Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part 6

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Having pitched my tent on the dunes just behind Barafundle Bay, I settle down to calculate exactly how many miles I’ve walked each day so far (not including detours and diversions) – 14, 17, 24, 18, 16, 15, 19, 12, & 18 miles respectively.  Now there are about 25 miles remaining.  My feet are no longer troubling me like they were and I decide to try and finish on a high note by completing the walk tomorrow.  I have enjoyed planning and reviewing my progress along the way.  I also realise now how obsessive I am about ordering my campsite, keeping things tidy and efficient.  I take great delight in making a cup of tea – using my petrol stove to boil just the right amount of water in the billy can which fits snugly back into its nest between frying pan and saucepan.  Finally, I make my way back down onto the beach and make a good bonfire but before long it starts to rain so I kick sand over it and go to bed.

Later, in a state of semi-consciousness I hear the breathing of a great creature just outside the skin of my tent.  Its huge deep measure sounds like that of a giant and my body tenses for the inevitable ….  As I emerge more fully from my sleep I recognise the muffled steady grating roar of the waves curling over and running up the beach before drawing back against the pebbles.  No giant after all, but my thoughts turn back to the unsolved murder and I feel vulnerable again.  I repeat my night prayer,  “I will lie down and sleep in peace …” and try to lull myself with the rhythm of the waves but every time I’m about to drop off “Fee Fie Foe Fum …” runs through my mind instead. Eventually I sleep fitfully between heavy showers. 

I wake to more showers but they soon pass and at 6 am I get up to blue skies with scattered clouds.  I am ready to go at 7.15, and with a last look back at the beguiling beauty of Barafundle, I set off into what is promising to be a perfect day.  The cliffs are as dramatic as ever and topped by limestone grassland like a sweet green carpet woven with the blue, pink and white of wild flowers.  Using an identification guide I’ve managed to learn some of the different species along the way.  The names are poetry enough in themselves: wild thyme, common storksbill, rock sea-spurrey, thrift, sea campion, bird’s foot trefoil, common centaury, sea mayweed, viper’s bugloss, heath spotted orchid and scurvygrass.  I stop and chat for a while to a widower.  He’s very friendly and loves being out on the cliffs – but I rather sense that the beauty can’t quite fill the emptiness.

Will I manage to finish today?  I don’t know.  I’ll have to see.  The thought of it feels a bit like the end of life after all that I’ve been through.  What will it feel like when I do finish …?  I turn my attention from such questions to the hot pasty and cup of tea that I have just bought at Freshwater East.  When I get to Swanlake Bay, I am almost tempted to stop and camp.  My guide book is accurate in describing it as one of the most secluded and least visited bays in Pembrokeshire.  There is plenty of driftwood for a good bonfire too but the day is still young and I press on to Manorbier.  As I approach I pass a magnificent house which is being extended to provide yet more opportunity to sit and enjoy the already panoramic views of the bay and the cliffs.  I am envious.  I think about the effect it must have on someone who is lucky enough to live with such a view.  I think of the little flat I’ll be going back to. Its views aren’t too bad actually.   To the east I can see the crematorium and to the west glimpses of road, railway, river and canal, a steelworks, a retail park, cleared industrial land, and residential areas – certainly interesting.  There are flats not far from it, however, which look straight out onto a brick wall and hardly get any light – soul destroying, I should think.

In Manorbier, which is dominated by its mediaeval castle, I make a diversion to the Church.  It is full of interesting features, strange angles, and enticing views, which draw you to go in further.  Continuing on the path again there is a sudden spectacular view of Lydstep Head.  I go back up the way I’ve come to take a detour around it.  Then I go on round Giltar peninsular with spectacular views over Caldey Island with its living monastery.  Once again I am overwhelmed by wind, sea and clear sky and I honestly feel that if I jumped off the cliffs I could fly – though I decide not to for now.  Rounding the point, I get a new view and suddenly feel a lump in my throat.  For the first time, as I look at the distant coast, I can’t say “That’s where I’ll be walking tomorrow”.  I can see beyond Amroth and know that the end is nigh.  However, there are still plenty of miles to cover today and I push on towards Tenby, making an entry by way of the beach, where they seem to be filming some kind of period drama on the sand around St Catherine’s Island.

I pass the very quaint harbour, devour a cream tea and visit the Tourist Information Centre.  Then I push on again.  Tired now I pass along in a bit of a dream through the pinewoods towards Saundersfoot and on.  My right heel is beginning to seize up.  It’ll all be over today whatever happens.  Just after Saundersfoot the path plunges into a tunnel – once the route of a narrow gauge railway that connected coal workings to the harbour.  The exit is partially obscured and it is so dark I can’t see the sides.  The roof drips with cold solemnity.  There are hidden alcoves that recede further into darkness and the metaphor of death seems to become more powerful.  More so again when I emerge from the gloom into what feels like the last judgement.  The old railway course is just above the sea at its high tide and the waves come crashing in between the groins, tearing at the rocks on the beach so that they roar like lions waiting to pounce. The heavens above open for a while in a solid downpour.  Then the sun breaches the clouds and a full rainbow arches over the path.  What more can there be?  I can almost believe I have entered a new state of being with a weight of glory founded partly on the suffering it has taken to get here and partly on the sheer beauty of Life.

