Day 10
Cardigan to Moylgrove: 8 miles
Dedication of the day: To the good men of the local Fire Brigade
Reason: Uh, sorry.
So, today I left Ceredigion for the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. It was a gorgeously sunny day, and I could finally make out the long views in many places that I'd been missing for the last few days.
My guidebook described this section of the path as having one of the best views of the entire Wales Coast Path, but also that it was one of the most challenging hikes. In both cases, it wasn't wrong - the latter made me decide I'd halve the hike the book suggested at the one place I could - Moylgrove. Really this means Ceiwbr Bay, because Moylgrove is inland and not on the path itself, but is the one spot you can get transport to and from.
Not much happening
For 75% of the walk, I was thinking about how I would write about this walk. Really, nothing was happening, and everything was gorgeous. I was thinking how many synonyms I could possibly come up with for 'beautiful'- and it turns out I think I've already used them all.
Anyway, from start to finish, this was a jaw-dropping walk, so how about I just list the places and tell you they were all awesome - gorgeous Ceibwr Bay overlooked by a farmhouse with the best views on the planet, lovely Foel Hendre, stunning Pwllygranant, the sheer cliffs of Pen yr Afr, Cemaes Head which was largely on fire, charming views from Allt y Coed, quaint St. Dogmael's with its ancient abbey, and the long views of Poppit Sands. All in all, just stunning.
Oh, did you notice that part where I said Cemaes Head was largely on fire? Yes, as I was walking along the cliff path, I suddenly noticed smoke. Then I looked closer and a 100 foot swathe of very dry gorse was on fire, with the wind threatening to blow it into a nearby field with horses in it.
'Hmmmm,' I thought 'that's odd. I hope that's intentional. Maybe I should tell someone on the off chance that it isn't.'
And that's how, two hours later, I found myself walking down a beach road with two fire engines with full sirens rushing past me. . . Because of the remoteness of the area, the first person I saw was at a youth hostel an hour later. So I told him. He told me they do burn gorse intentionally at times, but that he'd call the fire brigade to make sure.
Having done my duty, I walked on. Then the sirens and the firetrucks and the feeling that I both hoped it was still intentionally lit and hoped it was a wildfire, the latter because I didn't want to be wasting an entire fire brigade's day on something that was supposed to happen. Also, if I was a farmer I wouldn't be happy if I'd burned gorse intentionally and then had the fire fuzz called on me.
(Un)fortunately, the man from the youth hostel drove past me, told me he'd spoken to the fire brigade and they'd said there was intentional gorse burning that day, so it wasn't an issue. I asked why there were fire trucks out then, and he told me that I'd mentioned horses and they wanted to make sure they were ok.
Sigh. When I'd mentioned horses, what I'd meant was to give directions to the fire to anyone who might care to walk all the way out there. I hadn't meant to make a bunch of firefighters go out in sweltering (and I actually mean literally sweltering, downright Mediterranean 80F degree 90% humidity) weather to bother some poor farmer who was just doing his day's work in order to check on the horses.
So, if you're reading this and you're either the local fire brigade or the farmer involved, I'm very, very sorry. What can I say, I see fire spreading out across difficult to reach cliffs with no one around and I tell someone who hopefully knows better than I do what to do about that (I would have told whoever owned the land first if I had the first clue how to figure out who that person was - I knocked on the doors I passed and no one was around).
If it helps any, I actually spent the next hour on a bench on the side of the road with my head down, trying to make sure you didn't recognize me when you drove back into town.
Sigh.
