We left Freshwater East Caravan Club site on Thursday morning, April 2, to start exploring the next part of the Welsh coastline. It was a bright but blowy morning as we drove across the Castlemartin Firing Range into the National Park. The Pembrokeshire National Park was gorgeous in the sunshine and amazingly not very crowded. First stop was St Govan’s Chapel, which was built sometime between 8 and 14 centuries ago, and is hewn from the rock. Steep steps down to it as it’s almost at sea level but well worth it. We were able to park easily at all the sights despite being so close to Easter. Then onto Huntsman’s Leap where we found two climbers who were getting ready to abseil down! The gap is not as small as it looks. After that, it was Stack Rocks and then The Green Bridge of Wales. The Bridge is really an arch over the sea but still very dramatic.

We then did a quick tour of various beaches before stopping for the night at Newgale Farm Cottage (S4S: S28455S) for the princely sum of £6 per person and we had sweeping views across to the beach.

The weather turned overnight with wind and rain, a prelude to Storm Dave, battering us in our campsite but we had no trouble getting off our little grass pitch in the morning. Being Good Friday, it seemed that everyone was out and about for a walk so when we arrived at Solva Harbour, we were worried there would be nowhere to park. However, we found a spot that was Dora sized and being a National Trust car park, we didn’t even have to pay anything! We had a lovely coastal walk from Solva to Nine Elms and back with views over the estuary and the coast.

Then it was onto St David’s to see the cathedral. The cathedral is set below the city (small village really) and has a lovely feel to it with St David’s tomb and the Royal Stall for the monarch. Then to St Non’s Chapel and Well on the coast where St David was born.

From then we went to Porth Clais for another coastal walk before heading to White Sands Bay for our stopover by the beach at White Sands Campsite (S4S:S25706S).

On Saturday, April 4, we needed to wend our way back as we had booked ourselves into a recommended pub just outside Barry for the evening. First stop was Carmarthen to see Merlin’s Hill and cycle the Tywi Valley Cycleway. After all, we had brought the bikes to Wales to test the cycle carrier so the least we could do was actually use them! We parked up in a car park (P4N#423969) just by the cycleway and next to Carmarthen Museum. It was a really sweet museum with lots of artefacts from different eras of Carmarthen’s history, including frieze of Waterloo, part of an oak tree planted to commemorate the accession of Charles II and linked to Merlin the Arthurian Magician, who was born in Carmarthen. We cycled up Merlin’s Hill to try and find Merlin’s museum but to no avail. It was getting windier and started to rain, thanks to Storm Dave, so we aborted our efforts and dropped down to the cycleway. It was relatively new and you could cycle along it for 13 miles between Carmarthen and Llandeilo. We did a small section of a ten mile round trip as the weather slowly deteriorated.

After lunch in the van, we headed off to Carreg Cennen Castle, an abandoned but imposing castle in the middle of nowhere. One of King Arthur’s Knights, apparently, built a castle on this site before this current one that was built in 1248. It also had an underground cave that went back to prehistoric times.

We left the castle around 16.00 to our final destination, The Blue Anchor Pub in Rhoose, just outside Barry. It had been recommended as a stopover (S4S:S23463S) with great food and a large car park! The pub has been an inn since 1380 and was really interesting with walls up to 2 metres thick.

We had an incredibly peaceful night before heading our way home on Easter Sunday. It took about 4 hours with a brief loo stop. Lovely trip away to set us up for longer trips over the coming months.

Miles since last stop: 380

Total miles this trip: 704