Then suddenly it is over.  No lights, no cheers, no welcome party.  Nothing much at all really.  Just a modest sign by the sea wall where I pause for a time before making my way into the welcoming warmth of the pub.

I sign the visitors’ book.  They are very friendly and quite impressed by my ten-day effort especially as I was carrying all my gear.  According to them about 25 people complete the full walk each year.  Some do it unencumbered by baggage and with full backup – the record is 2½ days.

(The end)

Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part 5

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I am now travelling west along the southern coast of the estuary and can see places I passed through yesterday over on the other side.    By getting into the right frame of mind I find that I can enjoy the rain.  It’s still torrential but my gear is good enough to keep the worst of it out.  The last mile-and-a-half is along the beach with no defined route.  I strike out across the mud where it’s less rocky but risk going in up to the eyeballs.  Arriving in Angle I lunch in a welcoming pub and consider pitching my tent but, as it’s still pouring, I opt for a second night in B&B.  The house is lovely and clean so I feel a bit awful when I trudge in, soaking wet and plastered (with mud).  I have a delicious bath and watch ‘For the love of Ada’ and a bit of ‘Oprah’.  Feet are sore but nothing like yesterday.

I wake early having agreed to breakfast at 8 am.  It doesn’t look bad out and I’m itching to get going, feeling really guilty that I didn’t camp.  I sort my kit out and make a work of art out of patching my feet again.  When I go down it’s still only 7.30 but the breakfast is all laid out so I eat and set off at ten past eight.  The weather is dry but the undergrowth is sopping, so I wear plastic bags between sandals and socks to keep my foot-art intact.  I pass the little fisherman’s chapel, which I visited last night.  The stained glass sets bible stories in the context of the village and its life – Jesus asleep in the boat in the storm, Jesus calling Peter out of the boat to tread the waves, being two of them. 

I continue on along the headland, feeling good.  Rounding the point, I leave the Milford Haven estuary behind, at last, and coming over the top, I am back to what I love best about this walk.  The sea looks somehow colder and clearer with a savage beauty which makes it seem utterly detached from all other existence.  The wind is freer and carrying in its saltiness a memory of its long journey across the ocean.  Here, I could contemplate for hours, but without reaching any conclusions.

Then all of a sudden it is snowing, except this snow is a dirty grey.  In fact it is foam, collecting in a gully, whipped up by the wind and then falling over the cliff top.  I seem to walk on through an elemental drama  and when I reach a ruined watchtower, I climb in to eat my lunch, except that I have to keep stopping to watch mid-munch as wave explodes itself on rock.  Before continuing, I remove the bags (which are now just tattered shreds) from my feet.  It was comfy at first but eventually became sweaty until thorns and brambles did their worst.

Later on, I reach the vast expanse of beach at Freshwater West.  I stop to snack again, this time in a hut used for drying seaweed.  Beyond this point the cliffs continue, as spectacular as ever.  Unfortunately, thanks to the MOD, the route has to detour inland and I am back to the pains of road marching.  A dream is keeping me going now.  If the army aren’t on exercise there is a road that will take me back to the cliffs sooner rather than later and I will be able to get to Stack Rocks and Govan’s Chapel.  My dream is that if I get there late enough and no one else is about I might be able to spend the night in the chapel itself, which nestles remotely in the wild cliffs.  I get to the crossroads and approach the security point.  The barrier is down and a sullen and uncommunicative official eventually tells me the whole area is shut for the foreseeable future.  Oh well!  More road slog all the way to Bosherton.  Here I have beans on toast and a cream tea in a little café next to the Church.  The Church is locked – much to the chagrin of a coach load that turns up to visit it.  The route continues, through a system of delightful freshwater lakes (part of the Stackpole estate) back to the coast at Broad Haven.  Now the drama begins again making this morning seem tame by comparison.  My feet and legs had been griping along the long road stretch but now they go quiet, or at least I cease to notice them.  This is pure exhilaration.  The sea a boiling cauldron, throwing waves like mountains onto the cliffs then erupting into the air.  Choughs soar above me and Razorbills and Guillemots, here in their hundreds, labour into the gale before turning suddenly to be hurled back towards land.  In that moment they seem completely out of control and I’m amazed that not one of them gets splattered onto the sheer face of the cliff.  Church rock stands out some way from the cliff.  It is the size of a small Church with a roof and steeple but the waves, with all the fury of the forces of hell, crash right over the top of it.  They don’t prevail and the little ‘building’ always emerges ready to take another battering.  Further on, there is a collapsed cave into which the sea surges only to be forced out again at high pressure.  And later a finger of cliff points out into the swell.  I take my pack off and crawl out along it, peering over the edge to see down onto the seabirds and through tide worn arches of rock.  Everything is awesome – built of sheer power and illuminated now by glorious sunshine. 

Finally, with the approach of evening, I make my way down into the intimate calm of Barafundle bay.  It’s National Trust land so really there’s no camping allowed.  However, I can’t resist it and settle down to wait till everyone else has gone home.

