Porthgain to Whitesands 5 August 2014

Wall butterfly Narrow-leaved hawkweed Purple and gold heath, St David's Head Radiate common knapweed

As we could walk into St. David’s in 10 minutes from the hotel, we were able to catch the 9.10 Strumble Shuttle bus to Porthgain, where we were able to continue our walk, up steps at the west side of the harbour to the cliff-top path, past more industrial ruins.  We looked down into a cliff side quarry which had an ad for the Sloop Inn arranged in pebbles.  There was the usual common heathland flora with little of note, except goldenrod was particularly frequent.  The dominant birds were linnets in large flocks, but we also encountered stonechats and choughs.  As the day warmed up, butterflies became very frequent, with wall especially abundant, lots of hedge browns and common blues, and frequent graylings.  We passed above the cove of Traeth Llyfn, looking down on a beach with lines of rocks going out to sea (tuff and gabbro intrusions through the Aber Mawr shales), and eventually came down to the beach at Abereiddi (fossiliferous Ordovician mudstones), where the top of the sand-and-shingle is used as a car park.  Groups of children had been brought on adventure holidays, apparently learning to jump into the sea wearing helmets and protective clothing.  The slope up the south end was over Abereiddi Tuff, a volcanic ash bed with pumice stones, and was followed by further cliff-top heath.  In one place greater chickweed was scrambling over the heather and gorse.  The vegetation suddenly increased in variety in the vicinity of Carn Penberry, a conical hill running down to the highest cliff in this section.  There is a disused quarry on the other side of the hill, which presumably indicates a change in rock type, which is probably a more basic kind of volcanic rock, the hill itself being the igneous plug of an ancient volcano.  There we suddenly encountered devil’s-bit scabious, seed-heads of heath spotted orchid, spring squill seed-heads, lady and hard ferns, great woodrush, wild angelica, occasional clumps of narrow-leaved hawkweed, and much orpine both by the path and down the cliff-slope.  Beyond there most of these plants were absent and the heath was bracken-dominated, the underlying rocks being quartz-gabbro, which continues around St David's Head.  Many of the common knapweeds were radiate.  The coast is very broken with continual coves and odd-shaped sea-rocks.  Springs sent streams down over the cliffs, but these stream-beds were largely filled with fool’s watercress, common fleabane, purple loosestrife and marsh woundwort.  Outcropping rocks had plenty of lichens, including Ramalina cuspidata.  Approaching St. David’s Head the heath was dominated by the purple-and-gold of bell heather and western gorse, mixed with heather and nodding harebells, a striking scenery making up for the lack of diversity with the splash of colour.  At St. David’s Head we found a boggy area (now dry on the surface from the long period of dry weather), where there were tiny plants of lesser skullcap, marsh pennywort, bog pimpernel, and many-stemmed spike-rush going orange with maturity.  We marched past the cove of Porthmeigan, whose little sandy beach was crowded with holiday-makers, although the stream running down had room for brookweed, southern marsh orchid (over) and square-stalked St. John’s-wort.   We went straight down to the larger beach of Whitesands Bay, past a patch of chamomile at the edge of the path.  This beach was even more crowded with garish striped windbreaks and half-dressed people who regarded us in our hiking gear as equally odd.  The sands were shell-less and we went straight up to the car-park and the bus-stop for the bus back to St. David’s, with only 10 minutes to wait, as there is a regular service for the holiday people.  It has been noticeable that there are many more people using the coast paths in the St. David’s peninsula, not just walkers but many holidaymakers as well.  Just time to get iced-lollies, welcome at the end of a long walk (about 9 miles).  We are staying at Warpool Court Hotel which is very well situated for the coast walk and the St. David’s-centred bus services, so that we can leave our car behind.

Traeth Llyfn Ramalina cuspidata lichen Grayling on betony