Unforgettable Black Rock Sands – Haven Resort

Visiting Black Rock Sands is wonderful, for beach combing, walking and sightseeing. We camped at the Haven Resort, Greenacres touring park. If you want to know more about this trip, then please read further.

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Where is Haven Greenacres Holiday Village?

This is situated in North Wales, right on the coastline of Morfa Bychan. It has direct access to Black Rock Sands. Haven Greenacres Holiday Park, Black Rock Sands, Morfa Bychan, Porthmadog LL49 9YG

What is special about Black Rock Sands?

Black Rock Sands is an open, wide beach with fine sands. The name comes from the area to the west of the beach dominated by a large, multi-coloured headland rock, low-tide caves and rock pools.
You can drive onto the beach here.The top part of the beach is very hard. It is a popular spot for motor homes and day tourists who want to spend the day.
There are dog restrictions on the beach at certain times of the year. Most of the time dogs are allowed to enjoy running free.
At certain times of the year there are a lot of jelly fish on the beach. The wildlife and Marine life in the surrounding dunes are listed as special scientific interest.
The currents can be strong, but a safe swim area is marked out during summer season.

Our amazing beach finds on Black Rock Sands

Shells – these wash up in certain areas, there is not many scattered about.
Sea potato skeletons wash up after a storm or patches of bad weather.
Seaweed comes with the tides but unlike most sandy beached this is also only in certain patches.
Jelly fish, not exactly a find to take home, but an interesting one to study.
Plenty of sea birds about for bird watchers.

My most interesting finds were:

The sea potato skeletons I found were very interesting. I had never heard of a sea potato before I found some shells and started looking them up. At the time we visited there were large patches at the end of the beach away from the caves which had hundreds of sea potato shells lying around.

What is so distinctive about the sea potato shell?

It has a very white shell which is quite brittle and resembles a potato.
The shell is heart shaped.
One can see where all the little spines were and dots where the tubed feet were on the underside. (Not knowing what it was to start with the top and undersides are not obvious).

Discovering 6 facts about the sea potato in its own habitat.

Sea potatoes are part of the Sea urchins, sand dollar and star fish species. Their scientific name is Echinocardiumcordatum.
In size they range between 5 to 9 cm.
They can live for 10 to 20 years and burrow into the sand.
When they die their empty shells are washed up on the beach. Alive they are a yellowish colour and can survive up to a depth of 650m.
They spines on the top of the body making them look furry these help them breathe when they burrow.
On the underside they have tube like feet used for eating.

The beach had a lot of different sized jellyfish on it. My first instinct was to rescue them but then how do I know if they are still alive? As always I used Google to find out more about them. Google has a great program called Google lens which when you hold your phone over it, it will find pictures that match it.

I identified these jelly fish as Barrel jelly fish. Read more about these remarkable jelly fish.

My review for the touring site on Haven Green Aces Site.

We stayed for a week on the touring site. We did not use the pool or eating facilities as we always take out own supplies. They had entertainment on, but we did not go to any of the evening shows.

Pro’s

Easy to get to and good size serviced pitches.
It has a nice shop where you can buy food stuff and toys.
The touring site is very well kept with short grass, clean pitches.
Ablutions were cleaned regularly with good hot water for showers.
Access straight onto the beach from the site.
Well lit in the night so an evening walk around the site was great.
Nice planting between pitches to ensure safety and privacy.
Costal walks nearby.
Just a short drive away. Portmadog and Criecieth both stunning towns with lots to see. Dylans Beach is great for children as there are rock pools and nice swimming area.

Con’s

There aren’t any that come to mind.

We really enjoyed this site and will be touring there again very soon.