Weather Links

MWIS. Weather forecast for mountain regions. Only active Friday to Sunday. Highly Recommended.

Met Office. Now it's improved to a 5 day forecast! Great.

Snowdonia Snowline - States the altitude of lying snow in the Carneddau.

Metcheck weather

Advertise your Snowdonia Business here! Email for info.

Accuweather

Snowdon Weather Station Project. Weather data, but is down at the moment. The Webcams show Elidir Fawr and Moel Eilio.

Snowdon Sherpa Bus Timetables

Welsh Highland Railway.

Travelline Wales.

theTrainline - Timetables and online booking

The Welsh 3000s - website just about the 14 peaks.

The BMC - British Mountaineering Council.

The Mountain Bothy Association - yes, there are bothies in Eryri...

TAC - The Angry Corrie Scottish hillwalking fanzine, read it free.

Eryri - Snowdonia National Park.

Oggy Cam . Ogwen Mountain Rescue and a Ogwen Valley webcam.

BBC North West Wales.

Graham's Wales Photos. Loads of excellent pics on Eryri in here.

North Wales Photographs Beautiful photos of North Wales by Simon Kitchin.

Cambrian Mountains National Park A 'Should-Be' fourth welsh national park.

Snowdonia Society Charity which looks after the interests onf the National Park.

eryriway.org.uk Sister site to walkeryri, emphasising long distance trails.

Llyn Coastal Path, Stage 1a

Caernarfon to Groeslon (11.5km)

Firstly, the online guide states "The Coastal Path is signed and way marked with its own distinctive logo.", well it isn't. The only thing i saw along the initial section was the standard green footpath sign and some anonymous white posts at a random section of the route. Further word of warning, is that some sections are across featureless fields, which for a wilderness walker like myself, is a bit of a shock. As you enter one field, it isn't always obvious to which direction you must travel, and as you're in such a lowland area, it seems overkill to get the compass out. There are also some sections on which the stiles and gates are completely overgrown, but there are large gates you can use near these. Other gates were also overgrown, sufficiently to make me think twice, were I wearing an expensive waterproof , before going through them. Oh yes, and one section seemed to be a path on cow dung, in it's entirety (my error here, will update as soon as revisited!). As you may guess, i'll suggest an alternative route to avoid any pointless, troublesome sections.

The route starts in Caernarfon, at the harbour swing bridge, which you must cross. The castle looms large behind you, and it's well worth the visit if you arrive early enough. Once over the bridge, you turn right and follow the minor coastal road for about 3km. You may walk along the beach itself for all of this distance, but you might find the large pebbles hard going underfoot. Featurewise, there is little to worry about, as you pass the Golf Course and a couple of houses. To your right is the Menai Strait and Anglesey, with the narrow channel of Abermenai visible between the island and the mainland. On the spit opposite, you may be able to see some yachts moored, this is Belan Fort, built in 1776 to protect the Menai Straits from the French and the Americans. It is currently under private ownership and it's possible to stay there, but not to go on day visits (which we did many, many, many times in primary school!). Nearby, is Caernarfon Airport (yes, it has an airport, believe it or not) and many planes will pass overhead while you complete this short section of the path, it was built on the site of RAF Llandwrog.

There is one section of shore, more obvious at high tide, with a shingle bar that juts into the sea (it is visible on the OS map), often with a couple of anglers at it's end, it is soon after this that you leave the road and move inland. Just keep an eye out for the church, and public footpath, to your left (see the pic). You cross a stubbly field, past the church of Llanfaglan St Baglan, ancient and no longer in use it is looked after by the Friends of Friendless Churches, their website gives information for those of you who might want to visit (these days the church is locked). Pass by the church and head onwards across the stubble to a stile in the wall. Cross this, and keeping right, cross another large field, where you soon see the kissing gate between two rocks. Pass through this, keeping left still. and in the next field you will notice a further stile which can be circumnavigated through a large gap in the walling. It is obvious, just beyond this, where the stile leaves the field and you find yourself once again, on tarmac.

Turn left along this track (appears as public footpath on the map), and continue for half a kilometre until you reach the 'C' road, where you turn right. Shortly, you come to a crossroads, where you turn right towards Dinas Dinlle / Llandwrog. Beware the traffic on this road, it can be busier than you'd expect (idiots in red vans with mobiles not looking where they're going, etc). One option is to go straight ahead at this crossing and head towards Bontnewydd. In a kilometre you will encounter the Welsh Highland Railway, and the Lon Eifion Track where you turn right. In less than 2 kilometres you will rejoin the path below. No instructions are needed to follow it.

However, if you choose to follow the official Path, then turn right along the road. You continue on the road for a kilometre and a half, just keep an eye out for the bridge that crosses the Gwyrfai. It is soon after this that you turn right off the road. The footpath is obvious, and is just before you enter the hamlet of Saron, where you will see the footpath sign and a large gate. The stile to the left was hopelessly overgrown. You soon come to another overgrown kissing gate, you must use the large gate beside it. The path now crosses a number of fields and the sections between fields are rather muddy, but no gates need opening. There was an electric fence preventing you from going onto the less muddy field. You follow this muddy track, and eventually find yourself at Dinas and the Welsh Highland Railway. Of course, this was the wrong way, and explains why the route was poor. However, you must keep right after the second field. (Will revise this soon).

The welcome path, a relief from the muddy one you just left, is long and straight. Lets face it, you'd need to be rather poor at navigation to get lost here! Just make sure you turn right along it, or you'll end up where you started. The only obstacle will be a roundabout you must cross at Llanwnda (which is busy at certain times of the day). It is here you'll pass your first pub, Goat Hotel, but it was closed the afternoon (wednesday) I passed it. Soon, you will be arriving at Groeslon, and conveniently, there is a pub right on the track. The Tafarn Pennionyn (Tafarn = inn, and pennionyn = onionhead, and I've heard different versions of why, I'll get back to you on that one). So you can sit in the beer garden, separated only by a fence from the trail, and enjoy your beer before continuing on to Clynnog to finish the day off.

Click on icons to download the route in Tracklogs and Memorymap format.

Official Route in Tracklogs (.trl) and MemoryMap format (.mmo)

format file for directly importing into your GPS device

Tracklogs IMHO the best mapping for PC.

MemoryMap Still good, but route handling clumsier.

Viewranger mapping for smartphones.

Fugawi and Anquet are also popular.

Quo The new kid on the block.

Multimap - Free online mapping.

Get a Map - Free online mapping from the OS

Access Land in Wales - online mapping from CCW.