Day 15: Ceibwr Bay to St Dogmaels

Weather: Mostly sunny with strong south wester Distance covered today: 12.2km (7.6mi) Last night's B&B: The Golden Lion Country Inn % Complete: Cum distance:100.6%:301.8km(187.5mi) GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 15 (click!)

Home again! Veronica is off to her Pilates session, and I’m back behind my netbook, my desktop and my tablet, and it’s all as if I never went away. Except for the suntan….

May I first apologise for the late publication of the final post, but it is my wont to analyse these things in nerdy detail, and for that I require the software on my desktop, so I had to get home first.  Also Veronica and I were splendidly entertained by Fiona and the Grumpy Hobbit, Julian, in their beautiful Welsh long cottage in the Welsh hills, and being a hobbit, such things as wifi have yet to breach his portals.

The Hobbit did though join me for the final leg of the journey, a short walk to the end of the trail in St Dogmaels.  Many walkers do the penultimate and final day’s walk of the coastal path in a single day, but at 27km (17mi), and incorporating the highest cliffs of the journey so far, that would be a very demanding day and the less enjoyable for all that. Equally, previous experience has suggested to me that it is always delightful to end the walk in a reasonably refreshed state to enjoy the reunion and to celebrate its conclusion.  The guidebooks are always most unsentimental about the last steps, somehow suggesting that one should already be planning the next walk, but don’t tell Veronica!

In fact, the final leg was very much a walk in two parts. The first half, to Cemaes Head, involved an exhilarating climb up the highest cliff of the journey (570ft, 175m), made exciting by the strong and gusty onshore south wester climbing the cliffs and hurling itself at us on the edge.  Fortunately, the cliffs are not steep on this leg, but the views are spectacular.

Once again, very few people seemed to be taking advantage of this wonderful resource. We met one mad Irishman, who looked as if he had very many miles under his belt; we passed Adrienne, now joined by her partner, Nigel, on the point of completing her very first long-distance walk, for which many congratulations; and finally we met a highly animated and rather concerned little group of four amateurs, with the females of the group seemingly terrified at the prospect of facing the cliffs in the strong wind.  Then the walk sort of petered out with a long and rather boring descent on a tar road into St Dogmaels.

And that was it! The End!

Now, though, for the exciting bit, the stats!

First an overview of the route. The numbers indicate the Waypoints at the conclusion of each day's walk. I uploaded the waypoints into Google Earth. For individual daily tracks, see the relevant GPS section on the top, right hand side of the blog

The weather is always an important element of a hike. I was yet again incredibly lucky in a very wet spring to select the only dry patch we've had since the beginning of winter.

The trail was surprisingly hilly. At an average of 2,720 ft/day the trail was "steeper" than the Pennine Way (2,450 ft/day) and only a little less than the dreaded Offa's Dyke (3,020 ft/day)

Most guidebooks argue that the trail is "easier" in the South than the North. These statistics suggest otherwise, though combining days 14 &15 would certainly top the difficulty stakes! 

The same data in English units. Now for a few last pictures of the final day's walk

Setting off from Ceibwr Bay, joined by Julian, the Grumpy Hobbit himself!

A lovely clapper bridge; the first I've seen since the Highlands

That's Cemaes Head, the last headland of the journey and the half-way point of today's walk

Amazing folding on the rocky headland

Adrienne on the right, with her partner, Nigel

More of those incredible folds, with a cathedral-like cave door at the base

Julian struggling against the wind to close a gate

A new foal for Veronica

These are lazy, but erudite sheep. I see one of them is reading "The Girl with a Pearl Earring". Either that or they like Vermeer! 

One feels one is returning to civilisation!

And suddenly, it's the end!  There's a plaque to prove it!

A lovely reunion with Veronica

And a last little lamb for Phyllis. (I was cheating a bit. I snapped this at the hobbit-hole)

Day 14: Newport to Ceibwr Bay

Weather: Sunny and very windy, with a late shower

Distance covered today: 14.6km (9.1mi)

Last night's B&B: The Golden Lion Country Inn

% Complete: Cum distance:  98.5%: 289.6 (179.9mi)

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 14 (click!)

A strange metamorphosis occurs on these journeys. At first, exposure to the elements is a bit of a shock, requiring careful selection of clothing and lots of respect for the conditions. As time moves on, one becomes somewhat used, if not inured, to these external stimuli. I’m not talking about extreme conditions such as yesterday, to which everyone would react, but just the normal variation that takes place day to day. 

Looking back at the early photos in this blog, reflecting balmy weather  to start and contrasting that with the much harsher circumstances up here, I find that I am still wearing the identical clothes, and feeling just the same.  It must be that the body, in constant motion and being pushed quite hard, regulates its temperature internally. How hot I feel is more a question of how hard I’m pushing up the hill, how heavily I’m breathing and not so much on the external meteorology.

