Day 10 June 18 – Rest day
Had a very leisurely start to the day. Tidied up abit, and wrote some mock post cards, which I then printed. Sad about the demise of the post card, but can see people communicate so rapidly these days that they have gone out of fashion! Anyway job done and a few emailed (as I don’t have all my address book following my pc issues just before this holiday. Hoping to rectify that when I get home!.)
Did some food preparation and shortly after that Rhiannon and Pero arrived and a good couple of hours of chat, lunch and a walk on the beach at Freshwater east followed. Following that I chilled and contemplated route planning for the next couple of days – which needs to include a return trip to Dale to finish off the bit I haven’t done yet (though I have walked it before on a very cold day!).
Day 11 June 19 Hundleton to Angle
On the trail 24,855 steps 11.5 miles
Off the trail 3,685 steps 1.7 miles
TOTAL 28540 steps, 13.2 miles
Drove to Angle, availed myself of the facilities by the beach and then returned to a car park in the village, near the bus stop. I caught the 9:29am bus back to Hundleton, with the same driver as on Saturday. It seemed a very long way back, but tried to stay undaunted by this. I walked back to the gate post which was Saturday’s touching point and I had hatched a cunning plan.
The real route was set to go around the outside edge of a power station and another enormous refinery. I decided I really couldn’t face yet another long walk around a perimeter fence, and had hatched an inland route. It started on the road I had got to on the coast path on Saturday. I didn’t deviate from this when the path skirted off to the right. It meant about 5 miles on a very minor road (only 3 cars passed me for the entire duration). This route went up and down several times and then climbed gradually up to a cross roads. From there Angle bay came into view and the power station/refinery were also very present throughout!.#
It started well, but unfortunately there was one of the low bits that got a bit marshy and there was an enormous number of very over friendly horse flies. It was quite a steep climb, so I couldn’t really do anything other than bat them off and discourage them with my walking poles. A lady with a jack Russell also helped me by knocking them off my trousers. She was the only person I saw walking on the road. As we got to the top of the hill, the horse flies diminished, but it was a good 10 minutes of jeopardy. Sadly the lady with the dog had to go back the way we had come! I had taken the precaution of jungle formula on my legs and thicker trousers and I had too many layers on my top half to be accessible. I had suffered last year after a suspected horse fly bite. And they were nothing like as prevalent then as they were this morning!
I decided to wait to stop for coffee until I reached the shore at Angle bay, which turned out to be about 11:40. I found a concrete block to rest on and had a breather.
The walk around the bay was easy going (occasionally a bit overgrown) and consistently low, finishing with a lovely wooded bit on the edge of an estate near Angle. After a couple of false starts, I eventually found Ben Couzen’s bench for lunch via the very discrete toilet at this end of Angle. I contemplated what to do and decided to do a little more round the headland (mainly in case it turned out I had been bitten by a horse fly and would not be able to do any more if I reacted like I did last year). It was also ideal conditions and I felt I had enough in my legs to do it. It was a lovely section, looking across to the end of the Pembroke Estuary and finally came out of the end of it and back to the coast line looking across to Dale and beyond.
Stopped on a well placed bench for a breather and then in the café at the beach end of Angle for some rum and raison ice cream, after I had established a new touching point. Hope I will use if before the end of the trail (for now on Friday!).
The Adventures of Alison 