Outdoor Discoveries

Pondering coastal walking possibilities

With a bank holiday weekend ahead of us, thoughts turn to making use of the extra time. In truth, the pondering started last week and my thinking ended up in Northumberland even if I didn’t. It’s been a while since my sole hike by the county’s coastline near the start of 2006 and, given that I had a largely cloudy day for my exertions, it would be worth going back to savour the sights. Then, I journeyed from Alnmouth to Craster and back again, so there are sights such as Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh castles awaiting my attention along with Lindisfarne. Public transport connections make a day trip tricky, but it might be high time that I spent a bit longer over there.

While on the subject of a few days around Northumberland, my brain wandered inland to Wooler where I began to consider using St. Cuthbert’s Way for heading west to Kirk Yetholm. Transport (on Sundays and bank holidays, that is; it’s reasonable on other days) and other practicalities set me to considering the following of the Borders Abbeys Way for getting to Kelso for onward travel. Another walking option in the area would be going east along St. Cuthbert’s Way towards the coast where travel connections are better of a Sunday.

After that mental meander inland, it is time to return to the intended subject for this posting. That takes me to Arran, another part of the world where I haven’t been for a few years since I walked to the top of Goatfell on Easter Sunday in 2006. Then, I got mixed weather with hail near the summit, a patch of snow on the path on the way down and a deluge that beset me while making my way back to my lodgings for the night. The next day, I took a bus ride around the island with occasional showers never far away. There is a coastal path to complement the bumpy stuff in the north of the island and that is what brings the island into this discussion. A return is long-overdue and following part of the island’s coastline would make a good excuse to spend more time there again.

Turning south brings me to the Isle of Man and its coastal path. To date, the island has received just a single solitary flying visit, and I am tempted by the prospect of spending a bit more time seeing more of the place. It has its hills too, but you sometimes can get to know what lies inland while peering in from the coast. So far, it is largely uncharted terrain for me and that might be adding a certain frisson of novelty to the idea too.

Staying on a southward trajectory takes me to another part of the world where I haven’t been for next to four years: Pembrokeshire. A lengthened weekend down there had me walking from Newgale to St. David’s on Saturday, around Marloes on Sunday and around Newport while on the way home on Monday. While there, I got lucky with the weather and the sunshine did plenty of justice to the indented coastline as it wowed me while I took in my ever-changing surroundings. Be warned that there are plenty of ups and downs with gentleness not being a strong point of the gradients. By the end of my walk on Saturday, it was time for a well-earned rest after the way that my leg muscles had been exercised along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. It may feel that I have taken in a lot, I only have nibbled at the national trail, so there’s much more to savour yet.

There is a reason why I am sticking with a few examples of coastal trails for now: there are loads and enacted legislation is to provide more access, so there must be a certain something to exploring coastline for more than me. Navigation generally is easy, and the scenery can be an intoxicating mix too. Some walk may walk right around Britain or another island, but I’ll content myself with pleasing sections like those mentioned above. Others such as the Fife Coastal Path, the Gower and the South West Coast Path are there should I ever decide on exploring very new horizons but pacing myself feels more sensible. Plenty of tempting options exist that are nearer to me and keeping closer to home mightn’t be such a bad plan.

In its own way, the forthcoming bank holiday weekend set all of this off. It looks like bringing a mixture of weather to us but don’t they all? Even so, I have concocted some sort of scheme to break me away from the day-to-day routine. As is my habit, I’ll leave it to work out how it will before saying more on here.

Some competition for attention

Last weekend should have seen me heading off somewhere for a day trip but nothing of the sort happened. Various excuses could be summoned and fatigue following a busy working week certainly would be among them. Then, there's the one that you cannot be away every weekend and that's true too. Still, it would have been nice to have made better use of the fine weather that visited us on Saturday and Sunday, especially with the weather for the forthcoming Easter weekend looking as if it will be as mixed as it is at the moment.

In the middle of all of this, there are a variety of interests competing for my attention. Sunday was taken up with a spot of messing about on a computer. In part, the cause was the resurgence of another interest of mine: cycling. With the bike's back tyre still needing attention to rid it of a (very) slow puncture, a damper should have been put on this but, no, it is threatening to send my brain off into places that are not compatible with adding contributions to what essentially is a hillwalking blog. It was that state of affairs that had me sent off exploring another piece of blogging software called Serendipity (yes, there's nothing wrong with WordPress but there's never any harm in having a look at the competition from time to time) in the name of crafting a cycling blog to complement this thing. While Serendipity itself works well, a few rays of reality fell on the idea and I am minded to consign it to the back burner for now. Saying that, a quick look on Google demonstrated that there might be a place for a cycling blog that revels in the countryside that gets explored. Of course, that also is what I do here so there may be room for including news of the occasional bicycle foray so long as it doesn't the focus of what you find on here.

With a website idea being left to come to maturity in its own good time, my mind again turns to the Easter weekend and any opportunities for restorative escapades. The weather has turned cold gain with blizzards visiting parts of Scotland and whiteness coating parts of Ireland. Here in Cheshire, it is cold rain that we have but that doesn't mean that I am ruling out the chances of an escapade between the showers that seem to be in the current forecast. It's just that I'll need to see how things look later in the weekend before making any plans. That's not to say that there aren't some ideas already in my head such as coastal hikes in Northumberland or Pembrokeshire, a short hop to Arran or, closer to home, a wander along the Peak District moors between Baslow and Hathersage. For any of those to happen, it's a matter of having at least some of the kind of weather that those such places visual justice. It will be a case of waiting, this time around.

Pembrokeshire photos added

It may have been six months since I spent some time there, but a selection of the photos that I made while out walking in Pembrokeshire have finally made it onto the web. There is now a new album to go with the trip report that was shared on here already. It was a glorious weekend visit so I hope the photos reflect the majesty of what I managed to sample while down there.

A first visit to Pembrokeshire

Here is an account of my trip to Pembrokeshire last weekend. An article in TGO and the gift of a fine weekend propelled a somewhat hastily arranged visit. The fact that I was in Ireland on what turned out to be a gardening holiday (yes, work rather than leisure) didn’t allow me any more time to pull myself together. As if that weren’t enough, a Friday afternoon meeting threatened to derail an already precarious plan.

Nevertheless, I did get there in the end. After work, I headed south-west on a journey that took me around by Birmingham. Bristol and Swansea. Defeating the conspiracy of a late First Great Western express to scupper the last leg of the journey, I got to Carmarthen almost as planned (even if I was 20 minutes late!); the provision by FGW of a taxi from Swansea helped towards that end.

The next morning, I got to my Pembrokeshire base of Haverfordwest. That might come as a surprise to some but it functioned as intended and I got to sample the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, which was my main reason for coming all this way. Public transport options allowed me to savour the delights around St. David’s, Marloes and Newport before I made my way back home on Monday. That gave me plenty of walking and sea air to enjoy, even if things got a little too hot at times. The up-and-down nature of the stretch between Newgale and St. David’s left me feeling a little “cream-crackered” but the walking around Marloes was a lot easier on the legs. Only having an hour or two meant that I only got a brief taste of the hill country around Newport, but a return is a definite possibility.

My journey home took me through Cardigan, Aberystwyth, Shrewsbury and Crewe, but this was more direct than the way that I came and could be the way I would go if I got the opportunity to return again. After all, there is much more to see. For instance, the Preseli hills are definitely worthy of exploration and I only sampled a fraction of the 186 mile (299 km) length of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path (though the heavily industrialised section around Pembroke and Milford Haven is an acquired taste).