Day 14 Porthgain to St.Justinian

Friday 4th September

Porthgain to St. Justinians

Walk distance 18.5km

Cycle 0km

Height 590m est

7 hours

8km cycle to St David’s and back

Total coastal distance walked 18.5km

Total coastal distance cycled 0

Running coastal total distance 201.95km

Running height climbed 6323m

I was able to leave work at 4p.m. and decided to drive on the motorway to reach Pembrokeshire.   I made good progress until I joined heavy traffic around Cardiff.  The Pembroke peninsula seems very far from Worcester, but eventually I reached St.David’s.  Too tired to cook, I stopped at a small supermarket and bought a microwavable curry, my idea of a dirty meal.  Once  a week I eat a processed meal.   The hostel looked fantastic in the evening sun and I was lucky to just share the dormitory with one person.  A self catering hostel, it takes time to find all the cooking equipment.  Once cooking though I added some of the glut of vegetables, taken from my garden to make it more healthy.   In the dark I prepared my bike and settled down to an interesting evening chatting to other hostellers.  My knees had been hurting the week before the walk and so I had decided to try using walking poles. These hadn’t been used for several years.  I first had them after I injured my tendons but didn’t really use them much.  After breakfast and lunch preparations, I cycled to St David’s, along with hiking boots, poles and flasks loaded into my paniers, and a rucsac with waterproofs, lunch, camera and binoculars.  With plenty of time I parked my bike by the information centre and tried to work out where the bus stop was.  As it wasn’t clear I walked the short distance to the Town hall, where the bus stop was more obvious. The Italian ice cream coffee shop was open and I had plenty of time for a drink while I waited for a bus to take me to Porthgain.  St. David’s is a ‘city’ but its challenging to even call it a village, as there are few shops you would recognise. However, it is lively, and even at 9 in the morning was bustling.  Not just with the elderly, but lots of young men too.  Small enough for people to know one another there was lots of greetings being shouted across the street.  Many people said hello to me and one stopped to ask me where I was walking.   The bus arrived on time, and on the other side of St David’s two German women joined stepped in.  They were also walking the coast and were going to be doing the same section as me. Porthgain looked much better in fine weather.  However I decided to crack on with the walk.  On the first high cliff I immediately saw a peregrine flying along-side.  Abereiddy was the first and only village to pass. Here there are more derelict ruins than lived in houses. The old building belonged to former quarrymen. Slate was exported from the small harbour. The walk to St.Davids head was dominated to the south by a series of rocky, heather clad hills.   The cliffs were fairly high, but the path level, except where the cliffs cut into each hill side.  The last hill hid the youth hostel. The weather was magnificent really, although there was a cold north wind blowing all the time.  I found myself enjoying a myriad of insects on many flowers.   On this walk I was seeing new plants too, including golden rod, an upright yellow flower, once used for healing wounds.  I also saw fleabane and hemp agrimony, other once useful herbs.  

After the first hill, Carn Pembury, I stopped for lunch at a sheltered bay and it was only there I met the first walkers. They told me to look out for baby seals.  The two German ladies caught up with me and joined me for lunch.  We talked about the walk and what we had , and afterwards continued, repeatedly passing one another as we took photos.  We found the seal cubs, although my pictures did not come out very well.  The young seals are very white.   Until they move both the adult and little ones are very well camouflaged on the rocky, pebbly beeches.  We started to walk together and talked about all manner of subjects from development aid to geology.   Finally we reached the headland of St.David’s.  

An important moment for me, leaving Cardigan bay behind.   The rocky headland is carpeted in ling and bell heather and at this time of year is so colourful.  Scabious plants dot the way with blue.  I tried so many times to photograph them but the blue colour never seems to show.   We descended to the large beach at Whitesands where we had a drink in a café.  As it was still early we walked on an extra couple of kilometres to St Justinian’s.  Here a new life boat station was being built, clearly impressive, this is an important part of the coast to serve for both the tourists using the sea and the shipping. 

We now started to walk up the lane towards St.David’s, not expecting a bus.  However a late bus passed us and picked us up so I was able to easily get to my bike and ride back to the hostel. The German ladies and I said our farewells.  I cooked a fine chilli using lots of garden vegetables again.  The most talkative resident was a lorry driver who spent much of his spare time walking the Alps and once a year, for over a decade, walked the same route of the Pembrokeshire coast for two weeks.