out it was easier to follow the signs for the Elaeth Circular Walk - although there's very little difference.



Despite a very warm, dry day for November, this was a quiet walk, hardly anybody about.

The walk finished off with refreshment at the Bull Bay Hotel, one of few hostelries on the Coastal Path: acceptable but unexciting fare.

Traeth yr Ora

Today's walk started off with an intention to do Rogers Volume 1 Walk 5 - but we ended up starting from a different point, doing it backwards, and not doing the whole of it!

We began with lunch at the Pilot Boat Inn on the A5025 between Brynrefail and City Dulas. This was a spacious pub, Robinsons' beers, "food all day" and is recommended. The pub also tops the charts (so far) for proximity to a Coastal Path sign, so we set off without difficulty towards the coast, although uphill for what seemed like most of the way. Traeth yr Ora is indeed, as Rogers says, "a beautifully secluded sandy beach".

We wandered along the beach for a while, it being low tide, then back up to the footpath as far as Traeth Lligwy. We followed the footpath inland which leads from the northern car park, as far as a little signposted diversion to Tyddyn Môn. (Picture shows field sculptures there). Tyddyn Môn looked worth a visit but turned out to be closed at the weekend, so we returned via Brynrefail to our starting point. The Craft Shop and Garden Centre at Brynrefail were unimpressive.