a very short night — we arrived in dubai city at 23:25 last night and got to our ridiculously expensive hotel at 1:10 this morning and i got up at 5:00 to be picked up by the shuttle to our workshop location at 6:00. well, it was supposed to pick us up at 6:00, it did turn up at 6:30: what i had heard in the night was not (as i had imagined in my sleep-deprived state of mind) the hotel crew washing off the desert dust but was indeed and in fact: rain!

the first time i’m on the arabic peninsula, in a desert state, it rains! typical. rain in the united arabic emirates is like a couple of centimeters of snow in the southern states of the US: it hits both on the wrong foot and in both cases you have accidents all over the place. the largest one was without doubt a “sweet water tanker” that had titled over on the highway to abu dhabi.

during the workshop with our client i keep fighting against sweet sleep — inspite of very interesting presentations.

luckily, we finish earlier than expected, have a lovely dinner outside with a view across the waterfront, then manage to get the bus back to arrive earlier than scheduled to take us back to the hotel — which we do, once the bus driver has been told how to get back to dubai…

i’m sitting in the saddle spot between mount zindelspitz (to the south) and mount rossalplispitz (to the north). half an hour ago, mrs d, i, and fredi, our friend and outdoor guide from blue dimension got here after a climb up from lake wäggital, up through some frozen and snowed over patches — just my luck really: we hired fredi’s services as an outdoor guide to help me get over, past, beyond, and ultimately safely away from those exposed sections of today’s walk, and i had not really banked on having the additional challenge of iced over slopes… anyhow, just getting to the saddle spot was already quite exciting for me — just a couple of meters to the east of where i’m now sitting is: nothing! to be exact: about 1000m (about 3′200ft for you non-metricals) of nothingness, 1000m of straight down nothingness.

yikes.

the path to zindelspitz is looking ghastly from the point of view of a confessed acrophobic such as myself — that and the 1000m of nothingness right in front of me already had me politely but firmly excuse myself from the expedition to the peak of zindelspitz. so, mrs d and fredi have set off by themselves and i’m waiting for them to return.

having calmed down from my initial panic attack i spend the time trying out my new camera (got the body last monday from digitec and the 28–300mm lense arrived on thursday from adorama): i’m just blown away by the vibration compensation feature which allows me to shoot 300mm at 1/30s!

after about 30min a young walker comes down from zindelspitz. watching him it seems to be so easy, so effortless, just like taking a stroll to the station in the morning. sigh. sometimes i wish i had that same non-concerned-ness about exposed places, sometimes i wish that i, too, could just ignore those gaping abysses of nothingness… eventually he passes me and continues up towards the peak of rossalplispitz — which i’m supposed to scale today as well. following his progress i begin to have second thoughts, and third thoughts, and fourth thoughts. in fact, i can’t stop thinking that i must have been bloody raving mad to have agreed to today’s experiment, ropes or no ropes. i briefly entertain the idea of returning back to the lake right away, the memory of the iced slopes and that bit of having to scramble put a stop to it, though. sigh.

after a while i can hear the voices of mrs d and fredi and then see them navigating the chain-secured part and coming back down to me. yet, before i can even voice my concerns i find myself on the ascend to rossalplispitz! gulp!

…and the first part is kind of ok, i manage to persuade myself that that tiny piece of void to my right is not really important. soon it gets steeper and steeper though and the scenery becomes breathtaking — literally so in my case. panic sets in. luckily we have fredi with us, experienced fredi and he helps me take a break, take a deep breath and calm down again, and we try the last 50m scrambling up to the peak. it would have been nice, could i report that it went all swimmingly, but it didn’t. half-way up i get another panic attack and it takes quite a bit of encouragement, patience and even the encouraging words of a young swiss-french lady overtaking me to get me going up again…

…and i make it! i really make it up to rossalplispitz! it’s an exhilarating experience! the views are fantastic — as is lunch out of the rucksack up here at over 2100m altitude! yes, sure am i concerned about the way down, but i also enjoy being up here and am grateful for fredi’s help and patience (and the encouraging words of that swiss-french lady).

