The Bay
Red Wharf Bay at low tide — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Red Wharf Bay (Traeth Coch) is east Anglesey’s great spectacle — at low tide the sea retreats across some ten square miles of sand, a vast, luminous flatness backed by wooded limestone hills. It is a walking-and-gazing beach above all: paddling, birdwatching (the bay is superb for waders), long flat wanders and huge skies. Respect the tide — it returns fast across flat sand, so keep an eye on the water and the time.
The Ship Inn & the Villages
On the shore at the bay’s western corner, the Ship Inn is one of Anglesey’s best-loved pubs — a proper old waterside inn dispensing pints and food to sandy walkers for generations. The villages of Benllech (with the area’s main family beach and facilities) and Pentraeth bracket the bay.
From Beaumaris
By car, 15–20 minutes via the A5025. On foot, the coastal path now runs from Penmon around the headland into the bay — a full day’s walking from Beaumaris for the committed. The official Wales Coast Path itinerary also links Pentraeth to Beaumaris over the hill of Mynydd Llwydiarth for a fine circular-ish day using the bus one way.
Birds & the Bay
Red Wharf Bay is one of Anglesey’s premier wader sites: at half-tide the sands host oystercatchers, curlew, redshank and, in season, big flocks of pintail and shelduck, with little egrets now standard issue along the creeks. Bring binoculars and work the tideline from the Ship Inn corner or the Benllech end. The bay’s scale rewards the long view — walkers on the coastal path between Benllech and Pentraeth get the panorama, while the sands themselves offer that rare thing, a beach walk where the horizon stays empty in August.
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