Walk 9: Ogmore-by-Sea to Porthcawl

In April 2022, after a break of over a year-and-a-half, we donned our walking boots and took to the Wales Coast Path once again. Thanks to several lockdowns and other COVID guidelines making it more difficult to travel, we stayed closer to home for the majority of 2020 and 2021, however, with calculations based on the distance we had hiked thus far suggesting it would take us 14 years to complete our adventure, it was time to start making up for lost time!

Having learned lots of lessons from our previous walks, particularly during our over-ambitious February 2020 trip, we booked a stay over the Easter holidays with a more realistic goal – to finally reach Swansea.

We had booked a few nights at a lovely AirBnB in Porthcawl, so, having stayed there the night before our walk, we began the day by taking a taxi to the end point of our last walk, Ogmore-by-Sea Beach. As we had already discovered, the sea at Ogmore Beach is home to the mouth of a river, so the first thing we needed to do was get around it.

We left the car park and walked inland along a riverside path, and then onto a road, passing the ruins of Ogmore Castle. There are some steppingstones over the river at Ogmore Castle which are accessible at low tide, but they weren’t visible when we walked past. Instead, we continued down the road a little further, before turning left down a path which took us to two bridges where we were able to cross the recently separated Ewenny River, and River Ogmore.

Our walk then took us through the pretty village of Merthyr Mawr, where we passed pretty thatched cottages and the beautiful St Teilo Church, making quite a change to our usual coastal scenes.

We headed onwards to Merthyr Mawr Warren National Nature Reserve, walking through sand dunes back towards the mouth of the river. Merthyr Mawr is home to the largest sand dune in Wales – the second largest in Europe – the Big Dipper, which is around 61 metres high. As was to be expected, the sand made walking a bit trickier here, but we soon found our way back to the beach we had come from – with five miles walked, we were finally on the other side of the river!

We walked along the beach for a little while, towards the outskirts of Porthcawl. We passed Trecco Bay, home to the UK’s largest holiday park and no doubt a very popular spot in the summer months, although still quite quiet on our Easter walk.

As we headed into Porthcawl we passed Sandy Bay Beach, also known as Coney Beach – another popular destination for holidaymakers – and along the Esplanade and to our accommodation, finishing an enjoyable and varied day of walking.

🥾 Distance: Eight-and-a-half miles.

⭐ Highlight: The village of Merthyr Mawr was very pretty, and the sand dunes were an interesting addition.

👎 Less Good: The majority of our walk was spent crossing a river, so we didn’t make much headway – but, of course, it’s about the journey, not the destination!

🚗 Transport: We took a taxi from our accommodation to the starting point of our walk, finishing our walk at our AirBnB.

🛏️ Accommodation: We stayed at 19 Mary Street, which was a lovely base for a few days of walking.

🌱 Food: We had a delicious dinner of Banana Blossom Fish and Chips from the Saltwater Inn.

🗺️ Map: This route is featured in the official South Wales Coast guide.

Still not convinced? Read my ten reasons to walk the Wales Coast Path. If you’re ready to start planning your walk, you can find lots of resources to help you on your way here. Please note, I collect a share of the sales from the links on this page.