Day 24
Milford Haven to Pembroke: 11.5 miles
Concern of the day: Open grate slippery cage bridges on a slope in the rain 40 feet over a road
Reason: I don't feel like I need to explain why that's a problem
This was all lovely - once
So, picking up from where I left off just outside Milford Haven, I immediately started wondering about the area's industry again. As one of the largest natural bays in the world, there's still significant beauty here - even if that beauty contains giant oil refineries and tanks.
And even today, when it was pouring rain, people were still out sailing - and the harbors were also packed with leisure boats. Some of the harbors still maintain a lot of character. It's just when you look in the wrong direction and focus exclusively on whst oil tankers look like that things go wrong.
Luckily, sort of, today that wasn't much of a problem because it was so foggy that it was hard to see across the water anyway. The first bay I started in - just down from Pill in Milford Haven, still had some waterside charm, despite my being shooed off of a front yard by a lady in a purple housecoat (she was totally in the right, I'd taken a wrong turn and apologized). Unfortunately she shooed me off saying 'I don't know why people don't understand where the path is' - and then I learned why people don't know where the path is - because it's overgrown with giant plants covered in water.
So five minutes in my feet were soaked.
I'd had P drop me off here, then drive to Neyland. He was walking the trail back the other way again (since this plan had been working so far), and would turn around once he got to me, and we'd see how far we got into Pembroke.
The part of the walk I did myself was mostly farmland away from the water, then oil tanks, and then segued into giant windmills and oil tanks. Although objectively ugly, I'm still amazed by how impressively large all this equipment is. It was kind of cool to stand under a giant windmill as it slashed through the fog. It was also interesting to read a historical placard about a 16th century dovecoat while standing right next to a giant gas pipeline.
Interestingly, it referred to the 'collapse of the Glyndwr uprising' - phrasing I don't remember ever hearing in North Wales when talking about the 'hero of the Welsh independence movement' Owain Glyndwr. Things seem rather different down here.
Anyway, of more immediate concern to me was 1. the rain 2. the grated bridge crossings that seemed to characterize this landscape and 3. how 1. and 2. combined. First I crossed over a metal enclosed bridge, which was fine. Then I came to a lengthy orange and silver bridge, that was made of steel open grate. It was very high, very wet, and parts of it were very rusty. There was a strip of wood along the left hand side clearly intended to help you walk over it (and I think to disperse your weight more broadly), but because of the wind the piece over the middle was broken off and pushed up against the back of the bridge.
So that's how I found myself 50 feet up looking down past my soaking wet feet through a slick grate at a series of oil pipes, as I inched forward while clinging with my left hand to the fencing wall (which the wind was helpfully smashing me into anyway), and trying to strategically place my feet so if the rusty bits collapsed I'd land on a support girder. When I got to the other side, I was elated. That's where I met P walking down, and I told him about the whole terrifying thing.
When he said 'I know but I've seen worse' I didn't believe him. Then we walked around a corner - and there was the same bridge, only at a 20% downward slope. So in this case, the piece of wood meant to disperse your weight was actually slicker than ice, and with the angle if you walked on it you were liable to have your feet slide out from under you and/or slide down the bridge to your death.
However, after yelling at P to not stand on the same section of grate as me for fear that it would collapse from the combined weight, we negotiated this too. And surprisingly soon we were beyond the industrial terror, in cute Hazelbeach with it's church founded in the 7th century. Unfortunately we couldn't go in because there was a wedding going on there we didn't want to crash, but the area didn't look half bad - if you don't count the giant tankers filling up across the way.
Just when you thought everything was fine - the bridges
We went fairly quickly through Neyland, since the streets were straight and easy to negotiate. After a quick detour through some woods and a ride on someone's tire swing, we found ourselves at our first giant bridge. Here was where I started singing amusing campfire songs, to take our minds off of being many many feet up, in the rain, in the wind, with traffic coming straight at us.
Of course everything turned out fine (aside from anyone ever having to hear me sing 'Hello, my name is Joe. I, work in a button factory' over and over again), and then we got to the second bridge. The second, much higher, half a mile long bridge. The bridge where when you get to the middle of it you get the full brunt of the wind, and, apparently, the skies decide that that's the right moment to open up and absolutely soak you.
We'd been thinking of going all the way over to Pembroke Castle - but after we got off the bridge, soaked to the bone despite best waterproofing efforts - we thought maybe the bus back to Neyland, then the hostel, and then Pembroke Castle tomorrow might be best.
And that's how we found ourselves getting changed out of waterproofs and eating a fine picnic lunch in a covered bus stop near Pembroke Docks. Because we're hobos now.
