Hi!
I know I haven't blogged for a while, but then again this is a holiday blog and we don't have LOTS of those throughout the year! :) Anyway, last month we went to Pembrokeshire. I know, I know, not quite as exotic as China but it's a holiday! I have posted my diary below so you can read everything forwards as usual, and you should also be able to navigate on the right hand side over there too.
There are more photos on my Picasaweb album too: https://picasaweb.google.com/brocklehurst79/PembrokeshireOctober2011
Enjoy! :)
Siobhan xx
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Saturday October 1st
Today we headed off to Pembrokeshire planning to stop off at
Powys Castle. We had the AA directions
with us which estimated how long it would take to get to our cottage which was
just outside Fishguard. The traffic was
light and after just two hours we arrived at Powys Castle and we had our lunch
just outside it, laying out the picnic blanket as the ground was quite
damp. Inside, it was a very nice house
with some really nice gardens which looked almost Italian.
After our visit we got back on the road and on our way in
the direction of Fishguard. Although the
traffic was quite light all the way, the AA directions did not take into
account how windy the roads were, so a journey which they thought would take 16
minutes took us a whole hour to complete, and we still had around 40 minutes to
go (according to the AA that is…!).
Originally we planned to get there by around 6pm or just before – maybe
even 5:30! This would mean I would be
able to watch Strictly which started at 6……then I thought perhaps we would get
to the cottage at around 6:15 but we were still on our way at that point, and
eventually we reached the cottage – Jemima’s Cottage – at around 6:40. Our host showed us around and left us to it,
along with her little dog Nelly who was VERY friendly, jumping into the back
seat of the car to find out what goodies we had brought with us haha!! By the time we were unpacking our food, I
managed to watch the last 2 dances before it finished L But we were able to watch Doctor Who of
course!Sunday October 2nd
This morning we headed off to Castell Henllys Iron Age Fort,
which was a reconstructed village of round houses, which was quite fun to
explore! A couple of them even had a
little fire going inside. It was quite
peaceful, perhaps because it was Sunday, as we may have been the only people
there this morning!
We then did a walk up to an Iron Age Hill Fort and some Bronze Age Barrows within the Preseli Hills. It seemed quite a steep walk – and it was – but I was fairly happy with going up it so I took out my super sticks (my pair of hiking sticks - they are awesome!), and walked up to Foeldrygarn (sp?) which turned out to be a 113m ascent! By the time we had finished up there, we found a place a little more sheltered from the wind, managed to find a place to sit where there was no sheep poop and had lunch there.
We then went to a dolmen-like stone called Pentre Ifan – I
think this is a fairly well known one in this area, and it was quite a large
one. However, when we arrived there, we
discovered a small group of people sitting around it. At first we thought they were artists, but as
we walked past them, we saw that their notebooks were full of writing with a
few sketches so we came to the conclusion of creative writing. Maybe.
I have no idea. All I know is
that it was pretty annoying because half of them were practically sitting on it,
so we couldn’t really take a decent photo.
I know it was Sunday and I know these people have to go somewhere for
their (I assume) creative writing exercises, but it was pretty annoying going
to see something and all you can see are a load of people lounging about on
it. Just imagine if you went somewhere
to admire some prehistoric monument, hoping to take just one good photo for
your holiday snaps, and when you get there the atmosphere – and your photo - is
lost by people “needing” to sit ON the thing….anyway, it was a bit of a
challenge but we managed to take a reasonably good photo of it at a strategic
angle...!
Next we had a walk around Dinas Head which was slightly more
up and down than I expected it to be, and on the way up I did get into a bit of
a strop and stormed off (in the right direction towards the top of course). I think this was because I had already
managed to do quite a big walk this morning and I thought this would be a nice
relaxing potter around Dinas Head…..!
You see, when I get fed up of whatever walk I’m on and find out there is
a huge up waiting around the corner for me, I get mad and – oddly – I
practically run up it. It’s a bit weird
because I actually don’t want to go up it at all, but when I’m in that mood I
end up thinking “well I’ve got to get up there anyway” and I do it REALLY
quickly without a care in the World about what it’s going to do to my muscles
or my breathing. Once I was up there and
on the way back I was fine, but it was just that little bit that I went a bit
mad with…..and good grief, in the morning I certainly knew about it haha!!
