In the footsteps of our Ancestors. Conwy to Llanfairfechan (the inland route)

Walk: Conwy to Llanfairfechan - The hilly inland route

Distance: 9.5 mls

Parking: Free car park on Station Road, Llanfairfechan

Bus: No 5 service Bangor to Llandudno. From Llanfairfechan to Conwy

I decided to do this walk from east to west (Conwy to Llanfairfechan). Access to Llanfairfechan is easy and parking is both free and plentiful. I also thought the views whilst walking west (of the high Carneddau) would be better than the views east. It turned out that I was actually wrong on that count, for all but the last mile or two the views east (over my shoulder) were stunners! I thought it would be a good idea to have Fish and Chips (Pysgod a Sglodion as the locals say) before coming home. There is a well rated Chippy in Llanfairfechan, and a promenade on which to eat them. The plan was laid.

The walk goes from Conwy, over Conwy Mountain to the Sychnant Pass and then up again heading due west following a hilly route that would have been known to the locals 4000 years ago who, perhaps having become fed up with the aggressive seagulls in Conwy, also decided to try the Llanfairfechan chippy instead. There weren't any buses then.

There are plenty of free parking spaces in Llanfairfechan. I plumped for the carpark on Station Road. Easy to find and only 5 minutes (or less) off the fast A55 and 5 minutes from the bus stop. There are public toilets on the promenade car park (which, surface-wise, in May 2024, looked like it had recently been bombed). They are 50p (plus a couple of hundred quid car repairs to get to them). Or if you need them, you can use the less-obvious free public toilets opposite the old town hall just a few hundred meters up past the Co-Op on Village Road. They are nearer the bus stop anyway, which is just to the right (west) at the crossroads between Station and Village Road and the main road (Penmaenmawr Road). The number 5 service seems very frequent - seemed to be every 15 minutes or so. We were aiming for the 09:30 eastbound but ended up getting one at 9:15 that didn't seem to be on the timetable I had looked up. The bus was big and comfortable. It took 20 pleasant minutes to get to Conwy.

We got off on Castle Street and were greeted by the same iconic view of the Castle that many others will have enjoyed or endured over the 7 hundred years that it has guarded over this once-walled enclave.

The classic west bound North Wales Path route would take you down to the harbour and around the wooded promontory before eventually cutting back inland to cross the old coast road, heading for the obvious hill on Conwy's north west flank (Conwy Mountain). Rosie and I, however, just headed back on ourselves along Castle Street and turned left up the High Street, then right to find the gap through the old town walls (Upper Gate).

The old town gate is just wider than a bus and I idly wondered at how the medieval town wall planners would have known at how wide 21st century mass road transport was going to be. Digression alert: That reminded me of something I read some years ago that made me laugh out loud. Someone responding to an article about the damage being done to Stonehenge by the multitude of visitors commented 'If they were that worried about having so many visitors, why did they build it so close to the A303?'. Hilarious. Back to the walk...

Once outside the city walls, the route is picked up again by taking the second road on the left (not this one in the picture, the next one - called Cadnant Park). From here, after a few hundred meters, the road splits, take the left fork and look out for a small right turn (Mountain Road). If you look carefully it is signed 'North Wales Path' (a greenish sign with the outline of a mountain). The leg that goes up Conwy Mountain is met just as Mountain Road turns left at a right angles a little further on.

Go through the gate onto the footpath and keep heading uphill pausing when the time is right to look back to the walled town and castle and also, just over the other side of the ridge, to the Great Orme, Llandudno and Deganwy. It was 1st May (2024) when we did this walk, and that, it would appear, is 'Carneddau Pony Foaling Day'. The Carneddau Ponies freely wander this part of the world. They really are the most beautiful animals and didn't seem much perturbed by the presence of Rosie and I. Superbly photogenic. I found it hard to move on, so I didn't. I took loads of photographs.

The main path contours the mountain on the inland side but you can elect to take in the summit by turning right and following the ridge up at any number of points. At the top of Conwy mountain is an Iron Age Hillfort. It would have been impressive back in the day. I'm sure it's something the Roman soldiers would have remarked on while having a cappuccino and polishing their sandals at Canovium, their fort alongside the river Conwy just to the south. Apparently, the hill fort wasn't just for decoration either, as they found 400 sling shot rocks just inside one of the entrances (according to one of the information boards there). Occupied at a time when wars were still fought with sticks and stones. What 'progress' we've made. It's great to think that the inhabitants, those who fashioned those 400 stones maybe, probably also celebrated that a bank holiday weekend was due as they enjoyed the spectacle of Carneddau Pony foals still getting used to their long legs. They were around then too; the Carneddau Ponies I mean, not bank holiday weekends.

The next target is the junction of walking routes (new and old) at the bwlch (saddle) of the Sychnant Pass. Before you start dropping down to the pass, you get a great view of the terrain for the remainder of the walk ahead.

