Tag: Pembrokeshire coast path

R. M. Lockley, coastwalking pioneer

June 3, 2017 2 Comments
R. M. Lockley, coastwalking pioneer

Preparing for a talk about coastwalking in Plas Brondanw in a week or two I’ve been thinking about the origins of the practice of walking around the coast of a country, and specifically Wales.  When, I wondered, did coastwalking start to become a conscious mode of walking for travellers and tourists?  Rebecca Solnit, in her […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 28: Amroth to Tenby

December 5, 2015 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 28: Amroth to Tenby

8:30am on a dark December Friday, and we’re driving west, three of us. Rain, unforecast, runs into us from the west. The stub of a rainbow over St Clears soon erases itself. At Llanddowror the Tâf has burst its banks and flooded dozens of fields, metres deep. Everywhere the land is bloated with the rains […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 34: Pembroke from Neyland

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 34: Pembroke from Neyland

By chance we’ve hit upon the only week of the year with sustained high pressure and settled dry weather. But today they’re due to come to an end, and we’ve planned the final day of our south Pembrokeshire week as a half-day walk, from Neyland to Pembroke, in case of rain in the late afternoon. […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 32: Castlemartin from Angle

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 32: Castlemartin from Angle

H. has a day off, and C. and I tackle the section west of Angle. We take the same bus to Pembroke and minibus to Angle. The same south-east wind blows, but it’s a fine sunny day, as we walk round the coast between Angle’s two bays. We pass the ancient Old Point House inn, […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 33: Angle to Pembroke

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 33: Angle to Pembroke

Today C., H. and I open up a new walking front. We take the service bus to Pembroke and then the Coastal Cruiser to Angle. It’s a cloudier day, with a strong south-east wind to walk into. At the bus stop in Pembroke we meet a young student from Finland. She’s about to start a […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 29: Tenby from Manorbier

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
Wales Coast Path, day 29: Tenby from Manorbier

After breakfast I visit Manorbier Church, high on a hill opposite the castle. It doesn’t open officially until 9:30, but a woman comes to the door as I try its door handle and invites me in. She’ll leave me alone now, she says, and departs. Perhaps I’m looking spiritually needy. Like all churches in this […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 30: Manorbier from Bosherston

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
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 […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 31: Bosherston to Castlemartin

September 15, 2015 0 Comments
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 […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 27: Pendine to Amroth

June 13, 2015 0 Comments
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 […]

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Wales Coast Path, day 35: Neyland to Herbranston

May 4, 2015 1 Comment
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 […]

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