after about half an hour we get our kit together — fredi is very kindly going to secure me on my way down and so i’m being “put on a leash” as i call it. the descent of the scramble bit is every bit as frightful as i imagined it to be, but being secured via the rope i manage to get down to where the path is — and then have to manage the final “piece de resistance”, about 50m of narrow path with the aforementioned 1000m of nothingness to my right… with fredi’s help and securing i do manage it and it becomes much easier after that. phew.

we make our way through rocks, but nothing as scary as what i’ve just put past me. the landscape looks almost alien being slightly covered in snow dust.

at hochfläschen hut we break for a well-deserved coffee — and enjoy the view back (rather impressive and chat with a young couple who had passed us on our way down.

a rather exciting walk. would i do it again? hmm…i guess that yes, but not alone

links:

• pictures
• slideshow

this morning i learnt that on monday afternoon my very good friend steve wright died after a motorbike accident in twyford.

to say that i’m devastated and sad is an understatement.

all day long pictures of steve keep coming up: our first project together for a UK mobile phone operator, working frantically through the night to get the demo running next morning at 9:00 … steve picking mrs d and me up at the end of our southdowns walk last year and whisking us back out of the rain to warm and friendlz bigpath farm … steve taking care of their cat bramble … steve preparing the BBQ … us having a ridiculously expensive pint of guinness at disneyland paris … seemingly endless and escalating sametime exchanges of more and more ridiculous icons that we each had found on the internet … his two words of german “moin moin” with which he would start all his sametime sessions with me … DVDs with those missed topgear or dr who episodes arriving from the UK … steve taking us on a mini-pub crawl through pubs of hampshire … URLs with links to fantasticly looking new bikes … URLs to ridiculous stuff each of us had found on the internet … our planned trip to the bike exhibition in milano in three weeks, him as the CEO of bigpath enterprise, me as the bigpath enterprise sales director germany and switzerland … his “right!” when he’d just finished something … standing in line at the coffee bar in hursley … his shed full of bikes and bike parts … his wit… his humour … having a laugh with him…

sigh.

we have lost a very good friend and i miss him terribly. our thoughts are with his family who must miss him even more.

here’s to you, steve! i hope we’ll see each other again some day!

i wake up early today, not just because of the usual 5:00 bell ringing from the monastary’s church tower, today the whole valley around einsiedeln is just drowning in the sound of cow bells and sheep bells — it’s alpabtrieb! every year in the may–june time frame the local farmers bring their stocks, mostly cows and the occasional sheep herd, from the valley floor up to the alps where they stay for the summer. from the beginning of september until mid-september, end of september we then have alpabtrieb when the whole process is reversed.

einsiedeln being a little town¹ with tourist traffic all year round it wouldn’t do to have all the farmers bring down their stock all at once, so, the whole business proceeds in stages according to a pre-determined schedule over the course of two weeks. today we seem to have the cows from our end of valley descending on us

oh, and that picture was not taken today but rather two years ago at the goldinger tal, they’ve homecoming cows there as well.

after a nice breakfast at 6 oakfield street where we meet our co-guests as well (two americans, mother & daughter, on a two week tour of the UK), we are off via earls court underground to kew gardens! well, eventually we are off, as we at first board the wrong train but we manage to get that sorted and 20min later emerge at sunny kew gardens station, have a coffee at the starbucks right on the route to kew gardens, and arrive shortly after 10:00 at the victoria gate of the royal botanical gardens, kew

the weather is gorgeous and we are really looking forward to a day at kew: i just love the arboretum and the whole landscape. this year is particularly interesting as kew has just opened the rhizotron and xstrata treetop walk, a 200m walk way some 18m above ground winding its way through the tree tops of some very magnificent old trees!

i’m a bit apprehensive: on one hand i dearly love to get up there and have a walk-about in the tree tops, on the other hand i’m really afraid of heights and exposed places… this is going to interesting…

first things first, we register for the special 12:00 “champion trees of kew” walk — and then are off to have a go at the tree top walk.

the whole structure looks fantastic — and breathtaking. 18m above ground is quite a bit if you are not really a fan of exposed places. the walkway itself is constructed from punched and streched steel sheets, giving you plenty of the exposed stuff, enough to drown yourself in mrs d, true to form, just dances up the stairs and is on her way around the tree tops. me? well, i make it half-way up and then have to call it off and retreat down to safer grounds, where is stand with my head tilted back, longingly looking up, wishing i was made of sterner stuff and not such a wuss when it comes to heights…