I’ve noticed for instance, people getting out of their warm, comfortable cars at the beach, and immediately hugging themselves for warmth, putting on copious extra layers and still looking decidedly uncomfortable, whereas I feel just fine in just a shirt. Veronica would argue that I don’t feel the cold as others do, and there is some truth in that, but this is well beyond that. After a few weeks of being outside all the time, some sort of adjustment must take place internally. It is an invigorating experience.

Certainly that change from the balmy South to the chilly North does seem to have occurred. It’s as if I’ve walked from the Mediterranean to North West Europe!!  It’s truly hard to believe that I’m only about 25 miles as the crow flies from my point of departure!  It is of course all due to the weather, but somehow the weather combined with these very high and isolated cliffs, lends a distinctly cool and slightly ominous feel to the journey.

Today, I passed just three walkers on the entire walk. Two old friends from Lancashire were completing a leg in a series going back ten years and claimed amidst gales of laughter that each year the legs get shorter!  Then, right at the end, I past a very fit German, carrying full camping kit and yomping down the path to Amroth, which he hopes to achieve in not much more than a week. Absolutely no-one else, not even a dog-walker was sighted.  What a contrast to the legions of visitors around St David’s, just a week ago!

Today the wind wasn’t as severe as yesterday, but it was still blowing a gale, and I was on much higher and steeper cliffs. I had to be careful, and I was very conscious of the advice I read somewhere that one is much more likely to take a wrong step when one is tired, and that this is a risk towards the end of this journey. I noted at one point when I was trying to change my map, while hanging onto my poles and my backpack, etc., that as something almost gets away in the wind, there is an automatic reaction to lunge after it, and on the edge of a cliff, this is unwise. It is so easy to misjudge your footing. I looked up at the birds, so assured in these conditions, as are the horses and all the other animals that live out here, and agreed that I might have been here for a while, but I still don’t belong.

 As I reflected on this information, I also had to admit to myself that this journey has been tougher than I had expected.  Despite having read widely about the trail, in my mind’s eye I still imagined that a stroll along a coastal path could hardly be more demanding than the Pennine Way or the West Highland Way.  Of course I did not anticipate the gleam in the eye of the mad contour man, and the statistics will reveal that this walk has been very arduous in ascents and descents, but that must await my last post.

For the last leg tomorrow, I will be joined by the Grumpy Hobbit himself and possible also by his wife, Her Nibs. I look very much forward to enjoying their company and learning more about this lovely country.

I will also see Veronica, and after just a few weeks without her, that will be a joyous reunion.

The Narberth River estuary; home to many seabirds

Yet another lime kiln, for Bridget

My favourite forest tunnels, heading up towards the cliffs

Looking back at the extensive Newport Sands

That's my first objective, and soon I'll be looking down on it!

Wonderful crags. This one looked to me like a woman's face in profile

Only the second warning along the path. The first was between Fresh West and Angle. Sobering!

Great shards of rock, agonised and rearing skywards. Richard will have a more informed opinion

A seabird, floating effortlessly on the howling updraft, observing me, curiously. "Why is he having such difficulty? Inferior species!"

Glorious colours on the bracken covered slopes

A 'lawn' on top of the cliff and then a vertical drop to the sea. Lovely

Looking back along the coast

Back down at sea level, the path crossed this rock "bridge" which the sea had carved out. It is called the Devil's Cauldron. Hard to capture, but you get the picture!

Looking back down the coast. The furthest headland is yesterday's Dinas Head

Voila! A manicured path on the flat. I couldn't believe my eyes!

That is Camaes Head, the last headland of the journey and tomorrow's objective

A lovely country stream to complete the day

 

Day 13: Goodwick to Newport

Weather: Torrential rain and gale force wind, sun later

Distance covered today: 23.1km (14.4mi)

Last night's B&B: The Ferryboat Guesthouse

% Complete: Cum distance:  93.5%: 275.0km (170.9mi)

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 13 (click!)

The storm was even worse than I had anticipated. By noon it was gusting up to 60mph, according to actual reports for Goodwick Sands from the Met Office, and I’m convinced that on the cliff edge some of the gusts were even stronger. The rain was horizontal and felt like sleet on my face. The drumming on my hood was so loud, I could hear nothing else. Visibility wasn’t too bad, but because I was trying to keep the rain off my face (it was that painful!), I actually couldn’t see much beyond a few yards ahead of me on the path.  I even managed to take the wrong turning in Fishguard, leading to extra distance in a day which was already planned to be lengthy without taking account of the inclement weather.