There are not many people around but having said that those that are provide plenty of amusement for a quiet onlooker.  First there is the little family building a sandcastle against the tide.  It’s an interesting and challenging spot for them next to a small rock face on the shelving sand.  Before long a wave comes round the rock and rises up quickly to soak their clothes.  Mum decides to stop but Dad and boy continue.  Dad keeps shouting “14 years!” repeating it every time he pauses.  (What can it mean?  He’s shouting it defiantly, almost angrily now, at his wife.  As though he means they’ve shared 14 years of misery or it’s 14 years till the son grows up and leaves home and he can finally divorce her!)   They are on the brink now – but perhaps the tide is at its full flow already and their castle will just survive … No!  Another wave comes over.  They leap back … but then return, frantically rebuilding and repairing and prevailing again for precious minutes … Surely they are safe now … Then a huge wave comes in, twice as big as even that last one.  In an instant, man and boy are soaked and the sand obliterated beyond recognition.  They jump out and run back to mum.  Dad’s emotion seems released now and he explains all, “14 years we’ve been building that castle!”  He is obviously completely cuckoo, but it was a great castle and they’ll sleep well tonight.

As that family leaves another one makes a late arrival.  A couple in their seventies and a woman I presume to be their daughter.  When they reach the middle of the beach, Father ‘plants’ his two walking sticks, takes off shoes and socks and (obviously a well used system) plugs one set onto the top of each stick.  Mother and daughter leave their footwear on the sand nearby.  The waves are still rolling in so I’m surprised when the three of them saunter down into the water.  I’m thinking, “Another of those unusually big ones and they’ve had it – how could I possibly rescue all three of them?”  But age breeds experience and the old man, who has casually gone in furthest, performs dainty ballet steps that keep his neatly rolled trousers just clear of the water.  They haven’t reckoned on the tides continued stealth though and only a last minute sprint by the daughter saves the non-elevated shoes from a soaking.  The next bit is incredible.  The old man crouches forward and shakes his fist over the oncoming waves.  He then shouts something I can’t quite make out, but which I’m sure is the 1930’s version of “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” I think I’ve seen it all.

At last they depart and so do the people who were fishing and the two women who sat in matching deck chairs with matching dogs on matching leads. Now I have my own private beach and I pitch my tent secretly among the sand dunes.

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Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part 4

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I wake at 1 am because of the throbbing pain in my feet.  Turning round in the tent I stick them out into the cool air to soothe them.  Later I move back to ‘position A’ as it starts raining hard with a thunder storm close overhead.  I snuggle into my bag and edge away from the tent-pole: I had chosen a high and exposed pitch to make the most of the view.  When I wake again the sound of incessant rain has been joined by that of a foghorn.  I pack carefully and set off in the rain at 8.15 am. 

I have decided to go for it and aim to walk around the Dale peninsular in time to reach and cross The Gann while it is still possible with the tide.  This is a real test of motivation: cutting across the neck of the peninsular would have saved 5 miles from the walk, and they were to be miles without views because of the fog; and they crossed boggy pastures covered in sheep manure, which didn’t make for pleasurable walking in sandals! There were redeeming moments, however: the sands at Marloes, the harbour at Martin Haven, the Old Lighthouse at the point (where a friendly chap signed my card for me), and the sudden revelation through the fog of a yacht resting serenely at anchor.  I meet some Americans in pristine boots looking for a “well marked path”.  I explain the discrete ‘acorn’ marker posts to them and wish them well on their first walk in Wales. 

I press on into Dale itself.  It seems pleasant but I now find it takes more effort to walk slowly and anyway I’m worried about the tide, so I pass through in a hurry.  As it happens I cross The Gann quite easily.  Now the sun suddenly appears and full waterproofs and thermal shirt are immediately stripped down to shorts only.  I continue to Monk’s Haven – a lovely valley and a church with real character – a bit like St Non’s, “I can pray here.”  It is dedicated to St Ishmael, a contemporary of St David, St Patrick, et al, but not one I had heard of before.  It’s only early afternoon but I’m feeling the pain again now, so it’s a slog up the hill, down to the village and up again to the cricket ground where I can camp.  It pours with rain for two hours during which time I put my tent up, have a drink in the clubhouse (“You can have a good session – no need to drive” – but I have enough problems just walking already!) then take a delicious shower in the changing rooms.  They invite me to play cricket tomorrow – a cup match – I laugh.  I sleep for two hours then go back down to the village pub for fresh mackerel and chips followed by a sickly pudding and pots of tea.  This is a very close-knit village, but very friendly too.  Romantic hits from the 80’s are playing as I eat – reminding me of my school days!  Two new blisters on my left little toe.  They’ll need bursting later tonight.

