Walk 18 Llanon to Aberystwyth 29th March, 2014

Can't believe we're almost at Aberystwyth.....more than halfway now and hoping for some more sponsorship from recent letters....keep a lookout at www.justgiving.com/pamela-mallpress We left home at 7.30 headed to Aber for taxi pick up at 9.30. Today it was misty over the tops so promising to be warmer after the snow we saw Thursday! Back in Llanon and began walking by 9.45. Down Church Street and passing the pretty church at Llansantfraed which is really a hamlet joined on to Llanon. 

Continuing along the flat levels beside the sea with the tide well out so we had lovely pavements to see all day at the foot of the cliffs. We passed through a field of heifers or bullocks, young cattle anyway who wanted to follow us – but I was brave! We shouted at them in a Yorkshire accent as it sounded fiercer! 

We soon came to the 4 lime kilns we had read about at Craig-las with remains of jetties on the shore in front of them. 

Another strange sight of previous industrial scenes – we thought it must have been a businessman who wanted to take the whole lime market hereabouts! Once again we passed the scene of much rock throwing into the fields by the sea in the storms. 

Arriving at the shingle bank going into Llanrhystud, we were met by a Land Rover coming towards us across the bank – quite precarious we thought! 

There was an iron age hill fort in Llanrhystud, Gaer Penrhos, which had subsequently had a Norman castle built within its earthworks but it is on private land about 1 mile east of the village so we couldn’t see it today…we had to press on. In Llanrhystud we had to go inland to avoid a caravan park and then go around the edge of another one before going up onto the cliffs once more.  

It was a lovely walk up on the cliffs with not too many ups and downs yet but with much erosion and lots of contorted trees! It was a bit hazy but bright so the views were not clear but we could look ahead at the ridge we had to follow today. 

We could dimly make out a settlement in front – was it Aber? And we thought we could make out Ynyslas ahead too..... maybe. I kept looking down at the pavements..

And glancing back at the route we had completed...

We lunched at Penberi cliffs – quite magnificent cliffs and a nature reserve where fulmars and cormorants like to nest. We had seen cormorants skimming low over the sea.

And the trees here are some kind of oak which grow only stunted because of the weather conditions.

And as I said there were many contorted trees along the way...

We passed a farmhouse being renovated in a lovely setting

and walked though fields full of proud ewes with their new lambs

and then reached another farmstead at Ffon-las, but this one is a complete ruin..and we had to walk up a high hill to go around it too!

We were high above the sea again with lots of erosion and landslip of the soft rock here and there..

Passing another farmstead and then arriving at Morfa Bychan and its caravans meant we dropped down steeply only to go up steeply again back to the cliff tops. Really lovely views and then it was quite surprising how remote and wild it felt here although we were now so close to Aber! It’s said that the finest views in Ceredigion are to be had up here – both inland and coastal – which we could believe, but not so today with the haziness. Perhaps as well thought Chris ....so we couldn’t see how far we still have to go to the Lleyn! The cliffs here had strange formations along them – sometimes looking like they had been mined,

sometimes with deeply striated stripes,

sometimes a landslip

– and all with amazing pavements at their feet with a gentle sea today. We had had some breeze on the tops now and again but not a lot and it was much warmer today. Great views as Aber came into sight over the final cliff top of this escarpment

– its harbour, castle and Pendinas hill (a hill fort – now with a monument on top, in celebration of Wellington’s Waterloo victory). We dropped really steeply down to Tanybwlch beach with its huge shingle bank – again signs of the strength of the storms although the bank had been mostly put back to where it should be now! A nice walk into the harbour....

having crossed the river Ystwyth and then crossing the bridge over the Rheidiol, back to the car park. A lovely day – one of the best so far. 12 more miles along the way!

We saw lots of kites again, the ubiquitous skylarks and some gulls and cormorants. Celandines and violets – dandelions and primroses....Fishermen at Aberystwyth...

More to do tomorrow along this lovely Cardigan Bay......