The Whitesands of Time: Trefin to Whitesands Bay

In spite of mud slides and cows we survived the long weekend walking from Pwllgwaelod to Trefin. Because of mud slides and big ends going we were a little short of our original plan and so in the Summer we had to pick up the Path at Trefin and were hoping to get as far as Angle at the far end. So the summer holiday arrived and I was standing over my suitcase packing for the trip.

I always feel that you can tell a lot about a person by what, how and when they pack for a holiday. My Mother in Law will start packing two weeks before she takes a trip, will repack at least twice and will be ruthlessly organised, owning drip dry travel clothing and minute bottles of toiletries. I'm in awe of this ability, while teasing her about it. You can tell a lot about a woman by looking at the contents of her case. Children pack toys and books. Young women pack far too much clothing, swimwear and contraceptives (you never knew your luck). Over time your packing changes. As a young mother I would pack the bare minimum for me, endless clothes for the kids alongside toys and books and everything that my wonderful (but lackadaisical ) husband could need. Remember the story about you and Sandy packing for a weekend when you told him to put the stuff in the case and he left your things on the bed where you had set them out? (God yes. We arrived at our holiday destination and I had the clothes I was standing in. But I had my revenge. I went into the nearest town and got myself a new wardrobe of clothes. Oddly enough he never made that mistake ever again.)

I looked at my suitcase. Jesus but it was depressing. Gone were the snazzy outfits and in their place sensible walking clothes. Out were the strappy sandals and in were two pairs of walking boots and a pair of walking sandals. Even worse were the collection of assorted latex items. These had nothing to do with sex. Although, to be entirely accurate, they could have a contraceptive effect. No-one seeing them could ever think about sex ever again. They were a collection of latex toe and foot coverings. Give me the shivers every time she whips them out.

Two weeks before the holiday I had foolishly completed a walked marathon in London with my delightfully crazy friend Aggi. We only managed to cross the finish line because of her spirited renditions of songs from The Greatest Showman and a very vulgar version of 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary. The 26 miles were so hard and, in spite of lots of training and boots that had walked over 1000 miles that year, my feet were in bits. Two toenails had gone and the less said about the rest of my feet the better. I had bought latex toe covers and cushions in a desperate attempt to make the walking holiday possible. Looking at the contents of my case I could see that I was now a woman in late middle age, with dreadful feet and no real grasp of her limitations. Not only this but I would spend weeks getting unsolicited adverts for corn and bunion treatments. And discreet catheters.

My packing was similarly unglamorous but even more haphazard because work is always frenetic right up to the end of term, so I had 24 pairs of walking socks, not enough knickers and sun cream to which I was allergic.

We met at St Davids on the first day of Rhian's Summer holiday, enjoyed a meal out and spent the night in a very nice B and B. The next morning we planned to walk from Aber Draw to Whitesands Bay, a walk of 11 miles. The sun was shining and there was a pleasant breeze, it was perfect walking weather and the first part of the walk was wonderful. The grass was springy under out feet and I could feel all my worries and concerns falling away.

'I can't understand why people don't do this sort of thing more often. In fact I don't know why we don't do it more often.'

'Because your feet get covered in blisters? Because we fall in the mud? Because you live bloody miles away in Lincoln?'

'Valid points, I grant you, but isn't this wonderful?'

'Yes it is.'

This is us at the just before Porthgain. Why on earth was I wearing a pearl necklace? Bloody ridiculous. What the hell did I think I was going to do on this walk? Go to a tea dance? Maybe I was trying to off-set my geriatric feet. Rhian is quite sensibly laughing at me.

My triple chin here is a major geographical feature - great choice of photo, Brace! (Sadly, this was the better one. You look the same chin wise but less happy in the alternate.)

Pearls, for god's sake. Anybody would think you were on the pull. Single men walking the path, beware!

The view looking back from Porthgain towards Trefin. The headland in the far distance, near Abercastle is where I almost concussed myself on a burial chamber. This sort of holiday gives you strange but amusing memories. I have noticed that I tend to take photographs of where we have walked rather than where we are going. I think this is oddly telling.

We made excellent progress and soon reached the white obelisk that marked the drop down into the harbour of Porthgain. This is a nice (please never use this word again - it is banned in my lessons and it is banned in this blog) (Yes, Mrs Williams!) little place with disused buildings from the industries that were here in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These days they are maintained by the National Trust and look striking around the harbour. There is an excellent café and chip shop called The Shed but it was sadly too early to stop for lunch. We could see an ice-cream van on the harbour side and we decided to treat ourselves. We reckoned that it be a good one as there was a small queue and we joined the end, pondering our options.