…well, after about 10min i had enough of that and decided to give it another go: i must have been the slowest person ever to climb that staircase, resting every so often to get used to the height, until i finally was up on top of the first platform! wow! still scared i made my way round — and it was worth every bit of courage i had to scrape up: being up there in the tree tops was fantastic, the view across london was great and just the fact that i had made it up there was exhilarating! still scared but also enjoying it

the guide walk — champion trees of kew — was really interesting: champion trees are trees that are considered to be prime examples of their species and kew has quite a few of them.

lunch was long and leisurely at the conservatory and we really enjoyed it! most of the afternoon we spent walking through the arboretum, reading (remember the new elisabeth george? ;-), and enjoying our last vacation day in england.

a fantastic day.

it’s 9:45, our taxi which was supposed to have picked us up at 9:30 is still not there, and our train is due to leave bangor station at 10:18, slowly but surely our adrenalin level is reaching new heights. our landlord phones the taxi company once more and returns with the good news that “she’s just seconds away” — which turns out to be literally true. we hurriedly say our goodbyes to our landlord and landlady of marteg bed & breakfast and get into the taxi as quick as possible. the drive to bangor station is a bit a race against time, particularly so when we hit a traffic jam just 0.5km from the station — luckily our taxi driver knows her way around and does a u-turn and weaves her way through a couple of side streets and we make it with a couple of minutes to spare! phew…

the train from bangor is a direct, fast train to london euston and we are travelling first class again today (which, thanks to our britrail flexipasses, comes out cheaper than buying 2nd class tickets in bangor) — complete with free drinks and coffee

the weather has turned wet — as forecast, but we are not really concerned and as we move further south again the rain slowly ceases and it’s sunny and rather warm when we arrive in london euston on the dot at 13:40. we take the underground to earl’s court station and then head south to 6 oakfield street our b&b for the next two nights.

6 oakfield street is a narrow, three floors victorian terrace house in a side street of “little chelsea”. our double bedroom is to the front and on the top floor of the house — nicely done, has a bit of a changing rooms flair to it, “oliver heath’s grey area”, as mrs d so aptly summarizes it we even spot the famous MDF! a bit of a curiosity is the fridge, which i at first mistook to be the b&b variant of a mini-bar but which on closer inspection turned out to be the “overflow” fridge of the family fridge containing vegetables, a cake, and other stuff.¹ but, in total, a very nice room

we unpack and then make our way to the victoria & albert museum, the v&a, which is “close by”. mrs d is interested in the fashion exhibits, i’m looking forward to the photography collection. we also intend to get a little walk through south kensington in sideways to offset the hours of just sitting on the train…

it’s a bit past 16:00 when we arrive at the v&a, leaving us with just about one and a half hour to spend at the museum. mrs d decides to look at the fashion through the centuries exhibit, i make for the photo gallery…

…which turns out to be rather small but also rather interesting, motivating, and inspiring! if you are in the vicinity and have the time, go pay a visit — it’s completely free but worth the effort.

we meet again at 17:00, stroll through the v&a shops (finally pick up that birthday present for my sister-in-law, mrs a) and then go on that mini-walk of south kensington.

before returning to earl’s court we stop for a look around at a nice little independent bookshop. mrs d very kindly points out the latest elizabeth george, careless in red — a grave mistake as it turns out: once i get started on it i just have to keep reading, reading, reading…

dinner is at a local restaurant, balans, at the corner of old brompton road and redcliffe gardens. nice food, charming waiters (according to mrs d ;-).

tomorrow it’s kew gardens and, perhaps, if i dare, the new tree top walk…

all in all: nice train trip. interesting exhibits at v&a. exciting new book. nice dinner

after yesterday’s fantastic day out on mount snowdon we are eager to see more of snowdonia. the recent snowdon special issue of country walking — which we brought with us — has a couple of rather scary walks (scrambles, exposed ridges, and so forth, nothing for me, though mrs d wouldn’t mind doing those…) but also describes a walk around beddgelert which sounds rather interesting. so, the 10:16 S1 sherpa bus sees us again and we ride up to pen-y-pass once more, this time to change to the sherpa bus to beddgelert.