There are showers during the night.  When I get up at 6 am on Trinity Sunday the skies are blue but it soon clouds over again with just the occasional glimpses of sun during the day.  I feel surprisingly good – legs slightly fatigued but feet okay.  The half-day rest has done me good.  I set off at 7 am and get to Sandy Haven at 8 am.  At this point there is another tidal river crossing to make and I have to wait half-an-hour until the causeway and stepping-stones become visible.  Patience isn’t always my best virtue so I take my sandals off and cross while there’s still 6 inches of water – well, it’s more fun like that anyway.  I push on alongside the Milford Haven waterway, with its recently redundant oil refinery workings, not wanting to stop in case I seize up.  Milford Haven is the first really built up section of the path.  Not much of note to rave about, just lots of road walking to punish feet and legs.  At Neyland it’s up onto the A477 for a high level and very windy crossing over the estuary.  For now it’s simply a slog and the lack of interest adds to the demoralising effect.  However, my sights are set on Old Pembroke and after limping through the dock I finally arrive at the Tourist Information office at 2 pm – a hard and punishing 20 miles completed. 

I enquire about campsites but the nearest is 1 mile out of town in the wrong direction.  Immediately I am aware that my legs and feet are totally crippled and there is a swelling on one of my thighs.  I opt for a nearby B&B with no feelings of guilt whatsoever.  Just getting there is a struggle and despite the relief of being without my pack, the short distance back into town to find food is even worse.  All the cafés are shut. **##!!X#X#** - pardon my French.

I park myself on a bench on the corner of the main road and take my feet out to let them breathe (a few funny looks).  Then I go into a miserable pub and consume one and a half pints of Guinness and a packet of pork scratchings.  “I really am going to give up now.  It’s not as though I’ve even got any choice any more.  Have I? Yes.  No.  Well?  I can wait and decide in the morning, can’t I?”

The Anglican Church is nearby and I decide to go to Evening Prayer.  There are seven of us in the congregation plus organist, lay reader and vicar.  The service is depressingly depressing but the people are friendly.  One of them gives me a lift to a recommended Chinese restaurant where I treat myself.  I also ponder the conversations I had in Church after the service.  Most of the folk had encouraged me to continue walking – easy for them.  But one woman had advised the contrary.  “It’s dangerous on the Coast Path, you know”.  I think she means the cliffs – where the path is crumbling it can be a bit hairy, especially if the wind is up – that doesn’t bother me.  “Yes,” she went on, “They never did solve that murder.”  My eyebrows say “!!??”

“A couple were walking near St David’s.  No one was about at the time.  But later they were found, having been tied together and shot.  That was four years ago and the mystery has never been solved, the murderer never caught.”  She then went on to discuss the organist and choir but my thoughts had become somewhat distrait.

After the meal I walk back to the guesthouse and pamper, pamper, pamper my feet.  The newest blister has 3 heads and breathes a combination of fire and ice or am I hallucinating?

I wake up on Monday morning, after a good sleep, to the firm and level-headed decision to have a day off.  There are still some 55 miles remaining and I have 2 days left after today so I’ll just have to make the best of what I can do.  Having decided, I go down to breakfast and discover there are no rooms available for tonight – so I’ll probably set off after all.  Angle is only 12 miles away, so that won’t be so bad.  I had been looking forward to exploring Pembroke Castle but then again, knowing me, I would only have got restless.  There are a group of 4 at the next breakfast table to mine – an old couple and two younger men.  They can be best described as Van Gogh’s ‘Potato Eaters’ gone senile and impersonating The Goons – quite incredible.  Now I can place the strained querulous voice from the corridor last night: “You’re always getting at me.”

I eventually leave the B&B at 10 am in pouring rain.  It soon gets harder and becomes torrential in the strong wind.  The ground is very muddy in places and there are no other walkers about!  Physically, I feel reasonable at first, with my toes vaselined and taped up or taped together as appropriate.  However, sandals-and-socks is no great weather protection and before long all the careful taping simply disintegrates.  I think about my motivation for doing all this: whenever I’ve been for a day’s walking I’ve always wished it didn’t have to end – that I could just walk on into the sunset, but was this the reality I had in mind? I can’t believe I am still walking after my thoughts last evening.  No matter what I think though, the will to continue is simply there pushing me on.  Despite everything, it would in some strange sense be harder to stop than to carry on … I think about those back home who love me and for a moment salt mingles with the rain on my cheeks. I think about my Grandfather, another Geoff Holmes, who died before I was born.  He was lost for three months crossing the Congo on his own – I don’t think he’d even told anyone that he was setting off.  At least I have got some sense.  I pass a derelict church and am surprised to see one fresh grave in the graveyard.  Two men watch me from a white van.   I remember the story of the coast path murder but I am not anxious –  “No murderer in his right mind would be out in this weather.”  

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Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part 3

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"I arise today through a mighty strength
the strong name of the Trinity
through belief in the threeness
through the confession of the oneness
of the creator of creation.”

This prayer from the Hymn of St Patrick has given me courage on many mornings when I’ve felt a bit overwhelmed by particular challenges ahead of me.  I have decided to make it my morning prayer each day that I am able to walk.  Trinity Sunday is approaching and I find myself at this magical interface between Sea, Land and Sky where so much lives and moves and has its being.  I love the smell of the sea, I love the flight and cry of the sea birds, the feel of the wind, sun, rain, the soft grass and hard rocks beneath my feet, the delicate colours and shapes of the cliff top flowers.  Ramsey Island looks majestic and in the Sound the currents are racing and roaring through ‘The Bitches’.

