Two Welsh Walks: 2 - A Circular Walk From Moelfre

This walk, about 4 or 5 miles, contains everything that is interesting about Anglesey. It starts with a stretch along the Anglesey coastal path heading north. It is best to avoid the car park by the harbour as it is: 1. Small. 2: Expensive: 3: Difficult to get out of as it is very busy! Unlike the walk from Cemaes Bay the path is wide and climbs and descents are gentle. The rocks are different as well, gently dipping beds of massively bedded limestone. It is also a coast of wrecks and signs of this are apparent in this part of the walk. At least two monuments to wrecks stand on the coast and there is a museum dedicated to the lifeboat and their crews just outside of Moelfre.

The path passes a small, low island covered with sea birds and leads eventually to the wide sandy Ligwy Bay. Despite it being the height of the school holidays the beach was not crowded and there was a welcome bothy selling ice-creams which made for a satisfying break before heading away from the coast and along a series of quiet inland lanes.

Along this stretch of the walk you see signs of human habitation from the eolithic to the Middle Ages. First you see the ruins of Chapel Hen, a chapel of ease. Most was built in the 12^th century but extensions, including a 16^th century burial vault (great for all you D&D enthusiasts out there). Now it is a roofless ruin but the setting is very striking.

From here you walk into the woods and find the ruins of a Romano-British settlement. The stone walls of two circular dwellings and several more rectangular buildings on a low hill surrounded by a wall built probably to keep animals in rather than invaders out. The larger rectangular buildings are thought to be workshops and barns, the circular buildings living quarters. A striking site and well worth a visit. From here the lane leads to third, final and by far the oldest site. A huge capstone set on a circle of smaller stones. The remains of twenty or more men, women and children have been excavated from here and dated to about 2500-3000BC.
From here the walk returned to Moelfre via field paths and some very steep stiles until the welcome site of Ann's Pantry hove into view where a much needed cup of coffee and a slice of cake set us up for the drive back to the cottage.

Two Welsh Walks: 1 - Cemaes Bay to Bull Bay

This walk is part of the Anglesey Coastal Path and as such is clearly signed. On top of that being a coastal path finding the route is dead easy: you just keep the sea on your left and you can't go wrong.
The walk starts in the tidy little village of Cemaes which has a lot of useful shops including a Post Office, vital when you are on holiday and needing to send post to relatives around the world. This is a linear walk, I was dropped off at the start and my wife drove to the Bull Bay Hotel where I would be picked up later (after an obligatory pint (for medicinal purposes only of course)).
Cemaes Bay itself is a striking example of Precambrian geology with folded and twisted rocks of great age. Part of a subduction zone (a destructive plate boundary where one plate is forced beneath another and destroyed, often forming a volcanic island arc in the process). As an ex-geologist this was a particularly interesting part of the walk for me. The path climbs steeply up beside the coast and for much of the route it is very narrow with little separation between the path and the sea some hundred or so feet below.

The route is about six or seven miles in length but it feels a lot longer as there are a number of steep climbs and descents most of the time with steep rough steps but sometimes not. After about the fourth of these climbs my lungs were burning and my head throbbing – walking the London Loop is one thing – tough coastal paths are something else!
There are many signs of industry round the walk, in particular the remains of a wharf and extensive buildings at Porth Wen.

These are the remains of a brickworks I learnt from the barmaid of the Bull Bay Hotel. From this point the path becomes more level and wide making the going easy and at last I was able to enjoy the views of the coast and the heather coated slopes inland. Keep your eyes pealed for wildlife; I think I saw a seal in one of the coves and porpoises are said to swim offshore. Birds are common too; I saw oyster catchers in Cemaes Bay and a kestrel perched on a fence post about twenty paces away from me at one point. I think he was waiting for me to keel over and flew away when he realised I was not going to be supper! There are plenty of viewpoints suitable for a packed lunch, in particular the Lookout Tower on Llanlleiana Head. The walk, though tough in places is well worth the effort and I felt that I had earned my pint at the end.

Some Welsh Walks

Just come back from a very pleasant week in the Abergavenny region. The weather was perfect and the scenery was stunning. Wherever you looked from Abergavenny you saw beautiful vistas, a very nice town with all the things a walker could need (and non walkers too!).

We were staying in a cottage to the NE of the town towards Grosmont and on the Sunday afternoon I decided to go for a random amble along some of the local public footpaths. Well that was the plan! It seems that very few of these footpaths seem to exist on the ground. In fact I only found one public footpath sign in about 5km of walking. Even this one was buried under a mass of brambles and the path itself ran across a field of crops with no ploughed out line visible. The other paths did not exist on the ground at all, one vanished into a field of sweetcorn eight feet tall while the others just died out at farm properties. 

More successful were walks on Skirrid Fawr and Blorenge. 

A very straightforward walk up and along the ridge of the Skirrid culminated in sumptuous views across the Brecons with Sugarloaf and Blorenge surrounding the town of Abergavenny. A very popular walk yet there was space for everyone and it didn't feel crowded. The last part of the climb along the ridge is one of the nicest walks I've done for a long time as there is no worries about getting lost and the views to either side are stunning. 

Harry P. Otter on the summit of Skirrid Fawr

 

Nice and peaceful at the summit, that is until a low flying RAF fighter jet flew below us, around the southern end of he ridge then along the valley towards and beyond Sugarloaf. 

Also nearby is a very fine craft centre which is well worth a visit as the quality of art on display is very good. They also serve a welcome cup of tea and cold drinks. 

 

The walk on Blorenge has the highest view to effort ratio of any walk I've done. A gentle climb from a car park (not the Foxhunter one but the one slightly further along from the masts) to the summit gives you brilliant views across to Sugarloaf.  Lots of kites and kestrels soaring and hovering over us as we walked in the late summer sunshine.

Many more walks to do so we have to come back, soon.