CYHA News

Seals and Sunsets in Pembrokeshire

Coastal Crinkles: Over the bank holiday weekend we covered about 30 miles of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, from Whitesands Bay near St.Davids, to Fishguard. Fergus' obsession with following every inch and every crinkle of the coast was obviously contagious: Trudi very nearly fell off the cliff in her eagerness to join in.

The first mile of the first day's 12 mile walk took more than an hour - fortunately we speeded up a bit after that with James setting the pace.

Snap happy: We all took lots of photos of cliffs and sea, sea and cliffs, sky and sea, etc., that will all look the same. Gerry spent a lot of time skulking in the bushes with his long lens.

Food and Drink: A weekend of high culinary expectation following DJ's email proposing the menu for the weekend (see menu below), but it was curry and chilli as usual. Robert was so full from Jim's monster curry that he had to leave his pint and return early from the pub before he exploded.

Flora and Fauna: Sunbathing at Strumble Head was punctuated by occasional walks, and seal spotting - or were the seals human spotting whilst synchronised swimming?

We were looking out for sun fish, falcons and fatty the seal, and learnt how to identify different types of flowers from not very far away (No. 1: sheeps scabius).

Some went on a trip to Ramsey island, crossing the most dangerous currents on the coast as the split-level tide flows through the "bitches", to see seabirds in huge numbers.

Beefburger Sunsets: Pwll Deri hostel is perched on the cliff top with wonderful views of the coast we'd walked. It is rightly famous for spectacular sunsets. Nicky insisted that the setting sun looked like a beefburger, but she was just back from the pub.

Dave's chilli was not served until 10pm, inspite of us being back from our walk well in time. A delay was engineered into the culinary prep so that we could all go out and marvel at the sunset from our idyllic cliff-top cottage (lots of photos that will all look the same). Chased off the chill of the evening by generous consumption of Dave's extra hot chilli sauce and Nigel's single malt..

Trudi of the Antarctic: To keep the hostels and cars dog-free, Trudi froze fully-clothed in her tent for Polly's sake. She had to borrow Clare's duvet for extra insulation from the winds.

Day trip to Ireland: We ran out of bread, couldn't find any in Wales, so had to import soda bread from Ireland - George went on a day trip to Rosslaire - and was mobbed on his return by starving peasants - actually those of us who'd followed the coast path to Fishguard and were loitering in the docks to flag down George for a lift back.

Mr Cockup: Ian went to the wrong hostel - didn't read his newsletter! DJ remembered the food crate this time - but no biscuits. James's crooked back-to-front baseball cap left him branded with a strange suntan pattern. Jim spilt coconut milk over himself one night, and sugar the next - suggested dipping him in chocolate and calling him Bounty man. Marion's cold gave her a memorably husky voice. The warden of Trefin was invisible. And so was Lorna! (she cancelled to move house).

See some more pictures of our Pembrokeshire weekend.

A Gastronomic Weekend in Pembrokeshire

Dave J's e-mail raised expectations that the weekend in Pembrokeshire was going to be a gastronomic delight worthy of three stars in the next Michelin guide. However, Friday night's evening meal was the lowpoint of the trip, some sandwiches from a certain Mr T. Esco, thanks to delays caused by a certain football match taking place in Cardiff on the Saturday. Sadly this meant that none of the drivers were able to go stag-hunting on the M4, so there was no venison for the planned entree course on Saturday night, rack of venison and asparagus in lemon sauce, and the quails eggs got broken as a result of a traffic wodge .

Saturday morning fortified by one of Dave P's excellent cooked breakfasts, a group set off to walk from Whitesands Bay back to the hostel at Trefin. An ice-cream van at Abereiddy provided a excellent brew of tea and ice cream. Unfortunately the lack of abseiling equipment and the presence of seals meant that we were unable to catch any salmon, so the escalope of fresh Scottish salmon was off the menu. An extended teatime stop at the The Sloop in Porthgain allowed one to enjoy the delights of the local brew 'Father James' . Owing to the pub stop, a decision was taken by the Executive Director (Wine) that the Chateau Latour 1962 and Krug 1982 should be kept for a later date. In view of the change of menu to an excellent Vegetable Curry, with Bombay Potato prepared by Jim, I purchased a bottle of Chateau Newcastle B.A. 2002 which complemented the flavours of the curry superbly. The raspberry coulis was another victim of the journey on Friday. The lack of a drawing room at Trefin Youth Hostel meant that the men could not retire for vintage port and Havana cigars; instead a party retired to the local for more beer or in my case an excellent Irish Coffee, made with Scottish malt whisky.

