Ages: Colin was 79 years and 124 days. Rosemary was 76 years and
266 days.
Weather: A lot of rain. Brighter pm.
Location: Lydstep Haven to Tenby.
Tide: Out.
Rivers: None.
Ferries:
None.
Piers:
None.
Pubs:
The Hope & Anchor in Tenby where Colin drank Harbwr 'North
Star', Harbwr 'MV Enterprise' and I had a shandy.
‘Cadw’
properties: None.
Ferris
wheels: None.
How we
got there and back: We were staying in our caravan at Freshwater
East. We drove to Penally from there.
We didn't walk
between Lydstep Haven and Penally, and there were no access points
for the car on that stretch. So we drove to Penally and parked in
the station car park. From there we walked across the dunes on a
good path to the beach. The coast path had come from Lydstep Haven
past Proud Giltar, Valleyfield Top and Giltar Point for about three
miles to where we stood on 'The Burrows'.
We walked just over
a mile along a firm sandy beach into Tenby. We really enjoyed it
despite the drizzle. In Tenby we got lost because we had forgotten
to bring a street map. We had noted castle-type walls and walked
through an impressive gateway — Tenby must have been a fortified
town in times gone past. We remembered coming to Tenby for the first
time in 1976 with our four children. We were impressed with the
lovely beach, but found it to be crowded even in those days. It
had been lightly raining ever since we started walking, and we began
to get a bit fed up. Tenby was heaving!
Foreign holidays have been a 'no-go' for most people this year
because of the pandemic, so everyone has been rediscovering our own
country. We began to despair of finding a café for lunch, there
were queues outside most establishments because they still have to
have the tables a certain distance apart by law, therefore they can
only serve a reduced number of customers at any one time. (Like
everyone else we are cheesed off with all these restrictions on our
freedom which have been going on for eighteen months now. When will
this wretched pandemic come to an end?)
But we were lucky today because we did find a small café with no
queue outside. It was thin and narrow inside and they were very
busy, but we were able to go straight in and had a lovely lunch at a
very reasonable price.
It had stopped
raining by the time we came out, that was good! With difficulty we
found our way to the sea, but we were high up on a rock and couldn't
see our way down. What we could see was what we thought was the
coast of Devon on the horizon! The visibility suddenly improved and
we could see what we thought were the cliffs between Minehead and
Porlock with some clarity. But at a later date we looked more
carefully at the map. Tenby faces east, not south, and the Devon
coast is much too far away. What we could actually see were the
cliffs behind Rhossili Beach on the Gower! We got lost again in
the town and discovered we had walked round in a complete circle!
Colin got very grumpy. Eventually we found our way down to the
harbour where we sat on a bench to overlook the scene. No sooner
were we settled than it started raining again quite hard. Feeling
rather damp, we went to the real ale pub Colin was dying to get to.
Fortunately the lunchtime rush was over and there was no longer a
queue. When we came out
about an hour later, we managed to find our way down a load of steps
to a beautiful sandy beach. From there we power-walked all the way
back to Penally Station where our car was parked. We were glad to
leave Tenby behind — lovely beach but too many people. (I have a
fear of crowds, ever since our “drone” experience at Gatwick in
December 2018 where the departure lounge got so crowded people were
even sitting on the floor in the toilets! After twelve hours we were all
told to collect our luggage and go home. It was chaos!)
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