Tag: walking
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Wales Coast Path, day 8: Rhoose from St Donats
I’m back with C and J in the King George V Field, St Donats. The morning’s not as bright as the weather forecast promised, but there’s no wind, and it’s not cold. So off we march down the field to join the coast path, and turn east for Rhoose. We’re high above crumbly sandstone cliffs,…
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Wales Coast Path, day 9: St Donats from Dunraven
We could be accused, C. and I, of cherry-picking the best sections of the south Glamorgan coastline. I have a hunch, though, that the least promising looking sections of the Wales Coast Path may turn out to be the most interesting. Anyway, here we are in the car park at Dunraven, below Southerndown, with our…
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Walking poets
In 2012 the Huddersfield poet Simon Armitage published a book called Walking home, about a trip he made on foot two years earlier from north to south along the length of the Pennine Way. He started without a penny in his pocket, paying for his accommodation and meals through poetry readings he gave at various…
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Zennor in light
Penwith is as far west as you can go in England. At the toe of Cornwall, it’s a region that looks and feels Atlantic. Its place-names are mostly Celtic. Prehistoric remains lie scattered across its open granite landscape. Three nights we spent recently in Penwith give me the chance to taste the South West Coastal…
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Wales Coast Path: day 42: Whitesands to Portgain
Friday is hotter still. There’s almost no breeze. We decide to head south-north for a change, starting from Whitesands Bay and repeating a little of our mini-walk in May. It’s so oppressive that Ca. turns back at St David’s Head to join us later. The rest of us sweat onwards, through the rough gorse and…
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Wales Coast Path: day 43: Porthgain from Aber Mawr
We’re back in north Pembrokeshire, with H. and Ca., to fill in the ‘gap’ in the coast path left when we were rained off in May. This time there’s no complaint about being damp: we’re half way through the hottest and driest spell for seven years. We resume at Aber Mawr, almost immediately accompanied by…
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Wales Coast Path: day 44: Aber Mawr from Goodwick
Today we resume at Goodwick in the company of MH, who joins us from Ceredigion. MH is an athlete, but is generous in holding back his natural instinct to sprint to our destination. He’s also an ornithologist – he comes with the binoculars C. and I both forgot at the start – and helps us…
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Wales Coast Path: day 41: Solva from Whitesands
Out of sequence, C. and I decide to tackle Whitesands to Solva, about 12 miles of winding coastline with St David’s as its focus. H. joins us, with today’s guest-walkers, M. and L. from Leicester, old friends of Pembrokeshire. The view west is dominated by Ramsey Island, a dark and mainly empty land, where sheep…
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Wales Coast Path, day 45: Goodwick from Parrog
C. and I leave Parrog and climb, thankfully to a lower cliff height than yesterday. To our left, the dark outline of Carn Ingli, to our left a succession of jagged sea rocks, one in the curious shape of a question mark. Coves appear, some inaccessible, others crossed on small wooden bridges: Aberrhigian and Aberfforest.…
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Wales Coast Path, day 46: Parrog from St Dogmaels
We start at Poppit Sands, beyond St Dogmaels at the mouth of the Teifi estuary: two men just on the wrong side of middle age, with sensible boots and full rucksacks. A blustery wind blows, clouds rush in from the west, and it’s far from warm. C. and I have a single ambition: to walk…