A WELSH CLIFFHANGER
Perched above the Carmarthenshire coast, this new resort will leave you spellbound
The lush headland that tumbles down to the water has a touch of the Caribbean about it. In the distance, the rocky ridge, topped with a dab of white buildings, looks like a Greek island.
And the wide river that does a hairpin twist on its way to the sea a couple of miles away could, with a bit of imagination, be the Amazon. And yet this, beyond the glass wall of my cliffside lodge, plays out in the unlikely setting of West Wales.
Or, more precisely, a new seaside offering in Laugharne called Dylan Coastal Resort, near where the hard-drinking Under Milk Wood author Dylan Thomas lived.
It’s on the site of what used to be Laugharne Park, once a place of caravans and a few permanent units. Now there are 58 luxury lodges — all with white panelling, big sofas, gleaming kitchens. The view is everything, both from indoors and out.
The resort’s heart and soul is £7 million Milk Wood house, a contemporary creation in glass and slate. here, the infinity swimming pool has two- storey glass walls, and alongside is a whirlpool, open to the breeze. It shares the panorama with the gym and the first-floor Terrace bar and restaurant. even the spa offers pedicures, gazing over river, sea and the distant Gower Peninsula.
The Wales Coast Path passes below. North, it ambles through Milk Wood — named for its sea of snowdrops, although when I was there last week, these had been replaced by froths of white wild garlic flowers, dotted with bluebells and the strident yellow of gorse.
South, the path passes just above Thomas’s Boathouse home, now a tourist attraction, then dips down to a waterfront walkway, a favourite of fishermen. It emerges in Laugharne beneath the Norman castle, where little boats sit askew at low tide. It’s a glorious setting, immortalised in the BBC’s mystery drama Keeping Faith, starring eve Myles.
Thomas’s Birthday Walk, the poet and writer’s favourite stroll, is a wooded Victorian path over Sir John’s hill, giving high-tide access to cockle beds. Cockles and other local staples, including crab and mackerel, are on the menu at the resort’s Terrace restaurant.
There’s very little need to stray far from Laugharne. In the main street, Brown’s is a dark, cosy 18th-century hotel and bar where Thomas used to drink (and drink). And a path from around the corner heads over the hill to the cemetery, where a white wooden cross marks his final resting place. Yet one is tempted to stay in the resort itself. From morning mists blowing past the window, to the pink evening skies over the breakers out at sea, and the ebb and flow of the river, there’s always something different to marvel at. I think Thomas, armed with a glass of something, would have liked it, too.