Back to work and out to the Pembrokeshire Coast.

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Well … my 9 months of travelling came to an end 4 weeks ago. I spent a lovely 5 days in NYC, kicking back, visiting a few restaurants and bars, plus preparing to rejoin the work force. Scott took me out for a fabulous night on the town for another, and not final, 30th celebration; a few cocktails at the Flatiron Lounge and then The Public for dinner. My return to London and work got slightly delayed due to a huge storm that rolled in across the East Coast of the US; all flights out of New York were cancelled, crazy hey. And there I was back at work…

I am going to keep up my travel blog for exciting weekends away and travel in Europe, and potentially further a field, until my next big extended journey … 2010? 2011? Who knows!

The first of my exciting weekends started on Friday when Jane and I headed to Wales, and Milford Haven on the Pembrokeshire Coast. The goal of the May Bank Holiday was to walk the Coastal Path from Dale to St David’s, a good 60km stroll over 3 days. We woke to a beautiful morning with a fabulous view over harbour filled with boats, but we were off, and jumped into a cab to Dale. We drove via a few refineries and started to get slightly worried; this coastal path may not be that scenic. But our fears were unfounded; Dale was a cute little fishing village with candy covered houses. We set off up a forested trail with, pink and blue flowers flanking the path, very pretty start. Saturday proved to be a very long day, 8hrs of solid walking along the dramatic coast line. Our first stop was St Anne’s Head with a modern day lighthouse, I have to say the modern lighthouse are nothing over the older ones, it was just a concert pillar really. Then we cracked on the Martin’s Haven, packed full of divers. We went through many a field of long grass, it is good to walk on grass. Thus far, we had come across no water or food shops and it was close to 1pm, tired as hell we keep asking other folks how we get to Marloes. It was another hour or so, we stumbled into the tiny village with 1 pub around 2.30pm. After talking to the locals we decided to solider on to Little Haven, apparently 2hrs away, ended up actually being 3hrs away. Needless to say we arrived little worse for wear into a buzzing little village and met the Eastern European Inn owner, very scary women. After washing up we had a lovely dinner at the Inn, including crumble, yumo. We then hit the sack early doors, and both woke up being able to walk thus decided to push on. But not before our Eastern European friend yelled at us because we didn’t tell her we didn’t eat meat, in most places you usually get asked what you want for breakfast before being served, not at this place. Yikes!

We hightailed out of Little Haven over the hill, big start, into Broad Haven, a town not big on charm. Our second day was only 5hrs, whew, we really couldn’t have hacked another 8hrs of walking. The walk to our next overnight town was wild and windy, with the cliffs sliding into the ocean at every turn. We walked a great stretch along the beach to Newgale, a small camping town with the most popular beach we passed. It started to rain a little here so we ducked into a café for a long break, catching up on the Sunday news papers. Then it was a short 2hrs to Solva with many ups and downs. Solva was a gorgeous village and our B&B was the cutest there, an old stone house covered in green vines. The room was huge and the bathroom bigger with a stand alone bath, which was perfect for soaking our weary bodies. We had a fun evening at the local pub, after a very dismal performance in the pub quiz, 13/27 (how embarrassing) we had another early night. Our final day was a bit more relaxed, a leisurely start and only a 2 and a bit hours to St David’s, this is another more popular spot so the town was buzzing, tea shops a plenty. Before arriving we had a great view down the St David’s Peninsular and visited the ruins of a chapel, legend says St David was actually born here, thus a fitting end to our hike. The sun came out and we could see around to our start point, wow, we had walked a long way!
We enjoyed a cream tea in the sun before boarding the bus to Haverfordwest and a 5hr train journey back to London.
Photos Link

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