Whitesands to Solva – Wales Coast Path

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Approximately 13 miles on a sunny day – this was a relatively easy walk.

Rising gradually from Whitesands, passing the lifeguard station, beyond a couple of houses and we are out on the cliff tops to Porthselau.

The sheer rocks beyond Point St John are impressive, with Ramsey island nature reserve in the distance we make good time to St Justinian lifeboat station. There has been a lifeboat station here since 1839. It now sits alongside the new station, and is the embarkation point for trips to, from and around Ramsey.

We slow our pace, as this is too beautiful a day and too glorious a setting to hurry. We reach the most westerly point in Wales out on the remote Treginnis Peninsula.

From Pen Dal-aderyn looking down on Ramsey Sound, we head towards Porth Lysgi, named after an Irish saint who landed here.

We eventually reached the tiny harbour of Porth Clais, drop off point for pilgrims and saints travelling from far and wide to visit the very holy St David’s.

We didn’t meet any saint, but Lucy’s neighbour – such a small world!

The harbour is surrounded by limekilns – lime has been used on soil in these parts since the 1600, but these kilns came later. Limestone imports were burnt with culm to a powder.

We cross to the other side of the harbour and climb steadily, across St Non’s Bay with its crumbling cliffs, we detour off the coast path to take in The 600 year old St Non’s chapel and St Non’s well. Non was the mother of St David, Wales’s patron saint.

Rounding the corner at Pen y Cyfrwy we walk towards Caerfai Bay with its gentle curve, clean sands and caves to explore!

The path is easy to follow, and what we have particularly liked on the Pembrokeshire Coast is the small white plaques with the grid reference and names of each bay clearly marked. It has made it so much easier to pinpoint our location on a map!

Caerfai gives way to Carn Bwdi Bay leading to an easy walk at Morfa Common dropping down to a bit of a stream below Nine Wells.

The remains of three Greek boats wrecked in 1981 can still be seen at Loch Warren.

You can see Upper Solva a long time before you reach the corner and turn down towards Lower Solva – it is a bit of a hash of a route down a sunken path to the harbour – hard to believe that in the 18th and 19th century was one of the busiest ports on this coast.

Bet you didn’t know that musician David Gray lived in the village from the age of 8!!

…..and I didn’t mention the large stinky fish washed ashore!!


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