Pembrokeshire Coast Path Walking

Caution - this is a bit of a long one! You may want to get a cuppa before starting ;)

One of my ‘must do’ things while I was last in Pembrokeshire was to do some proper coast path walking. I have frequently gone out for a walk along the coast path and back, both in the area around St Davids to the north and in various parts of the southern limestone cliff tops. What I had never done, however, was a ‘proper’ walk: leave in the morning, walk all day, stay overnight, and carry on the next day.

My ideal walk would have lasted no less than 3 days – this way you get at least one day where you wake up on the trail in the morning, and go to bed there again that night. My cycle trip last year on another of our National Trails, the South Downs Way, was 3 days long, and it does make a difference to know that you will have that full day, waking to sleeping, out on your mini adventure!

On this occasion though, time was eaten away from us at both ends, and our whole trip to Pembrokeshire was rendered short enough that 3 days simply wasn’t an option, so we had to settle for 2 days. It didn’t feel quite the same to leave, knowing that we would be back ‘tomorrow’, not quite such a feeling of adventure, but a good trip none the less.

I already owned this book, the official National Trail Guide to the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, and I used this to choose a section of coast path for our walk. I opted for the northern coast, as I love the ruggedness up there. Something about the scenery really speaks to me of ancient settlements, stormy seas, and rugged nature. The south is also amazing, but I could only choose one part, and the north won for me on this occasion…

Using the guide to help plan, I decided to start with ‘day 3’, beginning near Fishguard, stopping overnight at the recommended point of Trefin, and then walking ‘day 4’ to Whitesands, at St Davids. My mum dropped us off near our chosen start point, and we set off. We were running late as my poor mum had faffed a bit about getting going – I think she was worried about us, and this manifested in us starting about an hour later than we had planned - with hindsight, a better place to get dropped off to begin would have been at Strumble Head, near the light house (you can see it at the top of the map). Here, the road ends in a car park right on the coast path. Much simpler than what we did.

We walk as quickly as possible through the little bit of town that we had to pass through to meet the coast path; welcomed to the path by ponies, we feel relief to be there at last. We have a very long walk ahead of us – over 17 miles (27km) of narrow paths, including a total 870m (2,854 feet) of ascent, so we begin at bit of a quick pace. 

As we move away from the urban area of Goodwick and the casual dog walkers, we gradually reach sections of path with no easy access from roads, where the people we pass are other walkers out for the whole day at least. Most are friendly and we exchange ‘hellos’ as we pass, but occasionally we come across someone looking very serious, with their head down and a look of grim determination of their face – not breaking their stride for any niceties! 

Fishguard Harbour

The scenery is incredibly diverse even in a very small area as we walk. To begin with it is fairly typical for the area, with lots of bracken and low cropped gorse blanketing the rolling cliff tops. 

Then all of a sudden you look up – you have to keep eyes down a lot to watch your footing! – and you are greeted by a heathland, low growing heather with outcrops of bare rock, and ancient eroded volcanic rock formations protruding into the sky.

Then, most surprisingly, we drop down a steep descent into lush woodland, right next to the cliffs! A stream winds its way down to the sea between the trees, while moss and ferns grow in abundance in the dappled light. 

Someone had even been busy building swings on the trees, and the more immature amongst us may have felt compelled to have a bit of a swing…

Back up the steep ascent on the other side of this coastal valley, and the variety is clear to see: look back, and you see the tops of the trees we had just come from.

Look ahead, and you’re in heather and gorse once again. Amazing :)

Continuing along a little further, and we begin to keep an eye out for Carreg Wastad and its memorial stone, commemorating the site of the last invasion of mainland Britain. The stone is easily found, and it is interesting to see from the inscription that it had been erected on the 100^th anniversary of the landings, over 100 years ago now!

Yet further along, still heading west, we come upon the Strumble Head Lighthouse. From here on we will start to head more southerly, but not before stopping to eat our packed lunch! 

The day had begun hot, but as we sit with our picnic the wind picks up, clouds roll in and rain begins behind us. We watch anxiously as the rain comes nearer, not relishing the thought of hours of walking through bad weather. Oddly however, as we start on our way again the weather turns back to hot sunshine and clear skies. A lucky escape!

Feeling slower after lunch, we are able to take more time to enjoy the wildlife we pass. I point out the funnel web spiders to Adam, the gorse in many places is absolutely covered in these intricate gossamer traps.

We frequently spot seals bathing off the coast. They are such inquisitive animals, and seem to enjoy watching us as much as we do them! 

