Walk 355 -- Hell's Mouth to Abersoch

Ages:  Colin was 71 years and 343 days.  Rosemary was 69 years and 120 days.

Weather:  Another day of brilliant sunshine, but a cold wind.

Location:  Hell’s Mouth to Abersoch.

Distance:  10 miles.

Total distance:  3663 miles.

Terrain:  Quite a bit of beach.  Mostly grassy paths on top of soft cliffs.  Fairly undulating.

Tide:  Going out.

Rivers: None.

Ferries:  None.

Piers:  None.

Kissing gates:  Nos.739 to 747 (9), mostly bunched in the middle of the Walk.

Pubs:  None.

‘Cadw’ properties:  None.

Ferris wheels:  None.

Diversions:  None.

How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan in Snowdonia.  This morning we drove to Abersoch, parked by a roadside, and caught a bus to Llangenan.  From there we walked a mile down the road to Hell’s Mouth Beach.
At the end we came upon our car parked in Abersoch.  We had our tea and biscuits, then returned to our caravan.

A couple of days later we returned home to Malvern.

There was a cold wind, so Colin dressed up in a coat, kag with hood, gloves, and then he put a sunhat on top!  (He did look a bit ridiculous)  I decided that if I walked quickly enough I would get warm — and so it was.  We set off to walk the last mile of this beautiful beach.  The tide was in, so we had to walk on the loose sand at the top of the beach, which was a little awkward but not unduly so.  We sat on hardened mud rocks to eat our pasties — delicious! — bought this morning from a butcher’s in Abersoch.

We carried on.  We came across a large jellyfish stranded above high water mark.  We also passed a recent cliff collapse — the sand the cliffs are made of is very soft.  They are low at this end of the beach — only six foot or so and not exactly vertical — so we easily climbed up when the sand ran out.  We went up through a field on a curvy path as shown on the map.

It was not until we had trudged all the way up there that Colin noticed he was no longer wearing his sunhat.  I hadn’t actually taken any notice of it since we had started the Walk, and of course he couldn’t feel it through his hood so he didn’t notice when it inevitably blew off in the wind.  He only wanted to go back to the beach to look for it!  I persuaded him that he must have lost it before we sat and ate our pasties, that he’d never find it, and he shouldn’t have been so stupid as to wear it on the outside of his hood in the first place!  We carried on — is he in the first stages of dementia?  Aren’t we all? 

There were no Coastal Path signs where we were, and the track seemed to peter out.  Also, Colin noticed that we were on top of the cliffs whereas we should have been several fields inland at that point.  So, with great difficulty (because of my back problem), I climbed over a stile to go further inland.  Then Colin decided we should continue along the clifftop and meet the path further up.  So, with great difficulty, I climbed back over the self-same stile!  (I wasn’t best pleased, to say the least!)  The first gate we came to wasn’t locked, but tied up in knots with twine.  Colin managed to undo them and open the gate.  (I calmed down a little.)  The next gate was open, but we were forced into a field and had to turn inland after all.  Fortunately the gate at the far end opened easily and we were once more on the Coastal Path.  (Phew!) 

We were now in an area of open access which took us all round the headland, the southernmost point of the Lleyn peninsula.  We followed a good path across open moorland — it was lovely up there in brilliant sunshine looking out across the sea.  We thought we were alone in the world, but we were caught up by two friendly sheepdogs.  Looking back, we could see an elderly shepherd in a Landrover with another sheepdog.  He drove very slowly past us and continued on — we didn’t see him stop and look at any sheep along the way.

When we got to the end of the open access area, we sat on a rock to eat our sandwiches and apples.  We heard voices behind us coming from the other side of a locked gate.  A man, together with his mother and teenage son had got lost trying to follow the Coastal Path in the opposite direction.  They said the signs, when they existed, were ambiguous.  “Mother” couldn’t climb the gate they were stuck behind, so they had to turn back to the previous gate which they were relieved to find was unlocked.  They were complaining that the Coast Path signage was poor — and they had bought the guidebook,

which was more than we had!

We continued downhill on the outside of the fence, a sign told us that this was a permissive path.  There were celandines and violets all over the place — very pretty.  We came to a little waterfall trickling down the cliff, and there the path took us up and away from the coast.  There was a plethora of arrows on a kissing gate we came to, we couldn’t work out which way we were supposed to go.

After much debate we decided they meant us to stay outside the field — but this turned out to be an animal path.  While Colin was watering a bush, I untied barbed wire round a gatepost and opened the gate.  Colin tied it up again when he came up.  We walked across several fields and out into a lane.

We passed a man painting his cottage and garden wall a brilliant white which was almost blinding in the sun.  We also passed a derelict Methodist chapel, and a rather snazzy witch weathervane.  About half a mile down the lane we were supposed to turn off across fields, according to our map.  But there were still no Coast Path signs!  We climbed over the stile anyway, and walked across several fields.  Then we hooked back to the lane.  Further down there, at last, we came across Coast Path signs again.  We had walked a couple of miles without seeing any signs — no wonder those people we met further back got lost!

