Day 097: New Quay to Borth
Distance: 29.86 miles
Ascent: 6243 feet
Weather: Sunny
Accommodation: YHA Borth
Well after a great night’s sleep, and lovely breakfast in the B&B I was ready for the off. Due to not having signal this week I had not got around to organising anything for my rest day which was scheduled for Aberystwyth. As it was last minute I decided not to faff and had decided to extend the day to Borth where there was a youth hostel, with laundry, drying room, cooking facilities so would be perfect for my rest day and not too expensive. The only issue being it was a further 6 miles from Aberystwyth which would make it a very long day about 30 miles with significant ascent.
Due to the breakfast and a bit of faffing I didn’t leave till 8:30 which was not ideal for a long day. The start of the day was fairly easy, taking me around New Quay Bay & Little Quay Bay, and it was lovely being bathed in sunshine. I soon reached Aberaeron which had a lovely little port, a great modern footbridge and lots of lovely buildings, I stopped just after the town for a little snack break.
The path continued fairly flat along the very low cliff, passing Aberarth and just shy of Llansantffraid dropped down to the beach which consisted of large pebbles so made for hard walking. Fortunately I only had to head along the beach for a couple hundred meters, before the path headed through Llansantffraid, it was very strange as there were literally dozens of kites (the birds not the toys) flying over the village and I had to ask a local why, and it turned out one local feeds them from his garden.
The path annoyingly diverted a moderate distance around a static caravan park, before after rejoining the coast the climbing proper started. This section though tough was stunning and on reaching the summit of the third peak Aberystwyth appeared below me. This was a welcome sight though the path had an incredibly steep decline down to it, fortunately with the sun today the path had dried out a certain amount so even though it was slippery it was not too bad.
Aberystwyth was more picturesque than I was expecting especially from the side I entered, and with it being a stunningly sunny Sunday evening already gone 5:30 there were many people enjoying a pint in the seafront bars. I would have loved to stop and join them but I still had at least 6 miles to go.
There is a cliff railway that climbs up the cliff on the eastern side of Aberystwyth and for good reason, as walking up it was steep and after having walked 25 miles already it was incredibly knackering and I got a proper sweat on. The path from here on was absolutely stunning, apart from the static caravan park at Clarach Bay, and though there were a few climbs unlike yesterday my body seemed happy enough to climb up them even if it was tired.
There was a slightly embarrassing moment when a trail runner who I hadn’t heard approaching from behind obviously went for an overtake but I must have shifted sideways a bit because he ran straight into the back of me and I don’t know how we both stayed on out feet, but we both fortunately saw the funny side of it.
My body let me know on the last climb up to the war memorial that enough was enough, but fortunately Borth was now directly below me and actually I started to relax a bit to early on entering Borth, as even though Borth is not big it is long and thin and the hostel was actually still a mile away.
So, a long but thoroughly enjoyable day. Now a busy rest day, trying to catch up on 4 diaries, get the weekly (this time will be fortnightly) blog done, and be more in control next week as though this week went fairly smoothly it wasn’t planned as detailed as I normally like.
