Hols

House at Llanunwas

Spent 19 to 25 July on a fairly last minute week away in a holiday cottage on the Pembrokeshire coast. We had only booked it a couple of weeks beforehand, at some (probably correct) insistence from Ruth that we should have a week away somewhere. After a relatively minor exchange of words over the fact that my passport expired a couple of years ago and I haven't as yet bothered to renew it, Ruth recalled that she had enjoyed the weekend we spent in Pembrokeshire for Dad's 70th in 2012. We managed to book Wood Cottage at Llanunwas near Solva, via Coastal Cottages of Pembrokeshire, at a bit of a premium given that it's the school holidays but it had been reduced by a couple of hundred pounds as we were so near the date of our intended stay. Llanunwas is an estate fairly close to the coastal path that has evidently been converted into a number of smaller properties, several of which seem to be for rental through Coastal Cottages. The estate house is a bit grim but the outbuildings (which include what is now Wood Cottage) are cute.

On the way there we stopped off to visit the National Botanic Garden of Wales near Camarthen, partly because our Coastal Cottages booking had come with a voucher that got one person in free. The Botanic Garden was opened in 2000, apparently the first such to be created in the UK in nearly 200 years. It was based on the site of the Middleton Estate, a 17th-century estate later transformed into a Regency water park in the late 18th century by one Sir William Paxton, who also built himself a grand new house, Middleton Hall. The grand new house burned down in 1931 and only the former servants’ quarters, now known as Principality House, remain standing. We wandered round various gardens, including the Double Walled Garden and the Tropical House, and the Bee Garden, where one can view the honey bees at work from behind the glass of the Bee Interpretation Hut. Had a brief walk around the lakes, where we saw a heron fishing. The centerpiece of the Botanic Garden is the Norman Foster-designed Great Glasshouse, the largest single-span glasshouse in the world and containing a variety of endangered plants from Mediterranean climate regions of the world.

We were plagued entertained throughout our walk around the gardens by folk music and troupes of folk dancers – initially by the entrance, but also within the Great Glasshouse and another by the Stable Block, where we stopped for ice cream. By the third troupe I was put in mind of the line from Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch. Ruth stopped at one (quiet) point to listen to some birdsong, but the moment was scuppered by an accordion promptly starting up again.

On the Sunday we walked into Solva along the coastal path from Llanunwas and had lunch at the lovely Lavender Café tacked on to the side of the Raul Speek Gallery, sited in the Old Chapel. Speek, a Cuban artist, was himself in evidence, playing the piano inside the gallery for the whole of our visit.

The village of Solva is in two halves: Upper Solva is a regular-looking collection of houses and seems to contain Solva’s only convenience store, Bay View Stores, a cheery little establishment with various signs outside mocking Tesco. Lower Solva, around the harbour, is a chocolate-boxy tourist village with brightly coloured houses, several pubs and a collection of shops selling paintings, pottery, hand-whittled sea birds and other crafty bits. Solva harbour is very pretty and full of little boats.

On the Monday we drove into St Davids where I did an hour’s work in the café of the Visitor Centre. We then walked up to the cathedral and paid Cadw’s entrance charge for a look around the impressive ruins of the Bishops Palace. We followed this with lunch at The Bishops, then visited the nursery on the way back out of town to the Visitor Centre car park, where Ruth went in for a quick browse and came out with two bags full of plants, which she was then obliged to tend and water for the rest of our stay.

We then, at my (fairly quickly regretted) suggestion, walked the mile or so from St Davids to Whitesands Bay intending to then do a short walk around St Davids Head that I had found on a leaflet in the cottage. We only did the additional walk because I had refused to drive to Whitesands car park because of its probable extreme crowdedness (confirmed on our arrival), but the walk out of St Davids along the country road and then along the B4583 proved extremely hot and distinctly unrewarding. We sat for a moment looking at the packed beach, then trudged back to St Davids, though I did manage to persuade Ruth that we might try the coastal walk the following day.

Coetan Arthur

We drove to Whitesands' car park early the next morning and walked down the almost-deserted beach, populated only by a few early-morning power walkers, before setting off on a circular walk of St David’s Head. It had rained heavily on Monday night and was still overcast and misty for most of the walk, though this made for pleasanter walking than the heat of the previous day. As is often the way on coastal walks, we walked out to the tip of one headland before realizing that St David’s Head was actually the next headland over. Sat for a while near Coetan Arthur, a Neolithic burial chamber dating from 4000-3000 BC. Ruth tried to set up her camera to take an auto-shot of the pair of us, with varying degrees of success; on one occasion the camera fell forwards into some moss, which it then photographed; on another Ruth rushed back to sit down next to me in time and sat down on the flapjack I had brought along to keep our blood sugar up.

