Day 25: Aberffraw to Newborough

Today we got up 6 am to get an early start on ‘the Path’ from Abberffraw to Newborough. This is out of order to the lineal progression of the path however being a bank holiday weekend, it was the only stage of the path that we would be able catch a bus at the end of the walk back to the start point and our car. We put our wet weather gear to the test today, as it rained on and off all day. Immediately I was enthralled because we were walking along the Afon Ffraw (Ffraw River) to the beach amongst huge sand dunes, including some very high mobile parabolic forms. The walk along the beach was fairly short and we had to cut inland as walking access was not allowed through the Bodorgan Estate.

Beach at Abeffraw Bay

Parabolic dunes inland of Aberffraw Bay

It was a pleasant walk along narrow picturesque country lanes to Malltraeth on the shores of a vast estuary where we had some lunch. We crossed the Afon Cefni (River Cefni) onto a path along a huge earth bank known locally as ‘the Cob’. Construction of the Cob began in 1790 and when completed was 1.6 km long and enabled over 1600 ha of saltmarsh to be reclaimed.

Walking along picturesque country lanes to Malltraeth

Estuary at Malltraeth

View of estuary and cob at Malltraeth

We then entered an area called the Newborough Warren, one of the finest and largest dunelands in Britain and managed as a vast nature reserve. Interestingly the dunes are said to be formed in the 14^th century after a series of storms caused dunes to migrate inland burying the farmland under sand. We stopped by a rocky island Ynys Llanddwyn the site of the ruins of the Church of St Dwnwen. We briefly explored the island stopping by the church and old lighthouse keeper cottages. We then cut across the mudflats towards the exit off the beach to find the Coast Path again.

Looking back at Traeth Penrhos from Ynys Llanddwyn Island

Ruins of St Dwynwen's Church and lighthouse on Ynys Llanddwyn Island

Cottages on Ynys Llanddwyn

Helga was hoping to be able to catch the earlier bus at 3.20 pm back to our car rather than wait until the only other bus due at 6 pm. As she was anxious about missing the earlier bus but she set a cracking pace across the beach to a car park from which we followed the path marker along a gravel track. When we were just exiting the reserve, I realised that somehow, we had strayed off the true path and pointed this out to Helga whose bright red face from her exertions turned several shades redder. With great drama she started yelling and swearing and tossed her walking sticks away upset that we had missed the bus and whoever marked the path did not do their job properly. We decided to find the proper path so after a shortcut through a paddock found our way to Pen-Lôn and the finish of this stage, approximately 21 km. Having missing the bus we walked to Newborough and found the White Lion pub where we had an enjoyable couple of hours drinking beer and cider and played pool until the 6 o’clock bus. I won the pool 2 games to 1.

Wide shallow beach at Traeth LLanddwyn