During our sojourn into Pembrokeshire last year, we stopped off at a little shop in Cilgerran to pick up lunch. While I was waiting in the queue, I spotted a Pocket Mountains guide to Ceredigion – the county on Pembrokeshire’s northern border. I had a quick flick through while I was waiting and it was enough to convince me that I needed to add Ceredigion to our holiday plans for the next year. Fast forward twelve months and we were pulling up at our cottage in Llandysul ready for a week of Welsh adventures!
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate, I will earn a small commission from qualifying purchases, at no additional cost to you, which helps me offset the cost of running this blog. I only link to products I have purchased myself and which I genuinely recommend.
Devil’s Bridge
I always forget quite what a drive it is to get down to Wales. We try and break the drive up into shorter sections to make sure the dogs can stretch their legs and go to the loo. One of these stops is always a slightly longer walk so that we don’t all go stir crazy being stuck in the car for the whole day! This time we chose to do the short waterfall walk at Devil’s Bridge, which we were passing through on our way to Tesco at Aberystwyth.
Devil’s Bridge has two short, pay to enter walks. The first is a ten minute walk to see the Punchbowl and the three bridges, and the second is a slightly longer walk to see the waterfall and explore the gorge a bit more. We opted for the longer walk, which was £4.50 each, payable at a booth at the start of the walk (turnstile operated in winter). The walk is advertised as forty five minutes to an hour, but we marched around fairly quickly and we were done in about half an hour.
Despite the speed with which we completed the walk, we both really enjoyed it. The gorge has a very jungle like feel and was bursting with green, and the waterfall which comes in and out of sight throughout the walk only contributes to this feeling. The lady at the entry booth did warn us that there were a lot of steps, and she wasn’t wrong! We didn’t find it too bad (it was very steep in places but a much shorter climb than the fells of the Lake District) but there were a lot of people who we overtook on the uphill!
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. Dogs on leads are welcome on the walk, and the shady paths are ideal for warmer days (although it was very humid). When we finished the walk there were plenty of dogs sitting outside the Hafod hotel enjoying the sun with their owners! There are no stiles to clamber over, but the exit of the walk is through a turnstile – this is something to bear in mind if your dog might find this scary, or if you have a giant breed (Coal only just managed to squeeze into the gap).
Strata Florida
After a lovely relaxing evening, we woke up on our first morning to find one of the dogs had had an explosive case of diarrhoea on the (carpeted) stairs during the night. Therefore, plans for our first day were somewhat delayed as we spent a few hours dealing with the carnage (if anyone wants to book the beautiful cottage we stayed in, please be assured that we replaced the carpet and all traces have been removed!). Eventually we set off at lunch time to have a quick wander around the ruins of Strata Florida abbey.
The abbey sits on the banks of the river Teifi and it is free to enter and have a look around, although you can choose to make a donation. We had it pretty much to ourselves apart from one lone Frenchman having a look around at the same time as us. There are a number of interesting information boards scattered around the abbey to tell you about the history of the site, and if you want to extend your visit, you can walk along the banks of the river to the nearby settlement of Pontrhydfendigaid.
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. Dogs on leads are welcome at the site, and this is a great option for a dog friendly morning out if you’re not wanting to walk a long way. It was lovely and quiet, and open enough that you have plenty of space to move away from people if needed, so perfect if you’re the owner of a reactive dog like Coal.
Ty’n Y Bedw Wood
Once we’d had a mooch around Strata Florida, the forecast rain was still holding off, so we popped down the road for a quick walk at a nearby wood. Ty’n Y Bedw is a lovely, quiet little wood, and seemed like the kind of place mainly frequented by locals. There is a small free car park with room for five or six cars, and an information board with details of two way marked walks.
Neither of the walks were that long, but with rain threatening we opted for the shorter 1km trail (our main aim being to let the dogs burn off some steam after a long day in the car the day before). The information board said the 1km trail would take an hour, which we initially scoffed at and then regretted as we were climbing up the hill at the start! It didn’t take us an entire hour but it wasn’t too far off. Happily, all of the paths were clear and the way marking was easy to follow – making for an enjoyable and relaxing woodland stroll.
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. This is a cracking little wood and perfect for dog walks. We didn’t encounter any stiles on our walk, and we didn’t see another soul once we left the car park. Coal absolutely loved the opportunity for a good run and some zoomies. Merry stayed on his lead as he can’t be trusted not to disappear into the woods!
Aberporth to Tresaith
The part of Ceredigion that I was really keen to explore was the Ceredigion coast. While the sun made a tentative appearance, it was still a bit wild and blowy, so I picked out two short coastal walks in an effort to avoid being blown away. The first walk was a linear route from the charming seaside village of Aberporth to the next settlement along the coast, Tresaith. The route came from our Pocket Mountains guide and follows the Ceredigion coast path all of the way. The first half of the route follows an accessible path, before becoming narrower and more along the lines of what I was expecting as you get closer to Tresaith.
