There may be tunnels ahead

A very long name for this walk along with the slightly arcane 7b monicker. This is due to some replanning of routes I needed to make after earlier changes. I have all my routes mapped out using the Ordnance Survey site with a sequence number. Renaming over 70 routes to get the sequence right again is not my idea of fun. Though, to be honest, plotting over 70 routes is not most people’s idea of fun either!

Much of the A55 sits on elevated sections. The Llanfairfechan river has to find its way underneath the road and railway to reach the sea.

I was a little unsure how this route would turn out. On the chart, you spent the majority of it pinned next to the A55. This is the major road that crosses the North Wales coast and has been companion since leaving Chester. It merges near Bangor with the A5 which heads onto Anglesey to the ferry terminal at Holyhead. It serves both the holiday traffic and the commercial traffic from Ireland. The route is also shared with National Cycle Network Route 5. So close are the routes that I did consider just cycling it. In the end, I decided to keep on foot, but I did decide to to it backwards. I thought I would have more options for finding a nice place for lunch in Conwy. Setting off from Chester, it looked like I might have a repeat of the weather in Llandudno as it was pretty overcast. Along the drive to Llandudno Junction station, the weather brightened up and looked a lot more promising. I arrived in Llanfairfechan before 9am. Generally, the railway line runs even closer to the sea than the A55. The topography here squeezes the infrastructure down to the shore. So it feels a bit odd that the path leads away from the sea and up into the town. You have to cross under the mighty feat of civil engineering that supports the road.

Llanfairfechan was just starting to awaken as I climbed the hill to the centre of the town. I wonder now, when I visit these places, how much of the inactivity is due to the hour or to COVID-19. How many of those little independent shops that line Station Road will be opening on this July Friday? The WCP turns left onto Penmaenmawr Road. I have been coming along this route since childhood due to my family’s preferences for the beaches of Anglesey and then later when I used to waterski there with friends. Back then the A55 had just a few sections of dual carriageways and had to navigate through the coastal towns. It was here I think that a herd of sheep ran across the road in front of the car towing the ski boat. I was following behind and nearly had a close encounter with the prop on the outboard. Conway was always the chokepoint on the route. The road had to pass through a narrow gap in the walls. On a nice day in the season, it sometimes felt like the queue for Conway started on Anglesey. If it was bad we would try and escape through the Sychnant Pass but that is a challenging route with a boat in tow!

The WCP seems a long way from the coast here. Now and again you get glimpse of Conwy Bay or Anglesey through the buildings. Penmaenmawr Road drops back down the hill as the brooding bulk of Penmaenmawr mountain forces it to the coast. The mountain rises steeply to a height of about 400m dominating the skyline. It’s dark igneous rock seems to absorb all the light, looking curiously ominous, even in the fine weather I was enjoying. This rock here (Diorite) has been prized since the Stone Age. There is evidence of its importance through to the Iron Age. Unfortunately, the later quarrying which followed in the industrial revolution has removed a lot of potential evidence along with the top of the mountain. No wonder it has a sense of malevolence.

Old quarry buildings now stand guard on Penmaenmawr Mountain in place of the Iron Age hill fort of Braich-y-Dinas

The WCP turns back up hill along a road into the houses clinging to the hillside as we again move further from the coast. There is a pedestrian flyover which tempts you over the A55 towards the coast but it is off the path and leads to a bus stop. It is worth the climb though as you get great views from its elevated position from the Menai Straits in the West right the way over to the Great Orme in the East (see the panorama at the start of the post). The sky and see seemed to just merge in places, hiding the horizon. I could see Edward I’s last great castle, Beaumaris, and the Trwyn Du lighthouse was clear today. Looking at the huge expanse of beach, and the few lonely figures walking there, it seemed possible to eschew the path and use the beach. I began to question my slavish devotion to the green diamonds on the OS Map. Still, going “off-piste” when you don’t know the tides, beach position and exit points is not advisable. I would have to trade the lure of the sea for the great views and impressive civil engineering. The problem is that, once you have become an EV driver, you have the same lack of tolerance for other people’s exhaust fumes that ex-smokers have for secondhand smoke.

The Pen-y-Clip tunnels take the A55 under Penmaenmawr mountain

The road the WCP follows eventually gives out, but the path carries on. It brings you out at the exit of the Pen-y-Clip tunnels and skirts round what I assume is a plant and maintenance building for the tunnel and then over one side of the A55 on a flyover. As a child, I knew Pen-y-Clip as the “Horn” tunnel as it was traditional to blow your car horn as you passed through it. I have no idea if this was just a family tradition or something more general - my childhood memory has other cars contributing. When the tunnel was upgraded in the eighties the horns fell silent. Now I use it as a kind of marker if I am travelling to Anglesey. I feel it is not worth trying to guess the weather on the island till you have passed through Pen-y-Clip - it is the portal to another microclimate.

The flyover does a right-angle turn then continues up between the carriageways until it brings you onto a cliff side path. As you climb to the top of the path, the tunnels swallow the noise and fumes of the traffic and you start to hear the sea for the first time at the bottom of the cliffs - some 100m below you. It’s hard to be sure, as the OS map contours merge into an orange blur. A little bench waits at the top for those weary from the climb. A good spot for a water break.

The path now starts to head down. All around you are the reminders that the mountain is not happy about being delved and bored. Rows of fencing and netting wait to catch boulders. Plates of armour fasten into the rock in a fashion most commonly seen on a Dr Who set. It seems wise to keep moving and try and avoid any extermination unpleasantness.

