Wales Coast Path
Wales Coast Path, day 30: Manorbier from Bosherston
Today we’re joined by M. and his binoculars. Again we start from the Bosherston car park, though this time, thanks to M., we escape having to pay the National Trust’s hefty parking fee. Down through the lily ponds again, but by the northern route and across two low bridges. From Broad Haven we turn east […]
Wales Coast Path, day 31: Bosherston to Castlemartin
Manorbier, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, is the pleasantest place in the whole of Wales. He was not impartial, since he was born there in the Castle, but on a warm sunny morning in September it’s hard to disagree. A cottage in the village is our base for a walking week in south Pembrokeshire, and four […]
Wales Coast Path, day 15: Oxwich from Rhossili
Rhossili on a Wednesday morning in early September. The car park’s mostly empty. At the National Trust canopy no one’s around to give the hard sell on membership. A cool wind’s blowing from an unfamiliar angle, north-west, but there’s no rain in the forecast. We deviate slightly from the coast path to admire the Worm, […]
Wales Coast Path, day 17: Llangennith from Llanrhidian
In Llanrhidian we park the car and poke our noses into the Welcome to Town. It’s been overhauled and reopened since we were last here and presents itself as a ‘pub and dining rooms’. The brand advice must have consisted of one word, ‘purple!’ Electric urban purple storms its way across the facade and marches […]
Wales Coast Path, day 16: Rhossili to Llangennith
In summer the Worm, the Bay and its end-of-the-earth aura draw hundreds down Gower’s narrow roads to Rhossili – us included today. In the crowded car park we avoid eye contact with the National Trust’s recruitment agents and head north towards the Down, on one of our rare circular walks. The steep climb quickly separates […]
Wales Coast Path, day 27: Pendine to Amroth
10:50am. A bus stop on the coast road in Amroth. The Silcox Coaches bus, ten minutes late, trundles round the corner from the hill into the village. Its driver, a middle-aged woman whose accent doesn’t sound local, brakes reluctantly for us. Our first crime is to stand on the wrong side of the road. Which […]
Wales Coast Path, day 26: Laugharne to Pendine
The castle walls glow in the morning sun. Below, the shoreline car park is almost full, with a small market selling bric-à-brac and small plants. But within minutes the four of us are on our own, on the path round Sir John’s Hill. This is an old trail, but the local marketing experts have rebadged […]
Wales Coast Path, day 24: Llansteffan to St Clears
A cloudy, cool morning, but the beach car park at Llansteffan is already filling with dogs and children and older citizens tying up the laces of their walking books. Flying in the face of commercial self-interest, the Beach Shop and Tea Room won’t be open for another hour, so C, J and I set off […]
Wales Coast Path, day 35: Neyland to Herbranston
On their way home C and H drop me in Neyland, for a solo walk to Herbranston. Neyland’s a modest and workaday town, considering that its effective founder was a megalomaniac. Isambard Kingdom Brunel chose it as the coastal terminal for his South Wales Railway, but it failed to grow into the great port and […]
Wales Coast Path, day 36: Herbranston to Dale
After a coffee in the Yacht Club we catch the rackety mid-morning minibus from Dale to Hebranston, two villages and two long creeks away. The few other passengers seem to be fellow-walkers. Our driver’s an abstracted, taciturn man with a flat silver earring and an ability to negotiate the one-track lanes at speed with one […]