Abereiddi to Porth Gain

Yesterday Mum, David, Cairo and I drove to Abereiddi and then walked to Porth Gain.  Slate used to be quarried at Abereiddi and the beach there has blackish sands.  When the slate quarry was abandoned, the workers blew up the rocks to allow the sea to flood the quarry - it is now known as Blue Lagoon.

The cliff top walk is too beautiful to capture on camera - or even phone - so I took just one photo of  Traeth Llyfn.  It was a warm day and people have to walk to the cliff then climb down millions of steps to the beach.

The trip to Carew Castle, St Gofan's Church and Freshwater Beach

Today Mum and I travelled with Dave as above.  We had a beautiful walk around the castle and tidal mill.  Then on to St Gofan's.  It's surrounded by a military range so wisest not to enter when the red flags are flying.  We could hear gunfire, but no red flags where we wanted to go.

The story is that St Gofan was fleeing Irish pirates.  A cleft miraculously opened in the cliffs and enveloped him until the pirates had left.  This all happened somewhere between the 6th and 11th Century.  St Gofan then built a tiny church among the rocks.

This gives you some idea of the inside of the church.

Here's St Gofan's unheralded hanging garden - white daisies growing in the rock face.

Talking of miracles, Steve I've tried 3 times to reply to your email with 2 pictures but keep getting the message that my reply is undeliverable due to the spma filter.
I didn't photo Freshwater Beach.  It is a beautiful beach where some of the Crowe / Blanchett Robin Hood was filmed, and Shell House was constructed for a Harry Potter film in a grassy dell in a sandhill.

Tuesday's ramble

On Tuesday, Dave, Paul and I circumnavigated Carn Llidi in search of the deserted village and a cromlech.  It was our longest walk so far and sadly my phone / camera had gone flat by the time we found the cromlech, so only 3 photos.

We walked through farmyards to get to the track.  This is part of the view looking back to Whitesands and Ramsey Island.  After a bit of a climb we found these gorgeous creatures.  There are a lot of wild horses around here.  That's the pinnacle of Carn Llidi behind them.

And then, dewey eyed, on to the deserted Quaker village.  Somehow the occupants used to fish and carry their catch to Haverfordwest 15 miles away.  No wonder they deserted.

(This is cheating a bit, but I went back over the weekend and took a photo of the cromlech.  It is known locally as Coen Arthur, but after getting his legs ripped to shreds in search of it on Tuesday, Paul announced disbelief that we had spent an hour looking for 'that sodding thing'.  Here it is

)

Laugharne at last

I have long wanted to see The Boat House and estuary where Dylan Thomas wrote.  Yesterday Mum, Frances, Dave and I drove there.  Sadly it dispelled the illusion I had that I am Dylan Thomas reincarnated cos I learned he died in November of 1953 while I was born in March.  Selfish of him really.

OK, you follow the path around Laugharne Castle.  Go up a little laneway, and look out on the most mellow of waters - Mum was disappointed that the tide was out, but I loved it like this.

I love this kind of beauty.

Up the laneway a little further and there's the little shed that Dylan did his writing in, still set up as if he'd just left it.  Had to take this photo through the window.  It's quite a dark lane...

I suspect that this window wasn't there when he was..

So imagine being perched up there, no-one able to tell whether you were there or not, writing away with just the water and sky to look at.

This is a window in an upstairs bedroom.  Another good writing place.  This is what that window overlooks these days - though never before has it overlooked my Mum and cousins.

There is a photo of Dylan Thomas standing where Mum is in the next photo - on the deck which runs from the back to the front to the house (cartref).  Mum bought a copy of a Child's Christmas in Wales for a very lucky person.

And this photo I took by mistake

but I'm glad.  The goddess was obviously with me.

Walk from Caerfai to St Non's.

Don't think I'm going to spoil you with huge postings like this everyday - it takes me as long to blog as to do the walk.  These are walks I intend to do many times over but I'll blog them while they're still novel to me - and the weather is fine - and I remember to take the phone / camera...

This is the end of our street where some foolhardy, death-seeking person has hung the English flag for the start of the World Cup.  Most locals will barrack for any side but England.

Turn right and we're on our way to Caerfai.  There's a dairy there making organic cheeses.  Lucky cows.

They have a lovely view of the sea.

Caerfai is at the end of the road.  You have to walk down a zillion steps to get to the beach.  Today Mum and I are sticking to the cliff tops.

Looking back a bit

The path ahead

A glimpse of our destination - St Non's Chapel.   St Non is the mother of St David

We're not stopping today.  Mum on the home stretch, back to Aunty Eirwen's house.

A Trip to Whitesands (Porth Mawr????)

This is the road to Whitesands with Carn Llidi in the distance.  Below is Carn Llidi - familiar to some from my 'From a Mountain Top' essay in Class 1A.

The last of the bluebells are in the hedgerows.

Here's Mum outside my cousin Lola's place near Whitesands with Carn Llidi in the background.

The not so beautiful Whitesands carpark.

We walked to the end of Whitesands.  You can see why we loved playing there as kids.

This is Carn Llidi from the end of Whitesands.

Then we caught the Celtic Coaster bus back to St Davids via Porth Clais and St Justinians.  I haven't posted pictures before because I've just been overwhelmed with the beauty

When in KL, eat paella

It turns out that the hotel we are staying in in KL is part of a Spanish chain so Mum was able to have her first paella.  This also will be good training for when we are in Spain.  We had 1 lovely warm day in Kuala Lumpur and 2 lovely airconditioned nights - the consequence of arriving late at night and leaving early in the morning.  England was beautifully misty and rainy when we arrrived on Monday and to my great joy continued like this on Tuesday.  We had a walk along the Grand Union Canal and bossed a poor chap who was driving 2 barges down the canal on his own to look out for 3 little ducklings who'd got trapped in the lock chamber.  Today (Wednesday) Mum and I walked into Watford via a beautiful park to do essential things like buy an adaptor so that Australian electricals can be charged in UK.  Now I have to find out how to SMS Australia with my new simcard.  There was a time you didn't need to know these things.
[I have just discovered that Steve has posted a collage of photos of my departure from Wentworth / Mildura last Friday on the Our House blog.]