Monday October 3rd
Last today we took a coastal walk along St Govan’s Head and
visited St. Govan’s Chapel which was basically down the cliff! It was a cute little building and when we
walked through to the other side, we came to a very rocky coastline where we
saw the waves crashing. We stumbled upon
a couple of people having their lunch on the cliff there and as they went
another couple came down which we thought may have been rock-climbers, although
we didn’t see them do anything except probably have some lunch. Must be a good lunch spot then!
We headed off to walk along part of the Head. The whole area is in an MOD artillery range
so is sometimes closed off to walkers but today it was all open. We didn’t see any cows which the signs told
us about, so we imagined them all coloured camouflage instead of being black
and white, and wearing berets. There was
plenty of evidence of them on the ground though, although from the looks of
said evidence, it did look like it had fallen from a great height…..perhaps
fired in place of normal ammunitions….
So then we thought perhaps the beret wearing camouflaged cows may have been
firing their own self-made ammo around….but then we thought “Hey, it’s pretty
windy up here!” which probably explained why it looked like it did. We eventually saw the cows on our way back to
the cottage. And no, they weren’t
camouflaged or wearing berets. Moo.Tuesday October 4th
Today we had arranged to meet some friends who we had met on
our holiday in China, in St.Davids. We
had arranged to meet at 12:00 noon, so we went there in the morning and visited
the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace.
St. David’s Cathedral – I think – is the nicest Cathedral I
have ever been to! It’s small and
compact, but inside it looks much more spacious than it does on the
outside. No, it wasn’t a Tardis but it
was really nice inside, with an amazing painted wooden roof, and many
Romanesque arches inside which – Mathew told me – in most other Cathedrals
around the country would have been rebuilt into a Gothic style. What I particularly loved about this
Cathedral was the floor – in some places the original tiles were still in
place, obviously we couldn’t walk on those.
But pretty much everywhere else, they had done the floor up with replica
tiles and it looked amazing – I loved it, and the colours were so bright and
cheery! Sometimes you just don’t realise
how colourful places like this would have been because of the faded colours, or
even lack of colour in some places. I
was so impressed with this Cathedral I actually bought the guide book – and I
don’t usually do that with Cathedrals!
But there are quite a few nice pictures in it which swayed it for me!
Right next door was the Bishops Palace which was pretty
similar to Lamphey Bishop’s Palace yesterday – in fact, it was built by the
same person. This one was slightly more
ornate, or at least some of the more ornate parts had survived much better here
than at Lamphey. It was bigger but
basically the same kind of thing. And it
was there that I saw some bats!! I don’t
know what species they were, but they were just hanging out in the undercroft
in an alcove behind one of the exhibitions which I almost missed. I went in there for a nosey and there they
were, just hanging on the ceiling! Some
of them flew off but I managed to get a quite good photo of the ones which
stayed there long enough! They were so
small and cute!! I have only even seen
flutterings of bats at night, but I actually properly saw these ones, still AND
in flight!
It was time to meet up with Elizabeth and Austin at the
Information Centre at midday. On our way
to the car we bumped into them, so we decided to have lunch at the café before
our walk. We all had leek & potato
soup which came with bread and a chunk of cheese (!) so we all tucked in and
caught up with each other as we hadn’t spoken or been in much contact since the
end of April this year. Elizabeth told
us that her sister – Margaret – wasn’t with them today because she was busy
packing for her holiday to South Africa tomorrow. Apparently she gets everything packed at the
last minute after having spent most of her time laying everything out which
she’s going to take with her haha!!
Austin kept saying the soup was much better than “sticky rice” which was
what we had a little too much of in China…I’m pretty sure I heard him saying
that he wasn’t bothered if he never had Chinese food again! I think that holiday may have scarred him for
life haha!! They then told us of their
plans to go to Malta next week as its their 50th Wedding Anniversary
on October 14th, and they also plan to go to New Zealand next year,
which sounds pretty exciting!
