In addition to the Final Lap!!, we always knew there was this particular part of the Path that we had missed. This due to the fact that the MOD owns this part of the coast and has done since the war. It was used extensively for training for wartime activities - a lot of them secret, and it is still used today quite extensively. For those of you who know the Pembrokeshire path, you will know that you can only cross certain parts of the southerly path at certain times when no firing is taking place. We had been lucky on the walk that we had been able to pass across to see St Govan's Head and chapel and the Green Bridge but that was partly due to doing the walk in the winter I think!
Castlemartin West is only open to walkers a very few times a year. These walks can only take place with guides who are volunteers from the Pembrokeshire path wardens. We had duly booked on this walk at the beginning of the year so were really excited to now be able to cover this ground! Back to Castlemartin...
The group of about 24 of us met at Merrion camp by 10. A new experience for us on a guided walk! It was a beautiful morning - warm and sunny. We drove our cars and the mini bus to the car park at Stack Rocks. First of all we took a look again at the Green Bridge -
- fabulous views and not nearly as windy as last time we'd been here when we nearly got blown away!
We also heard that a cliff bridge had collapsed after the storms - strange to think it had been attached on our last visit....
Before....there it was in the middle looking at it on approach..
....and there it was looking from the Green Bridge in October, 2013
and after.... as it is in August, 2015
So off we set onto forbidden territory. It was exciting to be walking here although we were warned not to touch anything that looked like ordnance - and we did see quite a lot of old shells and so on and evidence of bouncing shells all day. The guides were super all day - Vicky and Ian. We heard so many interesting facts about history, landscape, wildlife - and as you will see, also saw so much on an idyllic day!
First of all we headed to the Wash. As we walked we saw lots of cocoons in the grass and discovered these were the eggs - and now caterpillars - of the marsh fritillaries...
The Wash is a special little cove which we recognised we had seen from the last headland of our October, 2013 walk, Mewsford Point near Bullslaugter Bay. Today the grass path down to the Wash was full of golden samphire...
....and normal marsh samphire and plenty of sea lavender. The view was terrific on rock which must be very slippery in wet weather - today it was stunning!
And within the rocks which again are limestone here, were so many fossils. I can't remember all the names now - that's something else I have to check out when I have time! But here a couple of pictures of them. There were SO many!
And apparently another good place to see a lot around here is at Stackpole - when the tide is out!
Back up to the path again on the top, we soon found more lovely flowers - the eyebright..
..amongst others. So many of these marine plants grow kind of in miniature because of the weather conditions. There were also lots of scabious which is the main food attraction for the marsh fritillaries. Ragwort is apparently the main food for cinnabar beetles - I told you we found out lots of things!
As we walked along with marvellous views out to sea, we also passed the odd rusty old tank or 2, testimony to past and present!
The cliffs on the whole stretch of coast here are just amazing....
and once around that particular headland, we saw a huge blowhole. Clear to see that it won't be too long before there is another cliff collapse going to happen. The noise that the sea must make here in winter must be phenomenal!
I gather that with younger groups, the guides do take people crawling along the grass to peer into this hole - glad we were deemed too old!
More my cup of tea was spotting 3 choughs as we walked along - and they were not at all spooked by our approach. It was amazing to see them so close and I got quite a lot of photos of them, both in the grass and in flight! I had my camera with me today so wasn't relying on a camera phone so they were much better quality..
And our next port of call was the magnificent Pen-y-Holt Bay...
It was such a beautiful place and we sat here and had lunch overlooking the amazing view. There is a collapsed arch which collapsed I believe in Victorian times...
and a wonderful stack......wonder who you might think it looks like...
And once more cliffs which have been crushed and bent into amazing shapes...
....we even had a crab fisherman to watch...
And here was the group watching..
From there we followed the coast closely, passing behind the stack - did he look different from this angle?
Along the way were more astonishing cliffs to see..
And what about this angle? Now we had to reveal our guesses - the vast majority had gone for de Gaulle who is usually the favourite it seems. I had gone for Ted Heath and Ken Dodd was a popular guess.
As we were coming towards an iron age fort (which I was very excited about again!), we passed a couple of rock stacks where Ian asked us to spot a shell....I was looking for ages for a seashell having forgotten that we were actually on a military site so it took me longer than everyone else to see it - can you see it there top right?
Having walked around Pen-y-Holt Bay and its stack, we had also been walking around a small rocky island out at sea which has been and still is a bit of a nasty danger to shipping. There have been several wrecks on it. To me it looked like a big sandcastle today.
And so we came to the fort - of course some of it is already in the sea but there is a lot of it left too. The trainees are warned not to fire in this direction! It is quite an impressive fort which had huge earthworks..
There are ring huts inside which can be spotted more easily form above in winter but the ditch at the western end has fallen into the cove and so it has formed a real transverse section of what the earthworks would have been like so you can get a good indication of how massive it would have been.
So we came round to Linney Head with its old lookout tower, now redundant. The views across to the Dale peninsula and Skomer Island were wondrous..
In the sea off the headland here was spotted a grey seal..
..who saw us very clearly. I was in severe trouble going near the edge...as you can see we were quite high up...
and the cave nearest us was where the seal headed..
Following the coast like glue, we soon had views across to Frainslake Sands (MOD property - think they should share it...) which adjoins the fantastic Freshwater West - or Fresh west to locals.
On the cliffs here was a Tobruk shelter which was a training shelter for wartime as these would have been built in enemy lands - and in fact are still used today..
We couldn't cross the Sands here as we would have been able to before the storms as the cliffs beyond are now a little unstable so we just had a rest on the beach looking out to the Dale peninsula, Skomer and Skokholm islands.
We saw a ferry going out of the Haven. And the beach itself was so pretty - the rock formations an absolute picture..
And so we had to leave the sea behind to cross the Brownslade dunes.
There were still interesting things to discover. First we passed a now sunken watermill - Frainslake Mill..
and soon passed a limekiln - of course, with so much limestone around! and the land here had belonged to a Mr Myerhill who had set up a model farm here back in the 1700's. He had a large mansion, now demolished but only by the army in the 1970's and an outstanding garden, now just completely overrun. And a little further along the track is the huge farm which had to be given over to the MOD and is now just ruinous.
Such a tragedy to lose so much history. Ironically, the farm manager's house has had a roof put on it, albeit made of tin, because there are a pair of barn owls residing in it! Well, I thought it ironic.
And so we were back at the minibus which was to return us to Stack Rocks car park. What a wondrous day - and a credit to the 2 guides who showed us so much. We reckoned we'd walked about 7 and a half miles on the walk which is "advertised" at 6 - whatever it had been, it was worth every foot of it!
We hope to be doing more return walks to our favourite parts so will keep you "posted"!
Hope you enjoyed reading about it - book yourselves on a walk soon!
In the meantime, we have now walked Offa's Dyke Path too........see blog at:
Pam and Chris Walking Offa's Dyke
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