We Must Be Mad: Day 62: Solva to Broadhaven

Our walk today started out from Solva where we took some time to check out the lovely old buildings and shops. Once we dragged ourselves away from the shops we passed by the picturesque harbour with its lime kilns on the shore, before climbing the path up onto the southern headland and the site of another Iron Age settlement.

Main street through Lower Solva

Lime kilns along shore of Solva Harbour

We then descended to the next bay at Gwadn which is at the bottom of a valley with a cool name: St Elvis, an Irish saint who baptised St David. One of us descended a bit more ungainly than the other and ended up on their arse!

Gwadn Bay with Upper Solva in background

We carried on along the cliffs a short way before diverting inland to check out collapsed twin burial chambers. Then it was back to the path which followed along the clifftops and the promontories of Dinas Fach and Dinas Fawr.

Collapsed twin burial chambers , St Elvis Farm

Looking south towards Dinas Fawr

Secluded inlet

Looking north towards Solva

Dinas Fach

Porthmynawydd

Eventually we came to the broad sandy beach at Newgale where we stopped for some welcome refreshments and a game of pool at the Duke of Edinborough Hotel. Then seeing it was low tide we set off along the beach rather than follow the path up the cliffs at the back of the beach. This involved taking the risk that we would find a way to join the path further along. At the end of the beach we managed to scramble up the steep rock face to rejoin a section of path that was closed due to cliff fall!

Newgale Sands Beach

South end of Newgale Sands Beach

Just along the path we checked out a stubborn looking brick chimney which turned out to be a remnant of the Trefrane Colliery. This was one of a number of small collieries in the area working a coal seam that ran out under the sea. The miners could hear the waves crashing above while they worked! The colliery was only in operation six years before closing in 1905.

Chimney stack at Trefrane Colliery

Further down the coast was the even more stubborn looking Rickets Head, composed of fragile layers of crumbling rock, which seemed to be giving the bird to the sea in defiance.