Walk 347 -- Dwyran to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch

Ages:  Colin was 71 years and 170 days.  Rosemary was 68 years and 312 days.

Weather:  The rain clouds cleared away and we did most of the Walk in sunshine with threatening clouds.  It was windy, but mild.  We did get caught in one blustery shower, and one lighter shower later on which caused a rainbow to form.  (Didn’t find the pot of gold!)

Location:  Dwyran to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch.

Distance:  10 miles.

Total distance:  3582 miles.

Terrain:  Grassy / muddy paths through and between fields.  Some tracks and some stony beach.  Quite a bit of road.  Gently undulating.

Tide:  Coming in.

Rivers: None.

Ferries:  None.

Piers:  None.

Kissing gates:  Nos.656 to 671 across the fields.  (16 in all!)

Pubs:  None.

‘Cadw’ properties:  None.

Ferris wheels:  None.

Diversions:  None.

How we got there and back:  We were staying in a cosy little holiday cottage near Criccieth.  This morning we drove from there to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch and found a car park tucked away next to the church which was on the coastal path.  We walked from there to the Old Toll House where we caught a bus to Dwyran.  The driver kindly dropped us on the bypass where the footpath emerges, even though it wasn’t an official bus stop.  We walked across a couple of soggy fields to where we had left the official coastal path on the last Walk.
At the end we came to our car parked by the church.  We had our tea and chocolate biscuits, drove to the station in the pouring rain to take a photo of the nameboard of this famous village, then we returned to our cosy cottage.
The next day we packed up and returned to our home in Malvern.

We started today’s Walk by walking zigzag paths between fields.  It was very muddy after torrential rain in the night, but not too bad on the actual path.  The blackberries were delicious!  And prolific for so late in the season.

We said “Hello!” to a couple of ponies at a field gateway. The light was beautiful, with bright sun low in the sky.  It felt good to be out in the countryside!

We came to a derelict milking parlour, and found a place inside to sit down and eat our pasties.  There were big holes in the roof and rubbish everywhere, it was a sad sight.  Further on we passed some cottages which were being restored, so at least there is some life left in the place.

We came out on to a narrow lane just beyond a hedge-cutter, and were relieved we could turn the other way and not have to pass it — there wasn’t much room.  We passed a pair of ornate gates, then turned along a track which led us downhill towards the Menai Strait.

We passed the skeleton of a dead sheep with fleece scattered all about.  One of the live sheep in the flock was limping badly, and we had seen another like that further back.  We wondered how well they were being looked after.  Then we passed a herd of cows who stood in a row looking at us with lugubrious faces.

At the end of the field there were steps down to the beach.  This was a ferry point across the Menai Strait to Caernarfon in times gone past.  A notice told us:  “As Tal-y-Foel became increasingly isolated by shifting sands in the Strait, the ferry could only reach its pier at high tide.  At low tide the ferry would land at Y-Foel, and at half tide the ferrymen would carry passengers ashore here at Ty-Bach-y-Foel.  Passengers complained bitterly that an extra charge was being made for this indignity.  This, and complaints of overloading the ferry, and the reluctance of the ferrymen to leave the taverns of Caernarfon, conjures up a picture of Victorian ladies being charged extra to be manhandled by drunken ferryman after a hair-raising trip in an overloaded boat.”  The ferry service was suspended in 1852, but the house was occupied for another hundred and two years.  The house is now roofless, and so covered in brambles we had difficulty in locating the ruin.  There were scant remains of the jetty on the stony beach.

We walked for half a mile along the beach and didn’t find the shingle too demanding.  It was well packed down.  The cliffs were sandy with stones in, and the isolated trees looked very wind-blown.  The path continued along a tarmacked lane.

We sat on a memorial bench to eat our sarnies and apples.  We had views of Caernarfon on the opposite side of the Strait, but a bright low sun was behind the town so it was difficult to look that way.
A huge black cloud appeared as we were eating, so I put on my wet-weather gear.  Colin didn’t, saying it was “nothing”.  When the road turned inland, we continued straight ahead on a footpath alongside fields.  Eventually we entered a wood.  The black cloud had disappeared by then, so I removed my wet-weather gear — Colin had been right with his ‘nothing’ analysis.  It was a real pastoral scene as we descended across a field to a road.

