by the Curious Scribbler
The Tanybwlch Dragon has moved several hundred yards along the beach during last Saturday’s high seas. Once again it has beached itself gazing out to sea, its lower jaw a little more abraded, but its eager expression is now almost as convincing from the left flank as from the right.
Right cheek
Left cheek
Seas have been breaking over the stony strand which separates the beach from the low lying Tanybwlch flats, the location of summer trotting races, and formerly, of the Aberystwyth Show. Once more a huge pool has formed below Alltwen, beloved of gulls and waders.
The brackish pool on Tanybwlch flats
Over the years there have been a number of efforts to drain this area and return it to pasture, but this seems to be a losing battle and each winter the lake forms again, and as it drains away rushes prosper at the expense of grass. It is highly likely that we will see the day when the sea breaks through the pebble bar and our walks along this wild beach will be curtailed part way along.
The Dragon has migrated along Tanybwlch beach
The strand line was not as free from human debris as when I commented two weeks ago, but as with the comments from my reader about the Gower, fragments of netting and other fisherman’s waste were far more abundant than household plastic. The white lumps on the strand line were not polystyrene but cuttlefish bone, and the fluffy froth just natural sea spume.
Cuttlefish on the strandline at Tanybwlch beach
The “stony strand” is where the River Ystwyth entered the sea before man interfered with the flow. I assume Tanybwlch Flats would have been an estuary in those days or at least marshland?
The river was diverted to join the Rheidol at the harbour mouth in order to increase the outflow to the sea in the hope of keeping the sand “bar” clear. It didn’t work too well and the Ystwyth continues to try and exit via it’s old route.
I do remember a breakthrough in the 50 or 60’s and this was fixed by building the short stretch of concrete wall and roadway near the river bend.