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Magpie moth
Dodder on gorse
Warpool Court Hotel
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Starting at Whitesands Bay, after catching the Coastal
Cruiser bus from St. David’s, we followed the cliff path round the far
headland of Pen Pedol and east back to our hotel. This was a shorter day than usual and the
way was mostly easy – what we have come to call a “granny path” (we can say
that, being grandparents ourselves).
Only a few stretches involved rocky paths. The vegetation, however, was low in
diversity and seems to reflect very acid soils, while there was also a lack
of scrub in many parts and so many fewer birds. The scenery, however, remained dramatic,
including several sea arches and caves.
The St. David's Peninsula is formed
of Precambrian and Cambrian rocks. The
Cambrian Solva Group rocks of purple sandstone and inter-bedded shale make
particularly attractive cliff-formations, as at Point St. John and Porth
Cadnaw. In the early morning
Whitesands beach was more aesthetic than last evening, as the holidaymakers
had not descended and it was almost empty.
Where there were sheltered areas the butterflies were as numerous as
yesterday, with many walls, hedge browns, small coppers and common blues,
while magpie moths seemed to be just emerging, as we saw several fresh
ones. Bloody-nosed beetles frequently
crossed the paths at great risk, because the number of feet pounding along
was even greater than yesterday: several were indeed found squashed. Occasionally we saw clumps of rock samphire
on the cliffs for the first time.
There were good views through the morning of Ramsey Island,
especially as we passed through the ferry point of St. Justinian’s (whose
ruined church is in private grounds but visible from the path). The coast path has had to be diverted from
the cliff edge here because they are building a new lifeboat station and a
tall crane has been brought in to lift materials from boats in the sea,
bringing them up the cliff, as it would be difficult to bring them along the
narrow roads. This is only a short
diversion inland, however, and normal service is soon resumed. The path descends low near the far
headland, at a point where there are remains of walls and a disused mining
shaft. Rocks had good collections of
lichens, including the map lichen. Black-headed
gulls as well as the usual herring and greater black-backed gulls were seen
on the sea rocks from here. The only
other sea-birds glimpsed rarely were oystercatcher and cormorant. Near the point, too, we saw a few pairs of
ravens and the odd chough. Around the
headland of Pen Pedol we began to get a new vista south to Skomer. The path ascends higher rocks above Ogof
Mrs Morgan. There was the striking mixture of heathers and western gorse last
seen at St. David’s Head. The gorse,
however, was regularly parasitised by pink-stemmed dodders with their
pinkish-white flower clusters. Below
on the inland side was a pond and marsh where ponies grazed. The ground was covered by the pale lilac
3-petalled flowers of lesser water-plantain, the seed-heads buttercup-like,
from rosettes of small lanceolate leaves.
Also in the marsh was lesser marshwort, marsh pennywort, lesser
spearwort and water-mint. Just beyond
we descended the cliff heath and rocks below the path a little way to find a
suitable scenic spot for lunch among the heather, with a vertiginous view
across sea, rocks and cliffs of Porthlysgi
Bay. The beaches had a wonderful variety of
coloured pebbles representing the complex geology. A couple of headlands later was the long
narrow inlet of Porth Clais, which formed a natural
harbour, made even more sheltered by building a breakwater most of the way
across just inside the mouth. There
were many boats here and again we saw children on adventure holiday courses,
diving and swimming and climbing sheer cliffs. A kiosk sold welcome ice-creams on yet
another sunny hot day. Several old
lime-kilns are preserved here and one had vervain growing around it. Just past here was St. Non’s Bay, with St.
Non’s Retreat (temporarily closed for access because of house-building next
to it), the ruined chapel, and well supposed to have healing waters, although
these did not look very inviting. A
path ascended inland and provided access to a private path into the grounds
of our hotel, Warpool Court,
where we could relax with a pot of good coffee on the terrace.
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Water mint
Pebbles, Porthlysgi
Bay
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Lifeboat Station, St Justinian's, and crane
Map lichen & others
Bloody-nosed beetle
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Lesser water-plantain
St Non's Well
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Porth Clais
Limekilns, Porth Clais
St Non's Bay
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