Poppit Sands to Newport

Today, the first day on the trail, we were keen with anticipation. It had rained heavily in the night, but in the morning it started off sunny... though with the sort of clouds that lloked like they would produce rain at any moment. Mrs Evans, our very obliging host at the B&B, drove us up to Poppit Sands, the start of the trail, about a 20 minute drive away. What have we got ourselves in for, I'm thinking in the car. The drive up the coast was quite a long way. Would we make it back by nightfall?

Today was supposed to be the hardest day on the trail. If we could make the journey back to Newport today, we should have no problems with the remainder of the trip... or that was the theory anyway. The weather was quite fine when we reached Poppit Sands, though the threat of rain remained. With the wind blowing strongly though, the weather, neither good nor bad, would not stick around for long.

The walk started off pretty easily. Gentle uphills on a small farm road which in turn became a footpath and passed through the fields above the farm and camp site up to Cemaes Head. Keen to make progress, we didn't hang around at the head for long, and kept along the trail. Stunning cliffs more than a hundred metres high were to our right as we made our way along the narrow path. The wind was off the ocean, so whilst there were some strong gusts, there was not much chance of being blown over the edge. Around the next bend we came to an amazing sight - way down below on the gravelly shores of Traeth y Rhydyn beach was a family of seals with several young fluffy white pups - they were difficult to see, but binoculars proved we were not imagining it. But this was not the only wildlife we saw... soon we cam across mushrooms larger than dinner plates and a toad that was seemingly unthreatened by our presence.

Shortly afterwards a rain shower christened the new gortex jacket, but it didn't last long and soon we were on our way down to Ceibwr Bay, the last road exit (and get-out option) for the day's walk. Beyond it we would have to continue all the way to Newport Sands. Which is of course what we did!

No sooner had we started off in the direction of the Witches Cauldron, a spectacular blowhole, but the second rain shower of our walk cam in. Out came the rain jackets for their second airing. This time the rain was quite heavy, so Tom started looking for shelter. There's not much of that to be found on the coast path and the best he could find was under a small footbridge crossing a stream. After 5 minutes sheltering (slightly reluctantly, not wanting to be the next victim of a flash flood and be washed over the edge of the cliff path) I emerged to check the weather and already the sun was starting to come out, so again we were on our way. This part of the walk was lovely. Lots of ups and downs, but not too difficult.

Part way along the final section of the train we came upon some tiny woolly ponies that were sitting amongst the bracken. Making good time we reached the headland above Newport Sands when Tom spied a huge seal wallowing in a pool at the base of the cliff - amazing! I hadn't seen a seal that big before! Newport Sands proved to be a lovely beach - wide and open, sun shining and few people around. If only our feet weren't so tired (we had completed 24 km walking in 7 hours), we would have spent more time walking along it. Still though, there is the trek up the hill from the village to the B&B... and then down and back again for dinner! Let's have a drink at the Pub first!