Still following the North Wales Path signs to navigate down off the mountain, you join a farm access track that quite dramatically ends up contouring the steep slope as it heads toward the Sychnant Pass road. I think if I was driving to and fro on this track I would be pretty obsessed with getting my brakes regularly tested. Not for the faint hearted driver.

Continue on the track to the high point of the Sychnant Pass road. Do not take the path that forks off right and drops down toward the coast; even though that is also, confusingly, signposted as the North Wales Path. Cross the road and head up the 30m or so to the rather grand looking gate just above and to the left of the white van that can be seen parked opposite the end of the track on this photo.

Having gone through the gate, several hundred meters later the path veers back on itself climbing uphill as it once again sets sail west, parallel to the coast (and is once again signposted as North Wales Path - the green sign on this photo). At this point, you have joined, or at least are near joining, the ancient route that heads east to west through a landscape dotted with neolithic monuments and is crisscrossed by other routes, from Ireland and elsewhere, over which you could lug your stone axes and other shopping without getting too lost.

This photo shows the terrain looking back toward the Sychnant Pass and Conwy Mountain. The low-slung ponies here looked very uncomfortable and, though I am no equine maternity professional, I reckon they would all be nursing foals by the following day.

Dotted not necessarily sporadically along the route are neolithic monuments. These were possibly used as the landmarks of the time, like we use pubs and/or churches now, in what is otherwise a pretty featureless terrain. They all (well many) have names. You might imagine a traveller enquiring the way to the stone circle now known as the Druid's Circle (with a proper name of Y Meine Hirion - Druids weren't actually invented back then).

"Well, you head west until you see the track that goes right, to the ford across the stream, up past the quartz split rock and turn left at track that goes to the Axe Factory at Graig Llwyd. You'll pass a fat standing stone on your left. Yeh, Maen Crwn, that's the one. Keep heading west on the track until you reach 5-stone Irish Stone Circle. You'll see Meini Hirion up to the left just a bit further on. You going for the sacrifice? Oh, the naked dancing? Good on ya! Yeh, happy solstice to you too". And that pretty much describes our route through this neolithic landscape too.

I hadn't really done much research regarding these monuments before doing this walk. Having been intrigued by them, I did read-up on them when I got back home. I found a 2006 article by Tim Prevett on the megalithic.co.uk website particularly good. It's linked here (Abandoned Landscapes). I learned that Lithic meant stone and I already knew Neo meant new. So Neolithic means 'of the new (as opposed to middle or old) stone age'. From about 6000 BCE to (in Britain anyway) about 1900 BCE.

You no longer have to ford the stream to access the other side of the valley as there is a bridge at that location now. The line of conifers that can be seen in the distance stand as another route guide (the standing stone of Maen Crwn is in the field just this side of them). At the end of the conifers the North Wales Path sign directs you up to the right to a gate giving access to the path that continues west on the other side of the wall. You will definitely notice an increase of stone structures from now on as you enter a corridor which was of obviously of some great significance to our neolithic ancestors.

The most prominent non-natural landmark in this section is the Druid's Circle. This can be seen up left (south) off the modern path in this area of the walk high above Penmaenmawr. Access from the modern path is up the small gully that sits at the circle's eastern border. As I crossed the stream halfway up this gully (just after I had taken this photo), I lost my left leg (up to the knee) in stinking mud. I may have said some rude words. I am a little worried, as I read later that you risk a curse by swearing in earshot of one of the bigger stones of the circle (the deity stone) but I think that only applies to oaths (i.e. blasphemies?) rather than the profanities that are my personal go-to expletives. I hope so.

Excavations found that there were the cremated remains of some pre-pubescent children in the middle of the Druid's Circle. Also, the investigations revealed that this circle and others were filled with bits of quartz. They must have looked quite spectacular - particularly from directly above. Perhaps that is where they were aimed; to catch the attention of those up there? The circles definitely create an atmosphere. I'll be back to explore more of them now I know a bit more about what I am looking at.

From near the Druid's Circle, there are some great views north, to the east coast of Anglesey (where I was with Rosie just a few weeks before), and east to the Great Orme with its copper mine that marked the beginning of the end for the age of stone. They eventually fall out of view as you descend on a reasonably wide grassy track ( an old coach road I think) into the more open marshy heathland between Llanfairfechan and the eastern hills of the Carneddau range.

A runner who stopped for a chat said this was a top spot for bird watching with Hen and Marsh Harriers patrolling the open ground and the elusive cuckoo nesting in the stand of trees to which you are heading. I can fully believe it. I heard the cuckoo but didn't see anything apart from Skylarks and Meadow Pipits.

Shortly after entering the stand of trees at the end of the track you meet modern civilisation once more. The track turns into tarmac and you eventually come to a Tee junction. The North Wales Path is sign posted left but we elected to go right, down the steep single track lane into the centre of Llanfairfechan finally arriving back at Station Road just as the Chip Shop opened. Bliss. I'll be back to this one, lots more to explore.