‘I don't think you can beat this view’:
Meet the farmer and campsite proprietor with the best pitch in Pembrokeshire and hear stories from a lifetime spent in Britain’s only coastal national park.
AY, IT’S ONE of the best spots you can have here,” says Huw, his eyes roaming the sunburnished arc of Newport Sands from the bench at the bottom of his farm. “The benches make a difference you see; I don’t think anyone else gives ’em benches. Walkers come along on a rainy day, and they’ve got to sit on the wet floor… but they can sit on seats with me.”
The bench we’re seated on is the very same bench I was sat on when I first met Huw in 2013. Have a break, says a sign fixed to the backrest, which is exactly what my dad and I were doing when an all-terrain buggy pulled up in the field behind us, an excitable sheepdog in tow. A jovial Welsh farmer stepped out, pleased to see walkers enjoying the seat he’d installed at a prime spot on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path – the 186mile National Trail rollercoastering its way around the county’s shores. We got chatting and ended up staying the next two nights on his campsite.
Now 85, Huw Harries has run Ty Canol Farm for the past 50 years alongside his son Meurig. The farm is situated on Pembrokeshire’s rugged north coast, just outside the pocketsized town of Newport where the River Nevern sidles into the Irish Sea, bolstered by the rainwater streaming down the Preseli Mountains. Until 20 years ago, a dairy herd was the farm’s staple business, but these days it’s camping. Huw puts the campsite’s appeal down to its idyllic setting in Britain’s only coastal national park.
“There should be a £500 prize for the best view,” he says, gesturing to the sea. “I don’t think you could beat that… with the access to the town and everything. People come here, and some people like it and some people don’t. One chap, he’s packing up and says they couldn’t find any sand – but it was high tide you see,” chuckles Huw, who never tires of the ever-changing seascape. “It’s like television, isn’t it? Only better.”
Ty Canol’s campsite and bunk barn are open all year round (even Christmas Day). But while 21st-century campers come equipped with high-tech gadgets and comforts, Huw remembers the days of no-frills, bucket-and-spade breaks.
“The smaller the suitcase, the better the holiday,” he says. “Years ago it was only an Austin 7, a tent and a straw hat –
that’s all it was. And people enjoyed it. Now it’s ‘signal’s gone, electric’s blown.’”
Camping may have changed since Ty Canol first opened its fields to holidaymakers in the 1930s, but the main attraction hasn’t.
“Once they come here, they’ve got the beach. They haven’t got to drive or pay to park,” says Huw. “If you meet a friend in town, you can have a few litres and not have to worry about driving back. There’s plenty of things to do here, on the coast and in the town.”
Huw prefers the site when it’s quiet and campers have space to spread out.
“Too few people is no good, and too many is worse,” he says.
“It’s like, six pints is good, eight’s a problem.” Some evenings, Huw lights a fire drum in a barn where campers can shelter from the cold, and where more often than not, a bottle of Scotch is passed around and the chit-chat carries on long after nightfall.
The beach is a few minutes’ walk from the campsite, flanked on both sides by tall, wrinkly cliffs and green fields that give way to open hillsides. In a setting like this, Pembrokeshire’s notoriously unreliable weather is the backbone of campsite conversation.
“Visitors ask me, ‘what’s the weather going to be like tomorrow?’ And I tell them: between the big rock and the small rock you can see the coast of Ireland, and if you can see donkeys there, it guarantees you a month of dry weather. If you can see the sea, it’s going to rain. And if you can’t, it’s already raining.”
He’s always ready to recommend wetweather activities. His off-road buggy is a mobile tourist information post, overflowing with timetables, flyers and business cards. If it’s a good pub you’re after, Huw’s the man to ask. Keen to show me more of Newport, we pile into Huw’s buggy, and with Trixie the collie leading the way, we steer down a back lane and tear across the sands for a coffee at Parrog, the town’s old harbour.
Huw is a character about town, exchanging friendly words in Welsh with everyone he meets. Seated in the café, he tells me how Newport has changed since his youth. He bemoans how outsiders snap up holiday homes, but knows why they’re drawn here.
“I don’t think you’ll ever beat this area for somebody who wants to be down to earth. People come here and find peace. You couldn’t buy that at Harrods... and they sell everything.”
And though most tourists arrive here by car, Huw reckons walking is by far the best way to enjoy Pembrokeshire’s coast:
“People are used to travelling at 70mph. They try to do it here and they miss half the views. It takes a coastal walk. You see more that way.”