Walking the Head of the Sea Serpent

Little Orme and Pier from the Great Orme

It has been a long time since my last Wales Coast Path update. That wasn’t really intentional. Things got busy on other stuff at the end of 2019 and, just as the weather started to improve in 2020, we got hit with the COVID19 lockdown. Wales was effectively off limits to me right up to the 6th July. I didn’t really want to join in the throng heading to the Welsh beaches as the restriction was lifted so I gave it a little bit longer.

The weather was also playing its part. Finally, the Dark Sky app predicted a 4% chance of rain for the next day - so I packed my gear ready and was up early to make my butties and head out. Unfortunately Dark Sky turned out to be 96% wrong on this occasion. Llandudno was slowly emerging from sleep to low grey clouds of light drizzle. It looked more like January than July. I got back to my last finishing point at the end of the pier and set off towards the Great Orme.

At the end of my last walk blog, I said “…I’ll never complain about these seaside towns being too busy - such is the importance to the local economy of all the visitors.” This now seems rather prophetic. Admittedly it was still early and wet, but the coastal towns have been hit hard by the lockdown. Several of Llandudno’s big hotels have announced permanent closure in 2020.

The access to the Orme leads behind the Grand Hotel and past the entrance to the pier. The pier was looking a little desolate with its locked gates and disappearing out into the mist.

The road loops round and upwards towards the toll house. You can detour through a little park if you prefer. There are nods here and there towards the town’s claimed links with Alice in Wonderland. The Llandudno toll house is an impressive little building though under repair. I understand the charge for cars is about £3.50 at the time of writing and the route is one way. There is no charge for pedestrians and cyclists and they were more numerous during my walk.

The Great Orme is a great peninsula of limestone and dolomite rock. I have spoken before of the suspected Norse roots of the word “Orme” when crossing the Little Orme to the East. The Great Orme is the giant sea serpent’s head and I suspect this was due to more than just its shape. The steep sides and rocky shores offer very little in the way of safe longship parking. The sea serpent has fatally bitten many vessels over the years.

I was keeping my eye out for wildlife along the way. In the cliffs above me, erosion has left many ledges in the limestone. These seemed popular with the local gull population though I could only hear them. It didn’t sound like the familiar cry of the Herring Gulls that steal your chips in the town. I am not sure, but I think they may have been Black-winged Gulls or Fulmars. A steady stream of Cormorants was either heading out to feed or flying back to bask on their favourite rock.

Cormorants on the basking rock - sun optional

There was also this cheeky little chap who was singing away on the wall. I wasn’t allowed too close, but he’d never move very far. I guess I was trespassing in his territory. In the drizzle he is looking a bit more bedraggled than the illustrations in my bird book, but I think he is a Stonechat.

As well as the wild life there are also livestock on the Great Orme. Sheep graze nonchalantly on the precipitous cliff slopes. Some seemed to be moulting their fleeces and looked rather unkempt. I guess its not only us who struggling to get to the hairdressers during lockdown.

Kashmir goats looking smug about their YouTube fame

Sharing the hillside with the sheep are the Kashmir goats. Originally brought to the area by the landowner Lord Mostyn from a heard belonging to Queen Victoria at Windsor over 150 years ago. There are reportedly about 200 in the herd, but I only saw about a dozen. They currently enjoy worldwide fame after videos of them running rampant in Llandudno while the humans were in lockdown went viral.

The road rises up as you work down the North coast of the peninsula. It is never that steep, but it does feel a bit relentless when you are hauling a heavy rucksack. As you near the end you start to get a view of the former lighthouse. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century, primarily to protect shipping into Liverpool. Lord Mostyn did not want a tower so the shape is more like a stone fort. The lighthouse is now a bed and breakfast and the light and optics are at the visitor centre.

There are many local attraction based on the Orme that my short visit or COVID19 didn’t permit. Some are linked to Llandudno attractions, but the Great Orme is rich in its own history. The area has been occupied for thousands of years and became the most important source of copper in Britain during the Bronze Age. Mining had a brief renaissance in the Steam Age but is now part of a rich industrial heritage. In recent times the Bronze Age workings have started to be excavated and can be visited - at least in normal times.

Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast, definitely a “room with a view”

As you reach the end of the peninsula and the highest point you will find a cafe called “Rest and be Thankful”. In these time it was probably the owners who were thankful for the few tourist who had ventured out on this unpromising morning. The car park was also home to an outpost of the National Coastwatch.

