Caerfai, Tyddewi to Penberi

Stage 16: 13 miles in about 7 hours (incl. stop for lunch!) on 24th August

The decision to walk so many miles was not from bravado, but from a necessity to fit my destination-planning round the timetables and routes of the small coastal buses which sprint up and down the coastline, making it possible for walkers to access the Coast Path. Having to date used the Coastal Cruiser and Puffin Shuttle, I am now frequenting the Strumble Shuttle which runs from St David's to Fishguard and back, via the coastal road along which I guided the Sinai Cycling Club almost a year ago. The joy of these small buses is that you can hail them or request them to stop wherever takes your fancy on the route. The snag is that they don't run very often. However, any trip likely to be full of incident, as they have to pull in to avoid cars on the often single track lanes. (pic: greentraveller.co.uk)

Caerfai car park was deserted on this exceptionally windy morning.
There was even sea foam on the cliff top path on the way to St Non's. This is reputed to be the birth place of St David, Dewi Sant - Non being his mother. There is a large 1920's house here now, with a small stone chapel close by, dedicated to St Non. This was added by the original owner of the house in 1934 for his wife who had converted to Catholicism and found it irksome to have to travel 16 miles to the nearest church - much easier to ask the priest to come to her. The small chapel is open to the elements and was built from local stone reclaimed from other disused ecclesiastical buildings. Its serenity in a wild landscape appealed to me. Nearby is a well, said to have sprung when St David was born here, and just across the field are the ruins of an ancient chapel dedicated to St Non.

In the relative calm of Porth Clais (a four limekiln harbour, if anyone's keeping a tally), a mile or more further on, all sorts of derring-do was about to happen, as a mini-bus load of youngish people arrived kitted out for coasteering - in jolly coloured jackets and hard hats. On the water, more people were launching kayaks. I felt a little unadventurous as I clambered back on to the clifftop. I watched the coasteerers starting to absail across some sheer cliffs. When I couldn't bear the suspense any longer, I turned for a further battle with the west wind, and rounded the last peninsula of St Bride's Bay before heading for Pembrokeshire's Atlantic coast once more.

All along the Coast Path there are benches at view points, often with an inscribed plaque dedicated to the memory of so-and-so, who loved this spot. Sometimes this individual weary walker thinks that so-and-so could have ventured a little further from the car park - so that the bench was, say, more in the middle of nowhere. The National Coast Path Authority is apparently clamping down now - fewer benches are to be erected and certainly without permission. With this in mind I liked the way someone had put a simply-engraved plaque marked TAID on one of the gates - surprising: Taid is Welsh for grandfather in North Wales. Tad-cu would be the word in Pembrokeshire.

The backdrop scenery after Porth Clais starts to change - lots of boulders and rocky outcrops, reflected out to sea by a number of small islands, with tantalising views of other bigger ones further away.

One of the ragged collection of rocks called Carreg yr Esgob, just outside Porthlysgi, looks as if it is about to break in two. To the south the island of Skomer was still in view, just off the southern tip of St Bride's Bay and I could see 2 tankers over there still waiting their turn to go into Milford.

Photographic ponies on a small patch of grass gave away the fact that I was now on National Trust land again. I think the NT must own just about every scenic headland in this bit of Britain. Perhaps every one.

In front of me was Ramsey Island and its smaller off shore relatives. Between Ramsey and the mainland, Ramsey Sound is an exciting race of water, called colloquially the Bitches, after a rocky point off Ramsey. Facing this, close to the site of an old copper mine at Treginnis, stood a man, clad in waterproofs, with his binoculars trained on the swirling water. I stopped to ask him about the hawk I'd seen hovering and plunging not far away - a kestrel, he told me. His job is observing porpoises - can't be many with his job description - but today's water was going to be too rough to sort out the porpoises from the white horses, so he was happy to give me a brief wildlife advice session. We watched gannets swooping down - apparently these birds follow porpoises, because the cetaceans (showing off now - the word for the sort of creature they are) disturb the same sort of food which the gannets feed on. On Grassholm Island, which I could just make out 8 miles away, there are more than 30,000 pairs of gannets nesting - around 10% of the world population. Gannets nest on only three islands in Britain so, if you see gannets in Cornwall, they come from Grassholm - and will return all the way there after feeding.

At Porthstinian none of the little Ramsey ferries was venturing across the rough water, nor any dare-devil small boats going out over the Bitches. Crossing over the set of cables used for getting supplies to the precipitous Lifeboat Station, the path winds its way round yet another head (Point St John) and into Porth Mawr bay, at last sheltered from the insistent wind.

Ahead rears the landmark of Carn Llidi - not quite a mountain, but just as charasmatic - which I'd seen all the way back from Martin's Haven, across St Bride's Bay. In the shelter of Porth Mawr bay lie two large sandy beaches. At the first, Porthselau, a group of children had built a huge sandcastle - probably about 3ft tall and one boy was being king of it.

By now the path had filled up with walkers and I was having to stop every 100 yards or so to let people past: time for a break at Whitesands beach, in amongst hundreds of beachgoers, surfers, swimmers, dogs and all (mostly out of this picture!).

The surf was magnificent and I could only admire the surfers who could ride the incoming waves for what seemed like an age.

I followed the path away from Whitesands, past an almost deserted beach at Porthmelgan (no toilets or car park), through a boulder-strewn landscape all the way to Penmaen Dewi (St David's Head), which is a rocky headland, giving an opportunity to wave farewell to Ramsey and Skomer beyond, not to mention the smaller islands a little further out called the Bishops and Clerks - a treacherous area for shipping. In 140AD in a survey of the known world the Romans described Penmaen Dewi as the ‘Promontory of the Eight Perils’.

From an earlier period, Coetan Arthur burial chamber is camouflaged amongst the many boulders. Where there are fewer stones, the heather has spread to make deep purple meadows, but it even makes itself at home on the bare rocks.

The path runs along the length of the base of Carn Llidi, and visible up on the peak there were scores of walkers who had made it to the top.



To my left, the angry Atlantic battered itself against the many cliffs and coves, until I turned a corner and found a rather more sheltered seascape.

I was lucky enough to spot two dolphins or porpoises swimming in one of the less frantic bays along this stretch. This more than justified my recent investment in a pair of binoculars.

My next target was away in the distance: Carn Penberi, another stone-helmeted peak, beyond which lay my car. The guidebook remarked what a pity it was that the walker had to climb over the shoulder of Penberi, and it was indeed a bit like climbing a loft ladder in places.

I was just grateful that the way did not insist that I climb over its head.

Total walked: 123 miles out of 186