whereas the scenery on our left and right up llanberis pass and for a couple of kilometers past pen-y-pass was rather barren and conveyed an almost alpine feeling¹, it now morphs into a more tree-d one and resembles the country side in the lower parts of the lake district at times. the road to beddgelert winds its way along the valley, passing the llyn gwynant and llyn dinas lakes before reaching a rather nice little hamlet at the confluence of the afon colwyn and the afon glaslyn rivers², beddgelert.

beddgelert is a bit smaller than llanberis but it becomes immediately clear that tourist-wise you are better off in beddgelert: a couple of decent looking restaurants and pubs, tea-rooms and nice surroundings — if we are to return to snowdonia we’d probably “take lodgings” here. after a tea at one of the tea-rooms (a bit too overstuffed with “antique” nick-nacks and riff-raff for our taste, oh, and “prices are not negotiable”) we start our (mini-)walk by walking along the afon colwyn to the confluence point and turn south after crossing over a foot bridge. at first the walk is quite level and “suitable for all ages” and abilities. a sign informs us that the former railway tunnel unfortunately is now longer open as it was becoming too dangerous and to expensive to maintain, and that the footpath now is diverted along the river bed…

…as it turns out that really is not quite true: as we progress towards the “former railway tracks” we quickly realise that those tracks are anything but “former”! before us we are seeing brand new tracks! way cool! and — that tunnel? it’s no longer closed but instead has the new line passing through it again. the railway enthusiast in me is very satisfied to see what once was thought lost being restored.³

once we have crossed the new old tracks we indeed are now following the riverbed. at first wide and more or less flat the path then becomes narrow and at one point circumnavigates a protruding rock where we have to use iron grips anchored in the rock itself to avoid having to introduce ourselves to the lovely river below. after about 30min we reach the pass and turn left into a valley which is at the same time climbing up and narrowing. the path takes us past disused mines and mining equipment. whereas the wind was initially just a breeze, the funnel-like shape of the valley concentrates it and it almost becomes a veritable storm when we reach the highest point, a style taking us across from rather rocky terrain into a moorland of sorts — and fantastic views towards snowdon but also towards the irish sea!

the path soon takes us steeply downhill past a lake and back to and along afon glaslyn in the direction of beddgelert again. about halfway there we pass a sign for the sygyn mine and mrs d suggests we pay a visit. sceptical at first — it does look like one of the typical british tourist traps — i join her…and we go on a walk on the other side of the mountain that we’ve just crossed: the inner side that is.

we enter the mine at the former base level and a long low tunnel (i’m a tad on the tall side for this adventure and am in a constant crouch state) takes us quite a bit into the mountain. this part of the mine had to be dug out again when work started on it in the the 1980s to turn it into a museum mine. finally, after what feels like an eternity, we get to a series of caverns containing rather interesting displays about the working conditions, the geology, and the everyday lives of the ancient miners. also “on display”, so to speak, are underground lakes entertaining hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites!

the path then takes us up a series of stairs (183 in total) through various work areas — the most impressive one explaining about the actual mining process itself, complete with recreating the atmosphere and a “real” underground explosion (at one point we are left in almost complete darkness with just a couple of candles burning: the working conditions of the original miners). very interesting!

we emerge about 100m above the base level and return to the visitor centre to drop off our hard hats⁴ and to have a cup of tea before tackling the last part of our walk to beddgelert.

that last part is almost flat out tarmac road and we soon reach beddgelert where we have a pint of beer each at one of the local pubs before we board our bus back to pen-y-pass and onwards to llanberis.

all in all: breathtaking landscape, exciting riverside path, satisfying rail development, a walk on the other side. would do it again

good breakfast at 8:15 today, then we are off to catch the S1 sherpa bus from llanberis to pen-y-pass, the starting point for our ascend to the summit of snowdon!

the weather forecast for today is fairly good and the bus ride (the bus stop is almost right outside our b&b) is nice and short, after 20min we are at pen-y-pass. although pen-y-pass is “only” at 360m above sea level it has a very alpine feeling to it with the barren mountains surrounding it and the strong wind blowing.