There we had a choice of routes — should we go a little bit inland across fields or risk the beach again?  While we were making up our minds a lorry came careering down the road and screeched to a halt when it reached a stationery car parked in the way.  Meanwhile a Landrover drove up from the beach, and the driver asked us if we had seen two Shetland ponies.  We hadn’t, and the Landrover drove off into a field while the lorry stayed where it was, too wide to pass the car.  Both drivers were anxiously looking for their lost animals — I hope they found them.
We decided to risk the beach and started walking down there.  Another black cloud appeared which Colin again dismissed as “nothing”.  But it started raining, hard, he had been wrong about this cloud!  We both hurriedly donned full wet-weather gear, and put our cameras away.  The Landrover emerged from an adjacent field — he still hadn’t found his lost ponies.  I wonder if they had been stolen.

At the beach we found a good track which led us through woods just above the top of the beach.  If only it would last — it didn’t!  All too soon it spat us out on to the stony beach, but the shingle was pretty packed down and it wasn’t difficult to walk.  It was quite windy now that we were exposed to the Strait, but the rain didn’t last long.  We were reluctant to take off our wet-weather gear because it was so wet, so we just loosened it and let it flap in the wind.  The Strait was quite narrow at this point, hardly more than river-width.

The sun came out as we left the beach, which had become impossible, and followed a muddy path up to the main road.  It was quite a slog uphill, we didn’t enjoy it and we were not looking forward to the main road.  But a lovely rainbow filled the sky as we emerged on to the tarmac — that cheered us up!

We removed our partially dry wet-weather gear and put on high-viz waistcoats.  We both hate traffic-dodging along main roads, and we could have taken the official coast path which went a lot further inland at that point.  But it was a much longer distance to walk, and we were tired.  To add to our misery, it started to rain again.  But it wasn’t much and it soon stopped.  It produced a bit of a rainbow again, but that was only momentary.

After about a mile we were joined by the official coast path again.  Because nowhere else could be found to put the coast path along this stretch, the edge of the adjacent fields had been commandeered to site the path, and there was now a wall between us and the traffic.  An end to car-dodging, for this Walk at least — hooray!  It was a bit overgrown and squidgy at first, but further on we were walking on new boardwalks — well done the coast-path people!  The rain kept coming and going, so I fished out my cape again.  Further on we were on pavements, and passed a spectacular entrance to a National Trust property.  Also we crossed a footbridge over a stream which was right next to the road.
As the road led steeply down towards the shore, we came to a gate in a wall with a notice about a ‘permissive path’.  It said the path was only open between dawn and dusk, and only at low tide.  As we descended steep steps we hoped the tide wasn’t too far in.  It wasn’t — it had ebbed enough for us to get round.  We descended to sea level in brilliant sunshine.

Across a small inlet was a huge boat moored by a small cottage — we reckoned the boat was worth more than the house!  The steps led down to a concrete path along the bottom of a high wall.


We went round a corner to a little jetty which was chained off.  There we caught our first sight of Britannia Bridge.

Colin was interested in the fossils in the stones which held up the concrete path, but I reminded him that they might not be local since they were part of a manmade structure — we didn’t know where they had been sourced.  We descended to the beach which was packed stone and no trouble to walk.

There is a statue of Nelson on a plinth just there.  A couple from Australia were looking at it and asked us if we knew why it was there.  We didn’t, so one of them tried to look it up on the internet using her tablet.  She didn’t find an answer to her question.  The only link I can think of which Nelson has with this area is that he once said the Menai Strait was one of the most difficult bits of sea to navigate because of the strong currents and tides.

We left the beach by the Nelson statue and walked up through a churchyard to the car park by the church where our car was waiting.

That ended Walk no.347, we shall pick up Walk no.348 next time in the church car park at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch.  It was four o’clock, so the Walk had taken us six hours twenty minutes.  We had our tea and chocolate biscuits, and then it started to rain — cats and dogs, it pelted down for several hours!  We couldn’t believe our luck in finishing the Walk in time!  But we still wanted to photograph the nameboard at the local station.  We drove there, but there was no way we were going to get out of the car in that torrent!  Fortunately the old nameboard was displayed on the end of a building, so Colin parked facing it and I took the picture through the windscreen with the wipers going like the clappers!

Then we returned to our cosy cottage, relieved we weren’t in the caravan and didn’t have to take an awning down!
The next day we packed up and returned to our home in Malvern.