Cruising the coast of Gower and Pembrokeshire

June 2024

Over the last few years I’ve taken a few trips on the preserved paddle steamer, Waverley, as a trip on this historic vessel provides a lovely way of seeing the coast I have walked from a different perspective. This is another of those trips!

This time I would be cruising from Swansea, around the coast of the Gower and Pembrokeshire some of the most beautiful coast in both Wales and the UK so it promised to be a lovely trip. I was also attracted because Waverley would do a loop around Skokholm Island (which I haven’t walked around or been to) and also part around Caldey Island, which I have been too but only has around 1/3 of it’s coastline accessible.

The previous trips I’ve done have been round trips, returning to the same start point but the cruise today is a linear one, with the return journey by coach back from Milford Haven which was included in the ticket price.

Given the distance from home I opted to travel down on Friday evening after work. Hotels in Swansea seemed to be extremely expensive for some reason (possibly there was an event on) so I found a room at the Travelodge Llanelli Central for £41 for the night which I thought was pretty good. I actually stayed at this hotel when walking this part of the coast several years ago.

The journey was a bit slow, leaving at “rush hour” and later with some road works, but I made it in a little under 4 hours. Given the trip started at 8:30am the following morning I was glad I hadn’t tried to travel down on the morning, as I did last year to Clevedon.

For this trip it wasn’t possible to join Waverley independently, I assume because she was docked in Swansea docks either in a part that is not normally accessible to the public or because there was no parking nearby. Instead the operators had arranged for us to use the Fabian Way Park and Ride site for parking, to the east of the city centre. This meant a bus trip (included) to join Waverley but the plus side was it only costs £1 to park for the day. It took me about half an hour to arrive and there was already a queue to get through the barrier, so I was glad I had arrived half an hour earlier.

The buses soon arrived and I was glad it was only a short journey because the coaches (or at least, the one I was on) was clearly normally used for school journeys with extremely cramped 5 abreast seating. Fortunately the journey only took about 10 minutes so at least it wasn’t for long.

The part of the docks Waverley was docked in was not the most attractive, with a derelict building behind and crane alongside but docks often seem to be like this.

I’ve been on Waverley before so I know what to expect but this ship is now 77 years old and the only ocean going paddle steamer still in service anywhere in the world. Her engines are a triple expansion steam engine (I have no idea what means, but it said so in the leaflet) but regardless as how they work you can see the engine working, which is an impressive sight.

After all the coaches had arrived, we were ready to set off. I don’t think Waverley is the most manoeuvrable of ships and her crew are based in Scotland, so probably not familiar with the waters of this part of the coast and so for this reason I presume Waverley was originally towed away from her mooring by the pilot boat and then guided out by the Swansea pilot boat into the sea.

Swansea docks is clearly designed to be used at all states of the tide and so large lock gates are used to keep the water in the docks even at low tide, which it was. So to leave Swansea Waverley had to pass through this large lock.

The Pilot boat remained alongside.

Whilst it might not come out well in the photo, the water level out to sea was considerably lower than in the lock.

The rear lock gate was soon closed, so the water could begin to drain out of the lock.

The water soon began to drain away and I think this photo shows the height difference better!

I’ve not been though a lock on such a large vessel before and it was interesting to watch, albeit not the most scenic area as you can see! Once the water level in the lock matched the sea beyond, the lock gate opened and we could get underway.

Ahead is Mumbles Pier and Mumbles head, at the far end of Swansea Bay. You can see the weather started overcast and gloomy, but fortunately as you will see, it soon improved.

Waverley passed this part of the coast quite far out, so I have cropped the large expanse of sea and sky of some of these photos! Here is Swansea Bay with Sketty to the north and Mumbles to the south.

The Pilot boat continued alongside until we were at the mouth of the bay, before the crew that were on Waverley transferred back to the pilot boat and it returned (I presume) to the docks.

There are fine views back to Swansea too and the hills beyond.

Nearing the mouth of Swansea Bay we were soon passing Mumbles Pier and head. When I walked this part of the coast Mumbles Pier was rather sad, half derelict with the end all blocked off. I am pleased to see it has since been restored and fully re-opened.

Rounding Mumbles point we now pass Langland Bay and Caswell Bay and later the beautiful Three Cliffs Bay, sadly the three cliffs were not as distinctive in the cloudy weather.

However the weather was now rapidly improving, with some sunshine breaking through by the time we reached the adjacent Oxwich Bay.

Here is a 2 mile or so long stretch of sand, backed by a mixture of cliffs, dunes and woodland.

At the end of the bay is the rocky Oxwich point.

It was around this point we had another treat. Whilst I was standing on deck I saw movement in the water and when it happened again I saw it was a dolphin, jumping out of the water alongside Waverley. A lovely sight and I think the first time I have seen a dolphin in UK waters. Surprisingly, whilst most passengers on this side of the deck noticed  the commentator did not mention it! Perhaps he didn’t see it.

Sadly I didn’t manage to get a picture, I tried to focus the camera on the area of water it appeared at last time, only for it to appear at another part of the water and after that I didn’t see it again at all. However I was grateful to have seen it at all.

Rounding the headland, we were now at another lovely beach, Port Eynon Bay. This one though is a bit more developed with a village and caravans behind the beach.