Not a great photo, but it does contain 5 seals!

We also spot many choughs. These birds, related to crows, are quite rare, but they seem to be doing well in this area as we see plenty of them. They can be distinguished from crows by their curved bright red/orange beaks, which don’t show in the photos unfortunately.

As we head further along this stretch of coast, we start to pass more beaches, more of which are accessible from the land. 

 

Some of the beaches are quite popular – although many look different to normal after the storms earlier in the year. I love this little fort that has been built on Aber Mawr!

There are some fantastic cliff formations along this stretch and I take many photos:

By now the sun is getting lower and we are pretty weary. It was a long day and we had tried to do it at a much faster pace than would have been ideal. The heat has taken its toll too, and my feet are aching badly. It is welcome news then when we check the map to discover that we are not far now from our day’s goal. We have pre-booked accommodation at the Old School Hostel in Trefin, and when we finally arrive after a good 10 hours on the trail the lovely hostel is a very welcome sight! (I reviewed the hostel here)

Outside the front of the hostel

We go through the welcome and check in procedures at the hostel, which is so friendly and lovely, and then head to the village pub for some well-earned pub grub and maybe some Welsh beverages too ;)

Day 2

After a well-deserved sleep, we wake up in the morning and collect our packed lunch and our breakfast items from the hostel. We have ordered the hostel’s famous organic porridge for breakfast, and it is delicious! The oats are soaked overnight, and the porridge is mixed up with dried fruit and nuts, and mashed banana. All we have to do is add some milk and heat it on the stove. Mmm mmm mmm!

It is another glorious day outside, and we head from the village towards the coast path again, via these amazing standing stones. There are lots of this type of thing in Pembrokeshire, and it is one the features of northern Pembrokeshire that I find so appealing.

Heading along the coast path again, this time we cover ground that is more familiar to me – although I haven’t walked the path here before, I have visited the coast at places such as Porthgain on many occasions, and it’s really interesting to arrive at such places again but from the trail rather than the road. We pause briefly at Porthgain – I manage to twist an ankle on the path down towards the little harbour, so I want a chance to stop and check how bad it is. I have injured my ankles many times, and they are prone to twisting again as the ligaments are badly damaged. While this is bad, it does have the upside that twisting my ankle, while still painful, isn’t always too damaging as the ligaments are already beyond repair, and I can often sort of ‘walk it off’.

Porthgain is tiny, but is a pretty cute place, and attracts lots of visitors. We admire a camper van and the harbour, before setting off once again up the other side. 

Just along the coast from Porthgain is a site where they used to quarry low grade slate, and the broken-down buildings from these old works dot the cliff tops.

This area seems to be alive with Common Blue Butterflies, and I watch a great many fly around us before I am able to get close enough to one that is landed so I can get a photo.

The coast is beautiful again, and I enjoy taking in the formations of the cliffs.

This second day’s walk is shorter than the previous day though, and with aching muscles and my twisted ankle we decide to make it shorter still. Arriving at the cliffs above the Blue Lagoon at Abereiddy, we stop to eat our picnic lunch, provided by the hostel.

Yummy Brie and Sundried Tomato Sandwiches on Homemade Organic Wholemeal Bread. Not your average hostel food! :)

Then we watch the antics at the blue lagoon a little while – lots of cliff jumping, swimming, paddling and so on. This place is so renowned for cliff jumping that it was even used in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series!

We choose to end our coast path walk at Abereiddy, and we see a cute little lizard to wish us farewell at the end of our walk.

 

I am so pleased to have created more happy memories of home to take with us when we leave for Australia :)

Beautiful Pembrokeshire: Puffiny Loveliness!

On our second day in Pembrokeshire, my friend Sarah’s oldest boy was going to be busy dog-sitting for his dad. He doesn’t really like boats after a hairy experience when he was younger (although he does enjoy other water-based activities) so he wouldn’t have wanted to come with us, but my husband Adam, friend Sarah, her youngest boy and me took the boat over to visit Skomer Island.

Skomer Island is run as a nature reserve, and is most famous for its seabirds, particularly the beautiful puffins. Puffins are similar to guillemots and razorbills, which I had seen a few of when I was in Cornwall. However, while these other two bird species nest on the steep rocky cliffs, which are available all over the coastline, puffins nest in burrows directly on the coast. Use of burrows means that they are more limited in habitat availability, and also makes them vulnerable to disturbance from land-based predators, human activity etc, further narrowing down the habitat they can make use of. Skomer is therefore a really significant nesting site for them in the UK.