The lane turned into a grassy track which took us all the way down to the top of a lovely sandy beach.  There was gorgeous blackthorn blossom all the way down, and we passed some interesting geology too as the path cut through some rocks.

There were quite a few people about from hereon, we were no longer alone.  There was only one way down to the beach, so we didn’t go down because we would have had to come back up the same way.

We went through a gate with a sign warning us about breeding bulls in that field  (Help!)  We were delighted to discover that the official Coast Path now goes all round the next headland, whereas our fairly new OS map shows an inland path only.  (I won’t rant on about spending oodles of our hard-earned on out-of-date OS maps because I have done that too many times in this journal already!) 

We climbed slowly to the top of the cliff and along the outside of a fence.  As we rounded the corner we got good views of St Tudwal’s Islands with a lighthouse on the nearer one.  We wondered what had killed the grass we were walking over, it was all grey.  We went down to a spring where there was a gate on a bridge.  It was difficult to open, but Colin is strong!  Then we had to go up again (grooh!) and all the way round the headland.  I was pleased to be able to do it, but it made the Walk longer and I was very tired by then.  (I can’t do it like I used to!)  At last we turned a corner and could see Abersoch ahead.

There was a kind of chimney on top, and we wondered if it had anything to do with mining.  We came down a steep path, and there was a ruined minetop building.  A sign told us to put our smartphone on a tab to learn all about the old mine — but we haven’t got a smartphone so we couldn’t.
We emerged on to a gravel lane.  There was a “Road Closed” notice on the path we wanted to take down to the beach, but we ignored it and went anyway.  It turned out to be walkable — just.  Mostly it had been washed away in channels, but we were able to walk on the ridges in between.  At the bottom the stream came out of a pipe and over concrete to the beach.  Colin noticed that there were steps on the side of the concrete, so we used them to struggle carefully down to the beach.

Fortunately the tide was out — the beach would have been completely covered if it had been in.  We sat on a rock to eat our chocolate before continuing.  We took a huge shortcut across the corner because the tide was right out and the sand was firm.  We came, at last, to the Golf Club road where there were numerous people on the beach and lots of beach huts.  We nipped up the road to use the loos in the car park, then came back to the beach to buy ice creams.  We sat on the chairs provided to eat them and people-watch — it made a pleasant interlude.

When we felt rested a little, we continued along the beach.  We watched children ‘surfing’ on the loose sand.  Some of them were doing quite spectacular jumps, but none of them seemed to hurt themselves.  We walked to the end of the beach where we saw tiers and tiers of, what looked like, Victorian changing rooms.

Just before we reached them, we left the beach and went up a road.  We turned right into a private road — this turned into a path, then steps.

We passed a house where the first-floor balcony was bent at a weird angle.  We wondered how it had got like that, it looked as if something very heavy had hit it.  We came out on to a road past the house and looked back at it.  The roof was caved in that side, and a newly sawn off tree stump was behind it!  There were people in the garden burning wood.  We hope no one was hurt when that tree fell down — it had certainly done a lot of damage to the house.

We walked down the road to where our car was parked.

That ended Walk no.355, we shall pick up Walk no.356 next time in Abersoch.  It was five to five, so the Walk had taken us seven hours, forty minutes.  We had our tea and biscuits, then returned to our caravan.

A couple of days later we returned home to Malvern.

Walk 354 -- Aberdaron to Hell's Mouth

Ages:  Colin was 71 years and 341 days.  Rosemary was 69 years and 118 days.

Weather:  Brilliant sunshine all day.  A cold wind which abated this afternoon.

Location:  Aberdaron to Hell’s Mouth.

Distance:  9 miles.

Total distance:  3653 miles.

Terrain:  Grassy paths, hardly any mud, very undulating, magnificent views.

Tide:  Mostly out.

Rivers: None.

Ferries:  None.

Piers:  None.

Kissing gates:  Nos.736, 737 and 738 near the start of the Walk.

Pubs:  None.

‘Cadw’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan in Snowdonia.  This morning we drove to the beach car park at Hell’s Mouth Bay.  From there we walked a mile up the road to the village of Llangenan where we caught a bus to Myntho.  Ten minutes wait there before we caught another bus to Aberdaron.
At the end we walked along Hell’s Mouth Beach (a lovely sandy beach despite its name) until we came to a short path up to the car park where our car was waiting for us.  We had our tea and biscuits, then drove back to our caravan.

We bought pies at a little cabin bakery as soon as we got off the bus, then we sat on the seafront and ate them.  It was a gorgeous day, and the scenery was great.  There is a lovely sandy beach at Aberdaron.

We walked up the road rising above the village for about a mile, passing a mucky farm feeder in an adjacent field.  We were glad we didn’t have to walk through there.  There were violets everywhere — far more pleasant to look at.

Eventually the Coast Path turned off the road across fields.  A group of youngsters came out on to the road just as we entered the field, but we got the impression they were local kids, not serious hikers.  The path was a little muddy, but it was nothing serious.  We passed a farm where some children were being silly (laughing over-loudly and shouting) so we ignored them.

We found some of the stiles really difficult to negotiate, at least I did!  They were high with a fence to climb over at the top and “Granny’s teeth” style stones to get up and down.  We found an owl pellet on a post by one of them — Colin thought it was that of a little owl.  We didn’t have time to stop and dissect it.

We passed some friendly horses and belligerent sheep before we came out on a lane.  I was feeling very tired with aching legs, so I was glad to get out to the easier walking on a lane. On the grounds of fatigue, we decided to miss out the next ‘loop’ of the Coastal Path as it went downhill and then uphill back to the lane.  (I’ve been feeling tired and listless for about three weeks now, and I’m fed up with it.)

We continued straight along the lane, passing a derelict farmhouse and a goat sleeping by a stream.  We sat on a wall and ate some chocolate, very early in the day, in the hopes of boosting our energy.   We came to a church in the middle of nowhere — but the graveyard was full.  (Perhaps all the worshippers had died!)

We turned off the lane and walked up to a farm.  There we were greeted by several young pigs who came bounding out towards us as we approached.  I like pigs.  As Winston Churchill was reputed once to have said, “I like pigs.  Cats look down on you, dogs look up to you, but pigs treat you as equals!”

We took a track which went up behind the farm, and saw that one of the farm workers was mending the roof of one of the barns. We continued up and up, out into open moorland.
We seemed to be walking round a mountain with wonderful views over the sea to our right.  We sat on a rock out of the wind to eat our sandwiches and apples. The sun was shining on the sea below, and it was absolutely GLORIOUS!  We continued along a good path.

A couple of young men with a dog overtook us, and we met a lone hiker coming the other way — he stopped for a chat.

We passed a cottage with no road access — how do they get their stuff in and out?  Eventually we came to a road and immediately went steeply downhill, ignoring the official Coast Path which went even more inland.

Colin was desperate to change his pad, but he couldn’t find anywhere private enough.  Eventually he did it behind a low wall under his coat, but he wasn’t able to fit it comfortably under those circumstances, and he had to adjust it later.  It’s miserable for him — and no sign of when he can have the operation which he’s now been waiting seventeen months for.  Urology is the “Cinderella” of the NHS because most of the complaints are not life-threatening.

We turned a corner and walked a bit of “old” road.  We soon saw why a new road had been built further inland — half of this road had disappeared down the cliff in a landslide!

We passed blackthorn in blossom, butterflies, and wonderful views over the bay called Hell’s Mouth.  We passed a campsite on top of the cliff where a couple were setting up their tent to the accompaniment of booming pop music.  I was glad they weren’t on our caravan site!  Colin said he wouldn’t camp there knowing how soft and unstable the cliffs were.  When I later saw them from below, I agreed.

We came to a footpath sign pointing down to the beach called Hell’s Mouth, but the Coast Path signs continued along the road.  The lone hiker we had chatted to further back had told us about this — he said that the footpath was now several fields back in places, but he recommended the beach.  We’d always intended to walk along the beach because it was four miles of sand, and the way-marked footpath on our OS map was marked as going along the beach.

As we tried to make our way down to this lovely beach, we could see why the official footpath had been diverted along the top.  Landslides had obliterated the path and steps.  It was very difficult to get down, especially the last bit.

But it was worth the trouble — the tide was well out revealing several miles of sandy beach.  GLORIOUS!  GLORIOUS!  I cheered up at once, and didn’t even feel tired anymore.  Why this beach is called Hell’s Mouth we’ll never know — we both thought it was Heaven! 

We sat on a rock to eat more chocolate before walking along this lovely beach.  AND THEN WE SAW DOLPHINS!!  (Or was it whales?)  Most of them were far out, but one was breaching quite near the shore.  It did it several times, but too quickly and infrequently to photograph.  Then it went out to join its mates.  This was so exciting! 

We really enjoyed walking along that beach in the sunshine with the waves lapping.  It was BRILLIANT!  We stayed well away from the cliffs which looked quite unstable, we remembered a cliff ‘avalanche’ on a Norfolk beach near Mundesley as we passed several years ago, and we knew how quickly and unexpectedly they can happen.  We didn’t want any accidents to spoil our day.

Three people had followed us down on to the beach at the beginning, but they stopped there to play with their dog.  As we walked along we had the whole beach to ourselves — until we reached the path down from a car park near the other end.  Quite a few people had come through the gap in the dunes there, but the beach was so vast we hardly noticed.  We ‘escaped’ through that gap in the dunes because our car was waiting for us in that car park.

That ended Walk no.354, we shall pick up Walk no.355 next time at the beach car park in Hell’s Mouth Bay.  It was half past four, so the Walk had taken us seven hours. We had our tea and biscuits, then drove back to our caravan.