Newport to Ceibwr bay

Stage 21: 8 miles in just under 4 hours on 9th September

Before I started the walk, I retraced my steps at the end of the last walk (when, I have to admit, I was shattered) to see Carreg Coetan Arthur - a small cromlech nestling amongst a new housing development. Although prehistoric, it has a 21st century suburban air about it - I think it's the snooker-table grass and clipped hedge which bothers me.

Then it was off over Newport's Iron Bridge, along the river bank, past a limekiln (naturally) and across the golf course to Newport Sands. It's a bit nerve-wracking crossing a golf course when there are players within view actually wielding clubs. I am not familiar with golfing vs public footpath etiquette, but it seemed they were happy for me to have right of way.

On this side of the River Nyfer estuary, a few people were wandering in the surf along the beach - - also known as the Bennet - and the car park was starting to fill up. On the other side the boats in the distance at the Parrog which, on the previous day's walk, had been lying on their sides on the mud at low tide, were all upright and in neat rows in today's high tide.

Neither of my guidebooks, while otherwise informative, has given much information till now on the ups and downs of the path. I assume the authors just strode along in an aura of fearsome fitness. However for today's walk both were quite unambiguous: there were going to be some steep climbs. So I braced myself and got going. Sometimes when you do that, it's not quite as bad as you anticipate, and this was one of those times - or perhaps I am just a little fitter than I was setting off from Amroth.

It's difficult to take a good photo of steepness, but here a farmer is herding his sheep on his quadbike (arrowed) on the almost vertical slope up to Pen y Bâl. He stopped to pass the time of day with the walkers ahead of me, so I had a chance to take a pic. The path follows inside the line of the fence (lhs) and is a mixture of steps and stones. In a way I found the descents today more difficult, and certainly more hair-raising than the ascents. The last few days' rain had made everything muddy and skiddy.

A beacon, presumably for shipping, marked the top of the climb and I had a fantastic view back to Dinas Island. By now the weather had turned amazing - hot, hot sunshine.

The path ran along (and up and down in accord with the predictions) the top of very high cliffs, whose slopes were mostly covered with rusty bracken. Because the tide was up, any beaches were minimal, but looking back I spotted this arch at Bwn Bach. Out of the corner of my eye, I also caught the Strumble Head lighthouse winking at me in the far, far hazy distance. It had been out of sight for miles, but now reappeared.

There aren't a huge number of stiles along the path, as the National Park Authority has been kindly replacing them with gates. However I did meet one family with a conundrum. Dad had a baby in a rucksack thing on his back. Mum was in charge of a large lurcher-type dog, which could or would not get over / under / round the stile. I offered to help lift him over, but they assured me he would be too heavy. The only solution I could see (apart from giving up!) would be to load the dog in the baby carrier and give Mum the baby to hold, but I didn't offer this gem of advice .... I clambered over the stile and left them to it.

Pwll -y-Wrach, the Witch's Cauldron, is the chaotic result of insistent Atlantic waves - a collapsed blowhole with an arch over which the Coast Path goes. There is a small beach made of horizontal slate beds, made smooth by the relentless tides. Impossible to describe in less than superlatives - spectacular!

From here it was a fairly short walk to Ceibwr bay, my destination for the day. But there were still more rocks to gawp at, another arch to admire and, ahead of me, cliffs with complex zig-zag patterns of erosion.

Laid out on the grass before Ceibwr was this pattern made of small slatey pieces. I wish I could be as artistic!

At the end of my walk I searched out another cromlech not far away - Llech Tri-bedd (Three graves slab). It rounded off the day in excellent fashion - suitably wild and untamed.