we intend to take the pyg track up to the summit of snowdon — from the 1:25K ordnance survey map it’s not entirely clear where the track starts so we follow the broad miner’s track for about 200m and then climb up a small track going off to the right which takes us almost straight up and we quickly gain height. we end up on a track parallel to the miner’s track but about 100-150m higher. eventually we join the real pyg track — it turns out that it started at the northern end of the pen-y-pass car park — and are now on a nice track leading us along the eastern side of the snowdon horseshoe up to the little col between snowdon and garnedd ugain. the track zig-zags a bit, crosses boulder fields, very occasionally requiring a scramble. the view towards the south of snowdonia is just breathtaking and become better with each meter gained. when we reach the col the wind coming from the north and the sea is already waiting for us and we very quickly don our rain jackets to block it off. from the col on we join the track coming up from llanberis parallel to the rail tracks. snowdon summit is now veiled by low flying clouds and it’s become rather cold rather quickly. after 15min we reach the summit and are rewarded with breathtaking glimpses across mountain ranges of snowdonia!

our packed lunches from our b&b turn out to be a bit of a surprise: ours must have been swapped with those of the other couple staying at our b&b — i certainly didn’t order eggs with onions and mrs d didn’t order tuna with tomatoes… oh, well.

half an hour later we are on our way back down. instead of following the llanberis path along the railway tracks back into llanberis, we decide to take the pyg track back and follow through to its starting point — the scenery inside the snowdon horseshoe is just so much nicer and “dramatic” than the easy-peasy llanberis track

back at pen-y-pass we both have a cup of tea and from the café enjoy a last survey of where we’ve been today: a fantastic walk through a breathtaking landscape with really exciting weather!

while we wait for the bus we chat with one of the café ladies and learn that this year alone there have been 10 fatalities already on snowdon; that pyg track is the most dangerous of the routes; that the sherpa buses are sometimes in a bit of a squeeze when one of those large “german made” tourist buses is coming down the pass to llanberis, forcing the sherpa buses to reverse all the way back…

it’s 16:15 when we get back to llanberis.

dinner: tandoori chicken at spices of llanberis, quite well done.

all in all: a fantastic and exciting day!

after an early breakfast (7:30) we are picked up by tony’s taxi at 8:40 and are taken back to haverfordwest station. rather unexpected but welcome nevertheless there’s a newspaper stand open just inside the station, so i take the opportunity and get today’s observer for the rather long trip to north wales: funnily enough, to go by train from south west wales to north west wales we have to go all the way back to crewe in england, change trains there again and go back into wales — a rather roundabout way of travelling but there are absolutely no buses from st david to aberystwyth where we might be able to take a train to porthmadog (if there were a through service to begin with). public transport in wales has a great future ahead of it: there’s lots and lots of potential for improvement…

the 9:40 train to crewe does arrive on time in haverfordwest — with us on the train is the group of germans (the fischköpfe) that we met earlier this week on the strumble shuttle, they apparently are going back via manchester airport.

all seems to be going rather well, when that great british weekend railway pastime strikes again: engineering works between hereford and crewe! bummer!

the conductor kindly tells us that we are going to be over an hour late into crewe (and thus into bangor), and he kindly recommends taking a different connection to save us the hassle of the bus transfer in between (but we’ll still be over an hour late). so, at llanelli, we disembark, figure out that we need to cross over to platform 1, listen to the travel guide of the fischköpfe group trying to explain via the info phone to some arriva train wales person¹ that he is in “laneli” and would like to know the platform for the train to crewe², consequently redirect the german fischköpfe who were on their way to fall off the platform end that there is a pedestrian bridge right at the station, and make our way to platform 1 ourselves and wait for 45min for the 11:29 train…

…which eventually arrives and causes a mild deja-moo: it’s that old 1980s british rail feeling again: same old train, same old seats, same old carpet³. we stow away our luggage and start our trip through wales towards crewe. the train is very, very thorough: whenever there is a possibility for a stop, it does stop! at llandrindod we even pause for about 40min — the train’s diesel powered engine running through all the time, diesel must still be very cheap for arriva trains wales.

after what feels like two days of travel on a 1980s british rail train (where is a tardis if you need it?) we do get to crewe. at upper crust it’s a sandwich and a large tea for both of us, then we trod to the 17:02 train to bangor — which turns out to be a nice modern one; welcome back to the 21st century

the train does leave on time, but after about 20min we stop at some forlorn station and don’t leave again for another 30min due to some “service failure ahead of us”. it’s about 19:10 when we finally do arrive in bangor — mind you, the scenery all along the north wales coast is absolutely fantastic: on one side the irish sea, on the other side the welsh mountains slowly rising higher and higher!