This was a lovely easy walk with nice views along the coast, especially across the beach at Tresaith. We did see quite a few people, as both Aberporth and Tresaith are popular holiday spots, and the flat, level path means that the first half of this walk is accessible for all abilities. I have to say I was sorry we’d brought our own lunch as I was very tempted by the array of eateries on offer!
Dog friendly rating – 3.5/5. Both Aberporth and Tresaith have beaches which are dog friendly (with restrictions during the summer months), but we chose not to visit the beach on this occasion as they were quite small with a few people milling around – not ideal with a reactive dog. We kept ours on leads all the way around this walk due to steep edges, but on the plus side there were no stiles and all road walking sections had pavements.
Llangrannog & Cilborth Beach
Llangrannog is a pretty little village perched on the coast between Aberporth and New Quay. Driving to the village is slightly reminiscent of driving around Cornwall, all twisty lanes and hairpin bends. There’s much less traffic though! Unfortunately we did get stuck behind a coach which had ignored several ‘unsuitable for buses, follow caravan route’ signs and which got stuck on a hairpin bend. The local man behind us said this happens at least once a month and that the coach wouldn’t be getting out without a tractor, so we reversed all the way back up the hill to follow the less windy (but still very narrow) road into the village.
We parked in the large free car park on the outskirts of the village, but if you don’t want to walk down the road you can pay to park by the beach in Llangrannog. The route we followed was another short out and back from the Pocket Mountains guide, starting in the village and using the Ceredigion coast path to make our way to Cilborth Beach.
After a short climb up from the village to the coast path, the route is generally pretty level. There is a lovely view back over Llangrannog once you’ve gained a bit of height, and I was glad we’d picked a mildly sunny day so that we could see the view without it being obscured by rain! From here it’s a very short walk before you get to Cilborth Beach, which was totally deserted apart from one other couple. Local legend says that Cilborth and Llangrannog beaches were created by a giant walking over to the coast to cure a toothache, with the two beaches being his footprints, and the rock Carreg Bica which separates the two being the giant’s tooth, which fell out when he reached the coast. Either way, the beaches are both very pretty and Carreg Bica is a great photo opportunity!
You can walk down to the beach at Cilborth via a rather steep flight of steps – which felt a lot steeper climbing back up than they did going down! We popped down to the beach to give the dogs the opportunity to have a run around and they loved it. After 15 minutes or so wandering up and down, we climbed back up the (many) stairs and retraced our steps back to the start. Given how pretty the coast is here, I was expecting to see more people, but once we were out of the centre of Llangrannog it was really quiet.
A plus side of parking outside the village was that we walked past the small memorial garden celebrating a local villager, Sarah Jane Rees (or Cranogwen). This garden is absolutely beautiful, the perfect place to stop for a minute, and we’d never have known it was there.
Dog friendly rating – 4/5. While there is a restriction on where dogs are allowed on the beach at Llangrannog, the beach at Cilborth is dog friendly all year round without any restrictions. There are no stiles on this walk, and I’ve just knocked a point off as there is a section of road walking without any pavement if you decide to park in the car park on the edge of the village.
Coed Y Foel
The Tuesday of our trip dawned damp and drizzly. Our go to in weather like this is to head to the woods, in the hope that the trees will keep the worst of the drizzle at bay. The welcome pack in our cottage recommended a local wood named Coed Y Foel for a wander, so we jumped in the car at the driest part of the day and went for an investigation.
There is a small free parking area at the entrance to the wood, and we were thrilled to see that there was a short way marked walk we could follow. The walk takes you up the hill and back down through the woods, and is more open than we were expecting from a woodland walk. Generally it was a pretty nice walk, although at one point we were practically running up the hill to get away from the tunnel of midges we’d walked into.
Once we got to the top of the hill, the cover fell back and I imagine we’d have got a lovely view of the surrounding countryside if it wasn’t raining. As it was, there was a hint of rolling fields and woodland, masked by a veil of drizzle. Happily, the path which had until this point been grassy and wet, solidified into a surfaced track so at least our feet stayed dry.
The route was way marked well enough for us to get around relying solely on the way marker posts, however, there were a few places where the route was ambiguous, or where the way marker suggested you should go one way when actually, you should carry on. It therefore took a bit of careful checking to see if we could spot another way marker before committing to a direction on a few occasions! A good example of this is towards the end of the walk, where you cross a footbridge and then climb a short flight of steps (way marked) to come to a T junction – but no marker to say whether to turn left or right. We went left, which happily turned out to be the right choice. Phew!
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. This is a great choice for dog owners, with no stiles and no livestock, meaning you can let your dog off the lead without worrying. We didn’t see anyone while we were out in the woods but did bump into a local dog walker in the car park. There is a small stream which you cross at the end of the walk where dogs can have a quick paddle, but this wasn’t deep enough for them to have a swim.
I’ll leave it there for this week, but be sure to come back next week to find out what we got up to for the second half of our week in Ceredigion. You can subscribe below to make sure that you never miss a post:
