8 Nov 2025

I set off from the Wavecrest Cafe at Church Bay and walked south along Holyhead Bay with the low sun in my eyes. Two vessels, one Irish Ferry and the other Stenna Line, were visible ferrying passengers and vehicles between Ireland and Holyhead.

I passed the small Porth Trwyn beach and continued along the coast passing a group of cormorants on a rock. I spotted a strange looking bit of dried seaweed on the shore. At the base was a dark reddish brown mass covered in what looked at first sight to be hundreds of tiny suckers. I did a Google Lens search and the best match was a sponge Hymedesmia jecusculum.

It was high tide and the path was along the beach so I had to walk as high up as I could on some slippery seaweed to get through. I met Sam & Hefin with their 2 border collies here and they mentioned an archaelogical site at the end of the beach called Castell Trefadog. I found the path to this ‘Castell’ and went down to it expecting to see some kind of impressive fort or something but all I could see was a mound of earth. It looked like it had been dumped there by the local farmer. On studying the information board it turned out that the mound was the remains of a fortified building from around the time when Viking raiders were raiding Anglesey churches.

The path continued past the large Porth Trwyn Mawr beach and then through the Sandy Beach caravan park. Here I spotted some choughs with their slender red beaks and red legs doing some acrobatics in the breeze. They are quite rare birds in the corvid family, related to ravens and rooks. In Britain, they are only found on west facing coasts, mainly in Ireland and Wales. I was quite lucky to see them.

I continued to Porth Penrhyn Mawr where I had lunch and then continued south along the beach. The tide was beginning to go out now which made it a bit easier. Soon the path turned east heading inland around the Alaw Estuary. I spotted a huge parasol mushroom on this stretch. It’s edible but can be confused with the extremely poisenous death cap mushroom so maybe best avoided. After making may way past some cows who also seemed to be walking on the coastal path, I arrived at the impressive footbridge over the river Alaw. Lots of swans here but I’m not sure which type. I had intended to finish the walk here but I had some spare time so I decided to press on to Valley.

The path goes through farmland on the edge of the estuary and then onto the shore shortly after a spit of land. Here, I walked on the shoreline below the houses to my destination at the southern end of the Stanley Embankment known locally as ‘The Cob’.

9.57 miles