Log No 202. Tue 10th Dec 2013 - Trefor to Tudweiliog, 18 miles (3121 miles walked)

What a great day's walking, the best I've had for a long while.

I set off early from Caernarfon so I could get the 07.40 bus from Pwllheli, it was still pitch dark when I got there and I couldn't find anywhere free to park in the time I had so I ended up paying for a day in the car park, at least it was next to the bus terminals.

I started walking from Trefor at 08.05 getting straight onto the Coastal Path.

With the hills ahead sloping steeply down to the sea the path came inland to take the pass over the hills.

The path climbed to 350m and I was just below the cloud which was blowing over the hill, I was walking into a strong head wind.

With just about all my walking over the last few weeks being on level ground I thought I might have found the climb tough but it was no problem.

From the top of the pass I dropped down 50m then maintained the height until I met up with the road coming down the hill on the other side of the valley.

This was a dead end road going to a Quarry Heritage and National Language Centre in the valley Nant Gwrtheyrn. The single track road that zig-zagged down the side of the hill at a 25% gradient in places.

One thing North Wales isn't short of is rock and at one time the quarry village in this valley housed 200 people.

There were some goats on the side of the hill with the longest beards I had seen on a goat, unfortunately the photo didn't come out very well.

There was also a cafe here which was surprisingly open, I would have thought trade is almost non-existent at this time of year.

After dropping down almost to sea level the path climbed slowly back up the side of the hill to get to another disused quarry at the headland of Penrhyn Glas.

It was 10.30 when I got the quarry and my stomach was telling me it was time for a sandwich, it was a fine sheltered place for a break with great scenery.

From the quarry the path descended slowly into farmland and there was an interesting mix of paths through trees and between high hedges to get to the village of Nefyn.

Even here the path went through small back lanes to get to the coast and I stopped here to finish off my lunch, it was 11.45.

I was catching the 14.45 bus from Tudweiliog which I had worked out to be about 7 miles from here so I had plenty of time and took a leisurely pace.

The path continued along the top of the cliff round Porth Nethyn, at the end of this bay there was a pier for boats and some houses right on the beach.

The only vehicular access to the houses was by driving on the beach from a slip road back in Nethyn.

The path carried on round to the next sandy bay of Porth Dinllaen.

The path had to leave the clifftop at Morfa Nethyn to take road to the golf course on the headland.

Below the headland there were a couple more hiuses and a pub down on the sand, I did notice that every door had piles of sand bags next to it.

The path went right round the headland and the 13th Tee of the golf course was right at the end of the headland.

I was at the lookout post on the headland at 13.00 and I realised that time would be tight to get to the bus so I had to speed up.

Following the coast was taking longer than I thought and after a couple of streams that I had to drop down to and subsequently climb back up I new that I was going to have to do some jogging or have a long wait for the next bus at 16.10.

Even jogging I didn't think I was going to make it so I cut across a couple of fields to get to the road the bus would be on so I could flag it down.

In the end I got to Tudweiliog at 14.40, it had been a really good day, 18 miles with hardly any road walking and the sun even came out for the last hour.