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Vertical rock strata, Aber Llong
Rock arch, Cartws
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From the hotel we walked
back down to St. Non’s Bay and continued walking east. The vegetation was again mainly bracken/gorse
with low diversity – wood-sage, heath groundsel, and scattered heathers. Streams provided more variety with
meadowsweet, hemlock water-dropwort, purple loosestrife, hemp-agrimony,
fool’s watercress. We went by mistake
down into Caerfai Cove, whose beach is sandy below the boulder top, but at
least we could examine a wet seep coming down the cliff, to find brookweed,
slender and bristle club-rushes and common scurvy-grass. The cliff shows both purple Caerbwdy
sandstone and yellow-green St. Non's sandstone. By the path just before Caerfai is a rock
with a Celtic symbol carved in it, looking ancient but apparently made in the
1980s! There were still plenty of sea-rocks
and natural arches adding to the scenery, but the cliff-top path for the most
part stayed level and avoided the indentations made by continual coves. At one point the path had chamomile along
it, providing a pleasant scent as we walked over it. The occasional fulmar flew past and we saw
the odd raven and chough. Bright green
rose chafers were conspicuous on the yellow flower-umbels of common
ragwort. After three hours we
descended into Solva, alongside a twisted inlet of shallow water, or ria,
with a natural sheltered haven for boats.
At the quay there was a café in the boat club house where we could get
an early lunch of local crab sandwiches and cool drinks. The main road A487 comes down to the head
of the harbour and we crossed the river by bridge. Along this side of the harbour was a
well-preserved row of half-a-dozen limekilns. A track above allowed them to be filled from
the top, while openings below allowed them to be fired and emptied. The walk continued up through shady
woodland stacked with giant ferns on the other side of the valley. At the headland the path descended into
another cove and stony beach (Gwadn) before rising steeply again to continue
east over headland composed of a dark igneous intrusion. The vegetation started getting more
interesting, with carline thistle, increasing sawwort (including a white
variety) and, near Dinas Fawr, many striking red clumps of orpine, betony,
lady fern and royal fern. Honeysuckle
scrambled through the heather. A few
cliffs here were of more sandy material providing nesting-holes for sand
martins. This marked exposures of
basic Precambrian volcanics, whereas the rest of the walk consisted of
Cambrian sedimentary interbedded sandstones and shales called Lingula Flags. Inland were fields of sugar-beet. A clouded yellow was seen resting on
bracken and a drinker moth on the gorse.
Before we got to the beach at Newgale were higher cliffs with
continual steep paths up and down the coves.
The beach at Newgale was a high pile of boulder shingle with sand well
below. There were many holidaymakers,
some barbecuing on the beach, others with surf-boards. We could not find a bus-stop for our
planned return by the 411 (for which we were over an hour early), but there
was one for the 413, due to arrive after ten minutes, so we found ourselves
back in St. David’s just after 3.30pm, not bad after a 10½ mile walk. We made use of the visitor centre and associated café before progressing through town and back
to the hotel. The town is essentially
a massive tourism centre, which means plenty of eating-places (the
fish-and-chip shop seems to have a perennial queue), small shops and art
galleries. A surprisingly large
cathedral for such a small town is tucked down the hill and is a major
attraction.
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Sugar beet
Royal fern
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Solva limekilns
Clouded yellow, Dinas Fawr
Carline thistle with strange elongate flower, Gwadn
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Caerfai Cove
Orpine
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Coast path snaking through Morfa Common
White sawwort, Dinas Fach
Approaching Newgale
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