Ceredigion Coast Path , Coastwalk

Aberporth → Cardigan

Hiraeth and the quay
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When I first researched this walk it looked to be mainly on roads. Since then development of the Ceredigion Coast Path has allowed walkers to get much closer to the cliffs, but for two reasons today our walk returned to the originally planned route.

A recent landslip was the cause of our first diversion, but without it we'd have missed the derelict farm at Mwnt-mawr. Here, a mile down a green lane, an abandoned farmhouse sits in a courtyard of disused barns and outhouses. The skeletal roof has lost its tiles; joists and chimneys look perilously loose. In a society that seems obsessed with home renovation it seems curious that this property, with its stunning views and isolation, remains overlooked.

After a couple of hundred metres of road we struck out across a new path again - the footpath through Pen-y-Graig farm has closed, replaced by one due north from Llwyn-ysgaw. We rejoined the Ceredigion Coast Path at Traeth Bach and stayed on the cliff-tops all the way to Foel y Mwnt. Here an isolated church sits in the shelter of a small hill which the sea is working hard to turn into an island.

So our connecting walk ended with a significant road walk after all, a mile or two through Y Ferwig and Gwbert before cutting across the fields to Cardigan. Here in the shadow of Cardigan Castle the recently redeveloped Prince Charles Quay incorporates a newly commissioned poem by Ceri Wyn Jones (roll mouse over the poem for the English):

Words like that make me wonder whether I should've saved this walk for the very end, after completing the circuit of the whole island not just Cardigan Bay.

With just a hundred metres to go we crossed the Teifi and finished at the road to St Dogmaels where I started walking ten years ago. And right there, in an old mill building below a Howies shop we found the perfect place to stop: a snug café with fresh bread, large hunks of cheese and deep bowls of soup.

Coastwalk

Ten years later

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen ... here it comes again, four times every fifteen seconds: a shaft of light sweeping across the clouds from some unseen lighthouse beyond the headland. I can only just make out the far side of the river mouth. We've driven for hours but finally we're here. Over on the opposite bank my tired eyes can just about make out the shape of the youth hostel where I spent one night, ten years ago.

Ten years ago - almost to the day - I hobbled down the steps to the Poppit Sands Youth Hostel. Feeling broken after a fifteen mile walk - my first on a National Trail - and a surprise mile and a half trudge back to the car, I sank into an armchair in the lounge, exhausted. A fellow hosteller told tales of his aborted attempts to walk the Offa's Dyke National Trail. I began to doubt whether walking was for me.

In the end I completed half of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path that week and returned for the other half three years later. After finishing the Trail in Amroth I continued round the coast and have so far reached Newport Gwent.

While Emma was living in Aberystwyth I started making my way round Cardigan Bay from the north. By the time she moved to Reading I'd walked from Pwllheli at the far end of the bay to Aberporth, about a dozen miles from where I started ten years ago.

Tomorrow we hope to plug that gap in the Welsh Coast Path by finishing the Ceredigion Coast Path, in celebration of a decade of walking round this island.

The YHA isn't open tonight so instead we're staying on the opposite shore of Afon Teifi at the Gwbert Cliff Hotel. (The hotel's the white building in the centre of this photograph I took from Poppit Sands.) It's hotel's wonderfully sited at the top of the cliffs on the east side of the Teifi estuary with the coast path running past the entrance drive.

Looking across to the hostel I'm glad we're staying here, and not in dorms on the other side of the water but I know that in ten minutes' time when my head hits the pillow my dreams will be back there, ten years ago.

Personal

Lymington

When I was awarded a Red Letter Day voucher at work Em worried that we'd have to do something dynamic with it like tank racing or white-water rafting. As it happened, there was a good choice of hotel breaks so we opted for a stay here at the Stanwell House hotel in Lymington over the Valentine's Day weekend.

When I walked into Lymington on the coastwalk the town turned out to be three miles further away than I thought. Back on the sea-wall yesterday afternoon with Emma it was clear why: the town looks just like Woodbridge with its tidal river, its marina, sailing club and footpath by the marsh downstream. But everything's scaled up a notch or two, so instead of the half mile walk from Kyson Point into Woodbridge it's three or four from Keyhaven to Lymington.

It's a lovely town to spend a few days in though, and you could do a lot worse than Stanwell House. The hotel's a warren of corridors and staircases and rooms with uneven floors. All rather indulgent.

Two days is never long enough, especially when you subtract the time taken to drive down and back but this has been just the break we needed. Today's quick boat trip to the Isle of Wight followed by meandering through the lanes of the New Forest on the way home was the perfect tonic.