Distance: 20.4 kilometres / 12.6 miles

Difficulty: Challenging

This is a rugged and fascinating walk: the area is rich in wildlife, natural beauty and human history. It is a place of wild, heather-clad hill tops, towering sea cliffs, unspoilt green countryside, and ancient buildings. Steep, on-road in places, and potentially boggy. 

Directions

Country park to South Stack

Exit the car park along a path past the lake. Join a track and then go through a kissing-gate into a field heading for the mountain. Follow a stony path to North Stack.

Leaving North Stack follow the track up the hill and bear right at the telegraph pole, bear left up a particularly steep section and pass a number of walled enclosures.

You will then begin to descend, getting glimpses of South Stack as you go. Please note: there is a path off to the left to the summit of the mountain, but it’s steep, so take care if you choose to take it. The path levels out and is easy to follow down to the headland.

After reaching South Stack turn left down the road.

Short-cut option: return to Country Park. Very shortly turn left and follow another well-defined path parallel with the previous one. As you get closer to the mountain bear right, skirting around the base. Follow the walls and at the cross-roads in the paths, go straight across. You will reach a lane. Head left by some houses. At a T-junction turn left and follow the lane to the end. A path then bears left, then right, following a fence. Walk down a set of steps and you will be back at the start.

South Stack to Porth Dafarch

Turn right, off the main road down the steps to Ellin’s Tower. Then follow a path back up to the road.

Follow the road past the RSPB Visitor Centre and, shortly after, some prehistoric hut circles on your left down to the T-junction.

Go through the kissing-gate opposite, and follow a path parallel with the road.

At the end cross the lane and go through a kissing-gate to follow the Coastal Path onto an area of open heathland on the clifftop. Don’t forget to enjoy the views: far ahead of you are the mountains of Eryri and the Llyn Peninsula, and behind you Holyhead Mountain.

Follow the main track all around the coast watching out for ravines, and keep following the waymarkers to Porth Dafarch.

Porth Dafarch Beach to country park

Turn right along the road after the beach taking great care (no pavement).

Just before the golf course turn left up a drive Isallt Fawr. At the end, follow the waymarkers taking the grassy field-edge, and down a track to a lane.

Turn right onto the lane past a ruined cottage on your left. Turn left onto the road, then just around the bend turn right up the steps into another field.

Follow the path over the gorse-covered hill, down to the houses. Pass around the right-hand side of the houses through three gates to meet the quiet cul-de-sac road Cae Rhos. Turn left heading for the busier road.

When you meet it (opposite the farm track) turn left along the road. Then turn right over the ladder-stile onto a field-edge footpath up over farmland heading back towards Holyhead Mountain.

Follow the yellow markers through heathland and scrub. You will meet another road. Turn left past a large white house, then right onto a footpath, following the yellow markers in a large loop around the back of the house.

Cross more gorse-covered heathland, and when you reach a wall bear left. Follow the path downhill, and then up again past a farm Cae Alltwen on your right.

Bear left keeping a rocky outcrop on your left, and follow the footpath around another farm Tre Wilmot.

Follow the yellow waymarkers up to another path through a farmyard and out onto the road.

Turn right, taking great care along the road (no pavement), past a dome-capped Well, then left up a track.

Just after the hairpin, turn left onto a narrow, very steep track up the slope to join the path skirting the mountain. 

Follow the walls and at the cross-roads in the paths, go straight across. You will reach a lane. Head left by some houses. At a T-junction turn left and follow the lane to the end. A path then bears left, then right, following a fence. Walk down a set of steps and you will be back at the start.

Further information on this walk

History and interest

• Technically not a mountain at only 220m, Holyhead Mountain is Anglesey’s highest point. Along with a Trig Point, there are the ruins of an Iron Age Hillfort at its summit and a Roman Watchtower.
• Breakwater Country Park is a former quarry but now a wildlife haven. It’s a great place to begin exploring the mountain and rocky coast. There is a small information centre and shop too.
• Ty Mawr Hut Circles are the remains of a settlement dating back to the Neolithic (late Stone Age). People lived here between 2500BCE and 500AD.
• Witch’s Well is an unusual octagonal brick tower with a domed roof. The present structure dates from the 1860s.
• South Stack is home to the 19th century lighthouse and suspension bridge. The 60m cliffs and stacks offer some world-class rock climbing opportunities.

Wildlife

The areas of heather, bramble-scrub and gorse attract stonechat, wheatear, willow warbler and linnet. Other notable birdlife includes chough, peregrine falcon, and little owl. Many species of passerine mi­grants are spotted in spring and autumn. Off the cliffs can be seen puffin, fulmar, guillemot, razorbill and gannet. Grey seals, porpoises and Risso’s and com­mon dolphins may be seen off the coast. The rare plant spathulate fleawort grows nowhere else in the world except for this stretch of heathland on Holy Island.

Public Transport

Holyhead is served by railway, but the walk starts a short distance out of town. The nearest bus stop is at Maes y Myndd, Llaingoch. Bus No. 22 stops there but it’s still a short walk to the Country Park.

Refreshments

Plenty of options in Holyhead. The RSPB Visitor Centre has a café, as does the Breakwater Country Park.