Visiting Skomer is a multi-part expense – the car park is National Trust, so we didn’t have to pay the £5 fee as we are members, but we did have to pay the landing fee for the island of £10 (This has a fair pricing structure, with discounts for students and retirees, and free for Trust members and children. The money goes to the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, which maintains the island) and also the boat fee of £11 for adults (£7 for children, babies free).

Although this money does add up, the island is so special that for me it is totally worth it. To make it even more worth it, there were still loads of puffins on the islands! I had really hoped to see puffins again before leaving for Australia, however they only come into land for their breeding season, and are normally back out at sea at this time of year. For very horrible reasons though, many puffins still remained: the storms earlier this year caused a lot of damage to the auk populations, causing what was named an auk wreck. So many of these birds (puffins, guillemots, razorbills) were killed in the storms, and those that did make it had had such a battle for survival that they arrived at their breeding sites late and in very poor condition. They therefore started late, and also required extra time to get healthy again. Very bad news for the birds, so difficult for me to be too happy about still being able to see them – though seeing them is such a joy.

We hiked around the island to take in all of the good view points for seeing puffins and seals. The puffins are so wonderful though that I think it’s best if they take over for the rest of this post, do enjoy their cute little faces and their sweet loveliness!

Why did the puffin cross the road?

I hope you enjoyed the puffins as much as I did! (Although admittedly that would tough ;)

Beautiful Pembrokeshire: Some Active Bits ...

I made a trip with my husband back to Pembrokeshire to spend a few days visiting family and friends. We were blessed with incredible weather while we were back, which lasted for most of the time we were there, and so we were able to really enjoy ourselves. My best friend Sarah, who I have known well since we were about 13, still lives in our home town, and she has 2 lovely boys. They were off school for the summer when we arrived and so it was great to spend plenty of time with them when we were visiting. They will be visiting us next year in Australia, but still every moment counts!

Our first day therefore was spent at the beach! Pembrokeshire has so many wonderful beaches, and on this day we headed to Manorbier in the hope that there would be surf. There wasn’t… We spent several happy hours soaking up the great weather, catching up with each other, reading, and then I braved the sea, going out with the boys to try and catch the tiny waves on the surfboard and later taking the youngest one out with a snorkel as he wanted to swim a bit. Great fun!

A bit blurry - I guess that's what happens when a little boy has the camera!

The next day has its own post, as we headed off on the boat to Skomer Island for some puffin spotting!

The following day and we hit the water for the third time in three days – this time with wind power. I learned to sail little dinghies when I was about 10 or 11 years old, and when Sarah had got in touch before we travelled down to ask if I would take her littlest one out sailing I was really excited. I haven’t sailed in years, but I had sailed for so long that I felt confident I could still sail competently, and teach the little lad too.

We hired a couple of dinghies so that everyone could go out at once. I took littlest one out in a Topper dinghy. It’s designed for one person to sail, and as such it only has one sail – the main sail – to worry about, so it seemed a great way to teach him. I began by showing him how to look after the main sail. As we went along I also taught him a few bits and pieces about the theory of sailing to help him understand what he was doing. Once he was ready, I moved on to teaching him about helming (steering) the boat. At first he struggled to concentrate enough to steer properly – he was so excited and so interested in every that was happening all around us! After a short while though he calmed down and then – with a bit of guidance – he was sailing by himself! He seemed to be having a great time, and I found it so rewarding to see how far he had come in just an hour. I’m not always good at teaching as I can lack patience, but I tried really hard to stay calm and relaxed while trying to teach an excitable 10-year-old, and I felt really good about our time out on the water together! 

We had hired the boats for 2 hours, and after that first hour I swapped over into the bigger boat (a Wayfarer – or ‘Wafer’ as the littlest one kept calling it!), while another sailor swapped into the Topper. I was then sailing with my husband, my friend, and her eldest son. They had obviously been learning about sailing already, so I just let people have a go a whatever they fancied – managing one of the sails, or taking a turn at the helm – while I supervised, until it was time to go in. There wasn’t much wind, so it was very relaxing sailing. I was chuffed at the end that after so much time I was still able to take over control of the dinghy when we had to head back in, and tack it (sailing and making a series turns so that you can get to an upwind destination) back to the jetty, judging it right to glide in to the jetty without bumping the boat. I was very happy with the day!

