Pembrokeshire Adventure, Part 1

At the first forecast of sun for this past 3-day weekend, Eliot began researching campsites near St. David's, which is in the westernmost tip of Wales, surrounded by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Apparently St. David's is the smallest city in the UK with about 2,000 people and it's a very popular town for outdoorsy folks, particularly rock-climbers, surfers, etc. After an easy 2.5-hour drive on Saturday morning, we arrived in this teeny tiny and completely adorable town. The traffic along the one-way main drag crawled along as tourists in their walking hats ambled on and off the sidewalks.

We met up with an acquaintance of Eliot's (who we also saw at the Hay Book Festival) who is the director of TYF, an adventure company (and main attraction) in St. David's. He reserved us two spots for the Coastal Explorer on Sunday and then offered suggestions on what to do with the rest of our weekend. He's one of those immensely likable people -- the kind that appear to be living life to its fullest at every possible moment; the ones that make you think "I'm going to get myself a cup of coffee and then take on the day/week/month/year!" (Which is what we did! Well, for two days at least...)

Armed with our virtually life-sized map of the tiny peninsula (and our trusty GPS) we made our way to the (gasp!) campsite in Porthclais. Now, prior to this weekend, I had done "camping lite" -- one- or two-night stints and always with the certainty of a nice shower on the horizon. Despite what the magazines say about optimal hair washing frequency, I MUST wash my hair on a daily basis if I am to be seen in any sort of public forum. We had been warned by the campsite baroness that there were no toilets -- "only earth closets or the hedge" -- and cold showers for 20p. Upon hearing this earlier in the week, Eliot (bless his heart) arranged for us to shower at the TYF Eco-Hotel, but this only partially assuaged the impending doom I felt as we drove around the campsite searching for a place to pitch the tent.

There were four football-sized fields that were filled to varying degrees with tents of varying sizes. Some tents, and I am not exaggerating, were easily the size of studio apartments. After much ado, we settled at the edge of the least crowded field next to an honest-to-goodness tepee replete with dogs howling at the moon artwork. At this point, I got very quiet, thinking "WHERE IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO PEE?!?!" Well, we took a walk and found the facilities. There were in fact four toilets, two showers, and two sinks for the ladies. Granted, I would conservatively estimate that there were 500 people at this campsite, so you do the math, but I began speaking to Eliot again.

© ELA Photography

Part 2 to come...