After lunch, we got into our cars and headed off to Caerfai
to start our walk along the coast. The
walk was a little up and down, but it was just my kind of walk really, it
wasn’t too bad. Austin zoomed off ahead
of us all haha! We went to St. Non’s
Chapel which wasn’t exactly what I expected – I was thinking it was going to be
similar to St.Govan’s Chapel, but it wasn’t in the cliff at all. It was a nice quiet little chapel which was
open for people to light candles and write prayers down for their loved ones.
We continued on to Porth Cais where we stopped for a short
while before heading back fro where we came.
It was a good walk with some nice cliff side scenery but we didn’t see
any seals – I think the time for seeing seals on the coast was over at the
beginning of October! We sat down for a
moment before getting into our cars again and we followed them to their home
which was in Camrose. It turns out they
have a Guesthouse – which explains why they offered to put us up for a night –
which must have had around 6 bedrooms I think.
It was a very nice house, and also they took us around a building site
where they are building some new houses.
I thought they were retired, but I think it looks like Austin still
dabbles in the building trade- obviously – and I am not sure whether or not the
Guesthouse is still working or not. I
heard Elizabeth say “Now I don’t have guests anymore” so I think maybe they are
done for the season or done altogether.
It must be handy at Christmas though, they can have their entire family
around!!
We stayed at “Austalise” for a little while and had a cup of
tea before heading out to the restaurant which they had booked a table
for. It was called “The Jolly
Sailor”. Everyone had starters but me as
I had my eye on dessert. Mathew and
Elizabeth shared some chicken liver pate and Austin had some leek and potato
soup – again! Then for mains, I had a
small Welsh rump steak with salad while Austin had the large one with LOTS of
chips! Mathew had the fish pie with just
as many chips as Austin had, and Elizabeth had the duck. For dessert I had a cheesecake, while Austin
and Elizabeth had ice-cream. Mathew
didn’t have any dessert as he was stuffed.
I think Austin maybe shouldn’t have gone for all three courses as I
think he was more stuffed than Mathew by the end of it – he only just managed
to finish his ice cream haha!!
We went back to “Austalise” and bade farewell to them as we
headed back to our cottage. It was a
good day today!
Wednesday October 5th
We started off with Carew Castle and Tidal Mill. When we arrived at the Castle, I realised – I
had forgotten my camera!! So I had to
rely on Mathew and his camera for the rest of the day as mine was sitting at
home. I had put new batteries in it this
morning as well! *huff*
We then went on to Tenby, and started with the Tudor
Merchants House. By now the rain was on
and off so we were ducking in and out of it a bit! The Tudor Merchants House was really cute and
actually quite spacious, despite the small size of it. Mathew and I wanted to take it home but I
don’t think it would have fit in the car somehow! J It really was very nice, and I think I would
recommend anyone visiting Tenby to go and see it.
We then went on to the Museum and Gallery which was actually
IN the remains of Tenby Castle, and it was very small and cute. Downstairs was all about the prehistory of
the place, with lots of flint tools such as axe heads on display, and around
the corner on the same floor there was a gallery of art – half quite old art
and half very modern. There was even an
extra gallery of work by a local artist, all of which was for sale. Upstairs was more random with history not only about the
town, but some Victorian items such as a Penny Farthing bicycle and some WW2
memorabelia.
On our way back to the car we stopped off at one of the many
sweet shops in the town (this place was seriously geared up for seaside
tourists!!) and bought some sweets, some rock and a small bucket of
candyfloss!! We hadn’t had that for
years. We could wait to start it so we
opened it as soon as we got back to the car hehehe!
On the way back we decided to have a look at two Castles
which were on our map as CADW but we had no idea what they were. The first one was Llawahadon(?) Castle and
was relatively easy to get to because we had seen some brown tourist signs for
it. By this time the weather wasn’t
looking too good – my feet were already pretty damp from the intermittent rain
we’d had in Tenby and the clouds didn’t look particularly friendly. The wind was still against us too, although
it wasn’t freezing cold.
