Cause of death: Unknown

Monday 22nd April 2013

Pembrokeshire Coast - Day 4

Before I tell you about today (which won't take long), let me tell you about the near disastrous end to yesterday.

After we finished our well earned beer in the multi purpose Oceans pub/wine bar/restaurant/cafe, we tried to order some food at 8.45pm, only to be told they'd stopped serving food! We were astounded, and panic stricken, as we knew that the only shop in the village was closed, and by the time we got back to the youth hostel, their shop would be closed too!
I asked the barman if there was anywhere nearby where we could get something to eat, and he begrudgingly grunted "there might be somewhere down the road", before flouncing off to sort through his peanuts.
We practically ran out of the pub in the direction the barman had indicated with his barely perceptible inclination of the head, and found another pub with a sign that said that food was served until 9. Phew! The chef was just about to put his coat on, and I think he was quite relieved when Claire ordered her steak cooked medium rare rather than well done.

We were staying in a dormitory last night, and had noticed when we arrived that one of the other beds was already made up. We (me especially) were worried about disturbing our room mate. When we got back to the dorm at about 10pm, she was already fast asleep in bed! We did our best to get ready for bed quickly and quietly, which resulted in me getting into bed completely unprepared for the night ahead. I hadn't got my tissues, snot fighting tablets or drink of water ready. So I had a terrible night's sleep, made worse by the onset of even more snot. I gave in eventually, and made what I thought was an almighty racket rustling tablet packets, getting extra pillows, running the tap etc. Claire told me in the morning that she'd slept like a log and hadn't heard any of it.
When we got up, our mysterious room mate had already left and we will never know what she looked like or whether I disturbed her. Or whether I did any sleep walking...

On balance, we've decided we prefer having our own room, even though it is more expensive and usually the size of a matchbox. I'd be happy to give dorms another try if needs be, but preferably when I'm not ill.

I have a confession to make about today. We haven't really done any walking! Our original plan was to walk from Broad Haven to Marloes Sands (11 miles), leave our bags at the youth hostel, then get a bus back to Fishguard to collect the car and drive it back to Marloes.
After comparing feet last night, and studying the weather forecast (rain and fog), I broached the subject with Claire about not bothering with the walking 11 miles bit, and just going straight on to the collecting the car bit. She didn't take much persuading, and it was a good job we did it that way round as it took us nearly all day.
The bus journey was fairly uneventful, although I did have to move to the front as I felt travel sick. The driver was quite a character, giving us a commentary, and getting out at one point to clean the windscreen with a pink brush.
We had to change buses in St. David's, and took the opportunity whilst waiting to stock up on various thing from the pharmacy. Intensive foot treatment, plasters, more anti-snot drugs, more tissues, and SUNSCREEN! In the unlikely event that the sun makes an appearance tomorrow, I will not be caught out this time. I even got myself a matching lip balm.

We drove to Marloes Sands, went for a very short walk to kill some time, and then checked into the youth hostel. Tonight's hostel is our favourite. We have our own room in a separate building to the dorm. There is a bath, a really good shower, and a well equipped kitchen with big bowls. And, the bunk bed has a double bottom bunk!

We are in the local pub now, which we are also very impressed with. It looked like a right dive from the outside, but inside it is quite up market. We both had roast pheasant for dinner, which was lovely, although very fiddly to eat, so much so that I think without the buttery sauce it might have almost been calorie neutral. We had some pudding and beer just to make sure it wasn't. Claire was able to determine cause of death for her pheasant (shotgun wound to the neck), but I either left some meat on mine or it just fell out of a tree and banged its head or something. Or it was still alive when it went in the oven. Either way, it was very tasty.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go over to Skomer Island and do some bird watching. I have my binoculars at the ready, and Claire has her big camera lens. There should be puffins and other cute birds there. I say "hoping" because it is a first come first served queuing system for the boat, and we have no idea how busy it will be.

And after that, we are heading home to soak our feet.


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Location:Pembrokeshire Coast

Wet Welsh Weather

Sunday 21st April 2013

Pembrokeshire Coast - Day 3

Before I start, I just want to apologise for the volume of snot related content in this Pembrokeshire blog. But believe me, the volume of words is nothing compared to the volume of the actual green stuff. If you don't like it, then find a blogger without a cold.

