Walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path – Fishguard to Newport

Off we went again on Sunday, on a slightly humid day with not much wind. It is under 7 miles by road from Fishguard to Newport, but having walked this section before we knew not to underestimate it. Up the road to Fishguard Fort, then immediately on to a narrow slippery path that twisted and turned for a mile or so, constantly up and down. I wasn’t feeling 100% and considered giving up, but I knew there were lots of points where we could get back to the road if necessary, so decided to plod on and see how it went.

After walking through the middle of a caravan site, where the vans peered over the cliff edges, loomed over by a rather forbidding grey watch tower, there was much more vegetation around the path and cliffs than we have become accustomed to. Autumn has come early to Pembrokeshire after the August storms and there were many sloes, hawthorn berries, blackberries and flowering ivy.

Beyond Pwllgwaelod there were many more walkers going up to the top of Dinas Island – not actually an island but a tilted pentagon of a headland with a high point of 142m at the northerly tip, and great views all round. There were fewer people beyond the top and we took the lower path which clings to the cliff side, again rather slippery in the shade. We felt we’d earned our ice cream in the old churchyard at Cwm yr Eglwys, a pretty little village and beach with just one end of the church remaining, the rest having been washed away by the sea in north-easterly storms.

We then had to walk up the very steep lane for quarter of a mile or so before turning off onto the path which for the first time all day was wide and level and went in a straight line for several hundred yards. Then two similar quiet bays, Aberfforest and Aberrhigian, a stretch of good cliff top walking on springy turf and a gentle descent down to the beginnings of Newport. It was nearly a mile more up the estuary and back to the town centre car park, but the plodding had paid off and we finished the day not too tired. 12 miles of coast path, only two more days walking to the end of Pembrokeshire.