I also adopt a through-the-day prayer:

“Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me save that thou art
Thou my best thought in the day and the night
Both waking and sleeping, Thy presence my light.”

A vision of beauty and strength, and so easy to believe in, being where I find myself now.

My feet are now dully painful and I am walking fast.  It’s time to make a decision: do I take an easy day today by stopping at St David’s, giving myself time to look around and time to recover?  I defer the decision because I now reach the spot where “the Age of the Saints” begins to leave its evidence.  St Non was the mother of St David and he was born nearby during a great storm in AD 462.  The present Chapel of St Non was built in 1934 near the site of the original one, which in turn was near a holy well.  This well was renowned for its healing properties, especially for eye diseases.  The little chapel, built in the Celtic style, is cool and peaceful.  I light a candle and say prayers musing on the fact that the God I meet in here is the same God of the cliffs, the winds and the seas.  Later, I decide that I prefer that little building to St David’s Cathedral which is nice but full of tourists and tour parties.  In the Cathedral I don’t seem to find that ‘heart’ that I did with my little candle in St Non’s – but it’s a lovely building nonetheless and the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace are even grander!  I shop and picnic in a little park.  In the chemists I discover some ‘miracle’ blister plasters, which is just as well as the little devils are worse than ever after my rest.  I continue on to the delightful port of Solva and a delicious cream tea.  Suddenly I think to myself, “I could have spent two weeks just doing this – lazing in the sun and feeding my face – why am I not normal?”  But even the idea of the (relatively) easy day has gone out the window as I feel myself driven onwards.  I wash my feet in the sink in the café toilet and apply the plasters – no difference at all – what did I expect? I suppose there are miracles and then there are MIRACLES. 

Now the path becomes really cruel: up and down and up and down.  I am doing my exaggerated limp again but it’s still agony and putting a strain on my right thigh.  I confide in an elderly couple coming the other way.  “I swear by Vaseline,” said the man, “rub some Vaseline on them by all means.”  The wind is really blowing up now.  Eventually I flop down on the campsite behind the storm beach at Newgale.  I hobble to the shop to see if they sell alternative footwear.  I’m beginning to dream about a pair of sandals.  I make some supper and a wonderful woman from a neighbouring caravan brings me a cup of tea in a 50’s cup.

Facing up to my feelings: I am still enjoying the scenery and the variety of the weather and the challenge.  Its ironic: in a sense blisters are so superficial and trivial – the rest of me is slightly fatigued but fine really, considering the distance and terrain covered – and yet they are so awful and insidious.  I desperately want to complete this walk and I’m annoyed.  I’ve met other walkers and they haven’t had blisters.  If only my other boots had been all right.  The pain is always there and makes everything difficult but at the same time I’m not beaten and my spirits are constantly being raised.  Today I have eaten: beans & sausage, orange, banana, the rest of the hobnobs, a loaf of bread with ham, yoghurt, apple, cream tea, tomato soup, spaghetti & coronation chicken.

I had gone to bed at 10 pm but now wake at 1 am because my blisters are fighting back in angry mood.  In the dark I search my pack for penknife and disinfectant swabs.  Piercing them and releasing the pressure eases the pain slightly.  I’m going to have to pack it in.  No doubt I could carry on in the morning but I’ll only pay for it in increasing measure at night and this is no fun.  In neighbouring tents there are five fresh and fit looking men, who are doing a small part of the walk over three days.  In the morning I tell them that I’m going to take it easy.  (“Shall I give up?  Take a day or two off to recover and not worry if I don’t have time to finish?  I might as well enjoy myself!”)  I clean and treat my feet with all bar one of the ‘miracle’ plasters, then sit around and quickly get bored.  “This is not a good place for a day off.”  I buy some Vaseline and cover the friction points of my feet and then try my boots on laced very loose now.  “Not too bad – I’ll go for it, a little way at least.”  I set off from Newgale along the beach.  There are the Scousers again, very friendly, but then it’s their last day so they can afford to feel elated.  One of them has blisters too.  At the end of the beach I scramble up to regain the cliff top path.  It’s cloudy and cool but pleasant.  Amazingly my feet seem to have found a new lease of life. 

At Norton Haven I pass my neighbours of last night – all five of them chatting up an attractive blonde woman – like bees round a honey pot.  They look surprised to see me and I fancy the blonde casts me a wistful look as I stride past.  (I hope they tell her of my earlier pain and I imagine her secret admiration of a real man!).  I stride boldly to the top of the headland where all of a sudden a new blister bursts.  I just can’t believe it.  I really could cry like a baby.  However, I use my last futile ‘miracle’ patch and continue to Broad Haven.  Here I walk straight into a surf shop and lash out £50 on a pair of ‘Reef’ hi-performance sandals, not counting the cost.  Immediately I find another new lease of life and relish walking with the fresh air blowing on my toes.  My boots are heavy and I feel it in the increased weight of my pack but that means nothing to me – I can cope with everything as long as the little demons down at ground level stay asleep.  I picnic at Little Haven – one time coal port, now picturesque holiday village – then on through a change in scenery: the path along the cliff top is wooded, the ground is level and follows the contour, the undergrowth has recently been cut.  Everything seems suddenly to be in my favour.  As I had descended into Broad Haven I had prayed for the ‘exorcism’ of my blisters.  Was all this an answer?

