Pembrokeshire Coastal Path Day 13

Distance 18 miles
Ascent 900m
Weather bit cooler, overcast, few spots of rain
Stonechat, meadow pipits, buzzard
Horses in gorses 7

We left Newport this morning under cloudy skies but dry, walking via the Spar out to the estuary, where there were oyster catchers, snoozy swans and canada geese amidst the gulls and labradors.

This last section is described as a long, remote and rugged day's walk, dominated by two big climbs, although the rest of the way was hardly flat. A long steep climb started us off up on to the cliffs, which seem darker and more solid looking than those south of here.

At Godwr Mawr we stopped at the top to watch the guillemots, razorbills and house martins nesting. I've been informed that apparently yesterday there were also razorbills on the cliffs. The path to was narrow and grassy, often overgrown, with bracken dotted with bluebells. There was an odd hawthorn tree here and there, stunted and mishapen into the direction of the winds.

We has a sit down with some cows at Gerddi-bâch, they were most interested in us to start with but then wandered away.

The path veers steeply down near Carag Bica, there were choughs squawking loudly. Lots of sea birds but no fins or seals today. The shore started looking more rugged, with caves and a natural arch, thought one of the caves might be an archway but there were voices so I think it was people inside with a torch. At Bwn Bach, a steep decent into a narrow inlet took us over an impressive rock arch carved out by the waves underneath. A kestrel was circling around worrying the other birds. I expect  this place appears on Instagram a lot.

We stopped for lunch at Ceibwr Bay and then headed back up. The cliffs at Traeth Godir-côch are very geological indeed, huge waves of rock curved around and folded up, caused by the movement of tectonic plates. It looked like more recently there'd been a fire. We saw a fox and fox cubs (or possibly three cubs) playing on a scrubby section below is, they scattered into the bushes when they saw us. Cemaes Head is a nature reserve, but we're not sure what for, as it didn't seem much different to anywhere else, and then we joined a lane and walked down into St Dogmaels, which is the end of the Pembrokeshire Coastal trail.

Our day's walk carried on into Ceredigion, we are staying in Cardigan, at the castle. I have learned that bopty means bakery.