My experience exploring the Wales Coast Path as a wheelchair user
Exploring Wales Coast Path was top of my bucket list long before I became a wheelchair user.
I'd daydreamed about backpacking along its 870 miles of Welsh coastline, from the English border with the city of Chester to the north, to Chepstow in the south.
It's the first path in the world to follow the entire length of a country's coastline, stretching past awe-evoking golden beaches, and thriving wetlands pulsating with birdsong, historic towns, and cultural hotspots.
On a three-day adventure in north Wales, I wheel along some of the accessible sections of Wales Coast Path with my brother, moving as freely as the swallows circling above us.
Keep reading to find out about my experience exploring the accessible path.
Routes: Glan y Môr / Beach Road, Y Felinheli to Caernarfon
Parking and accessible toilet: Beach Rd, Y Felinheli LL56 4RQ
Boats slumber in the Menai Strait as we pull into a blue badge bay in Y Felinheli, Gwynedd. I attach my Batec (a powered handbike) to my wheelchair and speed off.
We follow a Wales Coast Path sign for Lôn Las Menai, part of the Welsh National Cycle Route, and Caernarfon, four miles away.
It's early September yet feels like the first day of autumn. Golden leaves lie on the tarmacked path like flakes of rust. Once out of Y Felinheli, the path is flat and wide enough for any mobility scooter.
I regret bringing my handbike; it’s rare I have access to such a smoothly surfaced path to self-propel down, welcoming wheelchair users, cyclists, runners or parents with pushchairs alike.
After becoming a wheelchair user, I thought coastline trails were inaccessible to me, picturing rugged cliff-top paths that rise and fall like waves. I imagined Wales Coast Path to be a narrow path carved over cliff tops by thousands of hiking boot clad feet. Wales Coast Path, however, has sections that are beautifully inclusive for all, including those with energy limiting conditions, limited time to explore and/or impaired mobility.
As we arrive in the medieval town of Caernarfon, the breeze picks up, snatching at my hair. We wheel onto the pier and watch seagulls suspended above the water as they ride the wind. We head for a hot chocolate before heading back to Y Felinheli. I turn up the speed, whizzing back down the 4-mile path as my brother Leon jogs beside me.
Route: Along the Cob, Malltraeth, western Anglesey
Parking: Malltraeth, Bodorgan, Anglesey LL62 5AS
Accessible toilet: Newborough Beach, LL61 6SG
Summer is back. In the 22°C sun, the Cefni Estuary shimmers metallically. From the car park in Malltraeth, we roll over the bridge over Afon Cefni and turned right onto the Anglesey Coastal Path.
We are greeted with a tarmacked path stretching towards a forest on the horizon, the slumped bodies of mountains just discernible as blue shadows on the horizon. To the left is Cob Pool, home to pintails, wigeons, teals, and lapwings in the autumn and winter as they arrive from the Arctic whilst skylarks soar above the reserve in the summer.
We watch white horses sending ripples across the pool as they drink, with the Cefni Estuary gleaming to the right. Benches along the Cob invite walkers to sit and birdwatch. Meadow pipits, redshanks and skylarks seek sanctuary on the marshes and open sand, whilst wigeons, shelducks and pintails feed here over winter.
An orchestra of crickets in rustling reeds serenade us as we wheel towards Newborough Forest. Swifts and swallows dart above us and we're joined on the path by dragonflies and damselflies.
We follow the Wales Coast Path signposts towards Llyn Parc Mawr. Each of the sections of the Coast Path I've explored have been similarly well signposted which, as a wheelchair user, is refreshing; we can't look at maps to discern accessible routes.
Wheeling through dense woods, dappled light dances on the path as my tread collects pine needles. A man dressed head to toe in camouflage carrying a colossal camera emerges from the woods and asks if we've seen any red squirrels. We haven't and, much to his disappointment, nor has he.
We doubt we have any chance with my neon green handbike and our incessant chattering if this quasi-professional hasn't. Following signs for the 300m Lake View Trail, we arrive at a bird hide overlooking a lake where you can spot coots, little grebes and grey herons.
Turning back, we retrace our steps roughly 1.5 miles through the forest and along the Cob.
Wales has more Blue Flag beaches per mile than anywhere else in the UK, with more than one hundred beaches dotted along the Wales Coast Path. Leon and I have surfed together since we were kids and we'd hoped to surf at Porth Trecastell in the afternoon, but the swell didn't align.
We head to Rhosneigr for lunch before being drawn to the beach. I balance on my back wheels, popping a wheelie, as I roll down the concrete ramp and onto the sand. The tide is out and the sand is unusually compact so I continue wheeling on my back wheels, leaving celebratory trenches stretching behind me as I head towards the water. Walkers may question what could have left these tracks, not knowing they're proud footprints.
Route: Llanfairfechan, Conwy, to Morfa Madryn Nature Reserve
Parking and accessible toilet: Llanfairfechan Promenade Car Park, LL33 0DA
Traeth Lafan stretches nearly six miles along the north Wales coast, from Llanfairfechan to Bangor, offering mudflats, sandbanks and shingle home to a diverse array of birds. The path follows the sea with views of Anglesey to the north and the mountains to the south. As we roll along the path, we watch a parcel of oyster catchers chattering on the sand.
The flat concrete of the promenade makes this route accessible to all whilst not compromising on the stunning views. We meet a tired Spaniel being pulled in a trailer dressed as VW campervan; this section of Wales Coast Path is inclusive of all.
After half a mile following the wide, beautifully surfaced path beside the sea, the terrain turns to compacted rock and grass at Glan y Mor Elias coastal marshland area.
With one arm in the air, I fly along the path, reeds dancing in front of the mountains to my left and the sea to my right, with the total liberation and unparalleled joy that comes with finding a path that is wheelchair accessible but feels just as adventurous, just as breathtaking, as the paths non-disabled walkers can explore. Leon and I grin, relishing the feeling of enjoying a walk that feeds our souls without compromise.
At Morfa Madryn Nature Reserve, the path narrows, remaining level and wide enough for most mobility aids with ramped access to bird hides. We stop to listen to the robins, goldfinches and chaffinches. We turn back following the sea back to Llanfairfechan, making it a 1.5 mile route.
As we drive back to our hotel near the medieval walled town of Conwy, the sky is stained red and the River Conwy is ablaze, framed by the 13th century castle's turrets. We stop to watch the sunset, considering how this trip has removed the limits we have placed on our adventures after I became a wheelchair user.
We had not dared to dream that sections of Wales Coast Path could be so accessible. As we pick the next section of Wales Coast Path to scout out, our appetite for exploring is reignited with the sunset.
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