6th October 2019
As the weather forecast for Monday was terrible we knew that today would be our last walk of the weekend. Unfortunately when we swapped walks yesterday we didn’t realise that there was no Sunday bus for the walk we planned (Llanengan to Llanbedrog) but there was a bus at 9am from Penrhyndeudraeth to Llanbedr, so we decide to do that walk instead.
In the book this was shown as 2 long walks, as the wooded bridge had collapsed, but we had read recently that a new road and rail bridge had opened, and this meant that we could tackle the whole walk in a single day.
So we stood at a bus stop in the rain in Penrhyndeudraeth waiting for a very late bus, wondering why the weather was not as planned. Eventually the bus turned up and we set off, getting off 20 minutes later in the centre of Llanbedr and walked along the river to get to the coastal path.
The first part followed the river on a raised grass bank, and then crossed the river on a new bridge which wasn’t in our book.
The path then cut left through the Pensarn boating centre and by the harbour and then across some very boggy marshland. Rather than head on to the beach the path then cut inland slightly and along the road.
We then joined the main road and the path turned left and dropped steeply down around 100 steps to get on to the beach.
The beach at Harlech was wide and quite busy with visitors.
After about a mile we turned off into the sand dunes, up and over, and along the path towards the famous Harlech Castle.
As we were in less of a rush than yesterday with no rain planned we decided to try to find a cafe for lunch, but there was nowhere around without going up into the town so we sat in the bus stop and had our sandwiches and coffee.
The path then continued on the road out of Harlech and turned through a housing estate, across a few fields of sheep and then along a very long road through a wood.
A few more fields followed and then some steps down and back up before reaching Llanfihangel-y-traethau church.
The path was well sign-posted across some fields and around a farmhouse, and then it dropped down to the estuary edge.
We walked along a raised grass mound, and then dropped down onto the marsh and across a small bridge.
For some reason the coastal path then hugs the top of the sea wall, inside the field and in long grass. With hindsight we could have saved a lot of effort by instead walking just the otherside of the wall nearer the estuary which had a decent track – never-mind but hopefully someone else will learn from our experience. The path then crossed the train track, around a hill and met the main road and the new bridge which cut 8 miles off the total walk.
And that brought us back to the train station in Penrhyndeudraeth and to the car.
The total walk was 12.9 miles of coastal path in 4 hours and 20 minutes, a much slower pace than yesterday. That is almost 40 miles over our 3 day walking weekend and the grand total now stands at 545.7 miles and 329.5 miles to go. There may not be any more walks now till the spring, time for a wedding and the honeymoon, Christmas and celebrations.
Walkies Cleo and Bonnie 