Wales Coast Path Made Me Feel I Belonged Again

Award-winning writer, poet, disability activist and Wales Coast Path ambassador Bethany Handley takes over the February Blog, discussing her favourite sections of the Wales Coast Path and how it’s empowered her to reconnect with the Welsh coastline.

Bethany’s story

Growing up surfing and hiking along Wales’ rugged clifftops, the Welsh coastline has always been integral to my sense of self. Being by the sea energised me. Following a life changing illness, I thought I would never access the Welsh coastline again, other than on tarmac promenades like Penarth or Llandudno or in the harbours and marinas of Caernarfon and Swansea.

I dreamt of returning to the sea, of scrambling along clifftop paths. But nothing felt more hostile than the coastline and its rising and falling paths carved by thousands of hiking boot clad feet. My wheelchair using body was shut out from the local paths my family and I had always shared by kissing gates and stiles, so surely the Coast Path couldn’t be accessible? Fortunately, I was wrong.

In the months following becoming a full-time wheelchair user, I began to explore the Wales Coast Path again, one accessible section at a time. One of my first outings with my new body was to Cardiff Bay, somewhere I’d previously lived. Whizzing past the Senedd and Norwegian Church along the flat tarmac path of the barrage, I felt so free, moving without restrictions or barriers whilst seagulls circled above. No gravel or mud threatened to tip me from my wheelchair. No gates padlocked me out. I wheeled past the swift tower, a tall tower built with arms open to the sky to offer shelter for swifts and playing beckoning swift song. Beside the water, the claustrophobia of being stuck in hospital and an inaccessible house began to dissipate. Looking out over the Severn Estuary, I studied the vanishing point where the sky and water smudge together as if it was both an infinite expanse with nothing beyond. 

As a keen hiker and surfer, I’d previously undervalued nature in urban areas. In my past life, it would never have occurred to me that I was on the Wales Coast Path when jogging along Cardiff Bay Barrage, where the city meets the water. Now I value urban areas as much as our more remote landscapes. Nature in towns and cities feed our souls and can still invite our sense of adventure as much as clifftop scrambles. From Caernarfon Harbour and Llandudno Pier to Aberystwyth promenade, Swansea Port, Newport City Centre and Chepstow riverside, Wales Coast Path weaves through 870 miles of Welsh towns, cities and countryside granting access, connection and celebrating Wales in all its diversity.

Many more rural parts of the path are also beautifully accessible, and I have had the privilege of rediscovering where I can access with my new body. In my own life, Wales Coast Path is a thread, uniting my experiences along the coast pre using a wheelchair to the adventures I now have on wheels. The small blue and yellow Wales Coast Path waymarker has given me a sense of belonging again. 

Bethany’s favourite accessible sections 

Rest Bay, Porthcawl

I spent long days on the sand at Rest Bay as a toddler and learned to surf there with my brother from the age of eight, so it was essential to my sense of self to find a way to return there as a wheelchair user. Fortunately, access is good. 

There is an accessible public toilet by the café, a lift up to the café and a beach wheelchair to borrow for free. There are also blue badge parking spaces both in the car park and at the bottom of the hill by the lifeguard’s hut right by the beach. Access to the sand is via a steep concrete ramp. If you’re using a beach wheelchair, you’ll need someone strong to assist, but there are no steps. 

There are also beautifully accessible sections of Wales Coast Path, including from Rest Bay to Porthcawl on a tarmac pavement beside the sea. This is accessible to any type of mobility aid user, including manual wheelchairs without offroad attachments.

Alternatively, turn right by the lifeguard’s hut and follow the path above the beach. It turns into boardwalk which was manageable with my offroad tyres and a power attachment. I met mobility scooter users also exploring the path. I continued over the grass towards Sker beach. There was a kissing gate which may not be possible to squeeze through on a mobility scooter but I managed in my wheelchair when I detached my power attachment. It’s a stunning walk beside the sea that filled me with joy.

Newport Wetlands

Newport Wetlands is one of my go-to destinations when I want to spend time outside with other disabled friends or family. There’s blue badge parking and an accessible toilet. All-terrain scooters are free to hire from the accessible visitor centre. My grandma and I both borrowed scooters and raced through the golden reeds towards the Severn Estuary. I’ve spent hours beside the reeds listening to song thrushes and cetti‘s warblers.

There’s a marked accessible path surfaced with compacted mud and stone, but I’ve found many of the paths are accessible to my wheelchair and power attachment. After a chilly day, warm up in the café overlooking a reed cupped lake home to a diverse array of birds. 

Whitesands Bay, Pembrokeshire 

I spent my last birthday sat on Whitesands beach with my family as the fiery sunset turned the beach to gold, the sky’s blaze pooling on the wet sand. I borrowed the beach wheelchair from the lifeguard hut and left my own wheelchair chained up there. There’s ramped access to the beach, blue badge parking and a fully accessible changing place in the car park.

The Cob, Malltraeth, Anglesey 

A beautifully accessible walk/ roll, a tarmac path stretches towards a forest on the horizon, mountains slumbering behind. To the left the Cob Pool is home to pintails, wigeons, teals, and lapwings in the autumn and winter as they arrive from the Arctic whilst skylarks soar above the reserve in the summer. To the right shimmers the Cefni Estuary.

Follow the Wales Coast Path signposts towards Llyn Parc Mawr where, at the end of the Lake View Trail, is a wheelchair accessible bird hide overlooking a lake where you can spot coots, little grebes and grey herons.

Llanfairfechan, Conwy, to Morfa Madryn Nature Reserve, Conwy 

One of my favourite accessible sections of Wales Coast Path, the tarmac path follows Traeth Lafan, home to a diverse array of birds. The path follows the sea with views of Anglesey to the north and the mountains to the south. After half a mile following the wide, beautifully surfaced path beside the sea, the terrain turns to compacted rock and grass at Glan y Mor Elias coastal marshland area. I navigated the terrain with ease with my offroad tyres and power attachment.

Following the path to Morfa Madryn Nature Reserve, the path narrows, remaining level and wide enough for most mobility aids with ramped access to bird hides. It’s an accessible walk that doesn’t require compromise; it’s a gorgeous route for all. 

Instagram @BethanyHandley_

Website BethanyHandley.com

Further information

Bethany has two new publications that you should check out: 

Cling Film published by Seren (£6 RRP), ‘A bold, urgent and gifted new voice in Welsh poetry.’ Owen Sheers. Set in familiar Welsh places – from Cardiff’s Heath Hospital to Mynydd Mawr in Eryri – these witty, perceptive poems challenge myths about disability in ways that are striking, astute and devastatingly exact.  

Beyond / Tu Hwnt published by Lucent Dreaming (£12.00 RRP)  - A bilingual collection of work by 31 Welsh Deaf and Disabled writers writing back and wielding defiance, joy and community in the face of inaccessibility and ableism. Edited by Bethany Handley, Megan Angharad Hunter and Sioned Erin Hughes