Llanfairfechan to Bangor (11 miles)

The guidebook has this section at 9 ½ miles. However, we were starting at Penmaen Park, which is the very east end of Llanfairfechan, because that was where we had caught our bus last time, and aiming to walk on as far as Nantporth beyond Bangor, because that was handier for home - so it was going to be longer. On the other hand, the book didn't have the new bit of path through Penrhyn Park, which was bound to shorten the distance. I had estimated 11 miles before starting, and it turned out to be just a little short of that.

From Penmaen Park, it seemed obvious that the walk should start by crossing the footbridge over the A55 to get down to the shore. After doing that, I checked the guidebook and, strangely, the Path doesn't go that way, but we continued anyway along a track to join Shore Street East, where the book has an alternative route that leads to the promenade.  The main Wales Coast Path carries along the road for longer, which is odd.

On the promenade, we stopped at the Beach Pavilion for a quick elevenses. After passing a paddling pool, the prom fizzled out and we were walking on a variable path - sometimes stony, sometimes grassy, sometimes mud - on a bank above the foreshore. The tide was low and the beach here is shingle at the top, sand lower down, joining the sandbanks of Traeth Lafan which can go out for miles. It was a bright day, and every now and then the sun shone through and caught buildings on the Anglesey shore.

We left Conwy County Borough and entered Gwynedd, our home county. Suddenly there was a major improvement in the quality and frequency of Coast Path signs. We have complained that these were not obvious enough all the way through Flintshire, Denbighshire and Conwy, but Gwynedd have made more of an effort to keep these in place. In fact, for the rest of the day, we did not encounter a single turning point that had not a waymark to show us the way, and there were others to remind us that we were still on the right path.

Abergwyngregyn is named after white seashells, and this was most apt, because the beach along here changes from shingle to be mostly shells. Some are complete, but there are countless fragments, all down the the very smallest that form a white sand. It must be a feature of the local geology, tide and weather that shells are piled up here by nature, and have been for centuries, as the old name testifies. 

Later, there's a stretch along the beach, now formed of bigger boulders, but it was shorter than we had thought it might be, and we were soon back on a grassy path above the foreshore.   We got to Aberogwen, where we had our picnic lunch. There are picnic tables here, in the car park, but unthinking visitors with barbeques have burnt holes through them. From here, the Coast Path goes briefly inland up the road before turning through the Spinnies Nature Reserve as the beginning of the new section. We couldn't go that way today, because the road was flooded, what appeared to be an extension of the open water in the reserve running across the road and over into the field on the other side. It really was not walkable, but we knew that we could walk along the beach to get back to the Path. On this new section, it goes into the Penrhyn Park, crossing the Ogwen on an estate road bridge, before going through woodland on a newly-made wide path with a stone chipping base. We have done this part of the walk before, and when we last did it, the middle section of the path wasn't complete, so although it could be walked, it was narrower, muddy and sideways-sloping. We were really pleased to discover today that this section has now been completed to the same standard as the rest of the path through Penrhyn Park.

Coming to Bangor means we have walked from Chester to home, albeit over seven fine days far apart. It also means that we have completed the first volume of the official guidebook.