Walking The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path - Part 1 contd By Steve Rudd

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I had to change trains at Doncaster, Bristol Parkway and Swansea's surprisingly small station, but between Doncaster and Bristol a bungling motorist had managed to crash into a railway bridge that our train was due to pass under just outside Birmingham, so the train had to essentially do an 'emergency stop' and everyone on board had to sit it out while a rail-bridge inspector trundled along to inspect the bridge and ensure it was safe enough for trains to proceed beneath it. This delay meant I missed my on-going connection from Bristol to Swansea, which in turn made me late for the packed two-carriage affair that serves stations between Swansea and Pembroke Dock, via Tenby.

Instead of getting to Tenby for tea-time then, I didn't get there until nearly 8pm when it was already black-dark. Unlucky for me I had nowhere booked to stay, as I usually find a random campsite - which I had planned to do - by light of day. Darkness impedes tent erection, just as it does the actual task of finding a suitable campsite in the first place, so I asked the first person I saw when I got off at Tenby train station if they knew where the nearest site was. They did, and pointed me in the right direction.

When I got to the site, to the West side of Tenby and down near the golf course, the reception was shut up for the night and there was clearly no tent field on the site - just an army of static caravans. Great, I thought - just great. So now what? Well, the only viable option at that time of night with a heavy back-pack getting me down was to dart out of the site, and out of sight, and onto the golf course. You never know how far some golfers are willing to go to get their last round of the day in. I'm sure some die-hards continue into the darkness if they're almost around to the 18th hole, but it was that dark by this time that there was nobody anywhere.

I didn't have a torch, and God knows where the moon was. It was as black as nights invariably come, and there I was - stood in the rough, trying to put my thankfully small and compact tent up as quickly and quietly as possible.

It wasn't the most comfortable night I'd ever had, and when I heard a couple of men twittering away with the birds in Welsh at 6 o'clock the next morning, I thought I'd better get out of there quick before the shield of darkness exposed my cheek at having camped where I had, seemingly with no respect for Tenby Golf Course. Respect was shown though; I mean, why would I camp in the back-breaking rough (trust me, they don't call it 'the rough' for nothing), when the perfectly flat fairway was so enticing?

Anyway, I wearily dragged myself out of my sleeping bag and deconstructed my more than humble abode for the night once again in the darkness of morning, before stealthily high-tailing it out of there and into the hugely popular seaside resort of Tenby for 06.00 hours!

So this is kind of what it must be like in the army, I thought, whilst chuckling to myself thinking about the glorious insanity of what I'd just done. And to think, only now was I ready to start walking!...

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