I don’t quite know how it has taken us two years to walk the 186 miles round the Pembrokeshire coast given that we managed 280 miles from Oxfordshire to Pembrokeshire in three weeks. At long last we started on the final section, again with Alan and Kath, on a beautiful early autumn day. Soon after Ceibwr Bay, Alan spotted the tail of a lizard on the path, still twisting and writhing – lizards discard them as a defence mechanism. So interesting I failed to photograph it.
I had always thought the distinctive high headland with intricately folded rocks, visible since Strumble Head, was Cemaes Head, but actually it is Pen yr Afr (Goat’s Head). Cemaes Head is the northern promontory a little further on. It wasn’t a long walk from Ceibwr but the path climbed and climbed, occasionally dropping back down a little but then up again, with a pair of peregrines wheeling and calling overhead, and seals calling in the caves far below. We stopped at the top for our lunch, the most populated picnic spot on the entire walk.
The path continued along the top of the very high cliffs to Cemaes Head and we then had hazy views of the Ceredigion coast, but the scenery was already changing, with drystone walls instead of Pembrokeshire banks. Through a rather ramshackle farmyard and the path changed to a road, dropping gradually down to Poppit Sands where we stopped for ice cream. A couple more miles along the sandy side of the estuary and then on the rather narrow road, and into St Dogmaels.
And that should have been the end – but we wanted to finish in Cardigan, to join up with the start of the Ceredigion Way that we walked in 2015. So we continued on the Welsh Coast Path route for a couple more miles, past the ruined abbey and mill pond in St Dogmaels, then not noticing as we left Pembrokeshire on a footbridge at a field boundary. In Cardigan we celebrated with a half pint of Pembrokeshire beer before heading back west to where we belong. 10 miles, and I haven’t added up the totals but it’s meant to be 186 miles with a total ascent higher than Everest. And now we have to decide on our next challenge… (no definitely not Everest!)
Home From Home 
Wow! Well done, team Chambers, another challenge completed! xxx
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Well Done. Looks beautiful x
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Meant to say .. have you read The Salt Path? May give you inspiration but don’t make yourselves homeless first!
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I haven’t but it sounds good. I’ve started reading A Suitable Boy and I think it may take even longer than the walk!
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Well done Anne & Ian. You look so relaxed at the end. What’s your secret?
Maybe round the rest of the British Isles for your next challenge?
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Hello Anne and Ian Thanks for recording your episodes of distance walking in an entertaining way – even the trudge around the estuary bits! Thanks for the photos and description of parts of the coast path that we know and love,(but maybe haven’t seen for a while) and stretches that we are less familiar with. Good luck with plotting your next challenge.
Andrew
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