Withy Mills

We left Waterwynch for the last time, having cleared up the house and auctioned off all the leftover food items. Jason and Mark kindly volunteered to drive us to Cardiff Airport, where our pre-arranged rental car was ready for us to pick up. I say “pre-arranged car” but in fact it was a completely different car. We’d ordered “Nissan Juke or similar” but what we got was a Vauxhall Combo. That’s right, a fucking van! It was the only vehicle they had with an automatic transmission. I’ll be leaving them a very poor review.

The vehicle doesn’t come with satnav and the Bluetooth was being very temperamental, so eventually we plugged Nicola’s phone in to the USB socket, which is very inconveniently located on the screen. Then we plugged in, firstly, the directions to Caerwent, where there are some ruins of the remains of a walled Roman town, with impressive walls up to 5m high in places. Most of the rest of the town is only seen as foundations these days. We stopped off for some lunch at the Coach & Horses pub. Next, to Sainsbury’s, so we could revictual for the coming days, and then the directions to our new accommodation just outside Bath, on Withy Mills Farm. We settled in and had quiche and salad for dinner.

Roman ruins at Caerwent

The following morning we made a plan to visit the stone circles at Stanton Drew, then travel on to Glastonbury. We located the stone circles and found some signs describing them, put £2 in the honesty box, and proceeded through a gate to observe the stones in a cow-infested field. We didn’t get too close to the stones as it appeared some of the cows were calves, so may have had over-protective mothers who would merrily have trampled us. There are no facilities there so our visit was short.

England's 3rd-largest stone circle, in a field, with some cows

We then drove on to Glastonbury, and visited the abbey. As we arrived a tour was about to start, so we tagged along with that and learned all about the history of the abbey from its early establishment, St Dunstan and St Patrick and assorted other saints, all the way through to its eventual destruction during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Our guide was very professional and gave a personal touch to her stories. It lasted around ¾ of an hour, and we then wandered around a bit more, up to the pond and cloisters. We then made a plan to get some lunch, update our parking (we’d only had enough change for 2 hours’ parking initially), and then return for a choral concert at 2pm, and more wandering around, including finding the reredorter. We left in search of tea and observing all the weird shops that make up Glastonbury High Street, whilst seeking out an ordinary shop (Boots The Chemist) amongst them. The weird shops, and High St, was being increasingly populated by persons of a New Age persuasion, easily identified by their dress, scent, and hairstyles. The festival gets underway next week.

Glastonbury Abbey - ruined!

Having found a Boots and got what we needed, we headed home, only briefly impeded on a couple of occasions by farm traffic.

 

Pembroke Castle

Tenby is in the county of Pembrokeshire, which has a town called Pembroke. Nicola went to Pembroke College at Oxford, so you’d think there’d have been more of a connection between the college and the place, but sadly not. It took its name by being founded by the second Earl of Pembroke, but that’s it.

Pembroke Castle was an important fortification on the South Wales coast, and played a major part in the area’s history. We were dropped off by Kathryn and Alison, who were heading further afield to Carew Castle, and arranged to be picked up shortly after 12:00pm. We arrived around 10:15, just in time, once ticketing etc. had been sorted out, to join the first tour of the day at 10:30. Wendy, our guide, took us through the history of the castle in roughly chronological order, concentrating on the major personalities who had been at the castle, its battles and besiegements, and the history of the area. She majored on the women of Pembroke, many of whom were very wealthy, and how ownership of the castle was passed down through marriage and inheritance to different families, influential in the court of medieval England. She brought us up to date by describing the castle's decline and abandonment before being bought by the Philipps family in the early 20^th century, and whose family are still involved in the care of the castle through a charitable trust. 

Kathryn had told us that they were running late at Carew, so we did a quick walk of the walls and battlements (going the wrong way, it increasingly became clear!), before grabbing a cup of tea from the café. As we sat drinking tea we got a text from Kathryn saying they were in the car park, so we packed up and walked out, stopping only to take a picture of William Marshal’s statue, which is intended to show him with the Magna Carta, but actually looks like he’s checking his cell phone. 

In the afternoon we went out onto the beach at low tide, and had a look at some of the caves that are uncovered when the tide falls. We failed to find any smugglers’ caches, so spent the rest of the afternoon idling about.