Ken Hom, the well known Chinese TV chef would have been proud of certain members of the group who enjoyed a fusion breakfast on Sunday, eating up the leftovers from Saturday night with a Dave P. cooked breakfast. Perhaps this was to fortify themselves for a days walking without any pubs or tea-shop stops and only a CYHA packed lunch for sustenance . As on Saturday the lack of any rock-climbing equipment and more seals meant that we were unable to catch the required fish for the planned menu of best black caviar on rye bread toast and roast turbot a la sauce hollandaise. To make matters worse it was a little windy so we were not able to shoot any duck for the cured duck breast with melon and ginger. The terrace at Pwll Deri provided a five star view of the sunset over the Irish Sea while enjoying a white wine aperitif. Dave J resorted to plan B and produced a mild chilli con carne, although for those who preferred it slightly hotter there were some extra chillies. Unfortunately both the Blue Nun and the Frapin Grande Champagne Cognac 1948 were both corked, so it was everybody for themselves. I and others enjoyed a bottle of Vistasur Cabernet Sauvignon Cachopoal Valley 2000.

On the return journey on Monday, I persuaded Dave J to stop at the Cheese Centre in Llangloffan where we purchased some local produce including Llangloffan chesse and a loaf of Bara Brith. They provide a edible memory of a very enjoyable weekend in Pembrokeshire - thanks to all the chefs and sous-chefs for all their work.

James Milligan

A Short Walk in Hylands Park

A huge crowd of us met up at Hylands for a quick sprint round the grounds before they locked the gates, followed by a leisurely drink or three in the Inn on the Green. An exceedingly pleasant evening - but next time we'll go somewhere that doesn't close at sunset!

Three Counties Walk Charity Walk

A team of nine of us joined Michelle in Lingfield to "Exercise for Epilepsy". Not only did we enjoy a fantastic walk through the countryside of Surrey, Kent and Sussex, but we raised more than £200 for NCYPE, and we were all awarded medals for completing! (Just don't expect a medal every time you walk 10 miles!)

Book Review Evening

An interesting literary selection - Ali brought The Encyclopedia of Poo with disgusting photos, Dave's book on phone boxes told us how to identify the Mk2 version of the K6 kiosk (it's the asymmetric rear cable entry holes that give it away), and Trudi brought the wonderfully funny Desmond Olivier Dingle's Complete History of the World. ("Imagine the Earth's history as being the entire length of the M1 motorway up to the Leeds underpass at Junction 47... the dinosaurs began to lumber through the petrified swamps of the prehistoric landscape at Junction 21 and didn't finally peter out until the Moto Services at Trowell.")

First Aid

Thanks to Lynn, and to Graham from the Red Cross for giving us a chance to brush up our first aid skills. We were able to practice CPR, and putting each other in the recovery position, and also made a donation to the Red Cross to go towards new equipment.

My Marathon Debut

I'm always on the lookout for a challenge and having already done the Yorkshire three peaks challenge and the Welsh 3000's I decided I needed to do something even more challenging. So this year, on Sunday April 14^th, like Paula Radcliffe, I made my London Marathon debut.

First of all I had to find out what was involved, so I bought a book on running and joined a local running club. I soon realised that it was going to be a lot of hard work, involving running 6 days a week throughout the winter. Luckily the pretty Yorkshire countryside took my mind off the sheer mental effort of keeping up the training week after week, particularly the longer runs. Unfortunately it's rather hilly in these parts, and it's hard to run any distance without going up a hill. I thought I'd better enter a race before hand to see what was involved, so I entered a 10km race last November and a half-marathon in January, which both went well.

I stayed in a hotel in London the night before the race. The next morning started with a 6.00 breakfast so that we could leave at 7.00. We arrived in Blackheath at about 7.30 and the first thing that struck me was the sheer scale of it all. The field had rows and rows of coaches in. There were three starting points, red, blue and green. At the blue starting point there was a big row of lorries that would transport our baggage to the finishing line. There were rows and rows of portaloos and several tents that were serving tea and coffee and "sports" drinks. There was a tanoy playing Capital Radio and issuing the occasional instruction to us runners.

At the starting line we were ordered by our expected finishing times, so where I was I couldn't even see the starting line. When the race started it took several minutes before we even started moving and then when we did it was more of a slow shuffle with a few stops rather than a run. It took ten minutes before I even crossed the starting line. There were so many runners, that even once we had got going it was very hard to settle into a decent pace or to overtake.

The atmosphere was amazing. Lots of people lining the streets for the entire length of the race cheering you on. Some runners had their names on their T-shirts and the crowd would see this and shout out their names as they run by. Most of the pubs on the route had outside PA's and were playing music and issuing encouragement. There was even a group of old Pearly Queens doing some dodgy singing. All this was without doubt a great help, especially in the last few miles when everyone was feeling tired. The whole thing was well organised with water stops every mile along the course and even several showers that you could run through to cool yourself down, which was much appreciated. Crossing the finishing line was a great feeling, Slightly surreal in that I found it hard to imagine I'd just run 26.2 miles, although my legs were certainly telling me I had. Receiving my medal and then making my way back to the hotel, seeing all these other people with their medals, I felt a certain camaraderie, like I'd just joined an exclusive club. Would I ever do something this crazy again? Well I didn't think so at the time, but a week on I'm not so sure. I just know I could trim 20 minutes off my time (which by the way was 3 hours and 43 minutes) but whether I'd want to put myself through all that training again I don't know.

Tim Beagles