It was the perfect day for an ice cream and we were enjoying ourselves.

'What are you going to have then, Hel?'

'A salted caramel cone, I think. And you?'

'I might have a 99, I'm not sure.'

'Crushed nuts?' I said and sniggered.

'Oh for god's sake! How old are you?'

'Too old, just consider the contents of my case but I will never grow too old to enjoy a bit of innuendo.' I sniggered again.

The man standing in front of us turned round and smiled.

'I thought that was a threat, for a moment'.

I laughed. 'See, Rhi, this man enjoys a little innuendo, I can tell'

He smiled again but a little more nervously this time.

'Oh don't worry' said Rhian, 'She's like this with everyone. I can't take her anywhere. At least she's not dressed up as a banana today.'

It might have been my imagination but he stepped a little further away from us.

'Long and pointless story', I said, 'Nothing for you to worry about.'

He looked a little reassured and bought his ice-cream, a 99 with no crushed nuts, and joined his two friends. Giving a little wave they started to walk up the path out of the harbour. We bought our ice-creams and not long after, followed them up the path towards Abereiddy. The sun shone and we soon reached the small village. It had also been a centre for quarrying and one of the disused quarries, now full of sea water was the next spot on our walk, the Blue Lagoon.

This is the Blue Lagoon, its a really popular site for cliff diving and coasteering. Looked terrifying but I think that the people doing it had fun. You can see the steep sides carved out by the 19th century miners.

The weather improved as we walked, with the sun appearing and the temperature rising. The views continued to be glorious. I recall finding a grassy spot at one side of the path to sit and eat our lunch having descended the steep side of Carn Penberry and feeling very content, while Helen busied herself with plasters and other paraphernalia to cope with her poor, suffering feet. A thin, wiry man in running shorts shot past us downhill, and as we set off again, a young couple, also in running gear and with a spaniel of some sort, ran effortlessly up towards us. They pointed out a lovely bay where they had paused to have a swim before this little jaunt up to the summit of the hill. For goodness' sake. All this running about. Totally unnecessary and uncalled for. (Bastards, all of them!)

Ahead of us we could see St David's Head, and it was at this point that we were suddenly aware that we could see the sea on both sides of the headland, with Whitesands Bay and the city of St David's off to the left, and Cardigan Bay on our right. It was utterly glorious and brought a tear to my eye. It was like the moment at the end of Billy Elliot when Billy leaps on stage and his dad draws a great breath of sudden emotion. Sorry - getting a bit sentimental now, but it really was that lovely. I don't know why I didn't take a photo but that's just typical of my lackadaisical attitude.

Proof positive that I am less lackadaisical than Rhian when it comes to taking photographs. This is actually a cunning plan. When Rhian is yomping on into the distance and I need a breather I will stop and take a photo - cunning, eh? This is a view looking back from the St David's headland showing the headlands and cliffsides we had walked that day.

We walked on. We were both feeling tired at this stage, and the climb towards St David's Head was becoming quite rocky and steep. We perched on a rock for Helen to put her walking sandals on, and who should appear behind us but the three English chaps we had crossed paths with earlier. We exchanged greetings again and we watched as they set off up the hill ahead of us. They were of a similar age to us, and appeared somewhat fitter than I was, at least. We took our time. There was no rush, this was not a competition, we said, and yet somehow feeling that we didn't want to see them getting too far ahead of us. I had sensed from them a feeling of their own superiority that was probably entirely imaginary but made me want to prove that two women of a certain age were just as able to do this walking lark as they were.

Walking the Coastal Path can sometimes involve you walking all day and not seeing anyone. The previous year we had walked the Carmarthen section of the path which is less well known than Pembroke and is much quieter. Plus, we had chosen to walk it in some dreadful weather. Some days we didn't see a soul. So seeing people was a bit of a novelty and seeing the same people was amusing. The Three English Chaps were, as Rhian has said, around our age. One was older than the other two (rather like Rhian and me!), one was shorter than the others (like me with Rhian) and one was a bit grumpy (like neither of us). The fact that they were English has nothing at all to do with our mild flirtation with competition and as the day went on our paths crossed and re-crossed and we would exchange some witty badinage. The Grumpy Man was not impressed, silly Grumpy Man. We smugly overtook them.

