May 2013 Holiday - Day 5

Time to take the dogs for a decent walk again. Sort ourselves out, jump in the car and head south towards Harlech via the back road. Good move.

After a drive up into the town and back down the other side, we parked by the The Royal St. David's Golf Club. There is a standard price for parking round here, with a max. of £3.50 "tourist tax"

for 4 hours or more. I personally think there should be a standard parking fee all over the country, then people would know what was what, instead of every district council charging differently per unit of time.

Harlech - golf links & castle

We walked through the dunes to the beach on a proper path and board-walk. 

Warning notice - old wartime debris, etc. still present

Much of the Morfa Harlech dunes are fenced off and dogs are only allowed on part of the beach, albeit a long and wide stretch at the southern end. Our two really enjoyed themselves while we watched the waders and beach-combed.

Small waders (Dunlin, Sanderling, Ringed Plover)

Large Waders (Curlew)

The smaller birds were fairly confiding and obviously making the most of low tide and the freshly exposed sand and seaweed. The Curlew, on the other hand, kept making for the forays to the old seaweed on the strand line as well as probing the freshly exposed beach.

Large Jelly-fish (Portugese Man-of-war?)

Shells (Crab, Urchin, Razor, Hydrobia & 

If you looked carefully at the sands, you could see that they were full of inter-tidal life ... and death. A truly magnificent beach and hardly a sole on it today.

Back to the car and heading further south to Barmouth, new to both of us. The town is known for its railway bridge across the Mawddach estuary, which has a pedestrian walkway alongside it. Normally there is a toll in operation but today we were spared paying £1 each. I believe they charge for dogs, too! (might be wrong there).

Mawddach estuary & Barmouth railway bridge
(looking inland to Cader Idris, from the town quayside)

After strolling through the market, the main street and onto the railway bridge, we insisted on having a stupendous ice-cream each (   for me). On the way back to the car, I came across some of friend Howard's handiwork - the new RNLI station that replaced the IRB one some nine (?) years ago.

Barmouth Lifeboat Station

We drove home via the A496 so as to get a view of Cader Idris from the Llyn-y-Gadair side, the most popular way to reach the summit via the Pony Path.

Cader Idris from the north

It having been a"low spending day" we ate out at the Brondanw pub in Garreg once more.

Tomorrow, Jenny's paying for the return trip to Caernafon on the train.