Harlech to Tal-y-bont 30/6/2013**

 

Northern marsh orchid   Harlech beach   Driftwood horse sculpture   Mysia undata

We walked from our rooms back to the shore, passing a superb northern marsh orchid in the dunes.  South down the beach we faced a stiff onshore wind but collected more interesting shells.  Where the sands ended and shingle began there was a path up over the railway line and steeply up the cliff to the main A496 at the top.  From here the railway monopolises the top of the shore and we had to walk inland through Llandanwg and around the subsequent small estuary via Pensarn station.  This involved another short section of the A496 where a path had been created below but was so unmanaged that it was easier to continue on the road with no verge.  Fortunately the path soon left the road to a metal footbridge over the Afon Cwmnantcol and followed this to a lane going west by Llanbedr station.  This consisted of several straight sections of minor road past the disused Llanbedr airfield and we were surprised at the number of passing cars travelling at speed.  This, however, turned out to be the route to the Shell Island resort and campground, which obviously had many customers.  The road passed through saltmarsh (flooded at extreme high tides) and gave a chance to see the plants of various levels.  From Shell Island we tried to find the cycle track marked on the OS map, but this seems to be a complete myth.  The coast-path signs also gave out and we had to do our best to find a way through a massive dune system (Morfa Dyffryn NNR), the roads available being for people to reach campgrounds rather than the shore.  We only eventually found the shore by following a herring gull!  On the way, however, we had the compensation of finding many large dune-slacks with early and northern marsh orchids, marsh helleborines and bog pimpernel.  We found one marsh helleborine come into first flower, but like yesterday the rest were still in bud.  Once we got to the shore there was wide flat firm sand to walk quickly south, although our first task was to try to find a sand hollow in the dune-edge above where we could eat our lunch out of the wind.  This was only partly successful and we soon got coated in fine sand particles.  Meanwhile our guiding seagull (imagining it to be the same) found us and shared our meal!  This whole beach was unpopulated, the only sign of human visitation being a solitary driftwood horse sculpture.  While we could walk quickly along this very long beach we frequently stopped to pick up shells, including Mysia undata and Solen marginatus.  Again there were millions of moon jellyfish stranded on the tide and we have no idea as to the cause of such a mass stranding.  The only obstruction was having to cross the Afon Ysgethin, which was fairly deep (up to our knees) as it crossed the shore, some 100 metres further north than shown on the OS map.  Shortly after was a modest knoll we surmounted to walk in front of a large holiday complex.  Although the OS map shows the beach continuing sandy beyond here it is in fact entirely boulders.  Fortunately we had reached a road that took us inland to Talybont station, where we had half an hour to wait for the next train back.  While on the platform we shared some more of our lunch with a hungry-looking robin! Shell Island in distance