This time the path takes you under the A55 and through a little series of hairpin paths and down to what finally could be accurately described as a coastal path. You are still a little higher than the beach with a breakwater separating you. This path eventually develops into the promenade below Penmaenmawr town.

The promenade stretches along the beach. It is quite long but is dwarfed by the huge expanse of sand available, even at mid-tide. Just a few people were using the beach despite the good weather. Most were dog walkers, but there were a few people there for their own accord. Perhaps its the proximity of the road, but the amount of space and the quality of the beach were in stark contrast to the COVID risky beach scenes that hit the news in July. I decided to depart from the path and walk along the beach while they ran in parallel. Despite getting out and about a bit more now, I still find the presence of the sea restorative - a recharge for the soul.

It was sad to see the little public pool on the promenade shut but the cafe seemed to be doing a decent trade. The WCP wanted to move away from the beach again and cross back over the railway. I complied reluctantly and left the beach again.

This part of the walk is slightly problematic. You are sharing the path with the cycle way but it feels a little unequal. As a pedestrian you feel a little vulnerable to the occasional MAMIL trying to best their Strava score for the route. You can’t hear them coming up behind you as they are drowned out by the traffic noise. Far too few cyclist give you a warning of their approach. You also lose most of the view of the coast as the railway embankment blocks it off.

When the road reaches the Penmaenbach Tunnels the path spilts off and heads round the edge of the cliffs. In Welsh, “bach” means small or little where as “mawr” means large or great. As you edge round the path with Penmaenbach rising up steeply over your head, small isn’t what comes to mind. You get a close view of the rough hewn rock face. Even driving round Eastbound here you feel like the mountain is leaning into you with its sharp, unforgiving surface.

Penmaenbach looming above you from the Wales Coast Path

The path gets a little narrow after the tunnel as it drops down to the beach again. A certain amount of organisation to get the two directions of pedestrians and cyclist through. As you reach the beach level, you get to cross the railway and the path runs alongside the dunes that protect the coast. It is a good, wide path with plenty of space but I decided to cross the dunes to get on the beach again.

The beach here is much busier, though no challenge to social distancing. It runs down to the corner of the Conwy estuary in an area called the Morfa. There were more families here as well as a gentleman using the beach as an outdoor gym.

“Hangs in the air just the way a brick doesn’t”

Family beach time whilst the tide holds. A small flotilla heads out to sea from the estuary.

The beach was starting to shrink as the tide came in. There was a sign of a marine exodus from the marina. The marina has a tidal gate system, so the boats have to wait for the tide to reach the level where the gate can open. All kind of craft from large powerboats to small sailing yachts were making their way down the navigation channels to the Conwy Bay as they were set free.

I managed to beat the tide to the corner and started to head up river. I was now facing where I walked the previous week. I could see the quaint Edwardian shelter I passed but, from this bank, I could see the curious shape of the Vadre hill behind. To this nerd, it reminded me of Weathertop from Lord of the Rings, especially if you know there are ancient fortification at the summit.

You start to run out of beach and the path runs up on the bank and winds passed some public car parks and into the Conwy Marina. This is a lovely development with an interesting history. The area was involved in the development and construction of the Mulberry Harbours made famous in the D-Day landings. The marina site was used to construct the Conwy Tunnel sections which were then submerged and drained. The tunnel allowed the A55 to bypass Conwy and remove the congestion I recalled from my youth. When the tunnel was completed in the early 90s, they built the marina complex on the construction site.

I was hoping I would be able to get some lunch at the Mulberry Pub - named after the wartime harbours. Despite having lots of outdoor tables it was rather over-subscribed. I stood in the queue for about 5 minutes before my feet complained to much. I decided to press on. You leave the Marina and cross over the A55 close to the eastward entrance of the tunnel. The path doesn’t stay on the the street too long though as it turns towards the river.

It’s a nice path to walk the Marine Walk with stone walls and pretty Bodlondeb Woods on one side and the river on the other. Conwy felt almost as busy a Welsh tourist hotspot should in July. This scuppered my second attempt at getting lunch as all the take-out restaurants had queues. They were social-distancing but it was still more density of people than I am comfortable with in these strange times.

I would have spent more time at the Castle if it had been open. I have been on other occasions and even now its sheer scale and sense of strength impress. For the Thirteenth Century Welsh locals it must have seemed from another planet. “Shock and Awe” was part of its purpose of course. When it was built it was a state of the art fortification of eye-watering cost. For three centuries it would have a part in civil wars and Welsh rebellions. When it became out-dated and disused as a military fortification it started to draw visitors due to its aesthetics and picture-postcard location - it still does.

Mock fortifications adorn both Telford’s Suspension Bridge and Stephenson’s Railway Bridge

With a nice, restful lunch seeming problematic, I decided to press on back to my car. The castle being closed had also made the Telford Suspension Bridge inaccessible. That meant I had to take the road bridge route though, to be fair, it does have an attractive causeway promenade with great views back down the river.

Overall, it is quite an up and down route (293m of climbing) of about 15Km. The area, the beaches in particular, are well worth a visit. I feel slightly guilty about just passing them by for 50 years. There are also spectacular views from the Wales Coast Path and interesting bit of history and civil engineering along the way. The path itself though does probably make for a better bike ride than a walk. If I pass this way again it will probably be on two wheels rather than two legs.