Carmarthenshire - the Laugharne and Winding Road

We had bought, and read, the guide book for the Carmarthenshire Coastal Path almost as soon as we returned from our first adventure on the Ceredigion stretch. We had read it several times in fact. We had messaged each other about it. We had pored over mileages and starts and finishes. We began our planning proper just after Christmas. When other people were busy booking cruises and exotic holidays abroad we were busy looking at budget accommodation in Kidwelly. Why budget, you may ask? Well redundancy and a daughter at university meant that things were a bit tight for me and Nick so I was keen to avoid lashing out on luxury.

Why Kidwelly, you might well ask? We needed somewhere that was central. Kidwelly wasn’t central, but it wasn’t too far from either end of the walk, and it was cheaper and definitely more cheerful than some of the places that were in the middle between our starting point in Tenby, and our finishing point at Burry Port.

The campsite we found turned out to be a bit of a gem - Waungadog Farm, an adult only site on the outskirts of Kidwelly with a fine view of the castle and owners who had the good heartedness to be impressed by our endeavours and who gave us a bottle of wine for it and a contribution to our respective charities.

I didn't know it was 'adults only'. I would have made some crass jokes and said 'Fnarr' a lot. That's why I never told you.

http://www.waungadogfarm.co.uk/

When I say campsite, discerning readers may have worked out by now that we were going to camp. Yes, camp. Yes, in a tent.

“Ooooh,” a well-travelled, mountain-climbing, backpacking colleague some years younger than me commented, “That takes gumption! At your age!”

We were going to use our tent, which I believe to be the best tent in the whole wide world, the Quechua Seconds 4.2. It pops up and is BIG! The two sleeping pods are double-size and the central section big enough for all our paraphernalia, electric hook up and Helen’s electric powered cool box, and you can stand upright in it. Helen has all the good camping gear, including a fold out table, small cooker and fold out chairs.

The decision to camp was also part of our rather more gung-ho attitude to this year’s walk. Last year we had been trepidacious and cautious, this year we were excitable and a tad more reckless. Hence the camping idea.

“Hel, there’s nowhere to stay that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg!”

“I know, Rhi, we could camp!” cried Helen, like a character out of the Famous Five off for an adventure.

“Helen, we are going on 55 years old! Are you sure we are up to it? My sciatica, you know…”

“But it’s so cheap!”

“Oh go on then!” She had me at “cheap”, and I always loved the Famous Five.

You can bet your boots that if there is a stupid idea mooted to do with these expeditions, its usually me that suggests it. I've been a happy camper for a good few years, dragging my poor kids round France in the summer holidays. It says a lot about their good nature that they have forgiven me for holidays when we woke up with the tents surrounded by huge puddles of water. The most noteworthy was the time there was a huge thunderstorm and a ground strike of lightning on the campsite. I was sorting the washing in the wash block. There was an ear splitting bang and I shouted 'FUCK' almost as loudly. The French papas present looked at me aghast. I'd scared them more than the ground strike. It had blown up the campsite's water pump but I was far more shocking; a mad Welsh woman screaming in Anglo Saxon. I ran back to the tent to find my kids sitting safely in the car, 'Its OK mum, its a Faraday Cage'. You have to love the nerdy kids of a nerdy mother. In spite of all of this I love camping. I love waking up in the fresh air and the smell of fresh coffee and bacon for breakfast. I love the simplicity of it all and I was sure that after the dodgy weather of the last Welsh trip we would have more luck this time. (I also love camping, I might add, and couldn't wait to get away from it all at the end of a busy summer term).

It had taken a good few weeks for my feet to recover after the Ceredigion walk, the boots were still reeking and I threw them out. I treated myself to a new pair of boots and like Rhian spent the winter reading and re-reading the guide book. Carmarthen was going to be a lot flatter and easier walking than the last year and I felt happy that we had upped the expected mileage. I'd also committed myself to doing a Proclaimers over the year (walking 500 miles and walking 500 more) and this holiday was really going to help. This year we were going to walk in miles what we had previously walked in kilometres.

The plan was

Day 1 Set up base camp and test out Sherpa Williams in a short walk from Tenby to Saundersfoot 4 miles

Day 2 Saundersfoot to Pendine Sands 8 miles

Day 3 Pendine Sands to St Clears 11 miles

Day 4 St Clears to Llansteffan 10 miles

Day 5 Llansteffan to Carmarthen 9 miles

Day 6 Carmarthen to Kidwelly 14 miles

Day 7 Kidwelly to Burry Port 10 miles

These are the books that we use to plan the walks. We both have other books as we are quite obsessive about planning holidays but in general they tend to suggest stupidly long days . This series is great and has excellent Ordinance Survey maps. If you love knowing the difference between a church with a spire and a church with a tower in maps, these books are the ones to go for. And I like a quality map that I can misread and get lost.

The previous year we had decided to raise some money for charity. Our friends and family had all been really generous and we had raised a fair bit of cash for charities close to our hearts, Rhian walked for http://2wishuponastar.org/ and I walked for https://forceschildrenstrust.org.uk/. We both wanted to do the same thing this year but its hard to keep asking people to be generous. I needed a plan to get new people involved. As the winter became spring I got inspiration from some strange places, Marks and Spencer and the Radio 4 program the Archers. It was going to easy to implement. All it would take was a little shopping and some abject embarrassment. I felt I should let Rhian in on the plot.

'Oram, how's it going? Have you got all the tent stuff sorted?' (Oram is my "maiden name" and she insists on calling me by it - how maidenly I ever was is questionable).

'Yes, its all in the car, ready to go'

'I've got the cooking stuff all sorted and I will pick up some food on the way down. Don't forget the fairly lights for the tent, we need to camp in style!'

'Yes, no need to live in total squalor when we are living in squalor. I hope you have new boots and enough socks this time.'

'Yes, nice new boots and new socks. In fact I've got some new walking gear'

'Oh that's good, what did you get?'

'A pink dress and a banana outfit.'

There was a very, very long pause.

She was never going to forgive me for this one.