Leaving our car parked alongside the harbour we walk down to the sea and along the promenade. There is a fierce wind coming off the sea so we decide not to walk along the beach. Before setting off we take a minute to read some of the small epitaphs written on pebbles which are firmly glued onto a circular stone wall with benches.

The path continues behind the dunes for about 2 miles – we meet a few dog walkers, heads bent against the wind. A few derelict houses line the path and I wonder why they haven’t been snapped up to rebuild as holiday homes but maybe this one would be too much of a project.

After a while the path climbs higher up on to the cliffs and we can see the spread of houses which make up Llanbedrog in the distance.

The path leads us down to the beach where we head for a pretty white washed building which looks like a chapel but on closer inspection turns out to be a house.

At the end of the beach are a set of rickety wooden steps that lead us up past a shuttered beach cafe and up into a very welcome patch of woodland which bears the brunt of most of the wind.

Up past the church the road leads us into the grounds of a Victorian Gothic mansion, Plas Glyn Y Weddw, which now houses an art gallery, shop and cafe. Built in 1879 the house has been through two or three reincarnations but in 1979 the artist Gwyneth ap Tomos and her husband Dafydd bought it and through their hard work saved the house and grounds from becoming a ruin. On a large granite boulder in front of the house sits a beautiful bronze sculpture of a young girl. Like the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen she has apparently suffered at the hands of vandals when in 2003 she was sawn off the boulder and stolen. Fortunately she was found again and reinstated.

And beside the house is another vision of womanhood…………..

After a browse around the gallery we come out of the house and walk through the grounds, past the little open air theatre and up a flight of stone steps into woodland.

This is a lovely peaceful stretch, the woods full of birdsong. At one point we have to make a decision on direction as the signposts had fallen over, but after a quick consultation of the map we plumb for the very steep crumbling set of steps up to the right.

Soon we are out of the woods (so to speak) and up on to a headland looking back at Llanbedrog. A strange metal statue/sculpture marks the spot – I really can’t work out what it is – maybe a woman holding a baby?

After a couple of miles we are looking down on a long row of what look like holiday homes. This is the Warren, a holiday park just outside Abersoch with owner occupied lodges costing upwards of 800 thousand pounds. The houses themselves are not particularly interesting but what a location!

Anyway, we are now very tired having not stopped for lunch and the soft sand is difficult to walk on. Up ahead is Abersoch but as we trudge wearily along it never seems to get any closer. Eventually we see a track through the dunes, up past the lifeboat station and into the village.

Diving into the post office for some sandwiches we discover that the bus back to Pwllheli is due any minute – and here it comes only 2 minutes late. We are soon reunited with our car to drive back to LLanbedrog where we are staying the night.

Distance: 10 miles