Our prompt 7am start was even less prompt than yesterday, as we finally left St. David's youth hostel at 8am.
I woke up in a pool of snot and dribble with a headache. Things improved a bit with some tissues, drugs, porridge and tea (in that order). We got chatting to an Irish man at the breakfast table, who is the main reason for our delayed departure. He was doing a cycle trip on his own so was keen to talk whenever company presented itself. He did tell us that the midges in Ireland are nowhere near as bad as the Scottish ones, which is nice to know in advance of or Ireland holiday this year.

Before we'd even made it as far as the coast, my aches and pains were starting to move downwards, and my shoulders were hurting so much I wasn't even sure I could walk as far as the first tea break stop, never mind Broad Haven youth hostel. Some sneaky shoulder exercises in the toilets at the cafe we had brunch in seemed to do the trick, and for a short while at least, I felt 35, not 75!

The weather was awful this morning. It stated raining within half an hour of setting out, and it got steadily worse as the morning went on. By the time we arrived at our lunch stop, it was throwing it down. We squelched into the pub, deliberately choosing the side that allowed well behaved dogs, as dogs have a tendency to be wet and muddy sometimes too. No one complained about our wet clothes and we had a massive pub lunch. There weren't any wet dogs in there though.

The pub was showing the London marathon on TV, and one of the regulars (Terry, aged 57 - a.k.a. Marathon Man) was showing his London marathon medal round from when he was 53. He didn't really look like the marathon type to me (picture a cross between Del Boy and Tom Jones), but reckoned he did it in 3hrs 46mins! Puts our coast walking to shame. I was pleased to note that Marathon Man had sunburn (suspected sunbed burn actually) to rival mine!
I also noticed whilst drying out in the pub, that in my opinion, welsh and yam yam accents sound quite similar. This observation (do you observe things you've heard?) was from hearing Marathon Man telling a holidaying yam yam couple about his running exploits. I don't think Claire agreed, she just thinks I got mixed up about who was talking when.

The rain stopped while we were in the pub, and after an hour of walking the sun was back. Needless to say, due to the appalling weather in the morning I hadn't bothered to buy any sunscreen, so the sunburn is back with a vengeance. I haven't taken a photo as I am already paranoid that people in the pub I am sitting in now are laughing at me.

After lunch we both started suffering with more aches and pains. Our leg muscles were on fire every time we went up a hill (not surprising really - I normally do 30 step ups with a 10kg weight at the gym, and I've been up countless hills and steps today carrying somewhere between 10 and 15 kg.

As we got nearer the youth hostel, our thoughts started turning to the pub. To be fair, my thoughts had been on the pub intermittently throughout the day, but the nearer we got the more thought the pub got. We were all for missing our afternoon tea break and pressing on towards the beer, but our feet got the better of us and we had an outdoor tea break, and inspected our blisters while we ate our Welshcakes.
In short, we've both got loads of blisters, Claire more so than me, and they hurt so much we considered crawling to the pub.

We limped there eventually, and are now sat on some comfy sofas looking out at the sun setting over Broad Haven beach, enjoying our first beer of the trip.

Tomorrow, rain or shine, I WILL BUY SUNSCREEN.


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Location:Pembrokeshire Coast

Best Foot Forward

Saturday 20th April 2013

Pembrokeshire Coast - Day 2

OK, so first off, we made it to tonight's youth hostel without getting stuck in the pub or having to get a taxi. The cold and snot are still with me, but I think are getting a bit better.

Some statistics for the day:
Miles walked = 20 plus a bit extra when we got lost near the end
Steps taken = 46,793 (Claire's is a bit less as she takes big steps)
Calories burned = 3,403
Net daily calorie intake = -270 (despite the fact that I have just eaten half a bar of chocolate)

We left this morning's youth hostel at a fairly prompt 7.20am. It was a bit chilly but looked the the beginning of a lovely day. We didn't seem to make much progress to start with. The guidebook has estimated times for different sections, and we were way over on our first section. We eventually had to stop for a break because I was starving and demanding flapjack and tea. After that we managed to speed up a lot, so we must have been on an early morning go-slow. Or that flapjack was really weighing my bag down.

The day turned out to fulfil all its early morning potential. There's hardly been a cloud in the sky all day. The views along the coast were amazing, with the sea a turquoise colour, it was more like being in Greece than Wales.



In the first photo, which was taken at just past the half way point, the headland on the horizon is where we started!


