Day 20
Little Haven to Marloes: 7.5 miles
Thought of the Day: Wow it's windy
Reason: It was pretty windy
The Backstory
So I'm currently fairly behind what minimal schedule I have. Although I'd always intended to go slow through St. David's, yesterday I decided to not go out. I'd heard it was going to rain, but rain is one thing and a storm is another. When I woke up and the trees were blowing sideways in gale force wind being pounded with a torrential downpour, I thought I could stay in one more day.
So I spent my last day in St. Davids in my AirBnB and having lunch in the local pub - where everyone else had also decided to go because there's no place to go in St. David's in the rain. In any case the fact that I got entirely soaked in the 5 minute walk to the pub seemed to justify my decision to not go out.
Without a Home
So P was coming to get me this morning from Aberdyfi to go to the next spot. He'd looked up campsites to go to, so the plan was to walk from St. David's to Martin's Haven, and then go to set up the tent. Of course that's not what happened.
First, I decided we needed to go to the Solva Woolen Mill, which I hadn't gone to because it was a hike in itself. We visited, did a little shopping, saw the cat and the water wheel and moved on.
Second, we decided to go back to the Druidstone Hotel for coffee. Having had to back up at least 5 times to let other cars through on the narrow roads, and once having to pull into a driveway for the local bus, it took a little while to get there. Once we did, the garden was just as beautiful - but the west facing building was facing an onslaught of wind - so we didn't dare sit out in front, as it was well and truly being pounded by the gale.
Coffee finished, P looked at the weather and it said it was going to not let up in the wind department, and it was going to rain again, so maybe we should rethink the tent. Since I had given him the accommodation job a week ago, I really didn't care where we were staying, and so looked at my map and decided I could hike from Little Haven to St. Bride's by myself, and in the interim he could find a place to stay, meet me at St. Bride's and we could continue on.
Of course, that's not what was going to happen. I started walking, and P drove off from Little Haven. For me, the views were great, the sea was blue - but the wind was making hiking difficult. It was so forceful it was blowing me off the path. Luckily, it was blowing me away from the cliffs rather than into them, but I was expending way more energy trying to walk than usual.
Also, the paths were distinctly less pathlike than I'd usually want. The storm from the night before had clearly had an effect, and the grass and plants and flowers that normally line the path were now all over the place covering the path. It didn't so much resemble a path as a tangled field of tall weeds, and really what I could have used was a machete to cut my way through. With the wind pushing me back and trying to force my way through the grass, it was slow going.
Regardless, I made it as quickly as I could to St. Bride's occasionally taking pictures of the Atlantic waves crashing on the rocks down below. When I got there though, P hadn't found a place to stay. Something about the one B&B being booked and a website not taking a credit card on a phone.
So after a quick trip around the St. Bride's graveyard (not the ancient cyst graveyard that is slowly being eaten away by the sea, but the more modern one) I found myself not back on the trail but being driven in a car in search of a cell phone signal. I then acted as management, instructing P to call an inn we saw on a sign, then ask the person at the inn if they have rooms, then if they don't to ask them for numbers of people who might, then call them, and so on. It's like all those State Department management and leadership courses I was required to take have made me entirely indispensable to even the simplest tasks like finding a place to stay.
But I'm not bitter.
Eventually a farm stay was found in St. Ishmael's (or as I refuse to stop calling it "Call me St. Ishmael's"). Then we had to go get cash out at a post office inland in Marloes. Then we had to go drop our stuff off. Two hours later, we found ourselves back at St. Bride's, preparing to walk again. It was almost like this could have been more efficiently handled by one person while the other was doing something else.
But I'm not bitter.
So, back at St. Bride's, we continued down the trail. Because we'd gotten back so late, my original plan to walk to Martin's Haven and get the bus back to the car in St. Bride's wasn't going to work. So I decided we could walk half way, then P could walk back and get the car, and meet me in Martin's Haven.
But the wind had actually picked up. The walk - while beautiful - was more than a little difficult. There was actually one point where sea foam - at least 75 meters down, was being swept up by the wind and shot up in giant spurts above our heads to the sky. While it didn't seem dangerous all the time, it was enough of a struggle that I decided at half way that rather than P turning around, we should both continue on until we hit the exit point for Marloes - three quarters of the way to Martin's Haven, and we would probably have enough time to make the bus there.
So I made my best guess as to where to turn in, was proven right, and we found the busstop and a nearby playground with a checkers table where we amused ourselves for a little while (I won) until the bus came. Then it was back to the car, back to the farmhouse, meet the farmer's wife and tiny excited dog, then off to the local inn for dinner.
Then we came back to the farmhouse and our absolutely gigantic bedroom suite with carpeted bathroom. If you've been reading along, you'll probably notice I don't usually talk about getting back in the evening, where I'm staying in great detail. Why this time?
Well, because I just wanted some sympathy as I relate one more tiny little tidbit. Having P here meant that I had the new benefit of being able to take a nap, be woken back up, and then put together this blog post (which actually takes a while since I do all the code myself). Since I don't have a phone or other alarm on me, and since places to stay no longer seem to have alarm clocks in rooms, this is something of a luxury for me.
And that's how I find myself writing a blog post at 2 in the morning the morning before we have to get up at 6:30 am to catch a boat - when my 20 minute nap somehow turned into a 3 hour nap, and I was inexplicably not woken up.
But I. Am. Not. Bitter.
