‘If you know where to look, there’s plenty of evidence of ancient worlds hidden along the Pembrokeshire coast, when the earth was quite literally unrecognisable.
Pembrokeshire is one of my favourite places on earth. There really isn’t many places where you can walk five minutes after parking your car to a cliff top and watch a pod of dolphins feeding just off shore, with the occasional grey seal looking up at you curiously.
Martin’s Haven is a small bay opposite Skomer Island where each year thousands of sea birds come to breed, including Puffins. Directly opposite Skomer near the car park is the ‘Deer Park’. Although there are no Deer here, this wild headland used to be an Iron Age fort. You even have to climb the steep fortified embankments to enter it, but obviously a little imagination helps here.
The last time I visited Martins Haven was around 7 years ago in Spring. I ambitiously tried to cycled the Pembrokeshire coastal path on a mountain bike laden with heavy panniers filled with 7 days worth of food and camera gear. I started at Broad Haven and managed to get as far as Martins Haven before my pannier rack completely snapped off my bike. It wasn’t a great start to my epic adventure. I was supposed to cycle as far as I could back to Cardiff over the course of a week, wild camping along the way. For the next day and a half I spent my time camped out in the local farmers barn trying to repair my bike and come up with a new plan. This was back when using a map was still the norm. I’d made a plan. I took the bus back to Haverfordwest and bought a new rack and set off again for 5 days hugging the coast through country lanes as far as Burry Port.
These memories flooded back to me as I walked along the path down into the small bay. However, my day dreaming quickly faded walking across the headland as I was confronted with an amazingly clear and surprisingly close-up view of Skomer Island. The weather could have easily been mistaken for Spring or early Summer. As I reached the cliff tops I saw the sea being squeezed between the island and mainland. It was in this turbulent water where I first spotted dolphins feeding in the swell. I’d never seen dolphins from the shore before and I was amazed at how effortless it had been to spot them. They were common dolphins, with their white sides flashing in the sunlight as they breached the water. I like to think they were as surprised as me at how beautiful and mild the weather was for an early February afternoon.
For the next few hours I slowly wandered along the cliff tops east towards Marloes beach. Marvelling at the spectacular Geology and jagged cliffs which I had once drawn and mapped during my A-level Geology coursework. Although, I have to admit that my Geology is on the rusty side now in comparison to back then. Despite this I stared in awe of the tilted beds which made up the cliff faces and stacks. I even spotted the ripples of ancient fossilised lake bed or beach, frozen in time. The rocks here have been uplifted and folded by the collision of continents over hundreds of millions of years.
If you know where to look, there’s plenty of evidence of ancient worlds hidden along Pembrokeshire coast, when the earth was quite literally unrecognisable. I often wonder what amazing landscapes, mountain views and sunrises existed in the billions of years of the earth’s history that have gone unseen. If I had a time machine I would certainly use it to visit the natural wonders of the earth from times when our home would have seemed completely alien to us. Geology can be a powerful tool to shift your perspective. Although no one can ever truly understand or comprehend the deep time that Geology deals with; learning about ancient worlds, animals, oceans, and extinct mountain ranges definitely helps put my life into perspective.