It’s a good push on to St Brides along a lovely coastline.  By the time I get there and visit the little church my feet are complaining again somewhat.  I push myself on a bit further, pausing to watch the gannets give a fine display of diving and fishing skills over Musslewick bay, before eventually stopping to camp at East Hook Farm.  I feel very proud of myself but still wonder how much longer I can go on.

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Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part 2

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I cook my pasta in stream water, not having much left in my bottle, and eat it with sardines in tomato sauce – slightly more interesting than last night’s meal but that’s not saying much.  I edge closer to the fire as the embers start to cool.  After a bit of a dismal start it had been a great day.   Now I have only the fire, the sea and the seals for company.  The waves are rolling in and I watch a lobster-pot buoy which keeps riding in on successive waves but is always pulled up short by its rope, making it look like a surfer ‘without enough bottle’.  I eventually go to sleep feeling very self-satisfied at my self-sufficiency and self-congratulating that where some would be easily scared, I was sleeping out on this desolate headland – without any fear.

That was at 10 pm.  At 10.30 I am awake again.  Why?  I’m dog-tired, but something has woken me!  What?  What was that noise?  Silence.  There it is again - indefinable and therefore sinister.  In a tent you feel vulnerable.  Every noise is magnified.  You can’t see and you have no protection.  “It was nothing” I tell myself.  But I’m not convinced ….  There had been ravens on the path just before I stopped.  Some birds sing sweetly and lighten your spirit.  Ravens give a rasping croak!  Dark and sinister, they live in the tower of London where people have been locked up and beheaded in the shadows.  Earlier, in Fishguard, I had read about countless ships wrecked on these very shores.  I remembered the ghost of Sandwood Bay in Scotland – a restless spirit from another such wreck ……  When my brother and I had camped out in the same tent in our garden as children, similar thoughts had sent us immediately running to the house and diving under familiar covers.  Now no such option presents itself.  “Some are easily scared but not me”!  I repeat my night prayer, “I will lie down and sleep in peace for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety”, and try to pull the presence of God around me like a cloak …

I wake again at 2 am to hear the amplified pounding of the high tide waves only 6 feet below and 30 ft away from my tent.  Then at 4.30 I am relieved by first light and get up at 6.15, reviving the fire and cooking my porridge.  In a crevice nearby, the stream forms a perfect natural shower, but it’s rather cold and I decide I can put that off a bit longer.  I break camp at 7.40.  It has been a good campsite despite the irrational fears.  As I walk away I look down on the site from a different angle and see the mouth of a cave 20 yards from where I’d slept.

The weather is dry but dull and rather chilly.  The sea is getting ‘bigger’.  Strumble Head proves to be very rough walking and my blisters start to introduce themselves again, modestly at first but nevertheless in that sinister way they have which promises an unpleasant future.  My Dad always used to quote from somewhere “Little leopards become big leopards and big leopards kill”!  I stop to admire the lighthouse with its little access footbridge down below me, then I press on hoping to reach a second breakfast at the Pwllderi Youth Hostel.  This has a spectacular and exposed location, high up over a little bay and looking south-west along an imposing rampart of cliffs.  Unfortunately it’s shut.  No bacon, eggs, sausage, beans and no chance to stock up on provisions.  I’m down on my reserves and soon have to consume my ‘fruit & nut’ and last two Twix bars.  I pass two women who are spending 8 days walking the north section from Marloe.  I feel a bit disheartened and start running out of energy again, but make it, emptily and painfully, to Trefin and order Soup & Roll, whole dressed crab salad with chips.  I eat every scrap and then all the butter and sauces before stocking up at the shop and eating further a packet of yoghurt nuts and raisins and a third of a packet of chocolate hobnobs.

Now the attention turns fully from stomach to feet.  Agony!  As I set off, I seem to be walking in boots that are full of broken glass.  Should I give up now?  At least take a day off?  I put these questions aside and press on, but only to find myself overtaken by an elderly woman and man with a dicky leg.  I try to admire the scenery, which is lovely, and take an interest in the little ports like Porth-gain with its relics of a short lived industrial past and Aber Eiddy with its quarry ruins.  Nevertheless the pain gets worse and suddenly I get an excruciating tearing sensation on my heel.  I find that by walking with an exaggerated limp I get on okay, however, the man with the dicky leg, on returning the other way, gives me a look as though I’m trying to be funny.  Finally, I get my boots off and survey the desolation that was once a pair of feet – right heel split and at least one blister on each left toe.  I sit for a while and think.  Then I tape up my heel, loosen my boot laces and press on.  I start to pass the remains of Iron Age forts and feel as though I’m picking up a bit. 

