Yes, I could have taken the car but I fancied an easy journey so instead I booked an advance ticket on the 6.50am train from Bridgend to Tenby (arrival time, 9.29am). And because I did this 5 days before travelling and because I used the Senior Railcard I bought myself as a birthday present last year, my single ticket was £6.60 instead of the on-the-day price of £20.20. If I’d taken the car, it would have cost me more than £25 in petrol and parking. So far, so incredibly clever of me, I thought. But as we all know, a smug attitude and public transport don’t go together. I got to the station at 6.40am to find the words I least wanted to see on the Arrivals board: “Pembroke Dock – Delayed”. With the sort of Zen resignation that relying on public transport brings to your inner self, I watched the board switch to and fro between “Pembroke Dock – Expected (7.10am, 7.15am, 7.18am, 7.23am, 7.28am)” and “Pembroke Dock – Delayed”. Every few minutes – in between the reminders not to smoke, use skateboards and do various other naughty things on the station premises – the words of automated announcements about the non-appearance of the 6.50am train rubbed salt in the wounds of those of us who just wanted a day out in Tenby.
At one point the loudspeaker crackled into life with the voice of an exasperated station employee: “This is for passengers awaiting the 6.50am Pembroke Dock service. The delay is because the train is currently on the platform on Cardiff Station. Unfortunately, the driver isn’t. He’s still in the depot. Transport for Wales is sorry about this and apologises to you all.” Now call me a bit of a Luddite but listening to the sound of a human reaching the end of his tether is a much more satisfying experience than hearing some tinny computer generated voice reeling off empty apologies about inconvenience caused. The train finally arrived at 7.30am and we trundled off through Swansea, Llanelli and Carmarthen eventually getting to Whitland (where the line branches) at about 9.40am. In the ideal but somewhat unrealistic world of train timetables, this should have meant that I would arrive in Tenby at about 9.55am – only 25 minutes late. This small burst of optimism was soon smothered by more unwelcome words. “Passenger announcement,” said a depressed sounding man over the Tannoy. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m sorry about this because I know how long this service has been delayed but sadly I have to inform you that we are now going to leave Whitland Station, travel about 400 metres down the track then reverse back into Whitland Station so that we’re on the other side of the platform. Then we’re going to stay here until 10.15am. This is because there’s a train heading towards us from Pembroke Dock and we’re on a single line track. I’m sorry. I really am.”
Bless. You don’t get that level of empathy from algorithms, do you?
Anyway, we eventually got to Tenby (packed to the rafters with tourists, as usual) at 10.40am. My intention was to walk to Saundersfoot on the Wales Coast Path. It was my first time to do this stretch and if you’re thinking you might want to try it, let me warn you not to bother unless you are physically fit, have knee cartilage made of rubber and you’ve got good tread on your shoes rather than a flat, shiny nothing that will have you slipping all over the place just because you’ve been too mean to buy new footwear. To deter you more, parts of the path are so steep that steps have been cut into the slope so it’s more like climbing a ladder than hiking.
I’m going to illustrate this for you by a bit of racial stereotyping but before you think I’ve gone all right wing, let me say that my observations are tempered by me doing a lot of research on early Medieval Britain at the moment. Hikers, in case you didn’t know, are a friendly bunch who pause to use conversation as a way of resetting a stressed cardio-vascular system without losing face. You can spot the locals out rambling on the Wales Coast Path because they are all descended from Yoda. They say things like “Climbing straight up, it is!” which sounds backward but is actually Welsh spoken through the medium of English; Norse folk with northern accents and doughty attitudes are generally “Aye, it’s a bit steep here,” whereas the Anglo-Saxon southerners are more easily danted: “There’s a worse bit coming up – I’d turn back now if I were you.” Then there are the Normans, with their brief “hello” and averted eyes, who don’t want to engage because they’ve never come to terms with the fact that they only ended up in charge after one bloke in a field looked up at the wrong moment.
All of this was tumbling around in my head as I tackled an uphill section that was closer to vertical than anything that I’ve done before, anywhere. It was probably about 70 steps that angled around a couple of twists and turns. By step number 53, my lungs were running red hot and begging for mercy. I stood off to the side of the path to let a blonde woman coming down the pseudo-ladder pass me. She was relishing the descent.
“It’s harder going up than coming down,” I gasped, trying for a friendly smile at the same time.
“No! No! No!” Blondey snapped back. Was that a Scandinavian accent? Who let the Vikings in? “For the lungs going up, it is nothing. For the knees coming down, that is the true pain. That is the agony. This you will find out if you ever come back to Tenby. It would be wise for you,” her finger jabbed the air in my direction, “to find another way.” She looked at me still in a state of respiratory distress and added – with unnecessary candour, I think – “an easier way.”
So I did.
PS Transport For Wales refunded my £6.60 train fare.