The Wales Coast Path - the first national coastal path
Plans for the Wales Coast Path were first announced in 2006 by the Welsh Government, who along with the various local authorities have provided £2 million funding a year for its creation. It has been developed by the Countryside Council for Wales and was officially opened on 5th May 2012, though at the time the route was far from finished. A year later, it is getting closer to its vision of a clear and consistently waymarked path around the whole coast of Wales. It is the first country in the world with a promoted route around its entire coastline, taking in two National Parks, three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, eleven National Nature Reserves and numerous other Sites of Specific Scientific Interest and Local Nature Reserves. In 2012, 2.89 million people were counted using the path, a number that will hopefully only grow.
Although there are places access has not yet successfully been negotiated along the true coastline and the route has been forced inland, this does provides a greater variety of walking along the whole route. Approximately 21% of the Wales Coast Path is along roads, below the average for long distance trails, and in these places access is already being negotiated along the edge of adjacent fields where possible. In future, it is envisioned that links will be created from towns and villages inland to open up more circular routes off the Coast Path and make it easier to find accommodation, parking and public transport from the route. It is also possible, if you have not had enough already, to use Offa’s Dyke Path to link the two ends of the Wales Coast Path and complete the circuit of Wales.
The route is undoubtedly a triumph, linking the already successful coastal paths of Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Anglesey with some of the lesser known parts of the Welsh coast. The route in Llŷn has been rethought and expanded across the rest of Gwynedd, one of the route’s biggest challenges, so that tourists may be drawn away from the obvious honeypots of Snowdonia. In North and South Wales, where towns and cities dominate large parts of the coast, the route has in the main avoided too much road tramping and found quiet corners of these otherwise busy parts of Wales. And, in the cliffs that make up a large proportion of the coastline between Great Orme’s Head and Barry Island, Wales has a natural resource that needs very little introduction.
The mountain building that formed the upland interior of Wales contorted its various layers of volcanic Precambrian rocks, Ordovician slate, and Silurian sandstone into crazy patterns that are exposed in the cliffs of West Wales and Anglesey. Carboniferous and Jurassic limestone rear up along the dramatic coasts of Pembrokeshire, Gower and Glamorgan. Only occasionally does industry intrude on this landscape, leaving the walker with seals, gulls and goats clinging to the edge of the land. Walking the Wales Coast Path is a unique experience and the perfect way to explore the landscape, history and wildlife of this small seaside nation.
Although there are places access has not yet successfully been negotiated along the true coastline and the route has been forced inland, this does provides a greater variety of walking along the whole route. Approximately 21% of the Wales Coast Path is along roads, below the average for long distance trails, and in these places access is already being negotiated along the edge of adjacent fields where possible. In future, it is envisioned that links will be created from towns and villages inland to open up more circular routes off the Coast Path and make it easier to find accommodation, parking and public transport from the route. It is also possible, if you have not had enough already, to use Offa’s Dyke Path to link the two ends of the Wales Coast Path and complete the circuit of Wales.
The route is undoubtedly a triumph, linking the already successful coastal paths of Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Anglesey with some of the lesser known parts of the Welsh coast. The route in Llŷn has been rethought and expanded across the rest of Gwynedd, one of the route’s biggest challenges, so that tourists may be drawn away from the obvious honeypots of Snowdonia. In North and South Wales, where towns and cities dominate large parts of the coast, the route has in the main avoided too much road tramping and found quiet corners of these otherwise busy parts of Wales. And, in the cliffs that make up a large proportion of the coastline between Great Orme’s Head and Barry Island, Wales has a natural resource that needs very little introduction.
The mountain building that formed the upland interior of Wales contorted its various layers of volcanic Precambrian rocks, Ordovician slate, and Silurian sandstone into crazy patterns that are exposed in the cliffs of West Wales and Anglesey. Carboniferous and Jurassic limestone rear up along the dramatic coasts of Pembrokeshire, Gower and Glamorgan. Only occasionally does industry intrude on this landscape, leaving the walker with seals, gulls and goats clinging to the edge of the land. Walking the Wales Coast Path is a unique experience and the perfect way to explore the landscape, history and wildlife of this small seaside nation.