A Weekend in Pembrokeshire

A mere ninety minute drive takes us from the suburbs of Cardiff to the far west of Wales, specifically the county of Pembrokeshire.  Designed to be the least golfy portion of our journey, it turned out to be even less golfy than planned, but more on that in a bit.

The main attraction here is the ancient walled city of Tenby.... As per Wikipedia:

Tenby (Welsh: Dinbych-y-pysgod, meaning fortlet of the fish) is a walled seaside town in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, on the western side of Carmarthen Bay, and the name for the local government community of Tenby. 

Notable features of Tenby include 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of sandy beaches; the 13th century medieval town walls, including the Five Arches barbican gatehouse; the 15th century St. Mary's Church; the Tudor Merchant's House (National Trust); Tenby Museum and Art Gallery; and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, part of Wales' only coastal National Park. Boats sail from Tenby's harbour to the offshore monastic Caldey Island, while St Catherine's Islandis a tidal island.

Our travel agent, your humble correspondent, has placed us in the adjoining town of Penally, in an old abbey that includes ruins dating back as far as the 6th century.  Or perhaps I just made that last bit up....

We arrive midday, before housekeeping has our room prepared, greeted by Lizzie who had taken our booking.  We both remember the conversation well, because when I told her my given name, she instead heard "God."  So there, Lizzie shows us the entry in their guest registry, Friday August 18th, dare I say in the year of our Lord 2017, is scheduled the arrival of our Savior.   Well, not my savior, but funny all the same.....  However, I did think that a security deposit from the Lord was an unnecessary precaution.  I've got more, but we'll move on...

Lizzie suggested a walk down to the beach, and I wish I could do the instructions justice.  It began with a shortcut along the outer wall of the church cemetery:

Then along the main road through town, hugging the stone wall for safety, through several cattle gates and over railroad tracks to the links and the sea.

Incongruously, right off the public access path is a military firing range, and it is very much live at this time.  A female drill sergeant is putting her troops through close quarter drills, and one can only hope that these won't be the front line troops when the Russians come through the Chunnel, as they make F-Troop look like Seal Team Six.

We then head into Tenby to see the sights and have an early dinner.  In addition to the walled city, Tenby's buildings are mostly in a wide range of pastels:

It's quite the lovely place, though the lashing rain makes it seem more like February:

Saturday morning begins with a lovely breaky at this rather cozy nook:

We've made plans to play Tenby Golf Club in the afternoon, and take a leisurely drive along to waters edge towards Manobier Castle.  I love the signage, though find it hard to imagine such a pair of shoes anywhere in Wales:

The bridge was the least of it....

The carpark dates only to the 15th century, and I'll confess that I don't know the name of this church visible from the castle.

If you were with us for the London portion of the travelogue, you should know that Kevin's lineage is of Welsh coal miners, so you won't be surprised that we've brought him home:

It's back home to prepare for golf, but as always the narrative follows the arc of the photographs.  Our home for the three nights is Penally Abbey, and these are the oldest ruins on its property:

It's best if one thinks of the Adirondack chairs as ornamental, as they'll rarely, if ever, dry out.

For those of you that have concluded that I'm a paid shill for the Welsh Travel Bureau, you'll especially enjoy what comes next.  The head professional did warn us that there were two competitions out ahead of us, an inter-club match as well as their monthly medal, the latter a Stableford that, as we discussed last week, was developed at Wallasey Glamorganshire.  Just checking whether Roger is following our progress....

We had a beautiful day, but with the strongest winds we've yet seen on this trip.  Knowing the prevalence of blind shots, I took the precaution of throwing two additional sleeves of golf balls into the bag.

Here's a brief synopsis of our conversation with the club's head professional before heading out:

Pro:  Have you played Tenby before?

Me: No, it's our maiden voyage.

Pro:  Our members would say that there are no blind shots.

Me: Your members would be wrong.

Pro: Quite.  But in this strong wind and it being your first round here, you might perhaps be best served not focusing on your scorecard.

Me:  That sounds like good advice.  All the same, would you have a pencil?

But our day was a classic tale of hubris, as the first hole was a mere 450 yards straight into the strong winds.  After fanning my tee shot to the right, I sensibly punch a 4-iron up the fairway to about 85-yards, and popped a wedge to 6-feet.  A four on a hole that considered a Par-six, followed by two great swings and an easy par on the second.  The third turns back to the clubhouse and should have been child's play, so naturally I played it as a child of five would, losing two balls off the tee.  

Now, we did think they were giving some mixed signals:

The pity is that it's a worthy links, the oldest in Wales, dating back to 1888.  James Braid laid out the current course in the early years of the twentieth century, and it's a beautiful and challenging links with no shortage of great vistas:

The dark building in the middle of this frame was our hotel:

The high point was the ninth tee box, with views of the see and all the way back to Tenby:

And of the ninth hole itself:

However, when we arrived at the ninth tee we were the fourth group there....  I played that hole, but then we picked up and dragged our caddies home.  

Sunday began as a dreary day, and from there deteriorated substantially.  We drove back towards Carmethen and on to St, Clears to see the Dylan Thomas Boathouse.  This small house is where Thomas lived for four of his most productive years with his family, most notably where he wrote Under Milkwood.

It's very much a place where Kevin will feel at home:

Theresa created a little makeshift shrine using one of Thomas' most famous works about his dying father:

After an early dinner, we took one last walk to the fog-shrouded beach.  Visibility off the 8th tee was not optimal:

Not surprisingly, we had the beach to ourselves:

And now we head North for the last stop of our journey.