luckily for us our taxi (arranged by our very friendly b&b landlady carol torr) is still waiting at the station front and we are finally on our last leg of today’s journey. the ride from bangor is quite nice and takes us slowly into the mountains of snowdonia.

at about 19:40 we are in llanberis at our b&b, marteg b&b. carol torr, our b&b landlady, welcomes us and makes us feel right at home. our room is a very spacious double with a nice large bathroom — the bed room overlooking llanberis’s lake. nice! additional nice feature: proper duvet on the bed! no “DIY duvet kit!” as mrs d so aptly puts it again.

as it’s getting past 20:00 and british pubs outside cosmopolitan london⁴ have that annoying tendency of stopping serving food almost the moment they started doing so we start our quest for dinner…

…it quickly transpires that llanberis is not really a haven of culinary delights:

• right opposite the driveway to our b&b is a kebab, burger, pasta, pizza take-away (hmm, no),
• further north on llanberis high street we find a fish and chips shop (hmm, no),
• then there is a chinese take-away (no customers, looking a bit un-patronised, again, no),
• then pete’s bistro which seems to be out of service (those upside-down chairs on the tables are a bit of a give-away),
• diagonally across from that it’s pete’s eats (sic!) which seems to be the place where all the climbers refuel on carbohydrates and anything that supplies energy (interestingly enough they don’t have any pasta dishes on their menu, weird; also not very enticing, so no)
• then two doors further along is spices of llanberis an indian tandoori restaurant which does look quite nice inside, so keep that one on the stack
• south of our b&b is the heights hotel looking quite a bit dilapidated and not really hope-inspiring (so: no)
• then we have the peak restaurant which looks ok-ish and is even “open from 7pm”
• then the pardan hotel (closed, not really looking very inspiring), the gwynned hotel (clearly has seen better days and will never see us inside), and the self-serve outdoor seating area at the snowdon railway (closed, but does do burgers)

basically, that leaves us — as we are not keen on take-away (neither is our b&b landlady, understandably so) — with just two options: either the spices of llanberis or the peak restaurant. not feeling very spicy this evening we settle on the peak restaurant.

the menu of the peak does look quite interesting and we do get a table for two. two other couples (two american walkers and an elderly couple) and a group of three are our fellow restaurant patrons. the beer is by the bottle and the welsh one i take (ramnesia) is actually quite nice. mrs d’s wine seems to be ok (at least she is not complaining). starters are ok-ish, the main course is less so: mrs d’s salmon clearly is not fresh and a bit on the dry side; my steak is anything but well-seasoned, it really lacks salt — in fact, cook must have plain forgotten to salt it. when we get the bill we notice that while “VAT is included, service is not” — which i don’t really like as my intention when coming for a meal to a restaurant is to get a package of (hopefully) well-tasting food and a well-working service both of which i hope i’ll enjoy, i don’t really want to have to worry about how much to pay the waitress for serving us:

• is it by the amount of time she actually spent on us?
• is it by the amount of time we spent in the restaurant?
• should we pay her more if we had lots to eat and she had lots to carry?
• do we spend more on a waitress that is experienced and less on one that is just learning?
• does all this cover at least the minimum wage?

if i really wanted to worry about all this, i might as well run the restaurant myself.

all in all: a loooong train journey with arriva trains wales, a very nice and friendly b&b, a not so impressive restaurant.

tomorrow: snowdon!

we get up late today, a rocking 30min later than the days before, and, after breakfast, flip the tourist-bit to the on position and make our way into the city of st davids¹:

• fuelling stop at the local delicatessen (biscuits for the train ride tomorrow, burned sugar likewise)
• three very nice scarves at the fashion shop in new street
• today’s guardian at the post office
• some apples at peter’s the grocer

next, we finally visit st david’s cathedral.

st david’s cathedral is a bit unusual in that it’s the first cathedral that i’ve visited whose floor is not level but instead slowly rises from the main entrance up towards the choir. also, the main pillars are slanted outwards. very interesting. also fascinating are the different styles of ceilings each section of the cathedral has. really impressive — and we do get an almost sub-sonic blast from them — are the bass pipes of the organ: thick as trees and certainly as high.

