The falling tide had left the wide expanse of sand dotted with the remains of long-dead jellyfish, their structure draining away as they sank into starkly patterned discs under the afternoon sun. Offshore, the last of the ebb tide battled with the waves setting in from the west, a broad line of noisily confused breaking water marking the sand bar at the mouth of the Afon Dyfi.
Further up the beach, where the surface had already dried, the strong breeze from the north lifted a serpentine mist of sand to ankle height – redistributing the light, fine particles between the darker ripple marks. A steep wide bank of dark grey pebbles, too unstable to allow for easy climbing, marked the back of the beach and the start of the dunes. Large pieces of debris, including many whole branches, lay partly embedded in these cobbles where high water and storms had left them.
The seaward face of the sand dunes, as mobile as the beach, had changed considerably since my last visit, but I managed to find the route between tall stands of marram grass to the boardwalk that heads inland. At the crest, this wooden structure has been repeatedly rebuilt, as windblown sand covers and recovers the trail, but the view of the Dyfi estuary remains panoramic and rewarding. Dropping down to the more sheltered eastern slopes, the vegetation cover becomes more complete, locking the sand in place and offering a more enduring habitat.
Half concealed by long grass, I found the first of the pyramidal orchids that I had come to see. The densely flowered head swung slowly in the breeze adding a bold jolt of colour to the bland stems around it. Rabbits burrowed into the steeper dune banks, their droppings studding the closely cropped sward nearby, while swaying stems of ragwort crowded the side of the path. One plant looked different, and on closer inspection was laden with the vividly yellow and black striped caterpillars of the cinnabar moth. These rapacious larvae, just as striking as the adult moth, were systematically stripping the plant to a bare stem with stoical efficiency – their colours a stern warning to potential predators of the bitter toxins they were accumulating from the ragwort.