We were rather envious of a group of sea kayakers we spotted launching their boats at a tranquil little cove. Maybe next year...



We had lunch in the pub I mentioned yesterday, which was called the Sloop Inn, in a tiny village called Porthgain. We decided not to have a beer but did have a Bakewell Tart for pudding, which probably slowed us down almost as much as a beer would have done. After lunch we dragged ourselves and our Bakewell Tarts up a never ending staircase to start our walk across the cliffs to St. David's.

We both felt OK after the morning's walking, but by the time we had our afternoon tea break we were both wishing the walk had ended at the pub. We both hurt pretty much everywhere, but especially feet and hips.

After trying to take a short cut to St. David's youth hostel, which resulted in ever decreasing circles in the area, we finally arrived and are now settled in to our room. We have our own room tonight, which is tiny, but at least I don't have to worry about disturbing anyone with my snoring or sleep walking antics. Except Claire, but she's used to it.

A close inspection in the mirror confirmed my suspicions that I have managed to get embarrassing sunburn lines AGAIN. When will I learn about this. I'm sure this is the third or fourth blog I've written about being taken by surprise by the sun. On top of the sunburn, I also have a bright red nose from blowing it all day.


Tomorrow the Met Office says it is going to rain quite a lot. We find that hard to believe given that there wasn't a cloud in the sky when the sun set, but we'll see. Tomorrow's walk is another 20 miles, which I am a bit apprehensive about after today's efforts, although I think we will be spurred on by the knowledge that tomorrow's pub is at the END of the day's walking AND we don't have to be up at the crack of dawn the following day.


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Location:Pembrokeshire Coast Path

Sniffles by the sea

Friday 19th April 2013

Pembrokeshire Coast - Day 1

Today is our first day of five in Pembrokeshire. We're walking part of the coast path between Pwll Deri and Marloes Sands, staying in Youth Hostels along the way. The day didn't get off to a particularly good start as I woke up feeling awful with a cold. Or possibly a female variant of Man Flu.

It took us ages to get here - about 5 hours by car including a lunch stop. I didn't realise there were any bits of Wales that far away! We stumbled across a great place where we had lunch. Unfortunately I can't remember what it's called or where it is but there were loads of birds there including red kites, woodpeckers, and loads of different finches. There was a nice cafe and no children to frighten the birds away. We want to go back there and do some mountain biking on some of the trails, so I will have to try a bit harder at remembering where it is.

We arrived at our start point at Goodwick (near Fishguard) in glorious sunshine. I was full of snot and was aching all over which was worrying. But, surprisingly, after a short four mile walk, carrying a rucksack weighing nearly 2 stone, mainly uphill, I seem to have sweated most of the aches and pains away.

We had the best tea break of the year so far this afternoon on top of a little hill overlooking tonight's Youth Hostel at Pwll Deri. We took the opportunity to take some photos of some of our outdoor kit in action, and are optimistic about getting some of them in the next Cotswold catalogue!

After tea and cakes we had a stroll downhill (almost a roll actually, as we are a bit top heavy with our rucksacks on), and arrived at the hostel just as it opened. It is perched on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea and is a real bargain at something like £15 each a night. We are staying in an 8 bed dormitory tonight, although at the moment we seem to have the room to ourselves. Hopefully it will stay that way as I think I might get some complaints about my sniffing, sneezing and snoring all night. The beds are bunk beds, and Claire can't seem to make up her mind which one to sleep on. I think she has tried them all out, and, worryingly, seems to have a preference for the most creaky one.
I have selected a lower bunk nearest the door, in the hope that if I go sleepwalking in the night I will end up back in my own bed, rather than try and get in with someone else like when I was on Brownie pack holiday.

Tomorrow we have a 20 mile walk to St. David's youth hostel. Apparently we are setting out at 7am prompt. At the moment, we don't even know if we are physically capable of walking 20 miles carrying all this stuff, plus there is a danger of serious delay half way round in the form of the best pub in Pembrokeshire (according to the guidebook and some other people staying here). We walked about 15 miles last weekend which was OK, but we didn't have the rucksacks or pub to contend with.

We are also a little concerned that we haven't packed any sunscreen. Neither of us dared mention it for fear of jinxing the weather, but if tomorrow is as sunny as today then we will be bright red by the evening.

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Location:Pembrokeshire