Thursday 15th July, Martins Haven

It was a wet and windy morning and we had wanted to see the rest of the local peninsula, so we started off heading to Castlemartin, past the Military area, the coastal road was closed as there was a live ammunition firing test under way and the red flags were flying.

When we got to Freshwater West there was a very high sea running , it was quite spectacular!

but further on at Angle bay where it faced a different direction it was much calmer , and we watched the small tankers moving out into the rather stormy open sea from the Milford Haven oil terminal.

Doubling back to Pembroke we passed over the north bound toll bridge and over the top of Milford Haven via some rather narrow roads that had been cut deep into the landscape like railway cuttings, and follwowed the headland round to Dale where there was a shingle beach,

We had hoped to get lunch here but the café looked shut and the pub had closed for good!

so on we went

St Anns head was the next port of call, but we found that the car park was over a mile for the viewpoint, and under the strong wind conditions it didn’t seem like a good idea to make the walk, so we gave this a miss

and stopped in the village of Marloes, but a look at the menu on the café wall where they wanted £19.50 each for a two course meal made us laugh, and the “Lobster Pot” pub wanted even more at £22.50!.

There was however a village store that sold quite tasty pre-packed sandwiches , they came to £3.60 for two packs of Ham Salad and Cheese Salad, and they sold some really great local ice cream for £1.25

We had the Mocha , fudge and Cherries Flavour, excellent!

on then to Martin’s Haven where there are usually boat trips to Skomer island, but not today with such a high sea running.

I left Pat happily croquetting in the car and braved the steep hill and strong gale to struggle to the view point on top of the hill and it was well worth the effort as the panoramic view were spectacular, though the amount of spray in the air rather acted and a mist to obscure distant details from the cameras.

This moth must have been making heavy work of the high wind!

This is the view over to Skomer island
And here is a long tele shot of what is described on the map as the "Pig Stone!"
This is the view looking down into the haven and St Brides Bay

Since we still had shopping to do we headed back to Pembroke leaving the supermarket just before the weather closed in and it pelted with rain, which accompanied with high wind continued until nightfall and beyond!