Talsarnau to Harlech 29/6/2013***

 

Dune pansies   Emperor moth caterpillar   "Dewi" dragon   Harlech Castle, Upper & Lower Harlech

We resumed the embankment track from Talsarnau south to where a long hill intervened on the coast.  Across the estuary we got our last views of Portmeirion.  By the hill was a large pool where we could see mallard and teal through binoculars.  We took the official coast walk over the end of the hill.  This passed around a church entirely surrounded by a circular wall and yews.  Stone steps just past there had brittle bladder fern.  As we got near the coast again we saw at least four mistle thrushes in the nearby pastures.  We walked near the estuary shore only a short way before rising slightly behind another knoll and then through a couple of farm-houses with much rubbish around.  Above the hill circled lots of gulls and buzzards.  Many lorries and bulldozers were operating close by and we eventually passed a smelly landfill site.  The soil changed from the acid slates of the hill to the sand of former dunes, and by the path we saw corn spurrey and seed-pods of the rare spring vetch.  We were then on a wide concrete path past plantations.  The official coast walk branched off across fields directly to Harlech, but we continued on the track to the southern end of the woodlands, where we encountered an extension of the Royal St David’s golf course, not shown on the map, and we had to climb a couple of gates to get through the last 500 metres on the same concrete track, ending in the dunes car-park.  We were now in Morfa Harlech National Nature Reserve.  We followed a fenced way to the beach and went north along the sea’s edge recording shells, which included some fine specimens of necklace shell, but relatively few molluscs altogether.  There were more stranded moon jellyfishes.  Having gone a kilometre or so we crossed the beach and climbed up the steep dune-hills to the more vegetated part of the dunes behind, finally returning south parallel to the coast through them.  There were dune pansies here, pyramidal orchids, a little sea holly, carline thistle, wild thyme and common valerian.  Dune chafers were active, feeding and mating on the burnet rose flowers.  An early instar of the emperor moth caterpillar was found - orange and black rather than the later green colour.  We found damp slacks affected by cow grazing, containing little but creeping willow and sea rush, and only one with early marsh orchid and marsh helleborines in bud.  A toadstool growing amongst marram was the uncommon sand-dune specialist Inocybe serotina.  This is a very large dune and saltmarsh system and much more time is really needed.  We finally returned to the track from the beach past the car-park and down the road to Harlech, the castle clear on the rocky cliff that separates Lower from Upper Harlech.  We passed a new sculpture in metal of a Welsh dragon “Dewi” by Anthony “Fred” Peacock, 2010.  The railway station is at the bottom of the rock knoll, but having a good time to spare we took the steep climb up the winding road beyond the castle to the main village, the footpath beside the castle being closed for “maintenance”.  After Welsh cakes, ice-cream and coffee we checked the location of Castle Cottage, a restaurant with rooms, just behind the castle, where we would be staying, before returning for the train.

Necklace shell egg-case, razor shell   Crab Liocarcinus holsatus   Inocybe serotina   Dune chafers on burnet rose