It was a beautiful day and it really was perfect walking weather. The area was so stunning that it almost took my mind off my feet. Every now and than I had to stop and reposition the hideous toe condoms and latex foot pads. But at least we had some beautiful things to see. This photograph doesn't really do the view justice. The rocks underfoot almost look untidy and the grass scrubby but it was breath taking. The coast line spread away from us in all directions, the sea was calm and it was almost an honour to be walking there. We had earned this view with every painful, sweat soaked step and we had the place to ourselves. Right up to the point that the Three English Chaps, yomped on ahead of us.

The trail led us gradually down towards Whitesands past several beautiful little bays accessible only on foot, where we saw a seal swimming close in shore near people who were oblivious. I wished I had my tankini with me. But nobody would want to see that kind of sight on their day out at the beach. (Or my feet, come to think of it.)

We skirted the foot of Carn Llidi and as we approached the large beach, with its campsite, car park, and best of all, cafe, we were surrounded by folks walking in flip flops and we smiled the smug smile of two sweaty people in proper walking gear who had just completed 11 miles of the path and deserved a cup of tea and some cake.

The cafe and shop at Whitesands. As always, a cafe is a welcome sight, and the addition of interesting merchandise makes this a great spot to stop off. And a cuppa at the end of a walk is a very civilised thing.

This reminds me of my first ever camping trip, in the summer of 2004, with my children, my sister-in-law and her three kids. Neither of our husbands were keen, but we were! Always up for a jaunt, we had planned this trip within an inch of its life. I had purchased a tent large enough to stand up in, while Sian had a smaller festival-type tent. The idea was that myself, Sian, and our girls would get the bigger tent, while the three boys would share the smaller tent next to us. I booked the campsite, a mile or two inland from Whitesands and we set off in the sunshine, arranging to meet in St David's before setting up our tents and rushing down to the beach, bodyboards, wetsuits, coolbags full of sandwiches at the ready.

The weather, however, was not going to co-operate. The closer we got to the campsite, the gloomier it got. By the time we found the site, the grey cloud cover was total. A breeze was picking up. Undeterred, we set up the tents and went down to the beach. Rolling towards us off the sea was a haar. A sea-mist, for those unfamiliar with the term. It turned cold and damp. The breeze escalated up the Beaufort Scale to a Near Gale. We retreated to the campsite, put on another layer or two of clothing and sat in the big tent. We always had a great time, pretty much regardless of the misfortunes and mishaps that befell us on these outings (often involving Tomos injuring himself pretty severely in varied and interesting ways) and we laughed, played games and ate our picnic leftovers because it wasn't really barbeque weather.

Bedtime came around, and us girls huddled down in our sleeping bags and listened to the thundering of the rain and the somewhat whistly wind that was forcing the sides of the tent towards the ground. The three boys cwtched up together in their festival tent. The rain got steadily worse. None of us got much sleep.

At dawn I woke from a doze to find a puddle of water surrounding my airbed, and stuck my head out of the tent doorway to see how the boys were faring. The three of them were lying in a deep pool of water within the tent. Tom and Sam managed to laugh, Calum, being a teenager, was in a furious temper and went and locked himself in the car with his music on very loud. We were all a tad glum and some of us were ready to pack up and go home. But here's the thing: the sun came out. We hung our sleeping bags and other stuff on the fence to dry. We went into St David's and found a cafe that served THE most enormous Welsh breakfast, and the holiday was back on! It was like magic.

This was the first of numerous camping trips to West Wales we were to make, because Sian and I were always recklessly optimistic that everything would be fine, and actually, it usually was, in the end. (It says a lot about Rhian's never ending optimism and the beauty of the area that she was prepared to come back for another holiday but at least this time we were not camping.)

Unlike the previous year we were going to have the luxury of staying in a wonderful chalet thanks to our old school friend Jeremy. He had visited us in the tent during the previous walk, pity stirred his generous soul and he let us use his chalet as our base for the walk. I think he thought that we were mad and offered to get us accommodation at a local secure unit. Given that he was a doctor, the threat could have been real but he didn't have anyone to co-sign the papers, so we we safe. We drove to the village and unpacked our stuff. Tired at the end of the day, we sat outside on the balcony, drinking wine and enjoying the unexpected entertainment of a group of women in the next chalet who were getting drunker and drunker with every passing minute. What was wonderful was that the older women, the mothers, were managing to shock their adult daughters with their raucous tales. The cackling and shrieking and lovely Welshness of their accents was a joy to listen to. Naturally Rhian and I were quiet and sober (yeah, right!) and we toasted an excellent first day's walk. No-one had fallen over, there had been no mud or cows, we hadn't got lost and I hadn't headbutted a Neolithic burial chamber once. This walk was going to be fabulous. No catastrophes this time!