Encounters with Cows

Encounters with Cows

Cycling from Fishguard to Cardiff 



Buoyed up by the memories of our successful length of Wales trip at the beginning of the summer Julia and I decided that we should end the summer the same way, with an epic cycle tour adventure. We only had a week available so crazy ideas of cross European adventures would have to wait till a later date and the search was restricted to closer to home. Then we realised that the natural sequel to a length of Wales ride was a ride the width of Wales at its widest point, happily Sustrans have a challenge route called the Celtic Trail which goes from Fishguard in the West to Chepstow in the East. We didn't want the faff of public transport both ways so we decided to leave the route at Pontypridd and head to Cardiff. Thus the route was set for our 200-mile jaunt from Fishguard to Cardiff and masses of planning and preparation ensued. (We booked the train and bought a map).

This 200-mile route is brilliant for seeing some of Wale's best coastlines. From Fishguard we headed out West to St David's, Britain's oldest city. The route then heads South through the Pembrokeshire national park to Pembroke, passing along the stunning St Bride's Bay on its way. We then headed East to Tenby and Saundersfoot where the cycle path goes through caves in the cliffs, this is pretty awesome to cycle through and makes a pleasant change to cycling up and over the cliffs! After Saundersfoot you head into Carmarthen taking in some big hills on your way and then head South out of Carmarthen up a very big hill. However once passed this its downhill or flat all the way to Port Talbot. The section between Llanelli and Port Talbot has some great traffic free cycle routes and makes for an enjoyable ride. The views from this route are for the most part fantastic but the sections through Neath and Port Talbot are a bit too built up! However, after Port Talbot you head up through the glorious Margam Country Park and then up through the Welsh Valleys into Pontypridd. This section of the route has some tough climbs but the views and scenery are worth it. After Pontypridd we took the Taff Trail into Cardiff.


This trip didn't exactly get off to the best start, we took the train from Cardiff due to arrive in Fishguard at 18:45 where we'd then have a short 2 or 3 mile ride to the campsite I'd booked for the night. However, our train hit a cow somewhere just before Fishguard. This resulted in the train breaking and us having to get a coach the rest of the way. (getting three bikes onto a coach was an adventure all of its own!) We eventually arrived at Fishguard station at about nine in the evening so it was well and truly dark by the time we were setting up the tent. That night Fishguard had 50mph plus winds, somehow our little tent survived and the next morning we set off towards St David's full of high spirits, however this 17mile ride was into a headwind which hadn't really abated from the night before! It made for some tough cycling.

Once we'd passed St David's things improved greatly and we had a great incident free ride all the way to Llanelli. We camped our second night just passed Llanelli. It rained a lot and was still raining a lot the next morning. So wet and dishevelled we made the decision to try and do the rest of the trip in one long day, this was all going to plan until somewhere in the Welsh valleys just past Bridgend Julia decided to crash her bike again. Somehow she managed to break the front brake in this crash and so she did the last half a day without a front brake, bit of a theme here!

Well I say it was incident free between St David's and Llanelli but that’s not quite true, twice we had to get off our bikes and push them into ditches/ hedges at the side of the road due to cows being herded along the road. So whilst Sustrans do make their routes as traffic free as possible they clearly don't consider cows traffic! 

This trip was another brilliant fun adventure for us with some lows it has to be admitted but there’s not much you can do about your train hitting a cow so you just have to go with it! Overall another easy to plan and cheap cycle tour.


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