Ynyslas sand dunes form part of the Dyfi National Nature Reserve which is one of only 234 national nature reserves in Great Britain. The Dyfi estuary has also been selected by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve.

The visitor centre is the best place to start this walk. There's usually a warden on hand to answer any questions you may have and there are plenty of leaflets telling you about the dunes.

Display boards on the walls of the centre highlight the main plants and animals to look out for as you walk through the dunes. There are also activity sheets for children to fill in along the way.

Outside the centre you'll see an oak sculpture in the form of a banded snail, one of the creatures which lives in the dunes. This particular snail needs crushed shells to make its own shells. The banded snail in turn is needed by birds for their food. It's worth climbing the wooden snail to look out across the estuary and the dunes.

Don't forget to look upwards too. There's an RSPB reserve just four miles up the estuary at Ynys-hir, a popular stopping-off place for many migrant birds.

Red Kites are now often seen in this sky. Only a few years ago, these birds faced extinction in Great Britain.

Skylarks are also more common here than in other areas where agriculture has disrupted their natural habitat and their song is often heard as they hover above the dunes.

Leaving the visitor centre, bear left onto the boardwalk leading to the shell path. Crushed shells make this path firm as you head south through what are known as the grey dunes, after the colour of the lichen colonising the bare sand which is more stable here. Look out for butterflies such as the common blue.

The dune slack at the end of the shell path is one of several to be found across Ynyslas. These moist flat hollows are a great breeding ground for orchids, helleborines and other plants.

A major attraction is the purple marsh orchid which flowers during June and July. These have been abundant in Ynyslas since the 1960s.

Look out too for the special Welsh subspecies of the western marsh orchid which has leaves with heavy, dark brown blotches.

The northern marsh orchid has been here since 1918. Ynyslas is one of the few places where it grows beside the southern marsh orchid. The nearby dune slopes are favoured by the bee orchid and the pyramidal orchid.

The marsh helliborine - a plant which was unknown until 1965 - also flowers here in July. Around the end of August, look out for the small flowering spikes of autumn lady's-tresses - especially in the zone where dune slope and slack meet.

The water-table is never far from the surface and dune slacks can be flooded to a depth of up to a metre from October through to May. Mosses and thalloid liverworts are well adapted to this as are rushes, sedges and primitive horsetails.

Ynyslas is home to hundreds of rabbits. They keep the grass short and they're also responsible for creating the little raised mounds of earth which are dotted around the dunes. Rather than soil their burrows, rabbits designate nearby areas as latrines.

When the rabbits have moved on, these mounds of old dung are a particularly fertile growing ground for plantlife. Up to 40 different species can flower in just one square metre.

Go ahead along the boardwalk noticing how restharrow, whose pink flowers can be seen from June to September, binds the sand together to carpet the dunes. Fixing nitrogen like clover, it blends in with the aromatic wild thyme.

Birds living in the dunes include linnet, stonechat, skylarks and meadow pipit. Elder thickets, bramble bushes and large marram grass tussocks provide cover for linnets to nest in. Grasses are preferred as cover by stonechat, meadow pipit and skylark. Abandoned rabbit burrows may be exploited as nesting sites by Wheatear and Shelduck. It is the rabbits which also attract the Red Kites, especially in winter.

Most distinguishable are the resorts of Aberdyfi, across the river on its Gwynedd shore, and Borth overlooked by cliffs to the south. Inland of Borth is Cors Fochno, which is regarded as one of the most impressive lowland raised bogs in the UK.

More immediate, to the north, are the dunes of Ynyslas itself. Notice 'blow outs' where erosion has been caused by the wind scouring the sand or the over-trampling of the protective marram grass.

Descend the steps towards the sea to come to the end of this boardwalk. At the foot of the boardwalk, look out for bee orchids which flower here during June and July. You may recognise sea spurge, a perennial capable of growing up through sand when covered in the more unstable dunes near the sea.

