From the dubious shelter of the dunes, I watched the strong north-easterly wind carve fresh hollows into the dry contours of the beach, caking sand around tight clumps of seaweed abandoned by the tide. The hiss of the grains, a frantic mist rising to knee height, mixed with the more distant roar of the receding surf, the sounds rising and falling as the wind shifted flukily around me.
Below the trestles of the railway bridge oystercatchers, with their black and white plumage and startling orange bills bright against the water, hunted and called along the shoreline. The falling tide churned up foam around the heavy wooden piers as it swirled westward, revealing strongly defined channels between the deeply rippled emerging sandbanks.
As the view eastward along the estuary of the Mawddach opened up, and the shelter of the hills faded, the wind became intense and starkly cold. Far inland, patches of snow clung to the hilltops, reinforcing the impression of a Nordic fjord landscape. Squall patterns chased across the surface of the water, while occasional breaks in the cloud illuminated the tops of the ridges around me and their saturated autumn colours.
In the patches of sunlight, lines of pale dry stone walling were picked out among the deep rust of the senescing bracken fronds. Trailing across even the steepest terrain, these monuments to human labour symbolise farming in this unforgiving landscape. Even the flatter coastal pastures to the south, currently providing valuable autumn grazing, are defined by high stone boundaries whose materials were often painstakingly removed from the field as it was cleared.
Throughout the afternoon, the top of the ridge leading east to Cadair Idris remained stubbornly helmed by cloud, supporting my earlier decision that the day was not one for the high tops. Even at sea level I could feel the chill seeping in more deeply every time I paused to look around. Once the direct sun faded – far earlier than seemed reasonable – I concluded that only one remedy was likely to restore full function to my limbs. Recrossing the Mawddach bridge into the winter-shuttered resort of Abermaw/Barmouth I went in search of chips – steaming hot, with lots of vinegar.
