This is a continuation of a day’s walk on The Wales Coast Path. Part one was posted last week.

Date Walked: 24th June 2014

Distance walked: about 7 miles

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The path from near Pistyll continued to climb gently. Out of sight, below me, was the disused quarry at Penrhyn Glas but ahead I saw through a slight haze the terraced scars of  the even larger Porth y Nant quarry.

I felt excited at the prospect of getting closer to this man made landscape

The path swung round and became very narrow and dropped down quite steeply towards the beach, giving a view to the flattened bottom of Penrhyn Glas.

The hillside was mostly covered by bracken and gorse with the occasional straggly tree, its angle of growth reflecting the prevailing wind.

An oak, I think

But somehow a small wood called Gallt y Bwlch had survived and here all the trees were twisted and bent over.

Wonderfully eerie

On a flat piece of ground someone has established, rather incongruously, a driftwood sculpture of a cat.

This seemed out of place to me.

As I neared the beach, the remains of several of the quarries buildings became clearer. According to the official guide, the quarry operated between the 1860’s and the 1940’s, mostly producing granite setts for paving.

Close to, the buildings dominated the beach; I would have enjoyed more time to explore.

One of those times when I would have loved to have seen an artists recreation of the area as at Porthgain

Only stone structures remain, and  a few pieces of rusted metal, a winding wheel being the only piece that I recognized.

I think this gully must have been the tram line where the stone was taken to the coast

The sheer scale of the workings was deeply impressive; signs of the workings scattered all the way up the hillside.

I was going to need to climb higher than the highest point you can see here

From the beach, the path climbed up beside the quarry and after 10 minutes or so the heritage centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn was a welcome sight; it was coming up 3pm and  I deserved tea and cake. An excellent carrot cake was duly consumed.

Tea! Cake! Toilets!

This was a quarrying village and many of the buildings have been very attractively converted to provide accommodation for those attending Welsh language courses (and 4 self catering lets).

I would love to stay here sometime and really explore the area

From the village a steep road zig-zagged its way up the hillside presenting a fabulous (sorry, about this, must find alternative words) view of the quarry on the far side of the valley.

I could spend several days exploring here

I was also taken by the ruined farm in the valley bottom and its field system, still clearly picked out by the stone boundary walls.

I’m amazed that such a place hasn’t been brought back into use

There is a car park at the top of the road and  a carved triptych of granite pieces;

Set onto granite setts, of course

from here the path took a wide rough track along the side of Yr Eifl.

The peak on the left is Garn For, but unusually my OS map doesn’t say so

By now I had climbed to around 1000 feet from the beach and began to feel chilly in the cool breeze.

Wyn Davies was born in the same year as me

My GPS told me that the highest point I reached was 1161 feet, where I passed below a mast situated near the top of Garn For. Then the view ahead was to the bay at Trefor and the path left the wide track which led to the Yr Eifl quarry and dropped down steeply towards the village.

The path heads off to the left of the village

What had seemed quite wild terrain, changed to feeling much more domesticated, evidenced by a stone wall to my left and a stock fence to my right.

This path may well have been walked by generations of workers making their way from Trefor to the quarries.

I passed a multi-stemmed pollarded Ash…

Super tree

… and then some pretty sheep with coal-black noses, ears and eyes.

Any offer on the breed?

Then on the path I saw my second find of the day- a 77 mm glass circular polarizing lens which would fit my own professional camera gear. And not long after that an 82mm Sigma lens cap, which would also fit one of my lenses. I am one of those people that will pick up a penny if I see it in the street; both went in my bag.

What really excited me though was the sight of the Yr Eifi quarry, over to my left.

You don’t get man being more dramatically assertive on the landscape than this

Perhaps I was in an unusual state of mind but the extensive terraced buildings at the quarries side seemed almost gothic, and brought to mind Mervyn Peake’s “Gormenghast”.

The path briefly joined a minor road and passed under a bridge that carried the stone to the coast.

Perhaps a tramway ran over it?

I passed another substantial ruin (of a hotel I think)…

I could find nothing out about this place, sorry

….but I kept turning round to look again and again at those quarry buildings which Goddard and Evans in their guide describe rightly as “incredible”.

By now it was nearing 5pm and I began to think about where I would camp that night and what I might eat. I needed to get to Trefor; most reasonably sized villages in Wales seem to have a Londis or suchlike that stays open quite late.

The path took me down towards the sea and then onto a lane, passing a white-painted cottage with jolly doors called West End.

These were the quarry offices in the C19th, the lane the route of a tramway

I had one last look back at the quarry before the view was replaced by the coast once more.

If the tramway ran passed the front door it must have been very noisy!

I had just half a mile on the closely grazed cliff tops before seeing the pier at Trefor.

I was a bit anxious about my supper at this point

I might have been tempted to pitch my tent near the pretty beach but there were signs a plenty warning against any such ideas and besides it was a bit early to stop, so I walked into the village (there are public toilets at the car park for the harbour).

I asked a woman in an open doorway whether there was shop and was told that it would close in 10 minutes. As village shops goes it was one of the least well stocked that I have been in, but I came away with an ice cream,  a pack of bread rolls, a hunk of cheese some tomatoes – and a big bar of chocolate and felt perfectly happy.

Trefor is just half a mile from the A 499 and the path runs alongside the it for 5 miles; a most unpleasant prospect which I resolved to tackle tomorrow. So after less than half a mile of being screamed at by passing traffic I took a minor road  towards the coast where I could see that a footpath went straight to the beach. It was an immediate relief to get away from the noise of the road and at the end of this footpath, right on the cliff top,  was a perfectly circular, flat, grass- covered clearing about 10 feet across with a bench on one side.

I couldn’t have designed a better spot for the night. Boots off and supper taken I was enjoying the beginning of the sunset and hoping that no one would decide to take an evening walk when a man in a woollen cap arrived, preceded by his two dogs. The bench had been placed there by him in memory of his Mother and he came down most nights.

He offered me a cup of tea or a wash but declining both I was most grateful that he had no objection to my camping there the night; in fact he clearly liked the idea.

By the time I had pitched my tent the sun was nearing the horizon.

Life is sweet when there is nothing more to do than to sit and watch the sun set before retiring for the night. Especially after a big bar of chocolate.