Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs for 186 miles along the coast and part of it goes from Abeireddy on to Porthgain, this is the only part of it we walked. It's said that you could walk it in one go taking about 10-15 days but the rate we walk it would take us at least double this!!

Walking along from the Blue Lagoon there is a hidden away beach, Traeth Llyfn, which has rock pools, sand and beautiful sea............and a lot of steps to get down to it!

The cliff tops were covered in butterflies - Painted Ladies, Wall, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Blues.......

I think these are all Common Blue

A rather worn out Painted Lady

A less worn out Painted Lady!

Meadow Brown

Small Copper

Gatekeeper

Peacock

Meadow Brown

......and birds - Linnets, Meadow Pipits, Wheatear, Stonechats, Gulls, Raven, Crows, Sparrows and Oystercatchers, though we heard those long before we managed to spot them.

Oystercatchers

Linnet

Meadow Pipit

Wheatear

House Sparrows

Plenty of other insects buzzed around, lots of Bees, Crickets/Grasshoppers, Shield Bugs and Beetles

Pied Hover Fly?

Meadow Grasshopper?

Field Grasshopper

Sawfly?

Hairy Shieldbug

We walked on to Porthgain - lots more steps down to it and they were having a local 5 a side tournament so it was quite busy. The lady we rented the cottage from had recommended The Shed - the local Fish and Chip shop here but in the end we weren't really in the mood for fish so decided on lunch in The Sloop Inn instead, lovely big plates of food and a nice cold drink! We got ice creams for the walk back and had to eat them quickly as it was so warm. 

I've got to say the walking is fine, I can walk for hours usually but throwing in all the steps today was painful, my poor calves!! It was all worth it though. 

The view looking away from the sea

and towards it

So our little bit of the Coastal Walk took us a good few hours and it was just beautiful. I'd love to go back to walk other parts of it some day.

Golden Acre and Adel Dam

A Sunday morning visit ended up with us spending hours wandering around, even making it out to Paul's Pond as well as the dam.

Golden Acre was full of people as usual, most of whom seem to miss the extra few yard walk to the dam.

The birds were fighting over the food

The park was full of fungi

Including the amazingly coloured Fly Agaric

We sat quite a while in the Marsh hide, watching Blue, Great & Coal Tits, Robins, Mallards, Moorhens, Chaffinch, a female Bullfinch, a Wren, squirrels and several Nuthatch. It's not often I see these birds and they were a joy to watch.

After a brief chat with one of the regulars about news of possible recent sightings of otters on the dam, which people seem dubious about for now, we headed on to the dam hide. The feeders at the side where busy and out on the water there was a couple of Teal and plenty of Black Headed Gull but not much else about.

We took a walk through the woods and spotted several Long Tailed Tits and a Treecreeper and a lot of squirrels scrabbling about in the undergrowth.

Back near the marsh hide I saw my first Redwings of season, a flock of them being very flighty through a couple of the trees, they didn't land long enough for me to grab a decent photo but I watched through the binoculars till they flew off.

At Pauls pond there was a lone Goosander and the trees in the woods on the walk there were full of Woodpigeons, they were everywhere!

Some other views from the walk