Before leaving, I had put on my complete extreme rain-gear system, and was reasonably sure it would keep me dry. I decided not to use a rain-cover on my backpack, because it is a little larger than the backpack and I was worried that it might act as a sail in the wind, or at the very least, thrash itself loose. I wrapped everything in the rain-cover and put the parcel in the back-pack.

Mistake!  The rain went through the backpack as if it wasn’t there!  The water pooled inside and soaked everything! It was literally sloshing as I walked. Meanwhile my trouser pockets filled with water, drenching my wallet and everything else in there. Water is no respecter of zips!  I took great pains to keep my mobile and my camera dry and crucially, I did succeed with them.

Despite these inadequacies, the system did keep me personally dry and warm, which, I suppose, is the main purpose, though I wouldn’t have lasted more than a few more hours before the water got through. This was the first time I had tested the apparel in such extreme conditions after my inadequate equipment on the Pennine Way had left me soaked to the skin in better weather!
 
The problem with this sort of thing is where do you stop? Today’s weather was so severe that I would probably only experience it say once in five years, and almost always on those occasions, I would opt not to go out in it. Better gear would be heavier and ruinously expensive, so no deal. I should though have been a little better organised.

Fortunately, I found a camp-site with a small shop and an “information room”. They invited me to use it to sort myself out. I stripped off the wettest apparel, did what I could with the drowned bits of stuff, phoned Veronica to reassure her that I was being sensible, ate a sandwich and a bar of chocolate, and set off into weather which just got worse and worse!  I had only covered a third of my journey and it was already afternoon!

By now I was back on the cliff edge. During the entire day, I did not see a single person on the trail. They were presumably being sensible. Conditions continued to deteriorate. I was walking one step at a time, thinking consciously of placing my foot in exactly the right position, using both of my walking poles for balance and as shock absorbers for the violent gusts of wind. I was never in danger of being lifted off the ground by the wind; my sleek clothing, my sylph-like profile (!) and substantial mass (!!) kept me grounded!

The problem was that the path was now very slippery in the rain after such a long dry period, and in places very steep. My concern was that, being buffeted by the wind, I would slip, sprain an ankle or break a leg, and there wouldn’t be anyone around to lend assistance. Hence the attention to detail, just like Veronica riding her horse; every step counts, no mistake is acceptable, total concentration is required despite the cacophony surrounding me, being professional is not tolerating any mistakes….

I had told Veronica that I would cut the leg short, choosing not to climb the beautiful Pen y Fan on Dinas Island. However, as I approached the junction at which the decision would have to be made, the rain stopped and the visibility improved dramatically. Dinas Head looked so inviting that I couldn’t resist it and I went for the most exhilarating walk of my journey so far!  The wind was as strong as ever and I had to be careful, but the views from that magnificent peninsula were superb! I could see the entire bay from Strumble Head all the way to Camaes Head at the end of the coastal path, and the angry sea was invigorating and refreshing!  My mood changed from soberly sombre to exuberantly buoyant!

I do though have a bone to pick. The fellow from the Pembrokeshire path lot, whose job it is to look at the contours; you remember the fellow I was complaining about way back in Manobier or somewhere?  Well, after a quiet time, he certainly has his mojo back!  Over the past couple of days, he has had me yo-yoing about like a demented pogo stick! He must get a glint in his eye. “I could send them around there on the level, but no!  Down they go to sea level and there they go, back up to the top of the cliff. Serves them right!  They should be fitter!”  To be fair, today he probably had little choice, with all the rivulets reaching the sea and cutting the cliffs down to size. There really wasn’t much alternative.

There do, though seem to be a lot of rivers in Wales! And all I know is that I am going to sleep like a log tonight!

Before setting out. Full storm kit on board!

Lovely Lower Fishguard and its harbour

Note the pole sign and the B&B sign on the pavement. That would have given me a substantial headache! Time to head for the safety of the cliffs!

Being greeted by a wild and angry sea

and a truly beautiful rock!

Looking out towards Dinas Island

I know how this tree feels!

Beautiful colours above a cave right through the rock!

Such a contrast with the friendly shores of the south!

But then the rain disappears and I head for Dinas Head!

At the trig beacon at Pen y Fan, looking onwards to my destination at Newport. That's Newport Beach on the left

The far peninsula is Camaes Head, my ultimate goal for this campaign!

Much friendlier in the sunshine, despite the wind!

What a wonderful spot for a braaivleis!

A truly beautiful tree!

 

 

The tiny layer of soil and vegetation is visible on the top of this cliff. Below that the rock descends vast distances all the way to the Magma and the Core, and eventually to Australia where it repeats the process! Makes one think how precariously and inauspiciously we cling to the very surface of this planet!

 

 

The lovely town of Newport, my home for two nights. Such a relief after Goodwick!