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Adventure Travel

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Wales: Porthgain to Whitesands

This 9.7-mile segment runs from a tidy harbor village to a vast beach, and ends only two road miles from a don’t-miss sixth-century church and museum in St. Davids.

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From Porthgain’s stone piers, head south to the secluded beach of Traethllyfn, where seals often bask on the black sand. Continuing past the tiny village of Abereiddy, you’ll walk between the Irish Sea and electric-green pastures where shaggy, curved-horn highland cows graze behind ancient stone fences overgrown with yellow gorse. After 6.6 miles, spot the point of St. David’s Head above Whitesands Bay, with Ramsey Island looming beyond.
-Mapped by Steve Howe

Trail Facts

  • Distance: 15.0

Waypoints

PSD001

Location: 51.94797, -5.180694

Start: Central square, Porthgain Village.

PSD002

Location: 51.949807, -5.190386

Viewpoint to Irish Sea

PSD003

Location: 51.945852, -5.196877

Viewpoint down onto black slabs, tilted into the Irish Sea.

PSD004

Location: 51.943048, -5.199194

Traethllyfn Beach

PSD005

Location: 51.940667, -5.200653

Viewpoint down over Traethllyfn Beach to cliffs of Cerrig Gwylan.

PSD006

Location: 51.939675, -5.203539

Bear left at Y-junction.

PSD007

Location: 51.937863, -5.207949

Viewpoint down onto the flooded quarry of Blue Lagoon.

PSD008

Location: 51.937221, -5.205749

Historic slate quarry blast shelters at Abereiidy.

PSD009

Location: 51.904462, -5.308137

Neolithic stone burial chamber called Coetan Arthur Dolmen, or “Arthur’s burial chamber.” Actually dates from 3,000 B.C.

PSD010

Location: 51.902911, -5.311632

Faint stone circles, ruins of Iron Age Celtic village.

PSD011

Location: 51.903848, -5.30571

Turn left at T-junction.

PSD012

Location: 51.897092, -5.294801

End: Whitesands Beach. Town of St. David’s is 2.3 miles NE.

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