North Side of Dyfi Estuary 25 June 2014

"Roman Road", Penhelig Slate structures, remains of mussel farming Chromatomyia horticola mines in Danish scurvy-grass

From the hotel we walked along the Terrace fronting the Dyfi estuary to a trail on top of the shore rocks (Roman Road), passing through a number of bays.  (This track is supposed to have been created by the Romans in their occupation of Wales around AD78, but it is obviously much more recent and concerned with slate quarrying.)  Almost the only beach shell was edible mussel.  The rocks are slate.  There are low barriers of upright slates on the shore which are the remains of former mussel-cultivation.  A good variety of common marine flowers included sea plantain in flower.  Danish scurvy-grass had the leaf-mines of the midge Chromatomyia horticola.  This took us just over half a kilometre, about as far as the Outward Bound Centre, parties of children on hiking trips passing us regularly, while others were at sea learning to paddle 8-man canoes.   A lone cormorant was fishing in the middle of the estuary.  Then we had to go up where there was a way across the railway to the main road.  There we were faced with the usual dilemma about our rule of following as close to a coast or estuary as possible, because from here onwards the railway runs closest to the estuary, the road beside it for a few miles, although that then diverges further inland before arriving at the first road-bridge across the Dyfi at Machynlleth, well beyond the tidal reach of the river.  The earliest crossing is the railway bridge just before Dovey Junction.  The official coast path goes far inland and up in the hills and became a complete irrelevance.  We could catch a train to Dovey Junction, but that is an isolated halt with a long unsurfaced footpath and no parking, apparently in the middle of a bog!  It is purely for changing trains from the line north of the estuary to that south of it.  It seemed sensible to take this as the first crossing of the river, but it is not possible to walk it at all.  We therefore decided that we would follow the road to where it diverges from the river, which is close to where the railway crosses the water, and then to resume tomorrow from the equivalent point on the other side.  Unfortunately, there is only one access point to the shore from this road for its entire length.  This was a footpath opposite Pant Eidal which took us underneath the railway to an area of saltmarsh and to the west slate rocks.  This enabled us to add many saltmarsh plants like sea arrow-grass, and also sea-slater, a group of ringed plovers, and the usual estuarine shells – edible cockle and Scrobicularia plana.  There were again stranded lion’s-mane jellyfish.  There was even a cluster of bell heather on top of the rocks. Beach Pant-Eidal to boatyard

Sea plantain in flower on slate cliff Sea slater