As I drive down to Llanddona beach from the village I hold my breath. The road is winding, narrow and steep. It was a relief to reach the car park as our friend Esther drives up in her distinctive VW beetle.
It is early morning and promises to be a glorious day.
The tide is out and we set off to walk as far as we could along the beach, before heading back to the sign posted path over the marshes. This is a glorious curve of coast to Red Wharf Bay and most of it follows the shore line. Over the little bridge we go before rounding the curve and stopping off for coffee at The Ship Inn, already very busy despite the early hour.
For some reason whenever I pronounced Red Wharf Bay it came out as Red Dwarf Bay and so it shall be forever more. Passing by the car park, we continued to the end of the road where the signpost takes us up the hill through a caravan park, towards the end of the site forking off to the right of the main road we missed a low level sign, and found ourselves in a new luxury chalet development called the View, which we didn’t have time to enjoy, as realising our mistake we retraced our steps downhill.
For the first time in months we feel hot under the noon day sun – just saying, not complaining. We reach the wooded path with glimpses of clear blue sea, large limestone quarry face tower above us on the left of the path. We step onto the road at Benllech and stop for our picnic lunch on the benches facing the beach. Families are out enjoying the early May bank holiday sun.
We gather ourselves and reach another caravan park, following the diversion signs, apparently there had been a significant cliff fall. I think we would still be wandering around the park if it wasn’t for a very kind chap popping out of his caravan and showing us the way onwards – the signs are pretty discreet to say the least.
A very relaxing walk onwards through Traeth Bychan and Penrhyn Point follows, with crystal clear blue water on our right.
Moelfre was to be our next stop – tea and cake at Ann’s Pantry beckoned. A group of ladies were opening their fourth bottle of prosseco, I was envious!
We walked across the front up to the Wool shop that Esther used to go to as a child, holidaying with her aunt. Happy memories. Passing below the commemorative statue to coxswain, Richard “Dic” Evans awarded the RNLI gold medal, having served on 179 launches and saved 280 lives.
After the lifeboat station we covered some ground across the cliff tops, stopping to take in the Royal Charter Memorial just above the path. This clipper was on the last leg of its journey from Melbourne to Liverpool in October 1859 when it went aground. 460 lives were lost along with the cargo in a hurricane force 12 storm. There was a great deal of gold on board, and the largest gold nugget found on Anglesey was discovered as late as 2012.
An easy walk to yet another sandy beach at Traeth Lligwy with the car park packed with camper vans, through the sandy dunes over a footbridge to another car park, follow the signs to reach Traeth yr Ora, where you can go down to the beach but the path turns inland.
We then followed the path inland for quite a long stretch before eventually reaching a small pond, continuing to the right of the pond we made our way wearily to the Pilot Boat Inn on the A5025.