St David’s to Broad Haven

Thursday 28th August 2014

For the third day running on my holiday along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path I had a long walk of twenty four miles. When you are walking that sort of distance you have no time to stop and explore and even to simply enjoy the surroundings because you know that you have to keep going in order to maintain a steady pace of at least three miles an hour. Good weather helps a lot in the enjoyment of a walk, which I had not had on my previous couple of days and as I left the St David’s Youth Hostel the weather was no better with rain and thick clouds. Nevertheless, I set off early in the morning and made my way back to the coast at Whitesand Bay, however it soon stopped raining and after I left Whitesands the sun came out affording me with fabulous weather for the rest of the day. What had looked like being terrible weather turned out to the best weather of the holiday.

After passing St Justinian's the coastal path headed around the rugged Treginnis Peninsula, a National Trust property, which has delightfully unspoilt terrain sloping gently down to the sea and afforded me with tremendous views across the strong currents of the Ramsey Sound to Ramsey Island, a bird reserve. I was astonished by how strong the current was in the Sound as it was stronger than what is normally found in rivers, and yet this was the sea. I really enjoyed the walk at this point of the day with the moorland flowers, easy walking, warm sunshine and hardly a breath of wind. I sailed around the coast making good progress due to the lack of steep gradients and so all too soon I left the Treginnis Peninsula behind and after passing Porthlysgi the terrain became more undulating with more of the dramatic cliffs that I had been seeing all week.

The bright sunshine seemed to be making the views so much better than I had seen previously in the week even though the coast was very similar to what I had already seen, and this just added to my delight as I made my way along the coast. The popularity of this coastline was apparent from the large numbers of people that I passed on the path along this section, no doubt all drawn out by the good weather, but also due to the quality of the coastline at this point and the proximity to abundant accommodation in St David’s. However, nothing on this section of the coast really stood out for me so that I could not remember much about it just a couple of hours later, much less months later, as it was more of the same sort of thing that I had been experiencing all week, only this time it was under blue skies and bright sunshine. The quality of the coastline drew me on with the promise of more until eventually the path turned inland and descended steeply to the harbour at Solva.

I had my lunch in this idyllic place before climbing to the top of a narrow wooded ridge, Gribin, that separates Solva Harbour from the unspoilt cove of Gwadn, the contrast between the two being very marked. With the wind picking up once again the terrain became steeper starting with a steep descent from the Gridin. The weather had been helping on this walk, but now a strong wind was blowing in my face and the only time I had respite was when climbing steeply out of the many coves that I encountered until eventually I reached the last hill where I had a spectacular view of the vast Newgale Sands spread out before me. The sands stretch for several miles and by far my best option would have been to have gone down onto the beach and to have strolled along the surf beside the sea. The many miles that I still had to cover and because the tide was a long way out were the main reasons why I didn’t, but also because the beach was crowded with people.

Instead I stayed on the road, which is the designated Coast Path route, all the way down to the southern end of Newgale Sands where the trail climbs once more onto the top of the cliffs for the final section to Broad Haven. The wind was now even stronger and the terrain became even hillier with many descents and re-ascents into coves that were now calling themselves havens starting with Nolton Haven before continuing with Madoc’s Haven and Druidston Haven before finally ending with my destination: Broad Haven. Despite the challenging terrain and a strong headwind I seemed to make very good progress and reached Broad Haven surprisingly early. I don’t know how I managed that, or maybe the good weather had been spurring me on to a greater pace. Certainly it seemed that with this being the third day in a row that I had walked about twenty-four miles I was becoming used to the challenge.

I suppose with hindsight I shouldn’t have rushed so much on this walk and probably would have had plenty of time to have gone down to the sea at Newgale Sands and walked beside the surf. At the time I didn’t realise just how much time I had made up so wasn’t able to take advantage of it. When I got to Broad Haven I tried to correct this by going down onto the beach and walked along the sands for a distance before finally going to the youth hostel. The highlight of this walk was definitely the wild flowers, and most notably on Treginnis Peninsula that benefitted by a lack of human intrusion into the terrain. Newgale and Broad Haven were packed with people so were less to my liking. It is curious how refreshed I felt at the end of this walk compared with how exhausted I was at the end of the similar length walks two days previously to Pwll Deri. It seemed like I was not only beginning to really enjoy walking twenty-four miles a day, but my body was becoming used to it. Despite the strong winds in the afternoon I had great weather and a great walk over high cliffs, past picturesque coves and stunning beaches.