Pembrokeshire May 2007
From ICCC
25th - 27th May 2007
<span id="People"/>
Trip Report
We were all looking forward to a good surf trip. It was also the first time in a long time (ever?) that we managed to schedule a trip on a long bank holiday weekend. And after having some super-sunny spells sat around in London, and one or two super-sunny far too dry river trips this year, surely it couldn't... rain.
Looking at the weather forecast we considered turning this into a river trip instead, but annoyingly it wasn't really raining enough to do that. So we stuck with the Pembrokeshire plan, arriving quite late at the farm campsite with our little tents pitched in a huddled behind a wall to shelter from the wind.
Next morning the sun was out! Kind of. We headed to a beach (somewhere on the south facing coast) and found some surf. It was fairly small surf, but big enough to have a lark around on, and big enough to front-loop the orange juice.
The mighty topo-duo was there providing extra entertainment as only a topo-duo can. Francine was freaked out by it, Mark got soaked by it, Rik swam from it, Harry sank with it, Sophie and Ralph mastered it (including perfect T-bone collision technique).
Rik had his water-proof camera, which allowed for some close-up (sometimes a little too close) wave photos.
Ralph surfing - Rik
| 
Harry on wave - Rik
| 
Rik fell out - Rik
| 
Harry and Francine floating - Rik
|
We stayed and surfed pretty much all day, with a break for sandwhiches, jelly-babies and beer. There was some good facilities at this beach; parking space, public toilets, and a sea-front pub which also offered hot chocolate (A master stroke of targeted water-sports-tourism product selection which welsh farmers would do well to learn from)
Back on the campsite we played frisbeefootball and fired up the BBQ. The weather had held out all day, and we'd even got spot of sun-burn, but by this point the wind was starting to pick up. We'd managed to bring the big 'canada' tent, but unfortunately we didn't bring the poles for it. d'oh! So using the minibus as a shelter, Harry managed to cook lots of meat without giving anyone food poisoning... except himself.
On Sunday we woke up to a slightly more unpleasant blustering showery outlook. It was already looking like a tea-shop day for a lot of people, but when we saw the lack of waves, it quickly became a tea-shop day for everyone. It wasn't raining too much, but in that wind, nobody fancied paddling.
After discussing various options, the activity for the day was a coastal walk. We trudged up the hill, some of us in not-quite-water-proof clothes, and got up high to get a good view of just how much surf there wasn't. Even in wind and rain, the Pembrokeshire coastline is very pretty. It was an undulating three or four mile clifftop walk leading eventually to a town with...
...another tea-shop! Actually several tea-shops. Nina was delighted (really delighted) to see one which served gluten-free food.
Back at the campsite the wind was buffeting all our little tents, and we could hardly hear ourselves to have any kind of discussion, but some kind of non-too-unanimous decision was arrived at, that we would get the hell out of there, and just drive back to London that night. We packed up camp with remarkable efficiency (possibly because we couldn't hear ourselves faff properly) and that was it. We drove back to London via the outskirts of Cardiff which strangely lacked any take-away food outlets except Chinese takeaways.
Shame we didn't manage to do more surfing, or stay for a full 3-day weekend, but mother nature was not smiling upon us. The weather was still rubbish when we got back to London, so at least she wasn't pulling her usual stunts.
...and looking at the surf pictures from Saturday, you know what? Maybe it was all worth it.