the cathedral shop has the usual nick-nack and riff-raff on sale, nothing really tempting — and nothing suitable as a birthday present for our in-law, mrs a, meaning we’ll need to keep on looking.

after a nice lunch in the cathedral refactory we sit on the green and spend the afternoon reading

our last dinner in pembrokeshire is a the excellent cwtch restaurant again (nicely completing the symmetry of this week: our first dinner last sunday evening was at cwtch as well) — we managed to get a reservation for 20:30, leaving enough time to pack our bags, watch the latest dr who on tv, and stroll back into town.

not as energetic a day as the rest of the week, but rather pleasant as well!

the last leg of our pembrokeshire coast path walks today: again, we take the 9:10 strumble shuttle,¹ this time from st davids to strumble head — a ride of over an hour! again, it’s the friendly bus driver we already know from the previous days. the rides through all the nooks and crannies of the pembrokeshire coast are always fascinating for me.

the bus picks up lots of walkers today along the route. at abercastle we make a brief stop at the bend in the road, the driver opens the door — and greets the old dachshund we had seen yesterday who’s already been waiting for him: and, yes, he gets a dog biscuit, some parting words, and we are on our way again to strumble head.

contrary to the weather forecast by the met office the weather is just brilliant today — the forecast had us down for some real rain, reality has us up for some serious sunshine — and we enjoy the good weather and the fantastic scenery. the lighthouse is unfortunately not open to the public but looks like a proper lighthouse should look: on a cliff top, all in white, facing the “ferocious” seas, a schooner on the horizon crashing through waves two times it height, seamen holding on for dear life…²

…we hold on to the path and make our way west and then south. this part of the coast path has “alpine” bits and pieces sprinkled over it — some scrambling³ is called for: fun

at pwll dweri (next to the entry to the holiday cottages and just above the youth hostel which seems to be undergoing some renovation) we break for half an hour and enjoy the breathtaking views across the bay and further south.

the path from pwll dweri to tregwynt takes us further up and then past some spectacular cliffs, caves, and little bays. when we reath the pebble beach at tregwynt, it and the sunshine join forces and lull us into a bit of “sun-bathing”⁴…

as the bus from tregwynt woollen mill leaves at 16:44 we finally make our way there to have a look at the shop⁵ and also to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake.⁶

then, at 16:44 our friend the strumble shuttle picks us up again and we are on our fractal bus ride back to st davids.⁷

dinner again at the refactory, followed again by “one for the road” at the grove.

fantastic scenery, great weather: another brilliant day

having “finished” the southern parts of what we wanted to see of the pembrokeshire coast yesterday, we now turn north again and — due to a breakfast at the earliest possible time (8:00 am) — manage to catch the 9:10 bus from st david’s new street “station” to tregwynt woollen mill. the bus, the strumble shuttle is full with walkers and travels all along the coastal path diving from the “main road”¹ down to the various bays and havens, occasionally reversing to avoid oncoming tractors with oversized equipment attached or to let oncoming traffic pass on the side — very interesting way of travelling, and you get to see lots and lots of little villages and country side.

our bus driver clearly knows the territory and every little corner and passing point. he also seems to be rather fond of dogs: every dog coming on board is offered a treat — much to each dog’s suprise: they clearly didn’t expect that but take the treat enthusiastically nevertheless!

also, our bus driver really knows his coast: he drops each of us walkers off at exactly the right spot to start today’s walk! very nice. we start from tregwynt and head south towards porthgain (to have lunch at the shed

the weather is fantastic — yesterday’s breeze has cranked up a couple of notches and we have veritable gusts coming in from the sea, the sun is shining (lots and lots of suncream applied this week), just fantastic!

in abercastle we meet an old dachshund at the harbour, we say “hi”, he looks at us, and we all part our ways.

about 4km away from porthgain we realize that we somehow have overestimated today’s walk: instead of the intended 20km we are just going to clock up 14.5km — hmm. oh, well, more time to enjoy the culinary delights of the shed…

…which we do! mrs d has a very nicely cooked sea bass, i enjoy my lemon sole! we finish with an apple tart tatin and a mocha coffee — excellent, long lunch.

at 17:10 the strumble shuttle comes back and we are on our way back to st davids.

dinner: again at the refactory — good food, decent prices, nice setting, and WLAN