This Castle was
open access therefore quite ruined so we had a little look before trying to find
Wiston Castle. By the time we got there,
the wind and rain had not eased off at all, and we could see the ruins (another
open access site) from where we parked the car.
I decided I wasn’t too fussed about this one so I stayed in the car
while Mathew went up to explore. He said
it was quite a cute little Motte with the Castle ruins on top, and I saw him
right next to it as the heavens opened and the heavy rain really started!! He got back quite wet and we returned to the
cottage when the rain decided to hammer it down as we were about to get out of
the car. It was nice to be in a warm
cottage after a day outside in the wind and the rain, even if it hadn’t been
that cold!Thursday October 6th
Next on our list of things to do today was a walk along the
Teifi River trail. I had discovered this
one on the internet and I thought it looked quite nice, and we thought a nice
little potter along the river would be a nice way to spend the afternoon, as we
weren’t feeling like doing anything strenuous today.
So, we started off and walked our way through
some woodland to get to the Wildlife Centre which was basically ON this
trail. It took us around an hour to get
to it, and before stopping off there, we found a “Badger Trail” which we
explored and found a HUGE picnic bench where we decided to have lunch. In the Wildlife Visitors Centre, we then
decided to have a coffee upstairs in the “Glasshouse Café” which looked like it
served some really nice food, but we had already had lunch. Oh well!
We didn’t know anything about this visitors Centre and it was in the
wrong place on Mathew’s map – which turned out to be about 15 years old
haha! Well, we found it eventually and
although my decaf cappuccino was quite strong, it wasn’t too bitter and it went
nicely with my apple and cinnamon bar. I
spent much of the time in the café wondering if the guy who served Mathew was
either wearing a wig or had used and
entire tub of hair gel. Seriously – his
hair did not move at all!!
So, we started off and walked our way through
some woodland to get to the Wildlife Centre which was basically ON this
trail. It took us around an hour to get
to it, and before stopping off there, we found a “Badger Trail” which we
explored and found a HUGE picnic bench where we decided to have lunch. In the Wildlife Visitors Centre, we then
decided to have a coffee upstairs in the “Glasshouse Café” which looked like it
served some really nice food, but we had already had lunch. Oh well!
We didn’t know anything about this visitors Centre and it was in the
wrong place on Mathew’s map – which turned out to be about 15 years old
haha! Well, we found it eventually and
although my decaf cappuccino was quite strong, it wasn’t too bitter and it went
nicely with my apple and cinnamon bar. I
spent much of the time in the café wondering if the guy who served Mathew was
either wearing a wig or had used and
entire tub of hair gel. Seriously – his
hair did not move at all!!
After our stop at the café, we continued on the Teifi River
trail, and although we were on the lookout for Otters, we didn’t see any – no
Kingfishers either! Hey ho. Along we went, and finally we had reached the
river and we could see it quite well. We
saw plenty of birds in the water, and some people canoeing, but no Otters,
Kingfishers or Red Squirrels which were apparently living in the trees around
here. We expected to take roughly an
hour or so to get back to the car…..but oh no.
The trail had other ideas!!
Mathew said at the point where the trail split into two, we should
follow the lower one because it was not only closer to the river edge, but it
would come out in the car park where we started.
It was a good idea, and at first it seemed like it was all
going our way and then things started to get a little more challenging. The trail started to go up and down much MUCH
more than we had anticipated, and I was SO glad I had my sticks with me
otherwise I would have got into a right old grump!! The ground was sloping up
and down, there were steps here there and everywhere, once we’d gone up it was
time to go down again, and the walk was turning into one more strenuous than we
had wanted to do. Even so, it was quite
fun tackling the foliage, ducking under and hopping over tree trunks. Admittedly this trail seemed to be fairly
overgrown and unkempt, but Mathew’s map and the maps which we had seen before
we got here all stated BOTH routes were available, and we saw no signs telling
us not to go along certain trails.
Suddenly it got even more strenuous, involving climbing over
tree trunks rather than just ducking under and hopping over, and we had to
start watching where we were putting our feet as we became seriously close to
the river edge and one wrong footing could have ended up with one or both of us
in the river! Finally we got to a point
where we scrambled up some lose ground using the tree trunks, an after Mathew
had gone ahead to have a closer look at the trail, we decided to go on. But we hadn’t gone very far until the trail
eventually stopped and we had no option but to turn back.
