From the Border to Flint (13 miles)

 

We very nearly didn't do this. The plan was to start on Friday (12 January) but then it was really cold at the start of the week and we were going to defer. Then on Thursday it seemed not quite so cold, not so windy, and the forecast for Friday was calm. We wrapped up warm and persevered, and it was OK.

Having taken a train to Chester, we allowed ourselves a short taxi ride to the Cop park, where we were to start along Cycle Route 568. Because we were then in England, this wasn't the Wales Coast Path proper. That starts a little way along the Cycle Route, as we crossed the border into Wales. There was plenty of signage to make it clear that this was now the official start of the Path.

The course of the Dee here was canalised in the eighteenth century, its original course north of Chester preserved in the Wales-England border. Just after one turn this artificial river becomes perfectly straight. We could see ahead of us the four chimney of the Connah's Quay Power Station and the tower of the Flintshire Bridge, and these were to be ahead of us just about all of the day. After passing through a cluster of houses at Higher Ferry, we resumed the straight-line walk for two and half miles until dipping below the A494. Along the way, we were treated to the take-off of an Airbus Beluga (named after the whale, not the caviar) from the airport, flying low over us but all too quick to get a photograph.

After the main road came the earlier blue bridge, a more elegant structure. This was built in 1927 as a bascule bridge, which could lift to allow shipping through. It doesn't do that any more, which would now be futile as the later nearby bridge wasn't built according to the same principle. Here the Path crosses over to the west, which seemed right as the Welsh side of the river. So we continued along that bank.


 



An odd yellow brick gateway possibly marks an entrance to what was once Queensferry Hall Garden.

Then there was the John Summers office building on opposite bank, apparently undergoing some restoration at the moment.

We had a quick lunch stop at Wepre Riverside, and soon after, the Path joins the B5129 road, then the A548. This was a bit of  struggle, as by this time we were getting tired, and the road added nothing of interest to the walk. Eventually we reached the point where we were to turn off the road, cross the railway and walk into the saltmarsh, and things looked up. As the estuary had opened out, we finally got to somewhere that actually felt like coast!

From Flint Castle we soon got back to the station for a return journey. We had just missed one train, but the Dee Inn filled a gap.

This walk was necessary if we are to do the whole Wales Coast Path. It wasn't really a coast path because it largely follows the Dee. Parts are heavily industrial. We didn't meet many walkers, but the Cycleway is obviously popular with cyclists. I wouldn't choose it again as a pleasant walk, except for that completist mentality of doing the whole Wales Coast Path. Perhaps reflecting that, the waymarking was poor. The guidebooks say that the Wales Coast Path is well waymarked, and that is our experience elsewhere - but here, if we hadn't also been following the official guidebook for this section, there were places we could have lost its route.








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