Walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path – Newgale to Solva

Hooray, the Pembrokeshire Coast Path is open again, though there has been no official announcement, they don’t want to encourage anyone. And the weather forecast for Thursday afternoon looked good, so we stretched the 5 mile limit and took both cars out, leaving one at Solva. Two lots of parking to pay but it’s about time we put some money into the local economy.

A lovely afternoon and a relatively short walk (4.6 miles) but there were lots of ups and downs – many of the ups with steps apparently designed for giants rather than people with normal length legs. We took it all steadily, enjoying the views of the clear sea below us and the distant islands. We met only two other sets of walkers.

We’ve missed all the lovely spring flowers but there was still some colour. A group of five choughs suddenly zoomed up from below the cliff top and settled on the turf around 15 meters away, digging for insects and calling loudly to each other. Their beaks looked more yellow than red so some were probably juveniles.

The houses of upper Solva looked almost close enough to touch but we knew there were still two valleys between us and them. So a final down up down and back to the car park at the bottom, past a group of children noisily swimming from the quay (people! noise!) and some newly decorated buildings.