Harlech Beach / Traeth Harlech

Hello again people and pooches. Joe the Cocker here after a short break near Porthmadog in North Wales. Me and my human stayed in a cottage in Eryri (Snowdonia) for a few nights. On our first day, we made a short trip to Harlech. We have published a blog about the castle area recently, so this time, we chose to walk to the beach. The sun was shining but WOW, it was windy.

After a few minutes stop in a car park while my human photographed the castle, we drove to the beach car park. This was when the wind first hit us. When I say us, I actually mean the big feller. As he opened the car door, a gust of wind tried to rip it off the side of the car. My human used a tirade of industrial language that I will not repeat on this website. I sat in the car while he battled with his jacket as it turned inside out and blew over his face. He was twisting and turning as he zipped up his jacket as the zip split from the bottom. A few more choice words later, and he was sorted.

The next stage of his cabaret performance was based around attempting to pay the parking fee. He had left his coins in the cottage, so he tried to pay by debit card. The card reader wasn’t working. More cursing! He tried to pay online through the parking app. The app wasn’t recognising the location number. He was ‘losing his rag’ as another person offered to help. He explained the situation and said that we were going back to the cottage. The kind bystander offered to pay the £1.20 parking fee for him. It was probably because he was tired of waiting for my human to get his act together. Meanwhile, I was left sitting in the back of the car waiting patiently for the walk on the beach that I had been promised. Finally, he was ready to proceed with the planned walk. This human of mine needs to have a talk with himself!

No sooner had I jumped out of the shelter of the car that the wind hit me. According to the Met Office, the wind was gusting at 55 mph. As we walked along the short path, through the sand dunes toward the beach, the wind speed was probably higher than that. The air was loaded with sand, and we were blasted head-on. My human couldn’t see, so he used his glasses to protect his eyes, and he covered his head and most of his face, with his hoodie. I had to just grin and bear it. I had ‘quarter to three ears’ as they blew in the gale force wind.

To be quite honest, the wind didn’t bother me. I was at the beach. It’s my favourite place. Firstly, we had to battle our way over the dunes. It was zoomie time for me while the human half of the partnership whinged and complained about being sand blasted. At least he had clothes to protect him, well, except for his very pink tree-trunk legs as he was wearing shorts. All that I was wearing was a collar. Was I complaining? No, Sir! I was having a ball.

As we reached the end of the walk to the beach, the first thing to hit us was the wind as previously described. The second thing was the size of the beach. It stretches for four miles in a huge arc with flat fine sand. There is a small section in front of a caravan park that has restrictions for dogs during the summer months. Otherwise, it is free for the likes of me to run around. The third thing that surprised us was how empty the beach was. OK, the wind was wild, but it was sunny and dry.

The water tasted disgusting, so I didn’t slurp any up after my first attempt.

I was only allowed to go for a paddle in the shallow surf because the big feller reckoned that I would certainly drown in the big waves. I think that he underestimates my swimming capabilities, but I humoured him and stayed safe.

I found a stick that needed to be carried around and placed in another area of the beach. So, I checked everywhere, including in the surf, until I found a suitabe spot to relocate it.

My human said that he would like to explore the dunes on a better day. He said that it is an NNR and an SSSI, along with the castle being a WHS. I heven’t got a Scooby what he was jabbering on about, but I’m sure that you will (after you have Googled it!)

So, after one last look at the emptiness of the beach and one more episode of zoomies, we headed back to the car.

And, of course, one last photo of the sky and the surf.

The walk back to the car was a lot easier with the wind on our backs. Harlech Beach is definitely on our ‘return to’ list. Till next time!