COWS, SLUGS... AND THE JOY OF NIGHT
THERE’S a slug next to your head,’ my walking partner observed, rather too gleefully, I thought. Grouchily, I clambered upright. At just after 4am, the prospect of a slug crawling through my hair was the only thing that could have got me perpendicular from my recumbent position in a layby on the Nolton Haven to Druidston coast road in southwest Wales.
The road’s surface was gritty on my back, but 19km into a night walk along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, those few moments lying with my burning feet up on my rucksack had felt blissful – or at least the nearest I was going to get to it before enjoying a hot breakfast at our destination, still a few kilometres away at the YHA hostel at Broad Haven.
Walking the coastal path at night had been my idea. Earlier in the year at the bus stop in the Pembrokeshire village of Marloes, we’d met a man who had just walked 38km from St David’s. Guy, who was in his 60s, told us he’d wandered the beach at Newgale in the moonlight, stripped off for a swim, scoffed a midnight feast on a clifftop, and snoozed in his bivvy bag before carrying on south.
He experienced that path very differently from the way most people ever will, and I wanted to emulate his journey, if not his distance. Twenty-five kilometres would be far enough.
We set off at 10pm just above the beach at Caerfai. Once our night vision settled, the cool light lit our way enough for us not to need torches for the nearly 6.5km stretch to the village of Solva.
The wind picked up, waves roared into stony coves and sandy inlets, and the predicted showers held off. It was all going swimmingly. Then the halfmoon disappeared altogether. We were dependent on our torches to alert us to the sheer drops to our right. It got darker. We missed the path at one point and had to pick our way across a field of surprised cows.
The worst moment came at 3.10am, huddled by the bins next to Sands Cafe in Newgale. We were chilled to the bone and I somehow didn’t fancy a skinny dip. The next stretch was the hardest walking I’ve ever done.
But as narrow yellow streaks of light turned pink, then suddenly gave way to a dump of rain as we descended into Broad Haven, I felt very pleased to have met Guy and to have had, well, two-thirds of his experience walking through the highs and lows of night on the very westernmost edge of Wales.