Pembrokeshire

Well as you know we quite like finding dog friendly places so for Bert’s first proper holiday with us we went to explore Pembrokeshire.

Owl Farm

We stayed in Cardigan Bay in a fabulous dog friendly cottage at Owl Farm – the fact it had a hot tub was just a bonus! On our arrival there was doggy treat for both Bert and Pedro and that was the theme for the rest of the week with them getting lots of treats in shops, restaurants and pubs.

Every day we tried to do a nice walk. There were lots of areas to choose from and we tried to go to a different area each day. The Pembrokeshire coastline is made up of 186 miles and thankfully a lot of it is managed by the National Trust so were well sign posted and often circular. Our favourite walk was Dinas Island. In general the scenary everywhere was amazing but we had a really clear day and it hadn’t been too warm so everyone enjoyed it. We were quite surprised how well Bert took to the walks as he has been known to drag his feet!

Poppit Sands

I think the dogs favourite part was the beach at Poppit Sands – a huge sandy beach with lots of dunes, even when the tide is in there is still plenty of sandy beach to play on and it goes out a long way!  Poppit Sands is advertised as having dog restrictions during the summer, however the restrictions are only for a small part of the beach to the left and they are free to play on the majority of it.  We also noticed on the way in that there are signs saying the dunes are adder habitat so we kept a close eye on them, though there are wide paths to the beach if you’d rather skip going through the dunes. It is located near a village called St. Dogmaels (which also has it’s own local producers market on a Wednesday) so it can’t be bad and it was extremely dog friendly and there were miles to explore.  It is very popular with other dog walkers and horse riders but there was so much space to be off doing our own thing.

After our first visit of the week to Poppit Sands we visited the Ferry Inn in St Dogmaels for lunch, they have a great menu with lots of vegan / veggie options and is very dog friendly.  As it was a hot day all 4 of us sat out on the balcony for lunch along with at least 3 or 4 other doggie tables.

Cwym Tydu to Cwm Soden Circular Walk

The following day we decided to a circular walk that takes in some of the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastal path and we found this walk on the National Trust website, Cwm Tydu to Cwm Soden that takes you from a small bay along the cliffs with spectacular views of the scenery and back through the countryside to where you started. There is a free national trust car park though it only has limited spaces, other wise there is a private car park nearby that charges £2 for the day. It was another hot day so plenty of water, bowls, poo bags, doggie toys and treats we set off from the pebbly beach up a steep climb along the cliffs.  There are signs along this route saying there may be livestock but we didn’t encounter any and the majority of the path is fenced off from the adjoining fields.

Dog tired!

Dinas Island

We alternated our walks with Poppit Sands (we visited 3 times) as this was the closest beach to our cottage and obviously the boys loved it, also it’s very flat and we didn’t think Bert would manage too many coastal walks. So for our second coastal walk we visited the wonderful Dinas Island.  There are two walks here however we took the shorter 3 mile one (we are blaming Bert again here but it may have been too many shandies the night before!), once again we were treated to wonderful views towards Fishguard and Newport. Once again there is a free car park at the start / end of the walk which is in a small sandy cove and is well sign posted.  Also there is a dog friendly pub here called the Old Sailors and you should check out their web site for some great views of the walks and local area.

Vale of Reidol Railway & Plas Dinas

We planned a fairly lazy day the next day and decided to visit the Vale of Rheidol Railway, dogs are welcome on board and there is plenty of space for them to relax.  On arriving at the station we found we were a couple of hours too early so went in search of a short walk to entertain Pedro and Bert and found the lovely Pen Dinas walk near the beach (not that there is any sand here!), the walk went further than we had allowed time for so had to turn back, but it gave the boys a chance to play in the river before departing towards Devil’s Bridge on the steam train.

We spent an enjoyable hour there and back on the train and then went round the waterfalls themselves. There were some steep steps but thankfully we all made it round but everyone was tired afterwards and some of us slept all the way back!

Breakfast at the Castle Cafe & Cellar Bar

We don’t know much about the Castle Cafe & Cellar Bar in Cardigan, other than they have a sign up outside saying free sausages for your dog if they bring their human!

We didn’t get much choice in the matter but we were pleased with our veggie breakfast!

In general Bert and Pedro appear really happy dogs always wagging their tails but they realy seemed to enjoy their holiday and would give Pembroke a massive tail wag!