Pembrokeshire

On Sunday my friend Nicola & I took off for a couple of nights in Pembrokeshire on the South Wales coast. It was a lovely day & Nic was driving her very snazzy little Mazda convertible, so we had a great trip (about 3 & a half hours) cruising with the top down & listening to some cool sounds. OK, maybe we listened to Kenny Rogers quite a bit, but it was great for a sing-a-long! We were staying in a YHA hostel in Broad Haven which was pretty much right on the beach. The photo above shows the Broad Haven beach just after sunset. It was a lovely spot. Part of the dining room at the hostel was a conservatory, affording great views over the water. That afternoon we did a bit of exploring, walking along the beach & clambering over some rocks investigating the rock pools etc.

On Monday we did a 20km or so walk along the Pembrokeshire coastal path from Broad Haven to Solva. Again we had glorious weather for walking, & it was really nice walking as well. The path goes mostly along the cliff tops, but does take you down to some lovely beaches along the way, so there was a bit of up & down involved. A few too many steps for my liking getting back up from some of the beaches! It was lovely & quiet, we had been walking for an hour or so before we saw any other people.
We conveniently came across a nice little cafe in Newgale at about half-12, so stopped & had lunch (bacon brie & cranberry panini washed down with a hot chocolate if you really want to know!). We made the mistake of sitting in some comfy old couches for lunch, so it was bit of an effort getting out of them & continuing our walk! Especially as we had a decent sized hill to tackle straight after lunch! The nice thing about coastal walking, as opposed to being up in the mountains, is that there is plenty of civilisation (pubs, cafes, toilets etc) along the way should you need it.

On the way to Solva we came across the greenest grass in the world! It really was fantastic, we just had to stop for a photo op...


It also gave me a chance to play around with a cool function on my camera where you can choose 1 colour, then have everything else black & white.

We got into Solva, which is a small town with a really pretty little harbour, just after 4pm & had a drink at the harbour inn to celebrate the end of our walk. We then had the mission of trying to get back to Broad Haven. There is a coastal service (called the puffin service, love it!) which serves the coastal path, but it was still on winter timetable, & hence, only ran on Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays. Considering we were walking on a Monday, it didn't really help us! The friendly guy running the hostel said we would have to get a bus from Solva to Haverfordwest, & then get a taxi back out to Broad Haven. We get on the bus, & started talking to a guy who had also been out walking for the day. He was getting the bus back to his car, & said he lived in Milford Haven. Broad Haven was on the way there so he offered to drop us off on his way past. It worked out perfectly, & saved us £16 on a taxi fare...

That night there was another pretty sunset, & we had fish & chips, washed down with a good bottle of NZ sauvignon blanc, on the beach. A perfect end to a perfect day...

Tuesday morning we were up quite early to fit in another walk before the drive home. We did a really nice 2 & a half hour circular walk. It was on a peninsula so it meant we could park the car, do the walk round the peninsula, (out to Wooltrack point if anyone knows the area), then cut across some farmers fields to get back to the car. The weather wasn't as good as the previous day, less sunshine & higher winds, but it was great filling the lungs with more fresh air before the drive back, & the scenery was magnificent. We even had a go at a self-portrait!
We had a good trip back, then a couple of hours later I had a touch training/pick-up game. It was the first one for the season, held at Palmer park which is only 10 minutes or so from me. It is open to anyone playing in the Reading touch league, & we warm-up & do a few ball-handling drills first, before getting into a couple of games. It was great fun, we played until dark (about an hour & a half) & it is going to be on every Tuesday till the league begins on May 2nd. My team, the 'Try-Hards' is entered for our fourth year. We've got a title to defend after winning the mixed division 2 section last year! Bring it on!!!

At the moment I don't have anything planned for the rest of the holiday. Will gets 1 extra day either side of the stats, so it'll be nice to drag him off somewhere for a few days over Easter. My mission today is to have a look around last-minute.com & similar, & see what I can find...