The fourth day and we were not waterbabies this time. A friend of Sarah's used to work at a quadbiking centre near Tenby, Ritec Valley Quads, and was keen to take everyone there. The rest of us grown-ups had each been quad biking once before, although it was the first time for the eldest son, while littlest son had to go on the children’s circuit which he had done before. We were all looking forward to it, and the course was really interesting – lots of different terrain and tricky paths to follow - even a couple of obstacles to overcome.

The quads had gears which you click through up and down, and it’s really tricky to remember which gear you’re in sometimes! We whizzed around the place, with only the occasional detour off the track when a bend was too tight…

The time seemed to go by fairly quickly - I just felt like I was getting the hang of things and feeling braver when it was all over! Adam found this his favourite activity of everything we did while in Pembrokeshire, Sarah and I had a great time, and her eldest son did really well considering it was his first time.

Still to come: Puffins!

Some of My Favourite Active Experiences...

(So far, and in no particular order)

Skiing Austria's steepest pisted ski run, Harakiri

Riding a buskashi horse in Tajikistan

 

Trying out a porter's load while trekking on the Annapurna Circuit, Nepal

Wild Swimming in Iskander Kul, Tajikistan

Spending two weeks as trainee crew on a tall ship

Swimming under a waterfall in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Sky diving with a friend from the Silver Stars Parachute Display Team

Hovercrafting on my hen party weekend

Whizzing down the longest zipline in Peru - and possibly the World!

 

Mountain Rescue

This incident happened in August 2009, and I had written about it for a different reason much nearer the time. The event seemed like a pretty big deal, both at the time and on reflection – I still think about it often – so I thought I would publish it.

I enjoy hill walking, although I haven’t been doing as much as I would like to lately. Back in 2009 however, I was heading for the hills with my then-new-boyfriend (now husband!) Adam quite regularly.

I had walked up Snowdon, the tallest mountain in Wales, previously and in July 2009 we had made a trip to Scotland where we had walked up Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland. Therefore, walking up the highest peak in England, Scafell Pike, seemed a natural thing to do next. For this trip we invited friends Andy and Stu too, and the four us met at my house and drove together up to the Lake District.

I had picked a route from Trail Magazine, a publication I really like for its hill walking route suggestions, gear reviews, and general walking tips and features. The route took in another peak, Great Gable, and continued on to summit Scafell Pike before completing a loop and finishing up back at the popular walkers’ pub near our campsite. 

At the top of Great Gable

We reached the top of Great Gable easily enough, and stopped for a brew from our flasks near the top. 

We then had a gentle walk with sweeping views on the way from Great Gable to the Scafell massif, ready to hike up Scafell Pike. 

(photo credit: Andy)

On this pathway we rounded a bit of a bend and a cluster of walkers in the distance came into view.  As we got nearer, we could see more passers-by arriving and adding to the group, and it appeared quite unusual. We had been watching the Mountain Rescue helicopter performing manoeuvres a little earlier, and we started to wonder if maybe an incident had occurred and that was why the group had gathered and the helicopter had been flying.

Fearing the worst, Andy and I decided to push ahead to reach the group and find out what was happening.  When we got to the group of walkers, we found out that there had indeed been a problem: at a point just beyond the cluster of walkers, the path became quite narrow with a steep rise to one side and a steep drop to the other, and a waterfall came down from above and dropped away onto rocks below the path on the other side. At this narrow, damp bit of path, a walker had slipped and fallen down onto the rocks below.

The group with the fallen walker were of mixed European nationalities and most of them did not speak English, so communicating was tricky. Between their limited English and my even-more-limited GCSE German though, we were able to find out a little bit more.  The group were colleagues and friends out celebrating someone’s 50^th birthday with a walk in the hills. I was surprised to discover that the walker had fallen at least 20 minutes previously, but no-one had really taken charge of the situation or done any kind of first aid. From talking to the people who had been with her when she fell I could put this down to them being in a bit of shock at what had happened. Most amazing to me however, was that so many other walkers coming across this incident had sat themselves down to watch but hadn’t done anything to actually help! (It turned out that the circling Mountain Rescue Helicopter was just exercising, and it was a total coincidence that it was there at all) I was astounded.

As nothing had been done yet, Andy and I decided immediately to get involved and try to help. While Andy talked to the walkers up on the footpath and tried to get the attention of the Mountain Rescue helicopter, I quickly climbed down to the fallen walker. She was a Dutch lady, and was obviously quite hurt and getting hypothermic – she had head and facial injuries from the fall onto rocks, had slurred speech and some confusion, and couldn’t walk or stand without help.  Although members of her group were down there with her, she was also still sitting against rocks in the fast flowing, very cold water, and so I immediately got people organised to get her out of the water. 

