Peter Schrammel
sunny
Llanfairfechan station, 5m - Abergwyngregyn, 35m - parking, 80m - Rhaeadr Fawr, 200m - parking - 257m - Llanfairfechan station
424m
17km
3 3/4h (3/4 + 1/4 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1 1/4)
See report for how to navigate the route over the hills to Llanfairfechan.
A not so bad Easter weekend was announced. So, I decided to spend four days in North Wales to go hiking as the weather allows. At 6.47am I took the train via Banbury and Birmingham to Llanfairfechan, where I arrived at 12.37pm. The skies were overcast when I walked along the shore. It was low tide and there were lots of dog walkers. From Abergwyngregyn I hiked up the valley on the narrow road, blocked with car traffic. The parking was overflowing and there were a lot of people on the path to Rhaeadr Fawr, the great waterfall, or Aber Falls. The bridleway leading there was almost suitable for wheelchairs. The weather got a big sunnier and the falls were visible from the distance. At 2.15pm I had lunch with view to the roaring falls while watching other walkers posing for pictures. I decided not to take the circuit back to Abergwyngregyn, but to return to the parking and hike over the hills back to Llanfairfechan. I stopped at the toilet at parking, but then needed to walk further down to reach the road to Llyn Anafon. I was looking for a path up over a little pass. There was nothing on OpenStreetMap, but in OS map. The gate to enter the pasturage was exactly where I had expected it. There were clear footprints, but otherwise the path seemed not very much used. In particular, the descent on the other side was not easy to navigate. I needed to find the locations for crossing the fences. The first one was a rusty ladder on the very western end at the end of a long stone fence. After that the traces were even less visible. I should have turned towards the right over a little grassy ridge to the very bottom right corner, but instead found a hole more towards the left corner. From there I followed a dirt road outside the fence to the bottom corner. There was a signpost pointing down the path to a brook that needs to be crossed before hiking up and crossing a pasturage towards the left. I enjoyed the beautiful view down to the sea. After 100m down the tarmacked road, the footpath continues through a gate towards the right. After a farm, a dirt road led a bit uphill to a steep tarmacked road which brought me down to Llanfairfechan. The next train was at 6.15pm. So, I had more than one hour. I turned right to pass by the church and walk down main street to the train station. I stretched in the sun before the train picked me up to go to hotel County in Llandudno, the last accommodation that I was able to find in the area. All restaurants were full of tourists. Finally, I got dinner at 20:45 in Dylan's.