Walk 43: New Quay to Llanrhystud

We walked our third section of the Ceredigion Coast Path – and the third walk of our February 2024 trip to Wales – the ‘wrong way around’. As we were staying in New Quay, we took an early bus to Llanrhystud, and walked back to our accommodation.

There are some upsides to winter walking – you get to enjoy the path at its quietest, avoid the dreaded cows, and, on a sunny winter’s day, conditions can be ideal. One of the downsides, however, is that it’s not so easy to avoid walking on miserable days, and on this occasion, although the weather was forecast to be grey, drizzly and windy all day, we had no choice but to tie up our boots and crack on.

The first section didn’t bode incredibly well for the day ahead – the farm track to the coast from Llanrhystud did allow us to get a decent chunk of distance completed with ease, but the rain meant there was no way of avoiding getting and staying soggy for the duration of the walk.

Once we reached the beach, it looked like we needed to go through a waterlogged field. We gave it a go, but eventually reached a stream we couldn’t pass, so we had to retrace our steps to get us onto the beach on the other side of the fence, blocked from seeing the sea by a shingle bank. Once we’d trudged to the end of the beach, we reached a path that was pretty typical of many of the paths on this section of the coast – slightly waterlogged but very flat, a few metres from a relatively low cliff (although still not one you’d want to slip off!).

We navigated the path relatively easily to the first village of the route, Llan-non. We found a sweet little community area with a shed that was perfect to sit in for a spot of breakfast – leftover pancakes from Shrove Tuesday dipped in maple syrup.

When I was researching ahead of this walk, I’d noticed that on the official Wales Coast Path map there were two different route options in Llan-non, including a longer route around the village, but I couldn’t find any information about why this was. We soon found out the answer!

After walking through a couple more fields, the path took us down some steep, steel steps and onto the beach. The tide was pretty high at this point, but I knew that we were about an hour away from high tide and we thought we could see where we would be leaving the beach – a similar set of steps a bit further along. We knew we could easily get there in time, so decided to continue on.

After a speedy walk along the beach, we jumped onto the steps (avoiding the waves), pleased to have made it – not noticing the lack of a Wales Coast Path sign. At the top of the steps, I realised our mistake, so we headed back down the steps and continued along the beach. Now, we actually could clearly see where we would leave the beach, and there was still a decent strip of pebble to walk along (the tide was at its highest at the bottom of the steps we’d just gone up), so we continued along to our exit point, relieved to have reached the end!

The path continued across a few more fields, with some sections of erosion that were very close to the path – we were extra cautious as the path was pretty slippery underfoot. Eventually, we headed up to a section of path that went through some moorland and took us a bit further up into the cliffs (although not too far up – the entirety of this section was relatively flat). This section was choc-a-bloc with our favourite animals – bunnies – and we spotted quite a few hopping around.

After passing a couple more fields, a muddy descent took us down into Aberarth. From there, the path goes through more fields, however, I was aware that there was a diversion along this section, due to erosion, so instead of continuing on, we walked up to the A487 which took us to Aberaeron.

Aberaeron is a pretty harbour town that I was excited to visit. Unfortunately for us (although fortunate for visitors during the rest of the year), it seemed to be having a big spruce up on the day of our visit, with lots of cranes and works going on around the town, slightly hindering the view! We were making good time, so we decided to have a proper stop off for lunch, and enjoyed spring rolls, chips, curry sauce and a good break – something we often don’t do, and which no doubt tires us out even more than necessary!

After our lunch, we diverted around the closed bridge and headed back onto the coast path. The final few miles towards New Quay had a few ups and downs – although nothing like the ones we’d experienced on our previous walk – and some lovely coastal views. It occurred to me throughout the day that this would be a fantastic stretch to walk during the warmer months.

The trickiest aspect to navigate along this section was the mud. At one point, we had to clamber down a pretty steep, slippery slope, over a little bridge, and straight back up again, which required quite a bit of sure-footedness. And the third-to-last mile of our walk in particular was a big trudge – we must have been moving at about half our usual speed.

After a final descent through the woods, we made it to the road and then down onto Cei Bach Beach for a final, flat walk along to our accommodation, with lovely views across the water of New Quay.

This was the first of Ceredigion Coast Path walks where we didn’t feel completely knackered at the end, and although it was a bit grey and drizzly, and very muddy in places, we were pleased to have another 13 miles of the Wales Coast Path under our belts!

🥾 Distance: 13 miles.

⭐ Highlight: This was a really pleasant route – pretty flat with some lovely views throughout.

👎 Less Good: The mud!

🚗 Transport: We got the bus to Llanrhystud and walked back to our accommodation in New Quay.

🛏️ Accommodation: We stayed in a pretty seafront apartment in New Quay.

🌱 Food: We grabbed some chips for lunch at the New Celtic in Aberaeron and had dinner at our accommodation.

🗺️ Map: This route is featured in the official Snowdonia and Ceredigion Coast guide.

Still not convinced? Read my ten reasons to walk the Wales Coast Path. If you’re ready to start planning your walk, you can find lots of resources to help you on your way here. Please note, I collect a share of the sales from the links on this page.