The second part of the walk, back towards Whitesands, went over the slopes of Carn Llidi, apparently the highest point on the St Davids peninsula at 594ft. We walked partway up the slopes, viewing the two small Neolithic burial chambers on the slopes and the brick and concrete evidence of the military use of Carn Llidi during both the First and Second World Wars. St David’s Head, and particularly Carn Llidi, do apparently offer spectacular views as far as the coast of Ireland, though they weren’t to be had on the day of our walk. We had lunch in the Bwthyn Y Bwyd cafe in St Davids where I had a delicious scone with clotted cream and jam and Ruth had an apparently overcooked omelette.

On the Wednesday we did what was intended to be a short relaxed walk northwards from Llanunwas along the coastal path; however due to inept map-reading on my part we went past the point at Porth y Rhaw where I had intended to turn off and make a neat circular walk out of it, and ended up at Trelerw, which we were hoping might contain a café or pub but which was little more than a collection of houses. Walked back the direction we had come along a baking hot country road and then back down to the coastal path to Porth y Rhaw, communing with ponies and cows on the way. After some difficulty finding the right path, managed to arrive at Nine Wells and the A487, which we walked along at some hazard to life back to Llanunwas. Turned in at the path with the National Trust sign saying ‘Llanunwas’, but that seemed to be leading away from the house, in a manner that appeared to bear no relation to what was on the map. Eventually arrived back at cottage, vowing never to holiday in countryside again but to restrict myself to city breaks and Center Parcs-style holiday developments. Later that afternoon, drove out to try to find Crochendy Studio Pottery, but after a few miles driving in the heat over what appeared to be a disused airfield, we both decided that none of it was worth it/we had lost all interest in pottery, and returned to the cottage. Declined to visit a nearby woollen mill, on the grounds that it was too warm to think about woolly things.

Things looked up on the Wednesday evening, when we went on a fantastic boat trip through Thousand Islands Expeditions Wildlife Boat Trips, booked through their office in St Davids. We picked the Puffin & Shearwater Cruise, departing at 6pm from the St Justinians Lifeboat Station a couple of miles from St Davids, and spent an hour and half taking us out into Ramsey Sound, past the Bitches and around Ramsey Island, before going out to the Bishops and Clerks, other clutches of rocks. We saw several seals, three lying on one of the small beaches on Ramsey Island, and the heads of several others bobbing up and down in the water. Our trip was on a particularly sunny calm evening, so we were not asked to wear life jackets though the guide cheerily told us that we could put them on if we liked. As we passed through Ramsey Sound he pointed out the areas of fast current which can apparently be dodgy for boats in poorer weather, due to concealed rocks.

The guide pointed out the absurd cluster of plastic puffins up on the shores of Ramsey Island, together with recorded puffin noises, which are a deliberate attempt by the RSPB to attract puffins back to the island, after they apparently vanished from it for 100 years thanks to rats getting on to the island. We did see a few real puffins later in the trip, though not very close up – but did see a few bobbing on the water a little way off. Ruth had expressed an interest in seeing puffins but had refused to buy a pair of binoculars, regarding that as too middle-aged, so was stuck with peering at them from a distance. I pointed out that several others on the trip did have binoculars, even though none were significantly older than us, so perhaps she may change her mind for the next trip. At the end of the trip we saw a clutch of manx shearwaters returning to the islands – we were told that, thanks to being clumsy on land and at risk of becoming prey to other birds (I forget which ones), they stay out at sea all day and only return to the islands under safety of dusk.

On the Thursday we drove a little way south to Newgale and spent some time walking and paddling up and down its magnificent length of flat sandy beach. Ruth spent 45 minutes or so lying on a towel, but I get bored with that quite quickly and eventually managed to prise her off it with reminders about the ageing and withering effects of the sun. My family took one or two holidays in a cottage at Newgale when Dave and I were quite small (possibly pre-Hannah, though I'm not sure) and I was interested to see if I could identify which house it was, though my memories of it are patchy. Did succeed in identifying the property that I think it was (later confirmed by parents), helped by the fact that it was one of the few older houses around in the village. Had a not bad lunch in the Duke of Edinburgh on the sea front.

In the evening we walked down into Solva and had a pint at the Harbour Inn, which is indeed by the harbour but unfortunately has a view largely of the intervening car park. Followed that by dinner at the Cambrian Inn, which Dad says used to be more of a pub-type pub but is now a smart establishment that looks largely set up for dining. The surroundings and ambience were nice but the food, while OK, didn’t quite live up to them. We were driven back to Llanunwas by a cheerful chap from the St Davids Taxi Service, who told us it was hotter than he remembered it.

Decided to start our journey back on the Friday, in deference to the lengthy drive and various jobs to do at home. Took the more cross-country route from Camarthen on the A40 all the way back to Abergavenny, via Llandovery and Brecon. Had tea at The Old Printing Office in Llandovery, which has a lovely café with outdoor courtyard and delicious crumpets. Stayed over with Mum and Dad on the Friday evening. Pleased to see that Lydia is now going out regularly and was apparently enjoying rolling around in the patch of earth that Dad has cleared for his impending new lawn – the following Tuesday was prominently marked TURF DAY on their calendar.