National Coastwatch on duty with views from Conway Bay out into the Irish Sea

The Marine Drive now starts to head back and you see westward towards the Isle of Anglesey. This day it was more a case of only just as the clouds refused to let the sun come through and their low base covered the top of Penmaenmawr. Through the murk I could see Puffin Island and Trwyn Du lighthouse at Penmon.

As you head down hill into Deganwy, things start to become a little more domesticated. The Orme itself is still just as steep and rugged but at its base is more of a plateau. You can see the remains of a gunnery school used by the Royal Artillery in WWII. Just the concrete base of buildings mark the location now. When in service, the base was disguised as a village and turned out out officers and gunners for anti-aircraft and naval defence. It seems the base also became an important source of husbands and fathers for the area during the war years.

Remains of the WWII Coastal Artillery School

Houses along the West coast of the Great Orme looking towards Conwy

The views extend from Anglesey in the West and Conway estuary in the South. This is guarded in the next of Edward I’s mighty fortifications - Castell Conwy. We have already past his Castles at Flint and, more distantly, Rhuddlan. Conway is a much grander and sophisticated design, but I’ll save that for the next leg.

As you start to move off the Orme the rocky shoreline gives way to beaches of West Shore. The end of Marine Drive is marked by another toll house. Tollgate House is also now a B&B. The amount of reinforcement on the hillside is a bit disconcerting. My walking hat has many clever features, but rockfall resistance is not one of them!

Despite the still disappointing weather, there we more people around as I reached the promenade. There were the usual contingent of walkers, cyclists and dog-walkers. There were a couple of guys beach testing a kite surfer. This one seemed to be using an air beam similar to those now used on tents which they were pumping up. Once it was up, they wrestled with it in the brisk wind for a while. I’m not sure who won the contest as there was a lot of being dragged and the occasional airborne moment. Still it entertained me while I stopped to have my butties.

Suitably refreshed, I headed round the promenade until the concrete ended and the beach path began. The path here looked in a poor state with a lot of erosion. I am guessing this was from the series of storms we had earlier in the year. I decided to head over rocks deposited at the top of the beach and onto the flat sand below. The tide was well out. The sand was a little soft for easy walking but it felt so good to be back standing on one. Nature has been a source of calm and peace for me during lockdown. Much of that comes from comforting sounds and the sound of the sea that is ever present on this walk is perhaps the most powerful of these.

The beach narrows as you reach the breakwater at Cerrig Duon. After you climb over through the dunes you meet a cinder path on the other side which skirts alongside the North Wales Golf Club. The path leads round into the outskirts of Deganwy where you start to share the coast with the railway that links Llandudno, Deganwy and Llandudno Junction.

There is a small promenade at Deganwy with a nice original Edwardian Beach Shelter which has recently been restored after storm damage.

As it leaves Deganwy, the path passes behind a new marina complex and you lose sight of the sea for a bit. You emerge the other side to views of the castle and the Conway marina on the opposite shore. It seems that the pandemic had not stopped the scenic boat tours.

The river meanders here and you lose sight of the castle until you follow its curve round and clear the bank. You can see a large assortment of civil engineering on show. Apart from the castle, there is the road bridge, a rail bridge and a pedestrian suspension bridge to take in. With the tide out, the estuary was uncovered and many sea birds were taking advantage. Blacked-headed gulls seemed to favour rummaging through the seaweed. Avocets searched the mud making their manic, “squeaky toy” call. I think I also spotted a curlew.

The path leads up to the bridge where it links into a pedestrian and cycle way navigating its way through all the under and over-passes. Time for one last shot of the castle before leaving the Coast Path to make my way to Llandudno Junction Station to head back to my starting place.

Taking the train during the pandemic has been strongly discouraged. My legs, feet and back didn’t really feel like they had another six miles or so in them. I had my mask at the ready as I got my ticket. As it turned out, there was never more than four people in my carriage and social distancing wasn’t really an issue. It is only about a 10 minute journey so I just focussed on not touching anything and listening to the uncut hedges scraping along side the carriage sides.

This blog post was created using the Squarespace app on an iPad Pro with an Apple Magic Keyboard. I am trying out this setup with a view towards my travel set-up when my walks get a bit further afield. It worked pretty well once I had figured out how to move the blocks around.