Puffins

We were disappointed not to have seen the puffins on our trip to Caldey Island, but all was not lost. When buying our tickets, we’d seen kiosks for other boating adventures around Tenby. Some of these were fishing charters, but one was for a trip around Calder Island and neighbouring St Margaret’s Island, which is a bird sanctuary…and their advertising has puffins conspicuously featured! The kiosk was closed, so we booked online once we were back at base, and looked forward to the next morning’s adventure.

The first sailing was at 10:00, so we made a prompt start and walked into town along the coast path, arriving with 15 minutes to spare. The boat was waiting at the same pier we’d used the previous day, so we boarded and set out with around 20 or other passengers. I asked the crew whether we were likely to see puffins and she told us that, whilst nothing is guaranteed, the chances were good. Sounds like a familiar refrain from my time night-guiding at Zealandia when looking for kiwi! On the way we stopped at a navigation buoy platform which had become the favoured resting-place for two North Atlantic grey seals, and yes, they were in residence. The skipper took us up close and explained the difference between males and females, circled around the buoy so we could get some pictures, then moved on.

Round the other, cliff-faced, side of the island we came across more seals. The tide was high but ebbing, and the seals where doing a behaviour calle “bottling”, whereby they fill their lungs with air. This makes their top half lighter than the bottom half, and they bob about vertically in the water. They’re able to sleep whilst doing this. As the tide ebbed they would then get out of the water as the rocks are uncovered, and lay on the shore. One had already found a position by the time we left. About 90% of the population are females, and males will typically have a harem of several females.

We were still at Caldey Island at this point, but then headed towards St Margaret’s Island. This island was recently made rat-free, and is maintained as a reserve. The general public cannot land there, only conservation workers and researchers. The puffins are in fact quite recent arrivals, and the population is small – only four breeding pairs (they mate for life) and a total population of 20. Our skipper was explaining this in an expectation-management kind of way then started talking about the razorbills and guillemots which were there in abundance. Then a puffin flew over, and we stopped talking about them and concentrated on the puffin. Wait, isn’t that another one? And another! Yes! Six in total made up a small flotilla, bobbing about on the waves.

Eventually it was time to move on, and so we continued round the island, keeping an eye out for dolphins and porpoises which are sometimes spotted, but drawing a blank there. But never mind! We saw puffins!

 

 

 

 

Caldey Island

 Our tour guide had mentioned Caldey Island on the tour, so we decided to investigate further. We’d spotted the kiosk to get tickets to the ferry earlier, so after breakfast and yoga (Nicola, not me) we walked down into town along the coast path and strode smartly up to the kiosk, and demanded in clear ringing tones “two tickets to Caldey Island, my good man!” Or something like that. He directed us through the archway and down onto the beach where our transport would be waiting. He wasn’t wrong.

The journey over was short and uneventful, but getting onto the beach was a palaver. At low tide, the jetty doesn’t reach far enough out to sea (the tidal drop here is around 8 metres), and they have this Heath-Robinson contraption of a caged platform and tractor on caterpillar tracks to get onto the beach without getting your feet wet. There was a bit of a queue to load and unload people from waiting boats, so it took us about a further 20 minutes to get ashore.

Once there, we followed the crowd to behold a Tyrolean wonder. There is an order of monks on the island, and they live and work in this dwelling: 

We stopped at the tea shop, because it was lunchtime by this stage, then set off to explore the island. The forested lowlands are home to one of the UK’s few red squirrel populations, but we failed to spot any. We carried on up to the lighthouse, and then around the other coast of the island which is cliff faces populated by seabirds. We were on the lookout for puffins, but again they were conspicuous by their absence. We did see some North Atlantic grey seals, basking on the rocks, and also wrens, choughs, house martins, black swans, and moorhens.

We also looked into the old church, where the monks chant in the Gregorian style. We’d missed the services, however, so we watched the house martins zipping in and out, and bumblebees nesting (hiving?) in gaps in the stonework.

