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 or 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 and afforded 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 that slopes 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 moorland flowers, easy walking, warm sunshine and hardly a breath of wind. I sailed around the coast making good progress due to a 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, no doubt drawn out by the good weather, but also due to the quality of the coastline and the proximity to abundant accommodation available in St David’s. However, nothing on this section of the coast really stood out for me so just a couple of hours later I could not remember much about it, 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 into 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 go down onto the beach and stroll 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, 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 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 I reached 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 my third day in a row walking 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 I probably had plenty of time to go down to the sea at Newgale Sands and walk beside the surf. At the time I didn’t realise just how much time I had made up so I 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 walk 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 had been 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.

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.