Day four

I know I'm working through my trip slowly... it somehow keeps it with me longer. I don't know when I'll ever get a trip like that again...

So on the 4th day (my 3rd day in Wales) Maggie and I set off for a bit of a cliff top walk. We walked out of the town- the Carns were visible over the top of the hedgerows.

Our first stop- Maggie's house. This is the house that she always wanted to live in as a child. It sits up on the hill by a little inlet (where the river by the Cathedral comes out to the sea) at Porthclais- and I can totally both understand why she fell in love with it and see her there at some point. There it is- up on the hill.

And here's the view from the front garden...
We walked up around the other side of the inlet and this is looking back at the house, which has been expanded since Maggie was a child.
From there we walked around the cliffs. The day was overcast and the sea, rather than being the bright blue of the day before, was more slatey green and, in my mind, the right colour. Of course, as I was playing with my camera, you can't see that...
The coast is so rugged. The waves come in with such force that I felt slightly giddy in the stomach when I looked down over the cliffs.
And look where these lucky people decided to put up a tent- gorgeous. As long as you didn't stumble around in the middle of the night looking for the loo.

While we were walking around we could see a group of "rock hoppers" (my word as I can't remember the real name). People in wetsuits and helmets who go around the coast in the sea, using the rocks as giant"stepping stones"; clambering up on to the rocks then jumping into the sea again, swimming to the next one. I was rather in awe of them as the swell was rough and the rocks looked sharp and slippery.
Oh, and this is one I took for the kids. Blue grass. It really was quite BLUE. There was a recent Doctor Who episode, The Hungry Earth, which featured blue grass in Wales. I thought it was made up until I saw it for real. Maggie remembers sitting amongst the tufts of grass (it was really springy) as a child.
We finally got around the coast and went down to Caerfai beach where the purple rocks that built part of the Cathedral come from. I didn't actually take any photos on the beach, but we enjoyed watching skippity dogs racing around after balls, and some brave people in the water.

We could have just walked home from there, but we were having such a nice time that we decided to continue and walk around to Solva. That turned a smallish walk into about a 9 mile walk- up and down the cliff tops. By the time we arrived in Solva we were really hungry, but struggled to to find lunch (a familiar problem). Eventually though, we ate and then caught the bus home.
This photo was taken as we were walking back through the village- see the cat in the middle of the square on the steps just sunning himself. (Note the purple rocks.)