You Call That A Sea, That's Not A Sea

ST LUKE'S: So what else did I do on my weekend of fun? After taking an epic train journey, stopping in Swansea of course, that skirted the beach for about an hour, I finally arrived in a remote corner of Pembrokeshire where I was fed and accommodated by the good people at Preseli Venture. The lodge provided some lovely meals, bacon sangers for brekky, soups for lunch and curry for dinner. Importantly there was a bar attached.

The first morning was spent hiking the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, a stunning walk that snakes around the coast line at the top of some towering cliffs. On one side are fields full of sheep and on the other side was the still, shimmering (almost Mediterranean in parts), Irish Sea. The walk eventually brings you down onto a deserted beach, then it was only another twenty minutes through forest to the Lodge. Fortified by soup, I set out for my afternoon activity. Coasteering is a fancy name for playing around in the sea. Basically it involves climbing up cliffs, jumping off them, a bit of swimming and exploring sea caves. It was a lot of fun, particularly launching myself off a cliff and plunging eight or nine metres into the freezing sea (we were wearing wet suits), but it would have been even more fun if the sea had been up and there'd been a threat of banging into the rocks. Still we did get to see three seals. (Oh and I saw a badger the evening before).

That night we relaxed around the lodge, drinking and playing boardgames. The others were a motley group of posh English girls, American college students, an unintelligble lad from Shrewsbury and some gay eastend chavs.

On the Sunday morning I had free time so I hiked down to the beach taking an alternate path through the forest which took me past a cow that had expired in a little creek. Then I climbed the rocks out on the headland before braving my coldest swim ever. The entire weekend we had perfect skies, glittering seas and baking temperatures so it was nigh on impossible to not go in the water. My last session for the weekend was sea kayaking and again I was a little disappointed that the sea was so flat but the 'yaks they supplied us with were good and the route was quite interesting. It included some sea caves, some nice little passages and a little tunnel that ran for about fifteen metres underneath a small rock island.

My adventures finished it was the long journey back to London then a Tube, a train and night bus before I was home safely wrapped up in bed.