19th - 20th May

19th May day 439

It was like sleeping in a plastic bag during the night the flysheet rattled constantly with the wind blowing across the field. Needless to say I didn't get a very good nights rest.

My priorities for the day were firstly to get more gas, i was running particularly low. Secondly was to meet up with carol smithard a friend of sue kent who had previously undertaken an epic challenge of her own and was planning on spending the rest of the week hiking and camping with me on the trek.

Leaving the field i rejoined the coastal path and merrily continued with my journey. The path on the east side of the peninsula was very different to that of the west. There were no trees and other than gorse and heather not many plants. This side was a flurry of colour with trees standing tall and plenty of greenery. Tunnelled between the flora and fauna i felt at peace, the birds chirping above me and the waves crashing against the shore.

One thing i had particularly noticed about the welsh coast was just how many lime kilns I'd stumbled upon. It seemed that for every bay there was at least one kiln. I'd certainly seen more in wales than in Scotland. Some were really quite ruined and dilapidated where as others were in extremely good condition.

The lime stone was brought in by boat to the bays and the lime powder extracted using the kilns. Once processed the powder was then often loaded back onto boats or into carts and taken away to use in the fields or added to mortar for building. A majority of the kilns dated back to the 1800's and were still in use during the early 20th century.

Arriving in dale i passing multitudes of hikers and twitchers but coming across a cafe at the dale yacht club i decided to stop for a quick mocha and bacon roll before setting off to meet carol 8 miles away.

Due to fortunate timing and certainly not planned the tide was low. Leaving the harbour at dale i set off along its beach towards my first estuary of the day. Being able to simply walk across the flowing river saved me a few miles hiking round and i was able to carry on along the beach on the far side rejoining the coastal path which took me through a picturesque woodland walk.

The trek is always full of surprises and coming across the remains of a castle hidden away in a small valley butting up to a small bay and when I say remains i literally mean a single wall which seemed undamaged although i could see some of the footings beneath an ivy blanket. Although i wanted to take a good look around to see what i could find i carried on excited about meeting carol who had a few years earlier gone on a wee 1700 miles walk herself from lands end to john o groats climbing all the main peaks in between.

Carrying on along the path i continued to follow the clifftops eventually reaching another estuary. It was quite wide but again i was lucky and the tide was far enough out that as long as i could get down to I'd be able to once again simply walk across avoiding a 4 mile detour. The question was how was i going to get down from the cliffs to the sandy floor of the estuary. Luckily a local out walking his dog whom I'd spotted on the shore was about to pass me. I stopped him and asked. He replied with two options. The first envolved a 4 mile hike following the coastal path but the second more dirty option was to climb an old stile into a woodland, walk through brambles and stinging nettles and finally clamber down a small rock face onto the shore. Naturally the dirty option was the one i was to favour.

The detour was right up my street and satisfied a yearning I'd been feeling for a while. Reaching the shore i picked a place to cross the shallows of the river and hiked across the estuary towards a small valley where i felt sure I'd find the coastal path once again. Getting closer to my exit route i met two lovely ladies collecting rubbish from the shore. After a lovely chat i continued on with the days mission to meet up with carol in milford haven.

The coastal path was becoming more and more physically demanding with steep climbs becoming more frequent something i would have to get used to. From the valley it was a long and hot hike to the town but i did after a couple of hours finally reach the outskirts, a small bay. As i walked along heading towards the town centre i spotted another backpacker coming towards me. I took out my phone and called the number carol had sent. As I'd suspected the backpacker reached into their pocket and pulled out a phone. "I think i can see you" a voice said. "If you're coming down a hill then yes you can" i replied.

It was an unusual meeting to say the least and the start of an interesting couple of days. Together we headed into town to grab a juice at a pub although we had to visit two before we found one that was open and then off following our noses to satisfy my pizza cravings.

Now early evening we headed off to find somewhere to camp up. We followed the coastal path out ftom the town before deciding to head away from the path and head for a derelict industrial estate. This was carols first true trek experience,  something that for me was common and happened often.

I was used to urban exploration but this was carols first time. As we wandered around the various buildings looking at how they had been left to decay and how plants and ivy had begun to spread and slowly take over. Nature had moved in to residence. Moving between the buildings i saw a couple of men also exploring the area. They looked like urbexers too but it turned out that Richard was s Paranormal investigator and Gavin was a local historian ( Paranormal chronicles, Pembrokeshire beyond ). They were investigating unusual markings that had been scrawled on sone of the walls. Apparently the warehouses and nearby mines had been used by the military to store munitions that were eventually used during the Falklands conflict during the 90s.

The scrawlings were a more recent addition and in my opinion were that of a street artists and resembled a certain finese I'd seen at other urban locations. As we continued to chat to richard and gavin we were shown more unusual artistic pieces including a representation of the tree of life made from dirt gathered on the floor.

It was fast approaching time to find camp but before we left to head into the woods richard warned us that there had been sightings of 10' tall green man. I certainly did not believe the story and niether did carol but richard also gave us directions to a suitable place where we could camp in peace and quiet without being disturbed.

We followed richards directions following  along a concrete stream to clearing where we would found a camp fire. With plenty of dead wood around and an open space carol set about getting kindling whike i chopped branches down to size. We set up our tents and using my bushcraft skills i got the fire started. It was nearing 11:30pm by ghe time we'd finished chatting and eventually got to sleep.

20th May day 440

Having overslept and undisturbed by any green men 10' or otherwise we had coffee and collapsed camp. Leaving the woods carol and i picked up the coastal path together and set off to cross the toll bridge and truly begin an adventure i hoped she wouldn't forget.

Arriving in Pembroke we located mc donalds and grabbed lunch although i was now getting cravings for egg mc muffins s chicken legend sufficed. I was running low on gas so our next port of call was a local outdoors store to get more before continuing our little adventure.

Together we carried on along to the next village passing castle where filming was taking place for some film. I didn't recognise any of the stars but apparently they were famous.

We soon beyond the boundaries of the town and heading towards a power station which is where we met razzy a real character. He had had an accident and was now dependent on a mobility  scooter with him he had an energetic dog who took a shine to carol. After a brief chat he darted off at great speed away from us but we soon bumped into him again. This time we chatted for much longer listening to his stories past and present. I'll be honest i wish I'd dropped my pack to listen and I'm sure carol would agree.

After a good while my pack was beginning to feel heavy so saying goodbye to razzy who was a real doer, even building his own shed,  carol and i continued towards and around an oil treatment works via a forgotten reed pond behind an old church.

Before becoming a dive instructor carol had been an ecologist.  As we walked together her knowledge of wildlife slowly returned and before long she was teaching me bird identification and explaining the importance of bio diversity in the wilderness. It was fascinating. I  didn't know this but the unicorn was the official creature mascot of Scotland and not the stag as I'd previously thought.

With the oil refinery now behind us we came to the edge of a bay which we estimated was about 2 miles across and could see the lifeboat house ahead. We'd covered a good distance since the morning around 20 miles. Not bad for a first day on the trek.

An hour later we were on the other side and not far from angle village. Deciding to set up camp in a small wood which was possibly on private grounds but we couldn't be sure we found a secluded spot and erected our tents. With no water in our packs carol and i headed for the nearest pub, grabbed a couple of pints which I'll be honest went straight to my head. Then as darkness began to fall headed back to our home for the night and settled in.