Travel: BEACHED WALES ; Neil Murray Stumbles Upon Some of Britain’s Most Glorious Sands
Life’s a beach – especially if you are heading for south Wales.
The miles of glorious, unspoilt golden sand, soaring cliff-tops with magnificent views and narrow, twisting country lanes were all a wonderful surprise to this first-time visitor – but a great delight.
Like Scotland, Wales can’t guarantee good weather but my wife and I hit it lucky and the sun shone most days.
Swansea was our first port of call and the five-mile sweep of Swansea Bay leads you to Mumbles, a Victorian seaside resort.
This area, the Gower Peninsula, was Britain’s first designated area of outstanding natural beauty.
From Southgate we walked along a cliff path with dramatic drops to view Pobbles Bay, then clambered down over rocks to reach Three Cliffs Bay, which was voted Britain’s Best Beach in a BBC poll last year.
But other beaches in the area are just as impressive, especially the massive Oxwich Bay. The most breathtaking for me though is Rhossili, which was named by one newspaper as one of the top 25 beaches in the world. There’s a stunning stretch of sand thatseems never-ending as the tide goes out.
It is overlooked on the south by cliffs with fields on one side and dramatic drops on the other. The hang-gliders who swoop and soar over the bay there have it made.
Moving round the coast into Pembrokeshire, we called at Amroth and Wiseman’s Bridge before heading to Saundersfoot, a seaside town with a busy harbour and old-fashioned shop selling traditional sweets and drinks. I couldn’t resist a bottle of dandelionand burdock.
In Tenby, our hotel overlooked the North Shore and-you’ve guessed it-another brilliant beach, one of three in the town.
Tenby is a busy, friendly place with alleys and lanes to explore, a museum and art gallery, the Silent World Aquarium and Reptile Collection and the Dinosaur Park.
From the town you can see St Catherine’s Island with its fort dating to the Napoleonic wars.
We headed out to sea to visit the fascinating island of Caldey, which has been home to monks for 1500 years.
The island’s village green is dominated by the monastery but there are also shops selling chocolate, shortbread, fudge and perfume made from the island’s gorse plants.
We just missed one of the seven daily services-the first starts at 3.15am – in one of the island’s numerous little churches, so we didn’t see a monk.
We walked across the island to Chapel Point, where the lighthouse dominates the headland.
After leaving Tenby, we drove round St Bride’s Bay, passing more bays and beaches, en route to St Davids, the smallest city in the UK.
Its 800-year-old cathedral, set in beautifully-kept grounds, is the main attraction. David, the patron saint of Wales, is said to have been born not far from the present cathedral.
There are several galleries, clothes shops and pubs to keep tourists amused but we couldn’t withstand the lure of the beach for long and, at Whitesands Bay, we were entertained by surfers frolicking in the ocean.
At nearby St Justinian, the coastal path has more dramatic cliffs with sheer drops that would give any visiting health and safety officer palpitations.
It’s also the starting point for various boat trips that could have you hunting for whales and dolphins in the Irish Sea or just calling in on the Ramsey Island nature reserve.
We opted for Thousand Islands Expeditions’ “exciting new jet boat adventure”. This took us zig-zagging across the water at high speed towards the island and in and out various deserted bays and coves under the cliffs.
We also saw various wild birds and several nursing North Atlantic grey seals.
A visit to Porthgain involved more single-track country lanes, breathtaking cliff walks and scenery, while the next day’s drive to Fishguard saw us sample delicious local sausages and cheese at the fabulous food market.
At Castell Henlys, roundhouse recreations built on the site of original Stone Age dwellings gave us a glimpse of what life was like more than 2000 years ago before we returned to the 21st century for our last stop, Cardigan.
As we gazed out over Cardigan Bay, we thought, ‘Wales, we’ll be back.’
WALES MAILFILE
For a free Pembrokeshire holiday guide, call 08705 103 103 or visit www.visit-pembrokeshire.com.
For more information on Swansea and the Gower Peninsula, log on to www.visitswanseabay.com
I LOVED the glorious beaches, especially Rhossili.
I HATED working out road signs in Welsh.
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