The boardwalk ends where the beach begins. A red flag warns you not to bathe from the beach because of the strong currents here.

You can choose to walk either on the shingle ridge or on the beach. Attractive pebbles are a feature of the shingle ridge. Many have been brought by the north-flowing current from the base of the cliffs at Borth. These grits and mudstones often contain veins of quartz (white crystalline rock) and waves grind and smooth these sedimentary rocks into rounded pebbles.

Some pebbles originate in the River Dyfi, where ballast dumped by ships could even account for exotic intruders. Others are the residue of the last Ice Age when glaciers pushed material here from as far away as Northern Ireland. If you find a flint-stone, it has come from County Antrim.

Stepping on the sand look down for jellyfish. Small ones, which soon disappear on a hot day as the 95% water content of their bodies evaporates, are Aurelia aurita. More excitingly, the Rhizostoma octopus is the largest British jellyfish and often grows to half a metre in diameter. It is harmless to humans.

If very lucky, you may spot a seal or a dolphin in the sea. Less welcome are the greater and lesser weaver fish. If found on the beach, beware of their poisonous spines.

Razor shells live in this sand. Their long shells look like a cut-throat razor. Burrowing into the sand gives them protection from birds.

Listen for the 'kee-wi' call of the oystercatcher. Its red bill makes it conspicuous. Dunlin, characterized by their black belly in the summer, also predominate. Golden plover may be seen in the Autumn.

Herring and black-headed gulls are attracted by remains from visitors' picnics in the summer. Migrants turn up regularly each spring and autumn on their familiar routes. Sometimes huge numbers of swallows, swifts and martins can be seen.

Beyond the Second World War Pill Box on your left, the end of the national nature reserve is heralded by the golf course car park. During the summer months, there is a portable toilet here for public use.

It's worth making the trip to Ynyslas at low tide in the hope of witnessing this amazing sight. Tree stumps of oak, pine, birch, willow and hazel can be found embedded in peat at one metre below the normal surface between high and low water marks. Even twigs and branches are uncovered.

This submerged forest proves that the coastline used to be further west and that the sea level has risen. Radio carbon dating suggests that these trees died around 3500 BC (but others to the south, near Borth, date from 1500BC). The tree stumps were preserved by the acid anaerobic conditions in the peat.

The forest remains also hark back to the legend of a lost land - the Lowland Hundred or Cantre'r Gwaelod as it's known in Welsh.

Ruled by Gwyddno Garanhir, the low-lying kingdom was protected from the sea by a series of dykes and sluice gates. One stormy night, the appointed watchman Seithennin - a heavy drinker - was at a party and left the water gates open. The land was flooded and disappeared under the waves. Perhaps there was an earthquake and a tidal wave or tsunami.

It is said that if you listen closely, you can hear the bells of the lost city ringing out from under the sea, especially on quiet Sunday mornings and particularly if you're in Ynyslas or Aberdyfi.

To continue with the walk, retrace your steps northwards along the beach, with the sea now on your left. Notice an emergency telephone (remember no bathing!) at the first flag pole on your right. Pass the second red flag, marking where your outward boardwalk met the beach.

Sea rocket grows along the strand-line and, from June through to September, the yellow-horned poppy flowers along the area where the shingle meets the dunes.

If you want a shorter walk, turn right where you see a third red flag and you can return to the Visitor Centre via another boardwalk. To complete the three-mile walk, continue on to the northern point of the headland.

The area around the headland is known as Twyni Bach ('small dunes') and this is new land. The 1902 map shows that the beach here is an extension of what was a small island. Today, this is where new or embryo dunes are formed.

Dunes start growing when dry sand is blown in by the wind and becomes trapped behind an object on the beach. This could be flotsam, pebbles or seawood. Ynyslas has pebbles brought north by longshore drift, forming a shingle ridge offering some shelter from the sea.

