Walk 368 -- New Quay to Llangrannog

Ages:  Colin was 73 years and 3 days.  Rosemary was 70 years and 145 days.

Weather:  Mostly sunny, some cloud.  A cold wind in exposed places.
Location:  New Quay to Llangrannog.
Distance:  9 miles.
Total distance:  3793 miles.
Terrain:  Cliff paths of varying quality.  Very undulating and quite challenging in places.
Tide:  In.
Rivers:  None.
Ferries:  None.
Piers:  None.
Kissing gates:  Nos.833 to 846 (fourteen in all).
Pubs:  Pentre Hotel in Llangrannog which we visited the other day.  Colin drank Mantle ‘Cwrw Teifi’ best bitter, and I drank Carlsberg cider.
‘Cadw’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan on a site at Oakford, near Aberaeron.  This morning we drove to Llangrannog and parked near the seafront.  From there we caught the ‘Cardi-Bach’ bus to New Quay where we walked down to the lifeboat quay.
At the end we came to the car parked in Llangrannog.  We had our tea and biscuits, then returned to our caravan.

We started today’s Walk on the beach by the lifeboat station.  We walked a bit of the beach, but very soon we had to go up on to the prom.  We came to a brightly painted cave-type beach shelter which we loved — but there were no seats in it!

We looked around for a pasty shop, and found one called “Traditional Cornish Pasties” (in Wales?) which was ideal.  The woman serving in there said the pasties were still in the oven and would be ready in about five minutes.  So we walked along the main quay where lots of people were enjoying the sun and fishermen were doing their stuff at the end.  Then I sat on a seat while Colin went back to buy the pasties.  They were still piping hot when he brought them over, and absolutely delicious.

We thought we had better continue the Walk, we’d done enough faffing about and time was getting on.  In fact it was an hour since we’d got off the bus.  We passed the site of an old railway which was used in yesteryear to bring stone to the harbour.

We also passed a house with a ship picture in the window, and a weather vane which was a snail — which reminded us how slowly we were making progress today!
We walked along to a fish factory because the path went uphill behind it through an old quarry.  It was a steep climb to the top of the cliffs, it really tested my gammy knee.  I couldn’t have done it without my walking poles.

At last we reached the top where there was a good path with sweeping views.  We met quite a few people today, walking in both directions.  As usual, anyone travelling in our direction passed us, and we passed nobody because we were so slow.

The gorse was spectacular, as always — also swathes of bluebells, huge violets, red campion and other wild flowers.  The geology was amazing too, twisted strata revealed on the cliffs — those rocks had obviously been through a lot in their millions of years.  We stopped to chat to a couple of birdwatchers who were looking through a large telescope at dozens of guillemots and razorbills which were nesting between the layers of rock on the cliffs.  The birds found the geology ideal for their purpose. 

We came to a notice saying there was an alternative path going further up the hill because the path ahead was a bit near the edge.  We decided to risk it, and found it wasn’t much to make a fuss about unless you suffered from fear of heights.  But then you probably wouldn’t be walking out on the cliffs anyway.

At the top of the path was a little shelter.  We thought it might be for watching seals or dolphins, but we didn’t see any.  Then we read the notice more carefully — it was a lookout post used by the coastguards between the 1920s and the 1960s to watch for shipping which might be in trouble during bad weather.  It has recently been restored, and is now used to watch for dolphins, etc, in Cardigan Bay.

After that the path was more gentle, going downhill through fields and such.  There were sweeping views along the coast, it made us feel good.  I got ahead of Colin because he stopped to photograph a caterpillar.  He spent ages snapping away with his new camera, then he tried to pick it up only to find it was stuck to the stone it was on because someone had previously trodden on it!  Meanwhile I was sitting on a stone wall two fields away waiting for him.

Next to a stile we read about plans to divert and improve the footpath through an overgrown gully.  It needed doing, we found it quite difficult battling our way down and then up out of the other side.  We carried on, always hoping that Cwmtydu would be around the next corner, but it wasn’t — it always seemed to be over the next hill.

We passed more red campion, more large violets, more beetles (Colin’s fascination!), twisted rocks, stupendous views and bright gorse — up and down, up and down……..  At last we reached the little hamlet of Cwmtydu.  The path down to the beach was very narrow and steep despite the fact it had been improved recently by putting in a zigzag.  I found it difficult to negotiate, mainly because my left knee was getting quite painful.

We sat on the steps by the beach eating a late lunch of sarnies, watching the sea.  Cwmtydu is a lovely place to just sit and watch the sea — the waves crashing against the rocks, a cave in the cliffs, and then we saw a seal momentarily.  I really did wish we had parked our car there and that our Walk for today was over.  But we had to get on.