…oh, and mrs d suggests that we “have one for the road” at the grove hotel bar, which we do.²

we pick up where we left off yesterday and take the bus to solva. the coast path picks up on the other side of the harbour and soon starts to climb up again (we are clocking up quite some altitude meters here). the weather is overcast today and we are quite a bit slower today then the two preceding days (just 4.1kph on average as opposed to 5.0 and 5.1 the days before) — must be the “third day syndrome”.

past solva the coast is still spectacular, but not as dramatic as the bits we’ve seen so far (porthgain to solva) — the weather is a mixture of stratocumulus clouds and sunny intervals. luckily it’s not the nimbus variant of the stratocumulos and it’s not raining

at newgale we descend down to the beach — lots of pebble collection possibilities: we end up with quite a few very nice exemplars that end up in our pockets

lunch is at the duke of edinburgh in newgale: a cawl (pronounced caul) for each one of us — the cook must be a bit absent-minded: absolutely no salt in it, lol. between mrs d and me we almost end up emptying the table salt (which is not very strong) into our respective cawls.

the last bit takes us along a bit of cliff walk to naughton haven — where the 1:25k ordnance survey map has a blue pub symbol. there is a pub, the mariner’s inn but when we try to get in at 14:30 we are told by a lady that the pub has already closed — which is a bit funny as she is having a smoke right in front of the sign telling us that the summer opening times are until 14:45. oh, well. a bit rude that — we retreat to the beach and wait for the 15:10 puffin shuttle back to st davids.

dinner tonight is at the refactory at the cathedral: interesting & well-tasting food, it’s counter-service (meaning you pick it up at the counter) but the upstairs seating area has lots of very nice tables with interesting views towards the surrounding cathedral green as well as the main cathedral building itself. oh, and they offer free WLAN!¹

day 2 of our pembrokeshire adventures. having figured out the shuttle bus to whitesands bay we can’t resist and take it again today — instead of turning north, though, we turn south to walk past the isle of ramsay, around st david’s head, and then all the way to picturesque solva — to have a beer there. quite a long way for a beer, but what can i say…

the weather is fantastic still: sun shine, little cumulus clouds, a nice breeze coming in from the sea. the surf has picked up today at whitesands and lots of surfers are giving it a spin. we slowly turn the corner and leave whitesands bay behind us. the isle of ramsay is following in the west for the next two hours or so.

at st justinian’s we watch the giant kodiak inflatables come and go: think rubber inflatable with two 200 bhp motors attached, each boat carrying up to 25 persons. quite a sight — i’d hate to be the one having to inflate one of those, though…

the cliff walk is, for my taste, a bit more exciting than yesterday: a couple of straight drops down to the crashing and burning sea!

eventually we reach solva which has an almost fjord like, stretched harbour. very picturesque. luckily solva is on the main route between haverfordwest and st davids and there is a bus to st davids almost every hour — time enough for a beer back in the beer garden (at the river) of the ship inn.

dinner is back in the bar of the grove hotel in st davids: nice interior, food is good as well.

another fantastic day!

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!

the train to haverfordwest takes us past little villages (stop on request only), through rolling hills, past the sea with fantastic colours and eventually into haverfordwest: a small station but (!) — as promised by our b&b landlord and landlady — a bus station with the next bus leaving at 15:10 for st davids. while we wait in the sun, a young lady comes up the lane in front of the bus station, pulling a rainbow coloured, striped trolley suitcase, what looks like a bundled up duvet, and — a didgeridoo. she’s almost past us when she asks where we might be going in case we’d be interested in sharing a taxi — she’s a bit surprised when we reply with the information that we are waiting for the 15:10 bus to st davids, and is even further surprised when we answer her question how we know that there is a bus going from here by pointing out that this place not only looks like a bus stop but also has a bus timetable to proof it. it transpires that she’s missed the train from carmathen to fishguard (the one that we were travelling on from cardiff to carmathen) and had just been told by a taxi driver at the other end of the station that there was no bus service and a taxi ride to fishguard would be £50. as we are fairly certain that there will be a bus at 15:10 (which is ascertained by the fact that the bus timetable tells her the same thing) she decides to wait for the bus as well. eventually the taxi driver drives past, stops and hands her his business card — “in case the bus does not come” — and declares that the lowest he can do