I arrive at St David’s head at 7 pm.  Despite the pain I must have covered 20 miles in the day.  I nearly decide to walk on to the campsite, which is a mile further, but as soon as I step through the ancient earthwork beyond which is the very end of the peninsular, I’m transported out of time to become the Iron Age chieftain secure in his fort!  I pitch my tent in the stone-circle of one of the ancient dwellings.  I dig with a stone to make a fireplace then collect heather twigs and wild pony droppings for fuel.  Barefoot and un ‘packed’ now, I feel free and invigorated.  Lacking much water, I have to use the pasta water to make my tea and then use the tea bag to wash the pots and grass to dry them, but I feel very satisfied and a banana baked (in its skin) amongst the glowing dung is a real treat.

It’s been overcast all day.  One of those days when you find it hard to imagine there ever really was a blue sky and a sun.  But as I lie back and wonder whether, after three days, I should now change my socks, I notice a line across the sky just above the western horizon.  When I look again there is a thin band of blue.  Then suddenly the clouds are racing across the sky and the late evening sun, appearing all at once, seems to pour liquid gold down the hillside and across the headland and the sea.  I am reminded that “God has poured his love into our hearts by his Holy Spirit” and I clamber up onto the rocks to see from every angle the view across to Ramsey island and the surrounding flotilla of islets, sitting peaceful among the hammering waves.

I get up at 6 am on Thursday.  The morning is fresh, the sea is calm and the promise is of a glorious day.  There was another strange noise in the night but it is identified now as a breaking tent peg loop – no Iron Age visitations after all.  I breakfast in a sunny nook, watching a gannet diving for its own meal, then I break camp and set off at 7.50 am.  I pass the wild ponies.  They seem to eye me cautiously.  Perhaps they caught a whiff of my fire and identified the fuel.  I pass quickly on to Whitesands, feet tender but manageable.  Yesterday I felt in danger of hypothermia, now it is sunstroke that I have to guard against.    Walking alongside Ramsey Sound and revelling in the beauty of weather and scenery, I catch up with four Scousers and strike up a conversation with their rearguard.  The one at the front: “Watch out he’s from the Social, I knew they’d catch up with us.” “Hey! Don’t tell him where I live”.  Immediately I’m transported back to the non-stop humour of the year I spent in West Everton.

Next Episode

Pembrokeshire Coast Path : Part I

I know I’ve mentioned my walk in Pembrokeshire more than once, and it was a few years ago now, but I recently unearthed my diary of the walk and, magazine material being as hard to come by as it is, I thought why not serialise it for the faithful readers!

“I’m going to walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path”.  That’s what I had decided and that’s what I had been telling people who asked where my next holiday was going to be.  South Wales sounded a bit anti-climactic after Ecuador and Madagascar but I fancied a different kind of challenge and this one was 186 miles of official route and an overall ascent the equivalent of Everest, carrying a tent, cooking equipment and as little clothing and food as possible on my back.  To walk the coast path was my aim.  Perhaps to state, so confidently, that I would was a little presumptuous.

I set off from Poppit Sands car park at 3 pm on the first of June (1998), walking the route from north to south.  The first leg was 14 miles over a most strenuous part of the path.  I had trained well in the previous weeks, doing progressively longer distances with a heavier pack, but, my favourite boots had more or less collapsed on me the previous Monday and I am wearing a rather heavy and inflexible pair that I haven’t put on for two years.  Also, despite all the walking I have done in the previous 5 years, it was over 10 years since I had done significant walking on a number of consecutive days.  Nevertheless, I am in buoyant mood as I stride out between the banks of bluebells and foxgloves on a bright and sunny day.  Stonechats “chat” beside the path and in the distance a pair of buzzards soar on the thermals that rise above the interface where the sea meets the cliffs with their dramatic folds and fissures of rock.

I stop at a farm to fill my water bottle.  I sense the farmer is keen for me to stay the night there on his camping field (£1 a night).  He says it is 6 hours walk to the next campsite, but I have only just started and I know I can do it quicker than that.  However, I didn’t reckon on his dog adding to the argument in a rather more direct manner.  Having not noticed it steal up behind me, the agonising pain of his fangs in the back of my calf makes me shout out in surprise and pain.  Luckily he didn’t break the skin, but the cynical smile on the animals face as he backs away from me makes me hope it isn’t an omen of things to come!

That is soon forgotten as I push on and drink in the heady views – the purity of the sea air and the intense and tranquil blue of the ocean; the mass of wild flowers that I’d heard such rave reviews of – I wasn’t going to be disappointed.  I only pass one other walker until I get within strollers’ reach of Newport.  I walk along the sands and ford the river, my bare feet appreciating the soothing coolness of water and soft mud but then complaining about the sharp stones that have to be crossed to reach the boat club jetty.  I find a pleasant campsite – the only campsite – but with a good congregation of midges – cook my spaghetti and tuna, take a short stroll and go to bed.  I feel fit and eager to get going again the next morning.  My training has obviously paid off and I feel I could eat this walk for breakfast!  I relish the fact that my home for the next ten days would be my little tent and this rugged path together with the sea, the cliffs and the soaring skies.  I pray that this would also be a pilgrimage for me.  

