Looking towards Deganwy across the Boating Lake on Llandudno West Shore.
Looking towards the Great Orme across the Boating Lake on Llandudno West Shore.
Not far from the Watchtower now.
At the Watchtower.
Not a lot left of the Watchtower.
At St. Mary's Church, Llanros.
At the top of Deganwy Castle.
The new promenade and shelter at Deganwy.
Not looking so good towards Penmaenmawr and the Carneddau.
At the last of the gun emplacement buildings at the north west end of the Gogarth gunsite.
Great cormorants on rocks west of Gogarth.
Our final view from Marine Drive towards Deganwy Castle.
The King of Deganwy Castle View.
The Coastal Path across the dunes weaves its wy through the gorse.
View from our lunch spot.
Bloody cranesbill in flower below Gogarth's limestone cliffs.
Emerging from one of the "ammunition bunkers on the Gogarth Gunsite.
Two of three gun emplacements overlooking the sea.
The view from inside one of the gun emplacement building overlooking the sea.
The current residents of the Coastal Gunnery Training School.
Walk stats:
Distance: 10.6 miles. Climb: 1073’.
Time: 5 hours 49 minutes. On the move walking average: 2.3 m.p.h. Overall walk average: 1.8 m.p.h.
Temperature: 20.2 Celsius at lunch in the warm sunshine. 17.7 Celsius mid-afternoon.
Beaufort Wind Force: Max - 2, occasionally reaching a pleas 4.7 m.p.h. Light breeze.
Group: Martyn, Nigel and Ed.
This turned out to be a really good day for walking weather-wise, pleasantly warm although at times it did feel rather humid.
Distant views were generally good, but high Carneddau mountains were often in cloud or mist.
This wasn’t one of our “Bluebell Wood”, but approaching Deganwy Castle, it could have been, with the small hill slopes near the castle all being decked in swathes of Bluebells, looking like blue.
In the main it was pretty firm underfoot, although notorious path south west of Plas Dolau was very muddy, made worse by a tree that had fallen across the path. This wasn’t easy to get round or more realistically get under!
Arriving at the first objective, the watchtower, we did get good views towards the Great Orme and even Anglesey beyond.
The surprise of the day was seeing she superb display of Bluebells on the slopes around the Deganwy Castle Site.
Lunch was taken back at Llandudno West Shore where we took advantage of a couple of the many available benches along the promenade.
As we had lunch, the tide was just starting to recede and we were fortunate enough to see several Sandwich terns fishing quite close in. There is always quite special to watch terns diving in the sea catching fish.
At lunch we all sampled some “escape the coronation” fruit cake, sufficient to fortify us for the afternoon extension to the walk.
After lunch we returned to the car to lighten our loads by putting any unnecessary gear in the boot before setting off to explore the Gogarth Gunsite.
At the boating lake we did spot a man with a remote controlled boat, but alas it was not in the water.
Although I have visited the Gogarth Gunsite before, we visited parts I hadn’t explored before. We came across bunkers that we thought could be ammunition stores and several gun sites overlooking the sea. It was good to see information boards with information that could still be seen.
Birds seen and heard today included: Greenfinch, Chiffchaff, European robin, Winter wren, Common blackbird, Carrion crow, Jackdaw, Goldfinch, Willow warbler, Common whitethroat, Woodpigeon, Blackcap, Herring gull, Black billed magpie, Dunnock, Song thrush, Great cormorant, Fulmar and Sandwich tern.
We arrived back at the car having had a very enjoyable walk and as we approached the boating lake, this time we did see a remote controlled boat moving across the water.
Nigel indulged Ed’s request to go to The Albion in Conwy for a celebratory drink. Six real ales were on offer, but I tried Purple Moose’s seasonal Golden Ale.
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