Miss Mostyn explores Great Orme Country Park: limestone, goats, old tracks, views and nature with backbone.

Great Orme Country Park covers much of the headland above Llandudno and protects a landscape more varied than it first appears. Visitors who see only the summit have read the title and skipped the book.

The Country Park designation covers the bulk of the 2,100-acre headland above the built-up areas of the town. It is also a National Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which is three layers of protection for a headland that needs little defending from anything except itself in bad weather.

There are cliffs, limestone grassland, heath, old quarries, tracks and wide sea views. It is not just scenery arranged behind the town for photographs. It is a living, weathered landscape.

The wild cotoneaster (Cotoneaster cambricus) grows naturally in Britain only on the Great Orme and is one of the rarest wild plants in the country. This fact should slow your walk and increase your attention to the scrubby vegetation that otherwise looks unremarkable until you know what you are seeing.

The wildlife is part of the charm: guillemots, razorbills and fulmars on the cliffs, the Kashmiri goat herd on the slopes, and seasonal botanical interest that rewards those who look down as well as out.

Expect sheep, grazing, rough paths and exposed ground. Country parks are not drawing rooms. One may meet mud, wind and animals entirely unconcerned with visitor experience.

The Country Park has several formal car parks, including one at the summit, and a visitor centre at the base with information about the natural and human history of the headland. These are the practical entry points. The real experience begins when one walks beyond them.

The Great Orme has been farmed, quarried, mined, grazed and driven around for centuries, and the landscape carries all of these interventions simultaneously. Old quarry workings, mine ventilation shafts, Bronze Age traces, medieval field systems and Victorian defensive installations all coexist on the same hillside.

The Great Orme is not the backdrop to Llandudno. It is the senior partner. The town merely has better lighting.

Bring appropriate footwear, check the weather and allow more time than planned. The Country Park rewards patience and resists the kind of visit that tries to consume it in an hour.