Pwll Deri to St David’s Head

Wednesday 27th August 2014

After a tiring twenty-four mile walk the day before, I set off early on this walk from the busy Pwll Deri Youth Hostel for another twenty-plus miles. These long days were dictated by the distance between youth hostels, but there was no reason why I couldn’t have stopped at a spot half way between the youth hostels as several people at the hostel told me they had done. Undaunted, I was deliberately doing a walk of similar length to the one the previous day that had worn me out. The start was great as I continued over the craggy ground that I had enjoyed at the end of the day before where heather, gorse and many other wild flowers were interspersed with crags that had me dancing from rock to rock in delight. All too soon, at Penbwchdu, the Pembrokeshire Coast Path turned south to descend off the glorious ridge and onto more gentle terrain. Such mountaintop-like terrain is rare on a coastal path and all too fleeting on this walk.

I didn’t find the walking too difficult this day compared with the previous as I had less of the steep ascents and descents in and out of coves that had so worn me out with most of the walking being along the top of high cliffs. By this point in the holiday I had seen so many of these dramatic cliffs that I was beginning to get rather bored with them. The main problem I was finding with this coastal trail was the unchanging scenery of never-ending cliffs for mile and after mile that all blured together. It has been difficult for me to remember something particular about each of the walks that I hadn’t seen all week. The twin bays of Aber Bâch and Aber Mawr with their pebbly beaches were distinctive enough to be memorable, but trying to identify where a particular photograph was taken is rather difficult because it could have been taken from any point along the walk. In the end the time stamp on the picture is the only thing that is different about it.

Eventually I reached the outskirts of the village of Trefin, which used to have a youth hostel, closed by the YHA at the end of 2006, and now an independent hostel called the Old School Hostel. This is where most people would have halted for the day but I had not covered much more than ten miles by this point and was less than half way through my day, so I climbed up the road away from the village and along the coast to the industrial past at Porthgain. This used to be a busy port serving various quarries and a brick works in the area has left its mark on the land. A notable feature were two stone columns on either side of the mouth of the harbour with the western one whitewashed while the eastern one is not. After visiting the eastern tower, near a ruined quarry building, I found a bit of wall to shelter behind from the strong winds and had my lunch. During the morning the wind had been gradually picking up and continued to grow throughout the afternoon.

After lunch I felt like I had been making such good progress on the walk that I could afford the luxury of exploring the old quarries for a few minutes. There are some huge scars east of Porthgain where slate used to be excavated from the ground and these old quarries were an awesome sight to behold, but as always when walking twenty-plus miles I couldn’t linger, so I set off once more along the coastal path passing the spectacular beach at Traeth Llyfan. Before reaching Abereiddi Bay I came across the Blue Lagoon, a former quarry now flooded by the sea and a popular deep water diving pool. I diverted away from the coastal path in order to take a look at the Blue Lagoon (actually green), but was not tempted to join the people diving into its depths and instead I headed towards Abereiddy in order to continue heading along the coast towards St David’s Head.

The weather deteriorated further after I passed Abereiddy with strong winds and a little rain ensuring that I wouldn’t be tempted to stop and admire the views except in the charming cove of Aberpwll. Elsewhere I kept my head down and ploughed on climbing to a point near the distinctive peak of Penberry before descending back down the hill. I was tempted to climb to the top of Penberry, but the many miles and passing time, as well as the poor weather, prompted me to stay on the path. The terrain was now much wilder with heather and gorse abounding, which compensated for the poor visibility and bad weather. The nearby hills of Carn Llidi and Carn Lleithr drew my eye and influenced the terrain underfoot adding to my delight with the walk as I battled against strong winds on my approach to St David’s Head.

Despite the poor weather I felt compelled to keep going all the way along the peninsula as far as I could go to the very end of St David’s Head negotiating fabulous mountain-like terrain while keeping my head down from the vicious winds. Once I’d reached the end of St David’s Head I turned around and now with the wind behind me I headed back along the southern side of the peninsula with seemingly even stronger winds than I’d had on my way out. Eventually I rejoined the coastal path and followed it down to Whitesand Bay just as the rain started again. There I turned inland and walked along the road for a mile to the St David's Youth Hostel. This walk was not as tiring as the day before, mainly because the terrain was not so strenuous with long sections along the tops of the cliffs. Nevertheless there were still some fabulous bits to the walk particularly when I was walking through rich, wildflower meadows such as on the approach to St David’s Head that made for a satisfying walk.