This was a little annoying as we had come all this way and
we were having fun with this trail, sometimes wondering if it was actually THE
trail we were meant to be on or not. We
were disappointed that it defeated us, but it was probably for the best – who
knows how long we would have been going on for, and who knows where we would
have ended up?! We turned back, and
fortunately it only took around 10 – 15 minutes to get back to the split in the
trail and we went up. This time on the
higher trail, it was more of an obvious trail, although it went up and down SO
many times I can’t remember, we were starting to get sick of having to go down
just to come back up again.
Unfortunately the rest of the walk was uneventful other than having to
go up and down all over the place, as we were much higher up than before – so
much so in fact that we couldn’t even see the river. Was this really a RIVER trail?
We returned to the car exhausted, and went back to the
cottage just outside Fishguard. On the
way, we stopped off at Newport to have a look at the restaurants there for
tomorrow night. We looked at three
before randomly seeing a chef eating a banana walking in the other direction,
so we decided to follow him to see where we’d end up – it was The Royal Oak and
the menu looked just right for what we were after, with a HUGE list of fresh
fish specials. We thought we would take
the phone number and reserve a table tomorrow for the evening, if we don’t find
something in Fishguard.
Friday October 7th
Today we decided to go to Picton Castle - we found a leaflet
for it earlier in the week and thought it looked quite fun...but guess
what? It was CLOSED from the beginning
of October until March / April next year!
And no, this wasn’t on the leaflet...!!
Not having much else to do, we decided to go to Haverfordwest
Castle and Museum which was small and sweet, and we actually saw a photo of
Elizabeth’s sister Margaret in there with the Haverfordwest Choir! So in a sense, we did see her hehe!
The country house was also quite small, sweet and simple –
unusual to me because I have been in so many which are so ornately
decorated. Mathew and I both said we
could have easily lived in this one as the rooms were nice and big, there was
plenty of light and very little fuss about the place! Somehow I doubt we would have been able to
have bought the place for £3,000 which was what it was originally bought
for....!
Disappointed, we tried Hilton Court Gardens and Crafts. When we arrived it looked quite odd, it
didn’t look particularly open nor did it look closed. It was very strange, and we weren’t quite
sure about the whole place. We felt so
uncomfortable, we abandoned the idea altogether and went back on the road.
Not having much else to do, we decided to go to Haverfordwest
Castle and Museum which was small and sweet, and we actually saw a photo of
Elizabeth’s sister Margaret in there with the Haverfordwest Choir! So in a sense, we did see her hehe!
After that, we stumbled upon Scolton Country Park and
Museum. I say stumbled upon, we had seen
brown tourist signs for it all the time we had been staying here, and it wasn’t
far from our cottage so we thought we would give it a try. The Museum was quite nice, and had traditional
things showing a simple Welsh life, a typical front room of a house, shops
etc. There was also a balcony level
which was mostly geared up for kids, but of course we went up there anyway and
played with the hands on exhibits – I rather liked the harp which had no
strings, but played when you moved your hand where they should have been. It was a little hit and miss though, I tried
to pluck individual strings but I don’t think it was quite that sophisticated!
The country house was also quite small, sweet and simple –
unusual to me because I have been in so many which are so ornately
decorated. Mathew and I both said we
could have easily lived in this one as the rooms were nice and big, there was
plenty of light and very little fuss about the place! Somehow I doubt we would have been able to
have bought the place for £3,000 which was what it was originally bought
for....!
Finally we got back to the cottage and packed our bags ready
for tomorrow.
Saturday October 8th
Today we had a quiet, uneventful journey hjme from
Pembrokeshire via Bishops Castle for lunch, where we met up with a friend of
Mathew’s who had an archaeological archive to give him for a project which they
had done together a little while ago. We
got home in the afternoon and settled in with a nice cup of tea and the last of
our Welsh cakes. Lucky for us, I bought
a book with the recipe in.... :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)