Walk 47: Tre’r-ddol to Machynlleth

I love walking the Wales Coast Path, and it, along with all the other lovely footpaths around the UK, is a valuable resource that we are lucky to have. I do, however, have one major issue with them: cows. I actually think cows are wonderful  – they are typically gentle and trusting creatures (and I have a great affection for all animals) – but, when living on a farm and faced with unexpected people, they sometimes get scared, and we have seen time and time again that this can be fatal.

We didn’t actually meet any cows on this walk. But for some reason, the night before, I experience a sudden influx of fear that we would – partly because I knew this walk deviated away from the coast and through quite a bit of farmland, and partly because I’d read and watched other people’s cow encounters along this stretch. I was so paralysed with fear that I didn’t sleep a wink.

By the time Liam woke up at about 6am, I had resigned myself to the fact I wouldn’t be getting any sleep. We discussed scrapping our plans to walk, but I decided the only way to get over the fear was to ‘JFDI’. So, we grabbed some tea and toast, and by 7am, we were in Tre’r-ddol and on our way.

This walk was stunning. It had snowed overnight, so we had views aplenty of snowy Eryri (Snowdonia) peaks. Thankfully, we didn’t get high enough into the hills to have to navigate more than just a very light sprinkling of snow, which the sun very quickly dealt with. It was a cold morning, but I warmed up quickly.

The path immediately took us up through the forest and onto the hills. Although my main focus over the past few years has been coastal walking, I also really love getting out into the hills, and we were treated to some lovely views on this walk. There were some ups and downs, but, thanks to my earlier meltdown, every time we went down towards a road, it felt like a checkpoint (‘another section with no cows; we can return here if we need to detour’).

As we got towards Furnace, the path took us over a pretty bridge crossing Afon Einion – although we hadn’t actually reached Eryri yet, the scenery was reminiscent of Snowdonia walks.

We headed back up into the hills and enjoyed a lovely wander along the shoulder of Foel Fawr. After continuing along this section for around an hour, we had a careful descent (while the path wasn’t really muddy, we did have to contend with a bit of steep and slippery at times!), before arriving at Melindwr, where we crossed the river and continued up a road, enjoying pretty river views.

Back up onto the hills we went, with more stunning mountain views, before we once again descended, passing a farmhouse which I recognised as somewhere that sometimes has cows. Thankfully, on this day, we just passed a few sheep, and I was now confident that the threat of cows was over for the day!

We enjoyed a lovely section of path through the Llyfanant Valley, with forest and river views to entertain us. The Llyfanant Valley marks the beginning of the Powys section of the Wales Coast Path – the shortest, at just under six kilometres!

We continued along a forestry track before taking our final ascent through a field and along a path, where we caught our first glimpse of our finish point – Machynlleth. By this point, the weather had changed and it had started to rain – thank goodness we left so early, as we were able to enjoy beautiful weather for most of our walk!

We headed into Machynlleth via some pretty Roman steps, arriving at our end point at around 12:20pm – just in time for us to grab a coffee before our bus to Tre’r-ddol arrived.

So, what did I learn? As somebody who’s suffered from anxiety in the past, I already knew that I had to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ (I’m not by any means suggesting that anxiety is as simple as that, but it is a coping mechanism that I’ve learned works for me, when I can muster up the courage!). This was also a fantastic example of the premise that ‘it’s never as bad as it seems’.

It was sort of gratifying to learn that I’m still able to pull an all-nighter and function pretty well – although I’m not about to get into the habit of it! And I loved walking so early in the morning – although, unfortunately, my body clock doesn’t agree with me, so again, I don’t think this will become a trend. Nevertheless, I was pleased to get another ten-and-a-half miles ticked off on what ended up being a rather lovely walk. Next stop, Eryri!

🥾 Distance: 10½ miles.

⭐ Highlight: The beautiful views of Eryri's snow-topped mountains throughout (and also, that there were no cows).

👎 Less Good: My little pre-walk panic.

🚗 Transport: We parked in Tre'r-ddol, walked to Machynlleth, and got a bus from Machynlleth to Tre'r ddol.

🛏️ Accommodation: We stayed in a gorgeous apartment in Borth, which had the most stunning sea views.

🌱 Food: We had lunch back at our apartment, but we did have lunch at Tŷ Medi in Machynlleth on another day, and would recommend.

🗺️ 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.