Newport to Fishguard 8 July 2014

Parsley water-dropwort Guillemot colony, Needle Rock Small emerald

From Newport main street (where a wall had rosemary growing from it) we went down to the river along a very shady lane with large ferns – hart’s-tongue, lady and soft-shield.  We took the path west along the south bank until it joined a lane which took us above a very muddy harbour and on to the low cliff-top, looking over Newport Sands across the river.  This was the usual walk winding round coves and up and down, sometimes steeply, made even more difficult by rains which made the slate rocks slick and the mud slippery. Most of the path was badly maintained and overgrown, so that we could often not see where we were putting our feet because of overhanging vegetation.  Unlike the previous walk when the cliffs were part of the Dinas Island Formation (Ordovician sandstones and mudstones) this crossed the slightly older Cwm-yr-Eglwys Mudstone Formation, apart from a brief return to the former at Dinas Head itself.  We saw a pair of gannets putting out to sea, and peregrines quarrelling in the skies, perhaps a parent turning out a fully grown offspring.  There were several rectangular coves, the result of geological faulting, as at Cwm Rhigian (where we saw bitter vetch) and Fforest Cove (where there was a small emerald moth and the distinctive white-marked black ichneumon-fly Achaius oratorius).  The coves were useful harbours for small boats.  Eventually we reached a lane going down to Cwm-yr-Eglwys, where there was a pleasant beach below an old churchyard and the remains (a single wall & belfry) of the church.  This was at the base of the prominent wide headland of Dinas Head (National Trust) and the land here is low enough that with only a moderate degree of global warming and sea-level rise Dinas will become an island.  We walked along the eastern side of the promontory, the paths wide and open and much more pleasurable.  There was bitter vetch along here again, and burnet-saxifrage mostly in seed.  A sea-stack (Needle Rock) had a large colony of guillemots.  The path continued climbing to the far head itself and then descended along the western side, where it eventually arrived in another rectangular cove Pwllgwaelod where the first building was a pub The Old Sailors.  This was situated about half way along our route and so provided an excellent chance of lunch.  It was very crowded with other walkers and people who had come by car, but we managed to get a table for a snack which included very tender fresh local scallops and chocolate cake, washed down by Welsh Dragon beer and followed by coffee.  This break fortuitously coincided with a heavy, but brief rainstorm, the only rain of the day.  More of the usual cliff-walking followed this, overgrown, often treacherously slippery, with few flowers to interest, although there was a clump of orpine in bud beside the path along the Castell Cliffs.  On one open heathy headland were a few seed heads of spring squill.  In a boggy section of path were growing small clumps of the delicate slender bristle club-rush.  A painter had set up easel on the isolated beach of Aber Grugog.  After passing through a caravan park we rose up the Castell cliffs and then generally descended towards Fishguard, passing through Pwll Landdu cove where Canada geese swam in the sea, unconcerned by a person swimming close.  At Fishguard we joined the main road coming down past the quay to the bridge over the river Gwaun, where we were able to catch the Poppit Rocket again back to Newport.

Old Sailors Orpine in bud Fishguard Inner Harbour