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Quay, Cardigan
Start of Pembrokeshire
Coast Path
Sheep-shearing, Allt-y-goed
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From the quay in Cardigan we
crossed the first road bridge over the Teifi in which swam a pair of
swans. A statue was erected to the
otter which frequents the river. Our
map showed a footpath beside the south bank westwards, but none was
present. Instead we had to follow the
B4546 (St. Dogmael’s Road) and pick up the path further on, where an
information board also invoked the otter.
We would have to be very lucky to see one: all we saw was a flock of Canada
geese on the opposite bank, but at least we had a brief interval away from
the road along the bank, through a park where the start of the Pembrokeshire
Coast Path was celebrated, and back to the road. Another two miles of road-walking followed,
with occasional views across the estuary to Gwbert and the section of
saltmarsh we had walked the day before.
We were then at Poppit Sands, a popular spot with holidaymakers and
caravan families with its sandy beach at the mouth of the Teifi. The dunes had little of interest, but some
flourishing sea-rocket. Mostly small
bivalve shells were washed up by the sea.
We were passed on the way by a special bus to this resort called the
Poppit Rocket. The next 2km on the
road were continually uphill and more inland, although there was hardly any
traffic because it was a dead-end leading to a sequence of isolated
houses. At its end was a camp site and
a track led down through a farm where noisy sheep were folded into the lane
for shearing by a machine-operator as we passed through. Beyond the farm we had views of Cardigan Island and a path entered the nature
reserve of Cemaes Head, where the vegetation was actually quite poor, as it
was to be throughout the day, without many of the plants of the last few
days. We spotted one plant of sawwort. Most of the time we were passing through
bracken with small 4-petalled yellow flowers of tormentil, even tinier white
ones of heath bedstraw and much wood-sage.
There were patches of heather, bell heather and betony, and one place
with a swarm of nearly white heath spotted-orchid, accompanied by at least
one common spotted-orchid. After
recording 3 different eyebrights on previous cliff sections – arctica, confusa and nemorosa, today we added western
eyebright Euphrasia tetraquetra,
previously seen only in dune sections.
One stream was choked with Indian balsam. The cliffs west of Cemaes were high and
steeply-sloping with total bracken cover, but after Pen yr Afr, they were
lower, sheer and composed of dramatically harmonically folded mudstones and
turbidite sandstones of the Ordovician period, distorted by the Caledonian
orogeny, making for a striking scenery of intermittent coves. We had reached the well-established
Pembrokeshire Coast Path and walking was generally both easier and more
scenic than heretofore. As we progressed
we saw carrion crows, jackdaws, choughs and even a party of four ravens. We also saw peregrine, kestrel (chased by,
then chasing, a lesser black-backed gull), red kite and buzzard. On one section of cliff a pair of fulmar
were circling close to a ledge on which two well-grown chicks watched. The adults rapidly flapped their wings as
they passed close by but did not land.
While we watched, the young ones plucked up courage and left their
ledge, sailing round with perfect accomplishment on their maiden flights,
although it was apparent that landing again on the cliff was going to take a
bit of practice! A lizard crossed the
path in front of us and there were crowds of meadow and hedge browns and
ringlets, and even a few wall butterflies and graylings. We gradually came down to the rectangular
inlet of Ceibwr
Bay (the result of a
major fault) and its pebbly beach (National Trust) where we could join a lane
leading up to Moylgrove. The head of
the beach is formed of glacial deposits - a glacial stream used to run down
this valley. A bus to Cardigan stops
at a small central car-park in Moylgrove but left either too early (2.55pm)
or too late (6.55pm). We could not get
a phone signal to ring taxi numbers we had collected and the adjacent phone
box was not working. Fortunately a
lady from St. Dogmael’s drove up to collect a spring water from a pipe at the
edge of the car-park, which she does every 3 weeks preferring it to
tap-water. She kindly offered us a
lift back to Cardigan (just past St. Dogmael’s) and we also collected some
spring water in our water-bottles because it was beautifully cool and pure in
taste. She pointed out various
features of the area as we drove back, for she had lived here 20 years.
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