The good weather has continued, bringing temperatures in the mid
to high 20s. Our summer wear is getting good use as opposed to last year when
we seemed to spend the whole six months in the UK dressed in jeans, warm
shirts, and socks and shoes. The bulk of my luggage is vindicated!
This morning we set off west along the A40, that route we will
take in another two days when we move on to our next camp. A little more than twenty
miles brought us to Haverfordwest, the county town of Pembrokeshire. Our rough
guide gave it few points as a tourist destination, and I have to say that as we
drove down into the town, and crossed the Western Cleddau, the western tentacle
of the waterway that creeps up from the Milford Haven Waterway, we too were
underwhelmed. Our Tomtom directed us up through the High Street, a steep street
passing the edge of a castle of which little is left. I am sure that if we had
stopped and walked about we might have found more to admire, but we were intent
on travelling to the furthest point of the westernmost end of Wales.
Today our initial destination was to be Dale and Wooltack Point
on the southern arm of St Brides Bay, along a road that passed more underwhelming
villages of this part of Wales. Beyond the well serviced town of Haverfordwest,
a market town of about 13,000 folk, the B4327 runs out through rural pastoral
land, between high banks and long grass, too high to spot the livestock that
may or may not populate the grasslands, and too high to enable good visibility
along the narrowing roads and lanes.
Dale, quite quaint for Welsh settlements, lies just inside the
northern edge of the Milford Haven Waterway, and from here beyond the moored
yachts and other pleasure craft, are
views to the oil refineries on the southern coast.
We were sufficiently attracted to the place to park up and pay the
appropriate fee, before walking about the small jetty area. A class of teenage
children were gathered on the wharf dangling hand lines over the side of the
jetty, with a view to catching crabs, tagging them and then returning within a
defined time to see how many of them they could retrieve. This would enable
some sort of statistical evidence of their population, or alternatively prove
that crabs were thick, or not, as the case maybe.
We walked up beyond the houses perched along the shoreline, climbing
steeply through a small wood, only to find the views were more expansive of the
rural landscape about the peninsula, rather than of the intimate bay below.
The map suggested we could travel to the end of this part of the
peninsula, to St Ann’s Head, and while we did manage to drive some distance
further, car parking was well back from the point and access was not clearly
defined.
We drove back up the peninsula a little, then north out through
the village of Marloes, home to lobster and crab fisherman, and along the cliff
top, high above expansive sandy beaches, to Wooltack Point. Here again the
parking was some distance from the point, but under National Trust management,
a parking custodian collected funds from non-members and directed us to
overflow parking fields, even this early in the day. 
From here we walked out to the headland, into an area called the
Deer Park, an area of gorse, blackberry and bracken, grazed by a few Angus
cattle, rather than the Welsh mountain ponies our guide book had suggested. We
stood high above the cliffs and looked across to the islands of Skokholm and Skomer,
the latter accessible by boat from the National Trust launching area. The turbulent
water between the mainland and the islands were reminiscent of those at French Pass
in New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds, and not to be considered lightly.
After an hour walking along the cliff top paths, we lunched in the
car out of the wind before heading on to our next destination further along St
Brides Bay.
Little Haven is accessed by even smaller roads, and requiring
great caution and tolerance of the great big agricultural machinery all too
common on these roads. But as we descended into this intimate little bay, all
traffic frustration was forgotten and we gladly settled into a half hour of
free parking, surprising for both the
fact there was space for such a facility and also for the fact that up to half
an hour was offered gratis; go Little Haven!
This sheltered little cove is more stony than it might have been
when our guide book was written, because we learned from a local who was
pulling his boat up the steep beach with an electric winch, that the powers-that-be
have only fairly recently filled the shoreline with truckloads of stones and
changed the whole beach. This was all because a couple of houses had suffered
inundation during a recent winters; this bureaucratic interference was obviously
not universally appreciated.
We walked a wee way up the path that could have taken us back to
Wooltack Point, and stood watching the sun-seeking crowds below. There were
many in the charming little pubs and cafes, some already bronzed types spread
out for another dose of cancer-forming ultra violet sunshine and a few idiots
venturing into the water.
The prize for the last activity had to go to a young woman dressed
in a minimum of clothing, paddling laboriously out of the bay in an inflatable
canoe, more suited for a home swimming pool than the edge of the Irish Sea. Her
little terrier-type dog was perched on one end, standing behind her, looking
quite comfortable, at least for the moment. And then he was not there. We
spotted him some distance from her craft, paddling frantically with his little
legs after her rather than seeking the security of the shore. She was oblivious
to his absence, and it was some time before she noted her companion had
deserted her. When she finally managed to reach him, she scooped the now scrawny
wet rat-like canine up and struggled back toward shore. By the time we reached
her, she was sharing a punnet of blackberries with him while he shivered
uncontrollably. We suggested that he needed to be wrapped in a towel to dry off
then taken for a brisk walk; however this silly woman knew best and she soon
headed back out to sea without safety or sense, and her companion still
shivering on the floor of her canoe. We left her to it.
From Little Haven, we
headed further up the bay to Broad Haven, well named for its broad sandy
beach, an expanse devoid of the all too common groynes, well patronised with
swimmers and sunseekers. Lifesavers were on duty here and the whole scene was
very different to our last destination. We might have stopped for an ice-cream
here, but the parking areas were well back from the beach and any stop to buy
such a treat would have required more than a five minute visit.
Out in the bay we had seen at least four cargo vessels biding
their time, obviously awaiting their turn at the wharves in the Milford Haven Waterway,
just as they do waiting outside the Whangarei Harbour, or off Auckland or Tauranga,
out of economic necessity.
And to the north we saw the northern crescent of St Bride’s Bay,
that which ends with St David’s, a spot I am keen to visit, but one to be left
for later in the week.
Instead we headed back to Haverfordwest, this time on the B4341,
calling into the Tesco Superstore. No sooner had we stepped out of the car than
we were accosted by a local who held us for some time, sharing his appreciation
of 2006 Kia Sorrentos, his parked adjacent to ours. He assured us they went for
ever and I was reminded that Australians outside the cities used to say the
same about our Toyota Landcruiser, none of which served us well when we came to
sell it.
Inside the superstore, we were again accosted by another super friendly
Welshman, a fellow customer not staff member, who shared his knowledge and appreciation
of the wines on offer, drawing our attention to the fact there was a 25%
discount for purchases of half a dozen bottles of the same variety. Egged on by
his enthusiasm, plus his reminiscences of his cruise about New Zealand, we left
with a small carton of vino, something that had not been on our grocery list. The
Welsh are indeed a very friendly lot, and even more so when they learn we are
from New Zealand.
Escaping Tesco and Haverfordwest, it was a straight run back to
our camp just west of St Clears; The Chauffeur was glad to have an extra hour
of afternoon tennis viewing, and I might yet squeeze in a few pages of my book
before bedtime.
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