Not wishing to upset any Welsh reading this, but the Pembrokeshire countryside doesn’t really standout compared to other areas of the UK, but where it excels is along its coastline. This was the main reason for coming here, so with good weather forecast, we decided to have a stroll along the coastal path. We couldn’t walk too far as our 13 year old dog would be walking with us.
We parked the car in the Solva harbour carpark which was along a south facing stretch of coastline to capture the best of the sunlight, then walked west along the path. The harbour looked interesting, but when we started there was a large grey cloud covering the sun, so we thought we’d have another look on our return.
The first incline would take us to the top of the cliff – did I say we had a concern about our elderly dog? She ran up the steps and showed us youngsters up. We walked about a mile and still the sun was obscured, so we continued until we came across an amazing coastal view. We stopped and waited for the cloud to pass, but only after it dumped a rain shower on us.
This was the image we were waiting for. The shower had passed behind us, but looking around gave us this bonus image…
Hopefully you spotted the rainbow in the top right of the image. Also note that today we could use the 10 stop filter to extend the exposure to 30 seconds and blur the water as there was virtually no wind.
Moving on a little we were soon sandwiched between two views (east and west), but once again waiting for the sun to appear.
Stood on a narrow peninsular this first image (above) was facing east with a 20 second exposure, whilst the image below was taken by turning the tripod around to face west.
Being conscious of our dogs stamina we headed back. The sun was now shining on scenery we passed earlier and stopped to take this image.
Unfortunately none of the beaches had seals, so we would have to try elsewhere to get more images. So back to Solva which was now in sunshine.
We arrived back at the carpark around 2pm and headed straight into the Harbour Inn for lunch (and a pint of course).
When we left, we only had about 75 minutes before sunset, so we set off in search of more seals, but we were unsuccessful because of the high tide which apparently encourages the seals off the beach to swim and fish. The sky was covered with a high cloud layer which we hoped might light up a fiery red as the sun lowered in the sky. So we headed down to a small harbour inlet in the village of Abercastle, arriving after sunset. We waited and waited for the sky to turn red, but not this time.
Bateson's Travel log 