Author Archives: Chris

About Chris

West Wales resident that headed East to call Cardiff home. Interested in photography, music, films, SEO, digital marketing and general geekery.

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

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We took advantage of the long Easter weekend to head West to Pembrokeshire and do a spot of walking to aid in my preparation for the 3 peaks, which is now only about 14 weeks away. We’d planned to do a small section of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path which in full runs for 186 miles from St Dogmeals in the North to Amroth in the South, and as the name suggests, follows the coast as it winds round beaches, bays and cliffs.

One of our favourite places to visit is Bosheston and the lily ponds and Broadhaven beach, so we decided to park up at Broadhaven and walk to Stackpole Quay and back along the cliff tops.

I’ve highlighted the two points in the map below. I’m unsure of the total distance as on the way to Stackpole we cut off most of the headlands, but on the way back we walked all round them. I have a feeling it was probably around 7.5 miles in total.

 

The weather was windy and cold, but dry and sunny so we’d dressed accordingly wrapping up but also donning the sunglasses for the bright sunlight (cue me looking a bit like the guy from fonejacker)

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 25

I didn’t opt to take my full SLR camera but of course had my mobile on hand to take some snaps of the walk.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 1

The first section involved walking down from the car park to Broadhaven beach and then across the beach and up the other side. This is the view back across Broadhaven once we’d crossed.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 23

One of the many highlights of the walk is Barafundle Bay, a beautiful beach which is nicely secluded and a little walk away from the nearest car park. This is the view as you approach from the Broadhaven side.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 20

And this is the view back across Barafundle Bay from the Stackpole side.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 19

As you approach the beach from the Broadhaven side you have to drop down through a small wooded section to reach the beach. First you go through a stile and then down some steps through the trees. I really liked the curved shapes of the trees and branches, I imagined them being really eerie at night with a howling wind.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 16

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 18

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 17

Once we’d reached Stackpole Quay it was time for a short stop and coffee break before turning back and retracing our steps.

On the way back I noticed quite a few of these markers all with unique numbers and labelled ‘Survey Marker’, I’m not quite sure what they’re used for, but kind of made a guess they’re used in ordnance survey mapping to calculate the lay of the land.

A close up of one of the markers.
Broadhaven to Stackpole - 15

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 14

The walk back took a lot longer as we weaved our way around the headlands and stopped to take more photos.

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 13

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 9

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 7

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 5

I also tried out a couple of panoramic photos to try and capture more of the surroundings. If you click on the images below, they’ll take you to flickr where you can view them larger to see more of the details.

A view looking toward one of the headlands.
Broadhaven to Stackpole - 12

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 8

Looking toward Broadhaven.
Broadhaven to Stackpole - 3

Broadhaven to Stackpole - 2

With all the photos done, all that was left to do was cross the beach and climb our way back up to the car park.

Thanks for reading,
Chris.

Weekend in London

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It’s been a while since I last spent any real length of time in London, but recently I happened to be staying in the city for a work related event that meant I had a weekend in London. Here’s just a couple of snapshots of my time in the city.

I’m still such a tourist in London, fascinated by all the famous sights, locations and tons of history on offer.

Not really knowing the city and hotel options too well, I stuck with what I knew and booked a Premier Inn for the weekend. The one I picked was close to Blackfriars and as I discovered on the Friday night when doing a little walkabout was just around the corner from St Paul’s Cathedral.

My evenings were free and I was travelling alone, so I’d packed my camera incase the opportunity came up for me to take a couple of photos.

Unfortunately the weather turned out to be pretty grim for the whole weekend, typically grey and wet, but I still had my mobile with me to grab a couple of touristy snapshots.

My route between the hotel and event I attended on Saturday and Sunday took me down Fleet Street past Kings College and the Savoy.

The Savoy London

Instagram photo of the Savoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the weather, I did manage to have a wander along the Southbank in the rain on Saturday night quietly content after Wales’ victory over England in the rugby a couple of hours earlier.

I walked from St Paul’s over the Millennium Bridge, passed the Tate and the OXO tower and then headed back to my hotel.

The OXO tower

The OXO tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday it was also St Patrick’s day and the crowds were out to enjoy the parade going on.

While I nipped out to grab my lunch, I got caught  up in the crowds wildly waving their flags and wearing their leprechaun hats proudly.

Crowd St Patrick's Day London

St Patrick’s Day parade around Trafalgar Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t end up taking many photos with my SLR  over the weekend, but I did manage to salvage one of St Pauls Cathedral. It’s such a great looking building with lots of architectural details and such a dominating presence.

St Paul's Cathedral

After an a short but interesting weekend it was time for me to hop on the train back to Wales.

All the trains we catch from Cardiff to London arrive in Paddington, but I still find the station amazing to look at. I think it’s something about the industrial feel to it, the architecture and atmosphere of bringing together so many different people all in one place all trying to go about their journeys.

A train waiting at the station

My train waiting to leave Paddington train station

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading,
Chris

Pen Y Fan – Take Two

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After my first successful trek to the summit of Pen Y Fan last Sunday, I decided to venture up again this weekend, with my Wife as my walking partner. The weather forecast was a little nicer than last week so I decided to pack my camera and tripod along with my other gear.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t track the walk on my phone using the Endomondo app this time as following a little accident I had with it last week, my Galaxy S2 has had to be sent off for some repairs. We did however track it on my Wife’s phone to keep a record of our time and distance.

There were loads of like minded walkers taking advantage of the warm spell of weather and when we arrived at the car park, there were only a couple of cars, but by the time we got back from our walk about midday, there wasn’t an empty space to be found.

The walk up took us around 55 minutes and although it was clear for most of the way up, just as we approached the summit, the fog rolled in to obscure the view. I guess I’ll have to keep doing the walk until I can actually see what the view is like from the top.

A little way down from the top, the view was a lot clearer and you could see trails of people worming their way up the path and the alternate loop route. As it was such a nice day and we wanted to push ourselves a little more, we decided to extend the walk to take in the loop that passes parallell with the path we’d taken and leads up to Pen Y Fan’s twin but slightly smaller peak of Corn Du.

Before heading off, I took a couple of photos with my camera. I sometimes find it a little struggle to capture the endless rolling landscape perfectly in a photo. I’ve experienced it before when I visited the Grand Canyon where the massive landscape goes on forever and it’s difficult to put it in to any sort of perspective.

I took this one looking back toward the path where you can see a few people making their way up or down to the summit. You’ll also notice the couple of spots of snow still hanging around but looking a bit dull and muddied now.

Pen Y Fan Trail

The other photo I took away from this trip is below and looks to the right of this view. The line you can see running up the middle of the middle hillside is part of the trail that leads up to Corn Du and the route we headed back on.

Beacons

In the above photo where you can see the valley between the middle hillside and the far ridge, the A470 runs. It’s one of the main routes from North to South Wales and a really nice scenic drive from Cardiff to Brecon that passes the Brecon Beacons including mountains and reservoirs.

All in all, the walk took us about 2 and half hours to do 5.5 miles, but it wasn’t too hard going and was nice to get out and about and do some more training for the 3 peaks in June.

Thanks for reading,
Chris