after a really nice breakfast we don our walking kit (brought our alpine walking boots with us) and head into the village of st davids’s. at the tourist information centre (tic) we inquire after the shuttle bus between st david’s and whitesands bay, learn that it departs almost right next to the grocer where we should be able to obtain our apples and bananas for our walk up north today.

the grocer is a nice little shop, called peter’s, with fruits and vegetables. the bus stop is not really called anything aside from bus stop nun street and we wait together with an elderly lady for the 403 (not the 404 as listed in the richard bros timetable) which eventually does arrive and even takes us to whitesands bay.

whitesands bay is, well, a large bay with a white sand beach. it also features an café-cum-outdoor-shop also selling — sun hats, of which i acquire one (at £4.99 not too much of a fashion risk).

all transactions done, we head up north going out west. the coastal path takes us up and down the cliffs and in total we clock up about 618m altitude gain and about 18km in total from whitesands bay to porthgain. the original target of the day had been abbereiddy but we reached that about 1.5 hours before the bus back to st david’s would collect us, so we decided to walk on to porthgain.

the weather was almost picture-book-perfect summer weather, hot, yes, but at the same time there was a cooling breeze coming in from the sea — nice! at porthgain we were aiming for the sloop inn for a well-deserved beer, when we spotted the shed, a sea food café and restaurant recommended to us by our friends mrs and mr w — so it was high tea with freshly caught cod and potato chips at the shed! very nice and excellent food!

the bus ride back was quite nice and took us back past all the places we had visited on our walk to porthgain.

a very nice first walking day!