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 Although we have sometimes criticised the occasionally out-of-date content, these are handy guides to walks of the right length for us, and don't have to be slavishly followed.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.