As she couldn’t stand well or walk at all, it took a bit of hard work to get enough people together in the small gully to carry her out, but although they had been too shocked to have taken the initiative already, with someone taking charge everyone was very willing to help and between us we managed it. Her partner was with her and he was obviously really distressed, so I tried to comfort him as much as I could too.

Carrying her out of the gully, we got her to a spot where we could get back up to a bank sloping down gently from the footpath, and Andy got some people together at the top to help lift her up there where she would be safer and we could look after her better. This had all only taken a few minutes, in which time Adam and Stu had also arrived, but no-one had been able to get the attention of the helicopter. Therefore Adam and Stu got the map out to work out our exact grid reference, and then sent a couple of people off in different directions to try and get a phone signal and call Mountain Rescue, while I got my first aid kit out to clean up the fallen walker’s head a bit.

Hypothermia can be quite dangerous, particularly in exposed situations like this, so with her partner to help we got as much of her wet clothing off as possible in the circumstances and then got her wrapped up in spare warm kit. The others I was with kept onlookers an appropriate distance away – it’s always important in this type of situation to keep ‘spectators’ away from a casualty.

With the lady out of the water and wrapped up as much as possible, and the helicopter on the way, there wasn’t a great deal to do so her partner and I just cuddled up to her to keep her as warm as possible, and gave her as much reassurance as possible. Then another walker came by and offered us the use of his emergency shelter, which was not only really helpful in keeping the chill wind off her, but also reinstated my faith in other walkers! The shelter was only big enough for two so I left the couple together inside, and we soon spotted the helicopter arriving. I borrowed a fluorescent bag cover from an onlooker, and gave held it up as a signal to the helicopter, and also for it to act as a bit of a windsock for them. Everyone was waving to the helicopter, and as it came nearer we did our best to keep everyone clear. 

Mountain Rescue helicopter attempting to land (photo credit: Andy)

Unfortunately, it turned out that where we were the shape of the ground and surrounding hills meant that the winds were constantly shifting and gusting, and after a few attempts the helicopter pilot realised he wouldn’t be able to land. The helicopter therefore lifted up again and flew off out of sight to find somewhere that he could land, and Andy ran off after the helicopter so that he could meet the winchman and bring him back to us as swiftly as possible. 

When the winchman arrived to us I told him everything I knew, and we just did whatever he asked us to to help. When he was ready, the winchman called the helicopter back by radio, and with everyone else huddled out of the way, the helicopter lowered its winch down. It was impressive to see how smoothly they worked together to winch the poor lady up to safety, and once this manoeuvre was completed they flew off to get her to hospital. 

The winchman calling back the helicopter (photo credit: Andy)

Winching to safety

With the drama over, all of the onlookers - included the group who had been with the injured walker - gathered up their things and dispersed, and our group started to continue our walk too. As we walked away I looked over my shoulder, and saw that the injured lady’s partner was now all alone, just sat on a rock with his head in hands. With nothing left to focus on, he seemed so deflated and upset.

I walked back to him and sat next to him with arm around his shoulders. He sat silently for a while, and suddenly just stood up and let out a wail of anguish like I have never heard before. I really felt for him, so I went over to him and held him, and he clung to me in such a powerful hug that I felt so glad I had looked back for him. We stood like that until I felt the tension in him reduce, and then we stepped back from each other. He thanked me and asked me to thank the rest of the guys I was with too, took a deep breath, and finally headed off after the rest of his own group.

This whole event was a pretty moving experience and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with our plan to summit Scafell Pike, but the guys outvoted me and we carried on. It was probably good that we did, as the walking helped me to feel calm again, and we were all in good spirits by the time we reached the top, even if the weather was still a bit miserable... 

At the summit of Scafell Pike

Descending again, we finished off our circuit back at the walker’s pub we had passed at the start, and went in for a few well-earned pints. Inside at the bar we bumped into none other than the group who had been with the lady who had fallen! They had arrived earlier and were on their way out, but they thanked us and told us she was safely in hospital and doing fine – she would be released from hospital the following day – and her partner had managed to get there too and was with her. They took photos with us, and bought us all a pint before heading off. It was great to hear that she was ok and that her partner had been able to get to her so soon.

I still think about this often, and feel really glad that we were able to help with something special that day.