Walking the Wales Coast Path - Pembrokeshire - Saundersfoot to Tenby
I seem to be favouring the Pembrokeshire section of the Wales coast path at the moment, and so when making my choice for where to go next Saundersfoot to Tenby won out. I realised that I only had 3 more walks to complete to be able to say I have done the 25 mile stretch from Amroth all the way to St Govan’s, so I had some extra motivation to get this section walked. It’s still not even close to the whole of Pembrokeshire, but I know it will feel good to have that unbroken line drawn in on my map.
Beautiful Tenby.
I was walking solo this time, so I decided to walk there and back. It ended up being roughly 10 miles in total, as I did walk into and around Tenby a little too. But the route one way, to north beach in Tenby, is just over 4 miles. I can see why, in hindsight, the guide book suggests you get the bus back, but with covid it’s not so simple these days. The walk does involve a lot of uphill and downhill sections, which are very steep in places, but for the most part you are walking through lovely cliff top woodland, which on this particular day in April were covered in bluebells, which was a real treat.
The route.
Lovely bluebells in the woods.
I think if I was going to do the walk again, and just go one way, I would pick Tenby to Saundersfoot, as it did feel like there were less uphill sections on the way back. However, having said that there is one particular set of steps in the woods you have to climb going this way which felt endless and I wouldn’t want to repeat in a hurry. The benefit of going from Saundersfoot to Tenby however, is that from about mile 2, you have the most amazing view of Tenby harbour in the distance for the rest of the walk, and that was really something to behold. So either direction you are going to have an amazing walk.
Tenby coming into view.
Despite the relatively short distance in miles, I did think that I wouldn’t want to do this walk with my children, as it did feel long, and with the steeper sections their complaints would be plentiful. But that might just be my kids!
One highlight of the walk was getting to see Monkstone beach. I made the mistake of not taking the short detour down the the beach on my way to Tenby, telling myself I’d pop down on the way back if there was time, but inevitably by then my legs were tiring and, honestly, I couldn’t face another hill! However, the views looking over it from the coastal path were incredible, and it was lovely to see a beach that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access very easily as there are no roads to it.
Looking down towards Monkstone beach.
On arriving in Tenby I diverged from the path to walk across north beach instead, which was really lovely. Then up through the harbour to find toilets and buy a second lunch as I was hungry and had already eaten my packed lunch! I did walk round to the lifeboat station in the hopes that Wally the Walrus might be there, but sadly he was not on this occasion. Maybe when I tackle the next section of Manorbier to Tenby he will be there to greet me!
North beach.
Stormy skies over South beach.
I have downloaded the coastal path passports for each section, and I am very much enjoying being able to tick the box when a stretch is completed, but the sections aren’t always broken down into the routes I am walking, so in order to visualise my progress a little more I have took a screenshot of the map that comes in the passport documents, and very roughly drawn a line on it on my computer. I will include it at the end of each blog post going forward so you can see how I’m progressing (and how far I have to go!)
The black lines show my progress so far. Still a long way to go.
