Sandy Water Park & The Millennium Coastal Park
A beautiful part of the award winning Millennium Coastal Park taking in the views of Gower, this traffic free path is ideal for buggies and wheelchairs and has adjacent car parking.
The Millennium Coastal Park was opened on the Millennium and regenerated the coastal area of Llanelli, which until recent memory was an industrial landscape of numerous steel and tinplate works. Now the land is pleasant and green.
This fabulous Coastal Park has miles of coastal cycling and walking paths to enjoy. You can follow National Cycle Route 4 along a super traffic free path which passes along the beautiful Loughor estuary and the Gower peninsula. The route takes you past Llanelli beach and Tywyn beach to Burry Port where you will find a pretty harbour, beach, and the newest marina in Wales.
Heading east passing Sandy Water Park and Machynys beach before coming to the National Wetlands Centre where you can look out for a variety of sea and water birds such as flocks of dunlin, ringed plover, sanderling, and redshank along the coast whilst shelduck, oystercatcher and curlew can be seen further out on the mudflats and not forgetting the Swans on Sandy Water Park. In the summer you can spot orchids and other wildflowers.
You’ll find black rocks along the route which are the waste from the steel furnaces, look at them closely and you’ll see that they are full of bubbles from when they were liquid inside the blast furnaces.
Why walk?
The magnificent promenade with viewing platforms along the path boasts stunning views of Carmarthen Bay and the Gower Peninsular. There are spacious car parks and a fantastic adventure playground for children too.
Following a level and easy to navigate section of the Wales Coast Path, this section of the Carmarthenshire coastline can be enjoyed by all the family.
If you would like to continue your outing you could head west along the coast to the fabulous Pembrey Country Park where you will find more lovely coastal scenery and woodland wildlife trails.
Adaptive bikes, as well as induvial and family bikes are available to hire from the Ski & Activity Centre which can be taken along the coastal path. Pre-booking is advised.
How long?
The walk around Sandy Water park is under 2km, however the Coastal path stretches for 22km from Bynea to Pembrey
How Hard?
Easy/ Accessible. A superb mostly flat, well surfaced and easily accessible coastal traffic free route that follows the stunning Carmarthenshire coast
Starting point: For this section of the walk, we are starting at Sandy Water Park, however there are various places along the Coastal Park where you can start your walk.
Car park: numerous car parks along the way
Public transport: x11 will access the Coastal path directly at Burry Port harbour only
Refreshments: ✔
Points of Interest
Park your car at the Sandy Water Park car park. The walk takes you around the lake at Sandy Water Park. The lake was one of the cooling lakes associated with the Duport Steel works, one of the largest and most advanced steel mills in the World. The works were known locally as the Klondike works, as they were Llanelli’s equivalent to the gold rush!
Follow the path around the lake and back to your car.
For a longer walk, take a detour through the Mabinogion woods, with its sculpture trail and continue onto the Millennium Coastal Path, then on to the local Nature reserve at North Dock, follow the path to the end of the sand dune spur. Wildflowers and sea birds can be spotted here.
Return to your car along the route you came, perhaps enjoy a well-deserved cup of tea and some cake at St. Elli's Bay Bistro. It’s an ideal place to relax and take in the wonderful views of Carmarthen Bay and the Gower Peninsula.
