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.