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Chris in our camper van man travel special
Thousands of you have written to recommend your favourite spots on the British
coast, but nowhere has yet brought as big a postbag as Wales.
Some 6 in 10 of your recommendations have been for this crumpled land of
dungeons and dragons, where every village sounds like a pharmaceutical
product – and it’s not hard to see why. Take, for instance,Llan-dudno, as
recommended by reader Beverly Cash. The viewas we cross Little Ormes Head on
the B5115 is virtually unchanged from that which must have greeted
travellers to this genteel resort in Victorian times.
A lazy crescent of elegant colour-washed houses overlooks a steep shingle
beach built more for quiet reflection than riotous parties. The pier is a
delight and the streets behind the prom are a lady-friendly mix of posh
cafes and shops selling expensive unnecessaries. Then, as we cruise the
spectacular Great Ormes Head scenic drive, the sun really gives it both
barrels, the sea turns blue and, in the rear of the Mystery Machine, the
kids are singing Alice Cooper’s School’s Out. Summer has arrived.
A good deal of your Welsh rave bits have recommended the Lleyn Peninsula,
described by reader Val Drake as “the hidden gem of Wales”. She’s spot-on.
If you know the lovelier parts of Cornwall or Pembrokeshire you’ll recognise
the topography: single-track lanes with high, hedged banks offering
entrancing glimpses of turquoise seas; and, as you pass through hamlets such
as Tylenol, Neurofen and Panadol, one heart-achingly beautiful beach after
another.
“You should visit Port Din-llaen and have a pint in the Ty Coch Inn, where the
beer garden is the beach,” insists reader Jo Dunwoody. She’s right – you
should, but not before taking the advice of reader Daffyd Ifans. “Head south
out of Pen-Y-Graig towards Carreg,” he says, “and look for the signpost to
Ty Mawr farm. Keep left at the dung heap and go through the gate to the
clifftop, where you will discover Porth Iago beach.”
Following his instructions, we find the kind of cove that a Cornishman would
sell his daughters for. Even better, though, is Porth Oer (see Beach of the
Week, overleaf) – thanks to Val Bryce, Richard Evans, Alison Greenstead and
30 or so fellow readers who sang the praises of the Whistling Sands.
Later I entice my daughter, Annabella, to join me on a magical hike down a
fern-choked valley to Porth Ysgo, where a silver stream tumbles in gentle
cascades down to a beach so beautiful, it can’t be photographed. Really – my
camera batteries mysteriously die while I’m on the sands, only to be
resurrected as we leave.
“It’s the fairies, Daddy,” Annabella sighs.
No fairies at Porth Neigwl – aka Hell’s Mouth – a vast beach that’s too big
for my liking. “You’re either the cove type or the swathe type,” Mrs Haslam
notes, in not her first piece of seaside social stereotyping. “You’re
definitely the cove type.”
We don’t stop in Abersoch, which reader Matthew Eckersley confides is known
locally as “Chester-on-Sea”: a bustling little town that’s popular with
dinghy sailors and offers fabulous views of the mountains across Cardigan
Bay. There’s a soupçon of southern Brittany about the place, but it’s
getting dark and we need to bed down.
I’m thinking of a lay-by on the A499. Mrs Haslam is thinking of somewhere with
hot showers and a candlelit bistro selling exotic salad – but we haven’t got
a chance, because the back-seat mob have spotted a neon lure for the
all-you-can-eat, bop-till-you-drop Haven holiday park somewhere between
Pwllheli and Anadin, and are plotting an infiltration operation. When they
perform an extraordinary bastardisation of a Belinda Car-lisle song –“Ooooh,
Haven is a place on earth” – our resistance crumbles, creating a dangerous
precedent and proving that one should never give in to terrorists.
First stop next morning is Harlech, famous for the majestic castle and less
famous for its king-size three-mile strand – local tour guide David Brown
says his Hawaiian clients “reckoned it was better than the beaches back
home”.
Five miles south, past Llan-bedr, is Mochras, now known as Shell Island
(parking fee £5). More than 200 types of seashell are washed up here, and
dozens of beachcombers are shuffling through the shingle, heads down and
hands clasped behind their backs like distracted dons.
The Haslams join in, but we are mere amateurs compared with the likes of
mother-and-daughter team Christine Gilbert and Gillian Firth, who travel
here from Shropshire “whenever possible” to sift for tiny cowrie shells.
“I’ve collected more than 38,000,” Gillian says, “although I wouldn’t say I
was obsessed.”
In Barmouth, we find the perfect seaside resort, backed by jagged crags,
fronted by ash-blonde sands and bordered by the dramatic Mawddach estuary,
succinctly described by reader Clive Baldwin as “stunning”. At baby
Benedict’s strident request, we take the foot ferry (£2.50 return, £2 for
children) across the river to ride the marvellous miniature steam railway
down to Fairbourne (family return £18), where there’s absolutely nothing to
do but ride the train back again, catch the ferry back to Barmouth and grab
a raspberry ripple.