On our way back we went into the village shop to acquire so monk-made chocolate bars, then got onto the ferry back to town. The tide had risen by that point so we had no need of the contraption and could board from the pier. Back in town we didn’t fancy the additional 40 minute walk back to Waterwynch, so looked around for a café for a cup of tea and to arrange a taxi. By this time it was latish afternoon, and all the cafés were shut, but we found a pub instead, called the taxi firm, were told it would be 45 minutes (I think they only have one car) and drank tea and did the crossword until it arrived.

In the evening we had a catered feast where two chefs brought all their ingredients to our kitchen and prepared a Spanish fiesta, involving canapes, gazpacho, seafood paella, and peach cheesecake.

Tenby

Whilst we’d explored Tenby on foot on Saturday, we decided we wanted to know more about it; so we booked ourselves onto the Historic Tenby walking tour for Monday morning. Us, two more from our house, and six other people met our guide, Marion, at 1030 by the church, and the tour began.

It wasn’t a huge amount of walking (cf. our tour of Seville) but was so arranged that the historical timeline was followed, and dated from the first mention of Tenby in the Dark Ages, medieval times, visitations from the great and the good and not-so-good; we started in the church and found the memorial to Robert Recorde, inventor of the = sign and writer of The Urinal Of Physick. 

We talked about the building of the fort and city wall, its strategic position and natural harbour, and how the wall was modified and defended. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the town, decimated by plague, went into decline. It wasn’t until the rise of sea-bathing as a fashionable pastime at the beginning of the 19th century that the town’s fortunes were revived, and the seafront quickly became built-up with large houses which remain to this day. At some point it became fashionable to paint in pastel shades and this remains the style of the seafront: 

The introduction of a railway line further enhanced the town’s tourist trade, and nowadays Tenby is completely reliant on tourism.

One of the many features of the housing our guide pointed out is the Hanging Toilets of Tenby. In the days before indoor plumbing was the norm, a type of garderobe was attached to the side or back of some buildings, similar to those found on castle walls. Unlike the ones on castles, which simply had a hole directly over a cesspit, these hanging toilets had a pipe to take waste down. Later, they were fully plumbed in. Nowadays of course all the buildings have indoor toilets, but because of their historical importance, if there is one on the side of your building you must maintain it and cannot remove it – it has listed protection. Here’s a hanging toilet: 

So far as I can find, no-one else came up with this solution, so the Hanging Toilets of Tenby are the eighth wonder of the world.

We finished the tour conveniently close to lunchtime, so decided to try one of the many local restaurants and cafés for lunch, and settled on Plantagenet, where I had some Pembroke oysters followed by scallops.

We met up with Jonathan and Kathryn, our hosts, back at the car and then returned to Waterwynch for an evening of unbridled debauchery.

 

 

Getting Here

We’re in Tenby, at the start of our two-month-plus European adventure. How did we get here? Easy peasy. Taxi to Wellington Airport. Flight to Auckland. Flight to Singapore. Flight to London Heathrow. Collected by Nicola’s sister. Overnight in Marlow. Lift to Maidenhead station. Train to Reading. Train to Swansea. Train to Tenby. Oh, wait, not that last one.

When we arrived in Swansea we were informed there would be a rail replacement service from Carmarthen to all points further. This is an occupational hazard when travelling by train. The only trouble was when we arrived at Carmarthen, one mini-coach had been laid on for the nearer stations, and there was supposed to be another for the further stations, including Tenby. We waited. We waited some more. After a while, we consulted with station staff, and after much toing and froing it transpired that the second coach had been cancelled by the coach company, without actually informing anyone. They told us it would take another hour before they could arrange another coach, and we were better off waiting for the next Tenby train, which would actually be running. It appears trains run once about every three hours to Tenby – it’s not what you’d call a frequent service. So we waited some more, and eventually, after almost three hours, we were able to continue our journey, and arrive at Tenby. A taxi took us the final yards to our destination, Waterwynch.

This is why I hate travelling by train.

Anyway, we’re here now, and settled in, and have met all the other guests (most of whom I’ve met already, and Nicola has known for decades). The place is a former hotel, so all the rooms are ensuite and there is ample kitchen space and equipment, a bar, a full-size snooker table, and many other wonders and accoutrements including a private beach. Here’s the view: 

Not bad at all. Next, we will explore the town of Tenby…until next time.