I awake at 4.30 am to the patter of rain.  I enjoy the rain when I am snug in my down sleeping bag in my ‘storm master’ tent, but the rain gets harder and so does sleep.  By 7.30 am, when my superfluous watch alarm goes off, it is pouring down.  I ‘lie-in’ till 8.15 thinking “is this dismal watery world going to be my home for the next 9 days?”   Cancelling my plan of cooking porridge, I make for the campsite shop to purchase toast and tea.  A woman of 45 ish is there who is walking solo from south to north.  She has got there in 9 days.

The rain always eases just after you’ve packed all your gear away.  I set off at 9.40 feeling comfortable in my swimming shorts and waterproof jacket.  The long wet grass soon soaked boots and socks and I have the first intimations of blisters on the outsides of my little toes.  Oh dear!  Despite this and the weather there is plenty of interest: the ruined Celtic chapel of St Brynach; Dinas “island” with the seabird colony on Needle Rock; and some fellow walkers.  Three men of pensionable age hoping to do the route in 14 days using Bed & Breakfasts.  “It’s getting to me” one of them confides.  I share the news of my nascent blisters to show solidarity and try to cheer him.  “It’s not blisters for me” he says, “it’s my back!”  I look at his pack and his stooping posture and I fear there’s not much I can say.  Admiring his courage, I hope things get better for him and not worse.  The path continues down and up and down again.  Two pieces of toast isn’t really a breakfast, I discover, and start to top up on chocolate bars and bananas.  I stop briefly to watch a fisherman checking his lobster pots and to watch intrepid canoeists out on the growing swell.  A two-person canoe had capsized.  They would have been in real trouble but under the guidance of their instructor the four single canoes form a raft over which the canoe can be lifted and emptied and refloated and from which the displaced persons can re-embark to try once more.

Lower Fishguard was the setting for the film version of Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood”.  A chapel is being converted into a very des. res.  But I’m now seriously “out of petrol” so at the Sea View Hotel I tuck into a full English Breakfast.  I’m well and truly tired now, but mercifully the blisters that threatened seem to have quietened down again.  In the afternoon I see the lobster fisherman again.  He’s wearing bright orange leggings in an open boat with a pulley suspended over the side.  As he performs the well-worn routines of pulling in his pots, emptying them, sorting the catch, re-baiting and then casting them off as he motors away, he reminds me of the fisherman of Sua in Ecuador.  There they didn’t have outboards but worked long nets from dug out canoes and all the family came to the beach to unload and sort the catch by the light of oil lamps, however, the spirit of the two seems to be the same.

Now I am going back to basics.  At the tiny remote bay of Porthsych near Strumble Head I stamp just enough level ground out of the undergrowth and pitch my tent.  I then uphold some well worn family traditions: scouring the small pebble storm beach I collect the necessary wood to construct myself a bench and find a foam-filled fibreglass block to make a table; with more drift wood and dry bramble shoots I light a fire (it took more than one match but I had no fire lighters).  Then, careful not to dry my boots too close to the fire, I settle down to sing to the seals!  Four or five are already congregating just off the beach and are bobbing on the waves, full of curiosity.  My Dad always said that they come closer when you sing to them.  I guess that depends …!

Next Episode

TRINITY

Trinity Sunday always reminds me of my 10 day trek along the Pembrokeshire coast path: physical challenge, mental freedom and spiritual pilgrimage all rolled in to one – in constant communion with the cliffs, the ever-changing sea and the all encompassing sky.

I felt sorry for the preacher in the church I attended in Pembroke on the evening of Trinity Sunday that year – after all I had picked my holiday dates wisely to avoid that particular sermon.  He tried to give some explanation of what the Trinity was and inevitably ended up by apologising.  If we get bogged down in mathematics or give too much emphasis to three leafed clovers then we inevitably ‘dumb things down’, as they say nowadays. 

Perhaps the power of the idea of Trinity lies in the fact that it is beyond explanation.  Rather it symbolises the complexities of life, the interplay of various contradictions, contrasts and competing interests; but also the relevance of God and the strength which God gives to the believer in the midst of all of these.

Take the basic ‘trinity’ of Self, Family and Community.  A key process in all our lives is to work out the balance between these three.  It would be great if each one was always in harmony with both the others, but of course that’s not the way it is in practice – perhaps it would be if we were all perfect but we’re not. 

Having said that, it is clear that some of the most beautiful things emerge out of conflict – how many of the greatest artists have conceived their works in response to the painful conflicts within body, mind and spirit.  The beauty of the coast is by no means lessened by a dramatic clash between wind, rock and wave. 

God is not a simple idea, nor is he a kindly old gentleman.  God is greater and more beautiful and more awe inspiring than anything we can think or imagine.  As the Old Testament patriarch Jacob found out: in wrestling with God we find strength, even as we are made painfully aware of our humanity.  But again, as St Patrick prayed:

I arise today through a mighty strength, the strong name of the Trinity.

Through belief in the three-ness, through the confession of the one-ness

of the creator of creation.