The Barmouth buzz doesn’t wear off until Aberystwyth, which is looking like a
widow three weeks after a cut-price face-lift. Reconstructive surgery is
clearly under way in the old place – home to the Library of Wales – but I’d
give it a couple of years before you bring grapes. It is here that Jake the
dog decides to do a runner, returning moments later, crestfallen, after
looking around and realising his mistake.
In Aberaeron, a seaside town for grown-ups, Mrs H finds not one but half a
dozen candlelit bistros selling exotic salads, and as many more specialising
in “Welsh cuisine” (cheese on toast, surely?) but it’s neither child- nor
campervan-friendly, so we head south, parking under a waning moon in a field
above Newport’s splendid Parrog beach.
Next morning, we’re startled to spot men with BlackBerries, wives in wellies
and 14-year-olds in £100 aviator shades. “We must be in Pembrokeshire,”
notes Mrs H, now studying for a Masters in seaside social stereotypes.
I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you about Pembrokeshire. So many of you
wrote in, praising virtually every blessed grain of sand on this gorgeous
coast, that I would only be preaching to the converted. You all know that
when the sun shines there is no coast, anywhere, more beautiful than this,
but what I can’t understand is that nobody but me seems to have noticed that
the ancient chapel of St Elvis is in the same county as thePreseli hills.
Coincidence? That’s what they want you to think.
I thought I knew this county – I’ve spent years chasing waves here – but
thanks to reader Ron Naylor for recommending the insanely beautiful Porth
Clais, where a two-minute look-see turns into a three-hour picnic, and to
Sally Crompton for sharing her recent discovery of the lovely cove at Traeth
Llyfn, round the corner from Porth Clais.
At Whitesands Bay, they’re playing cricket on the beach, and in the blazing
sun at New-gale, tribal gatherings of trainee surfers sit in circles, like
neo-prene fairy rings. At Broad Haven, we search for pirate treasure in the
caves – Annabella finds a golden doubloon that might be the pound coin I
dropped a few moments earlier.
By the time we reach lovelyLittle Haven, next door, the kids have persuaded
themselves that there might be another Haven-sent holiday park of the same
name in the vicinity.
Next morning, I find gorgeous blonde triple-Welsh surf champ Jo Dennison
teaching lucky learners how to handle the benign beach break at wild
Freshwater West. If the swell had been bigger, I’d have shown her a couple
of new tricks – my ill-conceived takeoff with half-baked bottom turn and
lost board shorts is always a crowd-pleaser – but the high pressure has
squashed the ocean flat, so we head to Stackpole Quay.
This is the car park for Barafundle Bay, considered “by far the best beach
I’ve ever visited in the UK” by reader Bobby Bellew – just one of hundreds
praising its charms. Reached after a gentle walk over the cliff, it can
claim sugar-soft sand, an enchanted wood and sheltering dunes.
Near the beach, I catch rambler Gerry Cleave wiping the tears from his eyes as
he takes in the view. He had talked for years of hiking the staggeringly
beautiful Pembrokeshire Coastal Path (see page 16) with his wife, Rosemary,
but her death in March has left him to walk it alone. “Never put things
off,” he advises, before striding sadly into the salt haze.
Manorbieris a Haslam family favourite, so we stop at the rocky cove,
overlooked by the ruined castle of Giraldus Cam-brensis. It’s hard to leave,
with the sun sparkling on a mill-pond sea, but our quest is yet unfinished.
Tenbyis usually gorgeous, but this year its beauty is besmirched by an acute
litter crisis. We move on, leaving lovely Pembrokeshire and looping onto the
Gower Peninsula – equally charming, with outstanding surf at Llan-gennith,
spectacular walks at Rhossili and a contender for Britain’s favourite view
at the Wagnerian Three Cliffs Bay.
We end our Welsh wanderings in Forte’s ice-cream parlour, onMumbles’s jumbled
seafront, staring across the sea to the Somerset coast. “That’s where we’re
going next,” I tell the kids. They stare back with strawberry smiles: “Cool.
Is there a Haven there?”
Chris Haslam is travelling in a Volkswagen California campervan (www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/
california). For more information on the Welsh coast, go to www.visitwales.com/seaside
THE BEST ICE CREAM IN WALES
1 Domenico Parisella arrived in Llandudno in 1943, and his family have
been making artisan gelatiin North Wales ever since, using a
traditional Italian recipe and local produce. £1.55 from the cafe in
Happy Valley, Llandudno
2 Gianni di Lorenzo makes his sublime, gooey chocolate ice cream from
the Holstein herd on Wyn Evans’s Caerfai farm, just up the road. £1.70
from Sands Café, Newgale
3 Forte’s Chocolate Button Surprise (left) was not much of a surprise,
as it happened: the buttons were just hidden in a stack of dairy ice cream. £2.25
from Forte’s ice-cream parlour, Mumbles Road, Swansea
