Around the Edge of Wales (13)....Amroth to Pembroke

Around the edge of Wales(13)... Amroth to Pembroke

Early morning on the clifftops at Saundersfoot. Collared doves whirred clumsily between dense canopies as I walked through a mix of broadleaved trees and planted conifers towards Tenby.  The town looked beautiful and elegant through the mizzle of early morning mist. I stopped to photograph some impressive restoration work on the seafront buildings and called into the Giltar Hotel for cup of coffee and to recharge my phone and camera. 

The walk along Tenby’s North Beach was hard going with a back pack, and the paddle through cool surf  was a mix of agony and relief for my blistered feet.  The climb up to the edge of the Penalun range was rewarded firstly with a spectacular display of yellow rattle, kidney vetch and trefoil and then by an instruction from the guard posted at the MOD boundary to return and follow a diversion out to the road – their return from Afghanistan the previous week had necessitated a ‘shoot-out’ exercise to test their skills and the range was closed to walkers. I would have been glad of an earlier warning, on the southern side of Tenby, to save some unnecessary walking. 

Back I turned though – down past the line of soldiers shooting at pop-up human targets, regretting not only the fact that the range was closed that day but also that a section of the Penalun marshland had been lost to  create a military target practice area. Opposite the sharp shouts and the crackle of rifle fire, sedate troops of Tenby golfers were also concentrating on targets and holes in one across the dune greens. Through Penalun, and past the fruit-laden fig tree by the church, the path eventually led back to the coast, past a superb piece of marshland, full of ragged robin, bogbean, marsh cinquefoil, cuckoo flower and sedges. I stopped to take some photos and felt my annoyance fading away. Not for long though, as I was to find shortly that the Lydstep and Castlemartin ranges were also closed for military practice. 

 

In the meantime though, I was able to enjoy the limestone cliffs that led to Lydstep beach. They rose above a foaming sea that swirled in mesmerising  patterns and were covered in a colourful mass of pink and yellow flowers – thrift, kidney vetch, birds foot trefoil and stonecrop.   

Lydstep beach is an edge-to-edge  conurbation of mobile homes. This place, with its gorgeous view straight out to Caldey Island and vaguely ecclesiastical cliff formations, must once have been breathtaking. It was still lovely, but the mowed turf,  the network of roads, the neatly plinthed  luxury holiday caravans and the roar of jet-skis had now made it now a place to pass through quickly. The ground shuddered with the firing that was taking place on Lydstep Head and the thundering seemed to echo far away on the horizon. The skylarks appeared to be immune to the commotion and sang continuously.  West of Lydstep head I watched a kestrel hunting and returning to its cliff ledge nest, and was fascinated by the behaviour of a young chough that had panicked at my approach along the path – but had refused to move from its boulder until one of the parents swept by, within a feather blade of its head, and coaxed the youngster to follow it to the safety of a bare earth ledge under a nearby grassy overhang.  Common blue butterflies flitted amongst the trefoil flowers between Lydstep and Manorbier – the best show of butterflies I’d seen since I’d started on my journey in early May. I counted 25 in total that day.  I stopped to search for watercress at Manorbier – one of the few locations I know for wild watercress  – and was glad to discover it was still there. I couldn’t resist a handful of leaves and pushed the possibility of liver fluke to the back of my mind.

The cliffs west of Manorbier were deserted. Freshwater East was practically empty as I picked my way through narrow sandy paths amongst the sheets of burnet rose, with their creamy bridal looking flowers.  The evening sun was beautiful and warm as I moved on towards Stackpole, past a cheerful  childish smiling face on an old deserted road wagon. The low rays cast shadows across the clifftops, scoring deep lines through crop fields and highlighting the ramparts of the dramatic promontory fort at Greenala Point.  A solitary blackbird was perched at the edge of the dense scrub below the fort, its song echoing loudly and juicily around the cove in the late evening  hush. A few metres further along the dog became agitated. A strange tinny sound  carried over the air and I realised I was listening to a radio. At the edge of the path, beneath a huddle of low trees, a traveller had set up camp.  We spoke for a while; he’d been camping on the cliff since March, living a low footprint life, seeking solitude and confining his meagre budget to securing a supply of food, a stock of rollies and a few books. One of life’s opter-outers who had chosen to live life in the slow lane but still dreamt of being Lemmy from Motorhead.

After a brief clifftop sleep and a very early morning start the next day I was at Broad Haven  beach by 8.30am. I decided to detour around the Bosherston ponds, on the chance I might see otters. Despite several visits over the years i’d not yet been lucky enough to glimpse them here .   Even at this early hour groups of people were out, scanning the ponds with binoculars, giving up and moving on after a while. After hanging around for about an hour I decided to give up too and just enjoy the peaceful pond edge walk  and aim for the village café for a bite to eat. I watched a swan gliding towards me, two small grey-brown cygnets at her side, and wondered about the lateness of her brood. I lost sight of them around a bend in the path and when they reappeared I realised I’d been mistaken – the two small creatures  at the swan’s side were actually otter heads.  They dived and swam around the swan, weaving a chain of interlocking ripples around the bird before she eventually disappeared, leaving the two of them to continue their performance – one minute swimming close together, both heads almost touching, then breaking away and looping gracefully around each other, the dark velvety curve of  their bodies alternating with their blunt heads as they gracefully and silently broke the surface of the lake. A magical, unforgettable experience.

Ye Olde Tea Shoppe at Bosherston was open for breakfast, despite the drizzle, and was I glad! I shared a lovely hour with a father and son who had travelled from Glanaman for the day. I was touched by everyone’s kindness and generosity -  the staff, the amazing Aunty Vi and the  good folks from Glanaman.

Firing on the Castlemartin Ranges meant another long, frustrating detour along roads to Freshwater West. Dying alexanders were fading like gold brocade in the hedgerows, amidst a high summer blitz of ox-eye daisies and foxgloves. I was tired by the time I reached the beautiful but surprisingly quiet beach at Freshwater West. A few surfers were practising in the  rolling waves and another group were having some beach based beginners’ lessons. A couple of people were walking their dogs and two backpackers walked past in the distance – a rare sight on this journey.

The 3.4 mile walk to Angle was about the hardest coastal walk I've ever undertaken.  A steep series of ascents and descents and too little of interest along the clifftop to compensate for the sheer pain and effort, although the simultaneous appearance of 9 chough, 3 ravens, 1 kestrel and a peregrine falcon above a deep cauldron of a bay near Angle was pretty impressive.

The break at Angle was enjoyable. An interesting village with its Indian-influenced flat roof buildings, its gentle paths that fringe low wooded headlands, soft marsh and mudflats and its fascinating views of port infrastructure  and power stations.

 I kept on thinking that Pembroke would appear around each corner but the town was a long, long way up the estuary and the path, especially around Popton and the power station felt as if it would never reach the town that day. Near Pwllcrochan church I could have keeled over but found the energy to take a detour up to  a nearby lay-by where Rory feeds the power station workers every day with an amazing choice of home-cooked food from his ‘Spud Wagon’.  I sat down on the ground and feasted in the rain on Rory’s kind gift of a meal  and a hot cup of tea. Around me, the power station hummed and hissed, columns of flames rose from chimney stacks and melted into the mist and the Castlemartin guns kept on drumming in the distance.