Manorbier to Tenby 23 June 2015

From the car-park opposite the castle in Manorbier we walked back down to the beach, which was being used by a school camping party, and crossed it to where steps took us into the cliff-path.  We soon passed a dolmen called King’s Quoit.  The sea below had a stream of hundreds of barrel jellyfish, following a plankton swarm brought to our shores by warm sea currents.  One was later seen washed up on the beach at Lydstep Haven.  After the first headland of Priest’s Nose the cliffs were acid and we saw heath spotted orchid and one that seemed to be a hybrid between spotted and marsh orchid.  The next headland Old Castle Head was fenced off for military activities, which involved much loud shooting of rockets and missiles over the sea, to be heard throughout the day.  We regained the coast at Skrinkle Haven, but did not go down to the beach.  There was a limestone influence now and a greater range of flowers.  Near the car park for the view-point over Church Doors, an almost enclosed cove, we found Pale St John’s-wort with salad burnet on the cliff-top slope.  After a stiff 108-step climb from the bottom of a cove where a stream had brookweed and spike-rush, we were at the next car park, on the road from Lydstep.   Instead of following the official coast path straight down to the beach, we walked around the headland, Lydstep Point, unaccountably left out of the official route.  This is a pleasant section with good views and flowers such as common spotted and marsh orchids.                 The path returns to the car park and then we walked down the road to Lydstep Haven, which is a narrow beach below a holiday park.  We had lunch on a seat overlooking the sea and the roar of a speedboat drowning out the occasional boom of the rocket launchers not far behind us.  Relatively easy cliff path followed, with views of many fulmars nesting on some of the crags, and a peregrine falcon feeding its chick, almost fully fledged with some remaining fluffiness, but the adult black mask on the face.  Ahead we could see Caldey Island, with both monastery and priory.  After this we came to another militarily controlled area, a firing range covering Giltar Point and surrounding areas, but fortunately no flag was flying and we had complete access.  The approach to the headland was a level area contoured by the remains of World War I practice trenches.  The south cliffs had rock and golden samphires (just in bud), while the sparse bare cliff-top turf in places was dominated by rough clover, sticky and sea mouse-ears, biting stonecrop and squinancywort.                  Returning along the north side we found ourselves in more sandy habitat, gradually becoming dune-like, where there was an abundance of lesser meadow-rue, kidney vetch, marsh and pyramidal orchids.  In a sheltered side-quarry two lepidopterists were seeking small blue, one of which they had seen flying earlier.  Failing ourselves to find any, we continued down to the shore at the southern end of Tenby South Beach.  The cliffs here had plenty of thrift and golden samphire, but we could find no rock sea-lavender.  The beach was wide and there were a good number of shells, including Chinaman’s hat, the first of this holiday.  The dunes above bordered a golf course and had few plants of interest other than creeping willow.  The beach extended over 2.5km to the tip of Tenby represented by St Catharine’s Island – now reachable at low tide – and Castle Hill.  The front of Tenby here is remarkable, having old castellated walls atop the cliffs, giving the feel of the old fortified towns of Tuscany.  At the head of the beach many plants were covered with resting Theba pisana shells, an immigrant species (which we once went all the way to Jersey to see) that is now common on southern coasts.                 From Castle Hill we made our way towards the centre of town via busy narrow streets, with the Harbour and North Beach to our right.  We found the bus station after much searching (it was right next to the information centre that we were hoping to find to enquire where the bus station was!), but we were five minutes too late for our bus.  Not wanting to spend over an hour waiting for the next one we took a taxi back to Manorbier, a short distance along a main road, but still costing £15.                 Tonight we stayed at St Brides Spa Hotel in Saundersfoot, just south of the harbour, surprisingly modern accommodation for a 40-year-old hotel, but further construction was still continuing and there was scaffolding outside our window!  It was clean and spacious enough, if rather over-priced.  We ate at the superb Coast Restaurant at the north end of Saundersfoot, overlooking a great sea view.

Chinaman's hat Theba pisana

King's Quoit Pale StJohn's-wort

Church Doors Tenby