Welsh Boundary Walk - Maloes to Newgale

Monday 13th June - day 55

The sun shines again! A glorious day of walking on the coastal path. It was interesting to see about half a dozen tankers at anchor in the sheltered bay off Maloes, presumably waiting their turn to moor onto the docking platforms to unload their oil via the pipework I enthused about a couple of days ago.

I met another backpacker which makes about six since I came onto the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. The odd thing is that very few backpackers I meet seem to be experienced. By that I mean that they are carrying grossly heavy loads with tents and sleeping mats looking as though they are about to fall off, and straps dangling everywhere. They also seem to continue wearing heavy warm clothing when I, who suffers the cold more than most, am walking in just a shirt and shorts. I think because they have spent three hundred pounds on a multi layered Berghouse jacket they feel that they are not creating the right image if they are not wearing it.

I forgot to mention a few days ago in the Stackpool area I saw choughs in abundance on the cliff tops. I have only seen them on the north Pembrokeshire coast before.

I had some good chat with a guy and his wife from Cheshire in the pleasant cafe at Little Haven where I dallied for some time.

I am camping at Newgale at the northern end of Newgale Sands which is a huge three kilometre sweep of golden beach which attracts the surfers, and I am eating in The Duke of Edinburgh which is also residential. I enquired if I could get breakfast but they said they didn't do breakfasts which I found difficult to believe. This place seems to be staffed by, and frequented by, a caste that resembles the characters in Little Britain; everybody seems weird in some way - perhaps I have finally flipped? Some examples: a small person looking like Bernie Ecclestone who has just come and complimented me on the way I ate my soup - "very few people do it properly these days, nice to see". This will perhaps rank as the oddest encounter of the trip. A woman wearing a black jacket and tight black trousers (Richard the Third) but with hair like Worzel Gummage. An elderly couple - the man goes to bar to ask for more lemonade in his lager - returns to find wife with head in hands, "are you having one of your moods" he asks, and then they move to another table. An elderly man on his own looking very depressed with head bent staring at a glass of lemonade which he does not appear to be drinking. There are more than this but I draw the line here. Amidst all this the hotel is presented as being reasonably
sophisticated but we are subject to a tv showing Coronation Street which nobody is watching.

Bravely, I am going to risk a dessert and hope to get out before I end up in the loony bin.

Believe it or not a guy has just walked in who is over seven feet tall. I'm off.
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