Moelfre

Some field hopping and farm track plodding brought me into the village of Moelfre. It had a tiny, quaint harbour. A little further along I came to an old fellow struggling to keep a ship’s wheel steady. It was a statue of course, and a commemoration to those in the business of saving lives at sea. The large RNLI boat house and its ramp were visible about 200 metres away. I read an information board about a ship called the Royal Charter. In 1859 it was on its final stage on a journey from Melbourne to Liverpool. After a 16,000 miles voyage it hit a storm just off the coast from here and it ran on to rocks. There were a few survivors, but 465 people lost their lives. Hmmm…it puts my petty moans about carpark charges into perspective. Later on, I came across a stone memorial to the disaster half a mile or so further along the coast.    

Just before leaving the outskirts of Moelfre I chatted to a fellow walking the other way. He was carrying a cold box in one hand and fishing rods in the other. He’d managed to catch a few mackerel. ‘Are you wildcamping?’ he asked me. I said that I wasn’t. He told me that he’d thought about wildcamping along the Anglesey Coastal Path. I informed him that on my journey around the island I had noticed discrete spots for camping that would make it possible. ‘I’m doing the West Highland Way next month’ he told me. Oddly enough, I’d be doing the trail at the same time. ‘I’ll see you along there’ I said. 

Traeth Lligwy

The path followed the tops of the low level cliffs. It was a good path and easy walking. Porth Forllwyd turned out to be a private bay. Well, that’s what it said on the signs attached to the fence surrounding it. I wonder if the owners ever got bored with it and longed for a change of scenery. I can’t imagine owning my own bay. The much larger bay just beyond it was Traeth Lligwy and was open to the public. The coastal path initially followed the clifftops and by the time it dropped down to the sand it wasn’t really worth doing any beach walking since the path then climbed back on to the cliffs again. It wasn’t really a problem though since there were great views from the clifftops. I also saw a warning sign saying that there was quicksand around the north end of the bay and so I was probably better off sticking to the path.     

A mile or so off the coast I  could see the tower on the small island of Ynys Dulas. Onshore and opposite this island, I could see my turnaround point from a couple of days ago. In fact, it seemed so close I could actually see the final house that I’d walked up to. It was supposed to be a long walk today, but maybe I’d made better time than I thought. 

Dulas Bay

Of course, I’d completely forgotten about the estuary at Dulas Bay and the long plod required to get around it. I left the coast and started on what turned out to be a field hopping and farm track affair to the top of what seemed quite a high hill. The OS map only showed it as 87 metres, but it felt as though it was much higher. It gently descended through fields on the other side. I couldn’t see the coast now and the estuary wasn’t that obvious either. Rather than follow a path alongside the estuary, it seemed to take you quite a distance from it. Eventually the path delivered me into the rear garden of the Pilot Boat Inn. Judging by the dozens of tables and chairs stored outside, the place must be booming during the summer. It was all shut up today though. At least I could see the estuary now. A farm track and a field hop took me to a footbridge over the river leading into the estuary. I felt as if I was at last making progress now.     

My journey on the north side of the estuary turned out to be a little boggy. The path actually went alongside the estuary and as you might expect it was rather damp and marshy in places. Amazingly there were a few houses that had been built right up to the estuary itself. I hoped their foundations weren’t built on the same mud I was walking across. There was much birdlife on the estuary and I disturbed a Little Egret at one point that had been hiding in some long grass. It flew off gracefully towards the sea. After a while, a fingerpost directed me onto terra firma and I started following a narrow lane up the hillside and into a wooded area. I knew that my turnaround point was high up and so I bowed to the inevitable and trudged up. At least the tarmac was drier than the estuary. It seemed to take forever to reach the stile into the field that was my turnaround point, but eventually I reached it and touched it with my hand. Job done. All I had to do now was to reverse my route to Treach Bychan. 

Return

Oddly enough, the return journey seemed easier than the outward journey. I guess the outward one had two climbs to the return’s one. On my return to the estuary, I noticed the wreck of a hull of a large boat stranded in the mud. I couldn’t believe that I’d missed it on my outward journey; maybe I was too focused on not putting my foot into a bog. The Pilot Inn was still shut up as I walked through its garden again. That was a shame since I could have done with a pint. I marched to the top of the 87 metre hill and then marched back down again towards the coast. I had my lunch sitting on a bench overlooking the entrance to the estuary. It had taken me an hour to walk around the estuary from my turnaround point. I bet it would have only taken me 20 minutes if I could’ve walked directly across the bay's itself. 

There were quite a few people walking about the sands at Traeth Lligwy. The tide was out now revealing a large expanse of beach. It was a pretty area. With two large carparks (each £12 for the day), I bet the place got busy in the summer. It became breezy as I made my way to the private bay at Porth Forllwyd. Its owners still hadn’t appeared. It seemed a bit of a waste really. A woman was in the small coastal watch building, just outside Moelfre. She looked a bit bored. Apart from the large ship that had been stationary beyond the island of Ynys Dulas, the rest of the sea looked empty. Maybe she was thinking of the incident that had happened this morning off the coast of East Yorkshire where a container ship had crashed into a tanker containing jet fuel. Maybe a boring day in the coastal watch building at Moelfre wasn’t such a bad thing.

The new born lambs hid behind their mothers as I walked through the field just before the carpark at Treach Bychan. My reputation precedes me. My car was still the only one parked in the large carpark. Maybe if the carpark company lowered their prices they might get more punters.       

It had been a long walk today, although a lot of it was easy walking and fairly flat. The exception was the hilly expedition around the Dulas estuary. That inland section was quite unusual for the Anglesey Coastal Path and provided a nice change from the normal clifftop walking. .