Sun, sea, sand: Fellwanderers hike Pembrokeshire

Friday, 24th of May: a rainy day in London, what else would you expect? But 12 brave, hiking loving students were ready to leave for Pembrokeshire, Wales on a Fellwanderers weekend trip. Since it was a bank holiday weekend, it took us quite a while to get to Wales. But by the time we arrived, it stopped raining and although some were still sceptical about the weather, we trusted in the weather forecast for the weekend that it would be sunny and set up our tents.

Saturday we drove to St David’s (Britain’s smallest city) and started our tour along the cliffs to the fishing village of Solva and Newgale Sands beach. We had a relaxed walk with a few stops to admire the beautiful cliffs and the landscape. For lunch we enjoyed fish and chips and ice-cream, the favourite food over the weekend. The weather did not disappoint us, the Sun was shining and at the end almost everybody got sunburnt and the first thing we did after finishing our tour, was going to the supermarket to buy sun cream. We also bought food for the next days and had a great barbecue that evening at our campsite (Trefalen Farm, by Broad Haven beach).

We were woken up by the sunshine on Sunday morning. It was so hot in the tent that no one wanted to be inside anymore. After breakfast we started a beach sightseeingtour from Manorbier castle, along the coast. We were walking from beach to beach, sunbathing and the toughest going swimming in each one. While playing Frisbee and throwing the Nerf around, nobody cared about the freezing cold water. At the last beach we split up. Some relaxed at the beach; others went back to the camp site and the rest took a walk near a lily pond. There were so many lilies but it was too early for them to bloom, so we only saw the leaves. In the evening we rejoined to have another barbecue and to watch the moon rise as night drew in.

Monday morning we woke up to totally different weather. The wind was blowing so strong, that we feared we would be blown away with the whole tent! Hence the first challenge of the day was getting the tent down and not being blown away. And to make it even worse, it was starting to rain as well… but we completed our challenge.

After a little discussion, about what we could do for a walk, we decided to make a short walk, about an hour, along the cliffs from the Green Bridge of Wales (a large rock archwayextending out into the stormy sea) to St Govan’s chapel. This was enough to make everyone soaking wet! We had our lunch in the chapel which is built into the side of the cliffs. After changing into dry clothes, we went to the minibus and set off to find a coffee shop to warm us up. This was the second challenge of the day. After looking for a café in a castle and finding out that there wasn’t one, we drove by a nice modern coffee shop, stopped and had some nice teas, scones and hot chocolate. And then it was time to get back to London….