We looked at the old lime kiln which is behind the beach, then went up to the loos.  A signpost at the beach said “Llangrannog 5½ miles”, but one at the loos, which were only a few yards away, said “Llangrannog 4½ miles”.  I decided to believe the latter!

We crossed the river on a brand new footbridge which wasn’t marked on our OS map.  We were puzzled by a pair of jeans hanging on the bridge, we couldn’t think why they had been left there.  The path on the other side took us up and up and up and up — far higher than we had been all day, or even on our last Walk.  It was a tough climb, especially as my knee was playing up.  But it was worth it — Wow!  The view from the top was woderful!  (Bit too windy for comfort though.)

The path first went along the top of the cliffs, then it was cut into the side of the cliff.  It was spectacular!  We met no other hikers on this half of the Walk.  We could see a rock spur ahead and believed that Llangrannog was just behind it — we didn’t realise that it wasn’t as simple as that.

Colin found a pair of mating beetles — he is fascinated by beetles, funny chap!  We came to where a new path had been cut into the cliff face and that made us climb again.  Colin wanted to continue on the old path because it meant no more climbing, but I said “No!”  If there was a problem further on (there must have been a reason why a new path had been cut) my days of climbing fences and leaping chasms are well and truly over.

I didn’t like uphill because of the pain in my knee, but I was glad we made that choice because there was a new fence coming all the way down the cliff with a gate on our new path.  Would there have been a gate put in the old path since it was now closed off?  Colin nagged about the merits of the old path for twenty minutes before he conceded — he exhausts me!  Eventually the new path zigzagged down to join up with the old path.  It was very steep, and I found it hard going with my knee problem.

At the end of the cliff we thankfully sat on a bank to eat our apples.  Now the country was much lower.  We still followed the cliff in and out, but it was fairly flat compared with what had gone before.  We had to walk all round a narrow inlet with the sea rushing in like miniature tidal waves — I videoed it.

I was very tired by then, and my knee kept giving way despite the fact I had been taking painkillers all day.  We passed a gate where there was a plaque about the Wales Coast Path.  This part of it was only opened seven years ago — and we started this Trek round the coast seventeen years ago.  After that the signage was sparse, and we wondered if we were going correctly at times.

We had to turn inland and go uphill towards, surprisingly in this remote place, an artificial ski slope!  My leg did not like the going uphill bit.  Fatigue made us argumentative, so we hid from the wind inside a clump of bushes, sat on a bank and ate our chocolate.  The wind was a bit too much at times, I felt I couldn’t cope with it, and the fatigue, and my painful knee.  But I had no choice but to go on.  I felt better when we stopped going uphill.

We could see the path a long way down, but couldn’t see how to get down to it.  Then we realised that we were being diverted on a new path which was much longer to make the slope more gradual.  This time we could see the full length of the old path and there was no break in it.  A new fence was being erected across it, but so far only the posts had been put in — so this time we decided to use it.

Down at the bottom we were on a good track which went round the hill and was much flatter.  I felt a lot better about everything then.  A farmer on a quad-bike with two dogs came along — he was the first person we had seen since leaving Cwmtydu hours ago.  He stopped for a lengthy chat about the Coast Path, his dogs, etc — perhaps he doesn’t see many people to talk to in his job.

As we rounded the hill we passed a memorial bench paying tribute to someone who was instrumental in setting up the coast path around these parts.  Thank you Ted Davenport.

And there was Llangrannog ahead, at last!  We turned off the track on to a narrow path which descended, eventually, into the village.  We passed a tree which had been shaped like an umbrella by the wind.  And we passed bushes covered in caterpillars on a cobwebby thing — quite extraordinary.

There was a lovely evening light over the sea, because the sun had just come out again after a couple of hours of cloudy skies.  We were standing on the cliff, quite low now, with a secluded cove one side and Llangrannog the other.

Lovely views, and we felt really good.  We were there!  We descended slowly to the beach with its iconic crooked rock. 

That ended Walk no.368, we shall pick up Walk no.369 next time on the beach at Llangrannog.  It was twenty to eight, so the Walk had taken us eight hours fifty-five minutes.  (Nine miles in nine hours — we get slower and slower.  But that’s because my knees are packing up, especially the left one.  It’s very depressing.)  We walked to the car where we had our tea and biscuits, then returned to our caravan.
That was a most spectacular Walk on a lovely day!  Pity about my knees, but there you are.  In retrospect, perhaps we should have done it in two stages;  from New Quay to Cwmtydu then from Cwmtydu to Llangrannog.  Then we wouldn’t have been so tired at the end.