Day 5: Neyland to Sandy Haven

Weather: Brilliantly sunny with gentle Northerly

Distance covered today: 17.8km (11.1mi)

Last night's B&B: Neyland Court

% Complete: Cumulative distance: 39.8%:  114.8km

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 5 (click!)

Another perfect day for walking!  The temperature was around 15 deg C, with a light northerly breeze and wall-to-wall sunshine. The guidebooks were unanimously snooty about today’s walk, suggesting that the decimation of beautiful Milford Haven by the beastly oil industry had been cleverly obscured by the path builders, so that the best had been made of a bad job.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I really enjoyed the entire walk! I found it uniquely interesting; my first exposure to an LNG regasification installation, along with lots of ships, tugs and ferries as well as some lovely scenery in the sunshine. If anything, the walk was too short. I found myself killing time in the town of Milford Haven itself so as not to arrive too early at Sandy Haven!

In my enthusiasm, I’m getting ahead of myself. Yesterday was a rest day and I took myself off to have a good look round Pembroke Castle. I caught the bus back into Pembroke, and was unsurprised to learn that English bus passes are not legit in Wales. “We can’t use ours in England, so you can’t use yours here!” said the bus driver.  I’m not sure who really is responsible for this tit-for-tat beggar-thy-neighbour bit of regional lunacy, but it really is not that surprising.  Anyway, with all the talk around at present that people who can afford it should not be accepting freebies from the state, perhaps I shouldn’t even have tried it on?

Anyway, I was safely back on the other side of the border within the castle walls. Apparently Pembroke Castle was the only castle of many in Pembrokeshire to withstand the ravages of the Welsh for all its history after they were established by the Normans in the 11th Century. The Norman invasion of Pembrokeshire took place relatively soon after 1066, because they were apparently aware of the remarkable civilisation of this part of the world.  It is interesting that Pembroke Castle itself was never under royal control, being in the possession of powerful English barons throughout its history.

In fact, its walls were breached once, by Oliver Cromwell, because the then incumbent had the impudence to switch his allegiance to the King during the English Civil War. He paid with his life!  The castle was an interesting diversion, with a very impressive keep, but I am beginning to understand the reluctance of English kids to view yet another castle.  There is a certain sameness…..  Eventually, I found myself sitting in the café, reading up on the history, which I found really much more fascinating. After all, it was my rest day!

Back on the trail today, I viewed the industrial history of the oil industry with just as much interest.  Along the way, I passed the site of the huge, decommissioned Exxon refinery, the still operating Murco refinery (Murphy Oil, an American Independent), and the two LNG regasification and storage plants, South Hook and Dragon.  I’ll spare you most of the details, as I can almost feel the yawns, but the scale of the operation does need a comment. 

It is estimated, that as North Sea gas rapidly declines, by 2020 30% of our gas will come through these LNG terminals, through the pipelines over and under which I walked today.   LNG is transported at -160 deg C (-260 deg F), at which temperature methane is a liquid. As a liquid, its energy density is almost the same as any other hydrocarbon (60% of that of diesel, for instance), and hence it can economically be transported by ship. In order to keep it at that very low temperature, it has to be stored in sophisticated, cryogenic tanks and significant energy is required first to liquefy it at the loading terminals, to refrigerate it on its travels and then to regasify it at its destination.  Its huge advantage is that most of the world’s unexploited reserves of conventional gas exist in places which are inaccessible by pipeline. This so-called “stranded gas” can be brought to market as LNG.

We are witnessing the fastest transition in history from one fuel to another for the provision of power and heating to human beings, and, including shale gas in the US, it is being accompanied by the biggest reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy consumed since the industrial revolution began.  Essentially coal is being replaced by gas for the provision of base load electricity supply.  Only nuclear power and/or conservation in the form of Orwellian controls on the use of energy could compete, and neither is likely.

Just a few years ago, it seemed that this revolution would be still-born. Because of the huge cost and the immense lead times of both the liquefaction and regasification ends of the chain, not to mention the very costly tankers themselves, no-one would invest in an LNG plant unless both ends of the system were constructed simultaneously and there were binding long-term sale-and-purchase agreements. Given that the supply end of the chain is often in unstable regions of the world, this was hard to guarantee. 

The future of the industry required a huge leap of faith that eventually enough suppliers and customers would exist around the globe that a “spot” market would develop, in much the way that it has for other petroleum products and crude oil.  Under these circumstances, with lots of competing players, the market would determine the price and neither suppliers nor customers would be left with vast investments and no activity. It does now look as if the LNG business is assured for the foreseeable future, and this is presumably one of the reasons it is proving so difficult for potential nuclear electricity plants in Britain to secure reasonable long-term guarantees from the authorities.

As I wandered along the coast of Milford Haven this morning, seeing in practice for the first time the things I have known about in theory for decades, I felt strangely elated and somehow privileged. I am fairly certain that I am almost unique amongst the customers of the coastal path to feel these emotions on this stretch!  That, though, you will be relieved to hear, is all I intend to say about the business!

As I turned the corner into the lovely Sandy Haven Bay with not an oil installation in sight, my problem was to time my crossing of the Sandy Haven “Pill” correctly.  I had been pre-warned that the stepping stones across the water are only accessible two hours each side of low tide. With the tide table in my back pocket, I timed my crossing perfectly and was on the lovely porch of Skerryback Farm B&B by 3pm, drinking tea in the sunshine. Tomorrow, I have to set out by 5am to catch the tide at the next obstacle at Dale Sands.

With these crossings, the character of my journey changes yet again and somehow I'm leaving my career behind and heading for unknown wilds.  I can't wait!!

The stone dome of the keep in Pembroke Castle. Most impressive and apparently unique

The huge keep from within the walls

Wogan's cave, deep under the castle. It has been occupied since the Stone Age

Vast storage vessels for crude oil for the Murco Refinery

Finally some half decent bluebells (for Bridget)! After our hard winter they are late and poor.

The impressive main street of Milford Haven; most up-market compared to the surrounding towns

And, of course, the Lord Nelson Hotel!

I felt amused and very welcome!

The ferry from Ireland passing a vast LNG tanker unloading at the quay

Purple Campion (I think??!)

Rolls Royce path, courtesy of the oil installations!

LNG pipelines out to the tanker on the left. Note the huge expansion U-bends, built to accommodate the enormous stresses of temperature change from -160deg C to ambient temps when there is no ship

Interesting security: fence, barbed wire, electrified fence and CCTV. Not very surprising

 

Huge gas storage tanks within the LNG processing plant

Another world. Tomorrow I have to round that far distant point, St Anne's Head on my way to Marloes

What is this? Yarrow? Today the flowers have been better on the North Shore, in the sun and out of the bitter, North wind

A display of Yarrow (?) on a bluff above the sea

Gorse above a very blue bay

Cornflowers????

The stepping stones across the receding tide at the Pill in Sandy Haven. The Haven has one of the more extreme tidal reaches in the UK. Fortunately, my timing was perfect