When the wind blows from the north west, sand from sand banks in the estuary is lifted and deposited in such traps. Stability is brought when some hardy plants begin to grow on the pile of sand and hold it in place. Thus we have embryo dunes.

Living plants grow sideways and upwards, binding the heap of sand and, each spring, they send out new shoots to collect more sand on top of the previous year's pile. The young dunes grow to meet each other and join up to form ridges at right angles to the direction of the prevailing wind.

Sea rocket and prickly saltwort have the thick fleshy leaves and tolerance of seawater for this initial phase. Then the old embryo dunes are colonised by the most important plant of the British dune sytems, marram grass.

Marram grass thrives on being buried now and again. When new sand blows over it, the plant simply grows upwards more quickly and branches out sideways for effective binding. Extremely deep roots are sent down. Can you imagine 12 metres? That's almost the height of three double deckers! This tall, spiky-leaved grass is one of nature's wonders.

The first dunes at Ynyslas are thought to date back to the fourteenth century. These older dunes can be seen behind the Visitor Centre.



As you round the headland, you'll see an old telegraph pole in the sand. This marks the spot where a ferry used to take passengers across the Dyfi estuary to Aberdyfi.


Across the estuary from Ynyslas is the pretty seaside town of Aberdyfi. It's less than a mile away as the crow flies but it's a journey of more than 20 miles by road or rail.

The two sides of the estuary used to be connected by a ferry which carried passengers and freight back and forth.

When the railway arrived in the first half of the 19th century, Victorian railway engineers had visions of a bridge spanning the Dyfi estuary. They even constructed a line alongside the Afon Leri at Ynyslas.

The bridge was never built but the Cambrian Coast railway did eventually link the two places by way of Dyfi Junction and the ferry service ended. However, the cost of a ticket from Borth to Aberdyfi (23 miles) was originally cheaper than a ticket from Borth to Machynlleth (12 miles) in order to reflect the distance by the ferry which the train replaced.

There have been unsuccesful attempts to revive the old ferry across the estuary in the 1980s and 1990s, including a hovercraft service.

Today, the estuary is popular with windsurfers and kitesurfers although bathing here is forbidden because of the strong currents. With its wide open and often windy spaces, Ynyslas is also a great place for kite-flying and the skies above are often dotted with colourful delta or diamond-shaped kites.

Here too, you'll also notice a roped-off zone here between March - August. This is one of the areas along the foreshore where the ringed plover - a small wader - breeds. Please keep away from these nesting spots.

Make your way back up along the beach towards the Visitor Centre. From here, you'll see at low-tide a vast expanse of sand on the southern shore of the Dyfi estuary known as Traeth Maelgwn - a tract of land steeped in legend.


The River Leri used to flow into Cardigan Bay at Aberlerry, just to the south of Ynyslas. Its route was diverted in 1824 to provide a sheltered harbour for the local shipbuilding industry. Traeth Maelgwn is now the other side of the river but its vast sands can be seen clearly from Ynyslas.

Historically, these vast sands were a popular meeting place for major assemblies. The area was strategically positioned where the three counties of Ceredigion, Powys and Gwynedd met. It was also easily accessible by sea and by the ancient road known as Sarn Helen which linked Carmarthen in the south with Caerhun near Conwy in the north.

From 517 to 547, Gwynedd was ruled by the mighty Maelgwn, a great-grandson of Cunedda. Legend has it that he called a gathering of princes on the sands along this part of the Dyfi Estuary in 537.

Each prince had to sit on a throne as the tide rolled in. Whoever remained seated longest would be declared the winner and the overall ruler of Gwynedd.

Maelgwn's throne had been made by Maeldaf Hen who coated it with waxed feathers so that it floated. Not surprisingly, Maelgwn won the contest and was recognised as the new pendragon. This story is 500 years older than that of King Canute.

The ritual of sitting in a chair against a rising tide is re-enacted every August as part of Borth's annual carnival.