After this beach the coast becomes more rocky for a time until we reach what was for me, the highlight when I walked the coast of Gower, Worms Head and the glorious beach of Rhossili beyond. Worms head is an unusual headland, cut off at high tide so it’s almost a tidal island really and more or less three islands joined together at low tide. I did manage to “walk” to the end of it (it was more a rock climb than a walk). Beyond it is a glorious unspoilt sandy beach that stretches for almost 3 miles with just a single white coloured house half way long it (I believe it is a holiday cottage). A stunning beach, perhaps the best in Wales. Anyway, here it is.

Sadly we didn’t go right along the shore of Rhossili beach having rounded Worms Head so I didn’t get a better view of the beach than these. The 2nd part of the cruise was around the coast of Pembrokeshire. Now that we had reached the mouth of Carmarthen Bay the route Waverley took was more or less over the mouth of the bay, not closer to the shore. So the coast was, for a time, too far away to get a good view of, which was a bit of a shame from my point of view.

However another highlight was the bird life. I believe this is a Manx Shearwater.

Sadly I couldn’t get a better photo because it was at this point I discovered the zoom lens for my camera (which I had bought with me) didn’t seem to be working any more. Having put it on the camera just refused to control it telling me there was an error communicating with the lens. Cleaning the contacts didn’t help. So I couldn’t use it and wasn’t able to get a closer up picture. However these are quite rare birds but over half the world population lives on nearby Skomer and Skokholm islands, where were heading now. I think he said it is as many as 700,000 of them live on Skomer island. An incredible number for a small island!

As we headed further out to sea around Carmathan Bay the sea became rougher. This is of course a west facing coast so rougher see coming directly from the Atlantic was reaching us. This meant the boat was swaying and moving about on deck was difficult, you had to hold onto something to move about, such was the movement of the boat. Many of the passengers started to feel sea sick. Fortunately whilst I have felt sea sick before I’ve never actually been sick and I am much less prone to it than I used to be (probably all the time I’ve spent on boats on my coast walk going to islands and so on) so I didn’t feel sick at all. As there was less to see at this point I decided to go take the opportunity to use the restaurant on board Waverley, below deck and have lunch.

I think today the choice was fish and chips, vegetarian lasagne and chips or ham and cheese lasagne and chips. I opted for the latter. Given how the galley was swaying about and the plate stack literally jumping up and down (to the occasional crash from the kitchen) I suspect it was a challenge to produce anything! Still it didn’t put me off my food even though it did others (particularly a child that sat nearby!). I enjoyed it anyway and after lunch, returning to deck I saw that at least some of those feeling sea sick had … shall we say not improved and left some “deposits” around various parts of the decks. I didn’t think about braving the toilets at this point!

Still now we were approaching the coast of Pembrokeshire, a National Park. This meant the sea was becoming calmer and so the movement of the boat reduced. Our first call was Caldey Island.

The island is still owned by the monastery that is on the island, along with a number of monks that live there. It is open to the public however, at least in the summer (except on Sunday) with regular boats over from nearby Tenby. I did get there and it was a lovely island but sadly only around 1/3 of the coast is accessible to walk. So it was great to be able to see all of it from Waverley as she made a trip right around the coast of this lovely island.

As well as rocky cliffs and a lighthouse it has a lovely sandy beach.

On the landward side is the pretty town of Tenby.

For some reason, as you can see above, it was mostly cloudy inland, but in the other direction more or less unbroken blue sky! Tenby is very pretty with its’ colourful buildings even if they are not so visible without the sun shining on them. Waverley does sometimes dock at Tenby and had done earlier in the week but the crew explained that it’s pretty limited because Waverley can only dock for around half an hour at high tide due to the shallowness of the water, which limits the sailing opportunity’s from the town so today we would not be docking.

Still many of the tours boats had taken groups out from Tenby for a closer look at Waverley so there was plenty of people waving and to wave back at!

At the western end of Caldey Island is an even smaller island, St Margaret’s Island, which had the ruins of a building on the top. Sadly the Ordnance Survey map doesn’t say what they were.

Beyond Tenby is another lovely sandy beach, Penally.

Beyond this the coast became more rocky and rugged again, passing Manorbier and Freshwater East.

This was lovely, running close by to the cliffs and viewing the lovely cliffs I had walked along the top of.

Soon we are approaching the Stackpole Estate and St Govan’s Head. The coast beyond this, sadly, is part of a large firing range and inaccessible to the public so the coast path has to divert inland around this (I did read that actually there are occasional periods when you can walk in this range, so something to come back for perhaps). Fortunately when the range is not in use, as it wasn’t today, boats can run close to the shore, so I got to see this bit of coast I wasn’t able to walk.

What a lovely bit of coast it is too, with many caves visible at the base of the cliffs.

Apologies for so many photos but it really was a terrific part of the coast and we got lovely views from the boat. Perhaps my favourite part of the whole day! Rounding the corner there is a lovely sandy beach at Brownslade Burrows, but sadly too also out of bounds.

Behind it now the many chimneys of nearby Milford Haven were visible behind, an odd mix of lovely beach and heavy industry!

Although Milford Haven was the ultimate destination for the trip today fortunately we were not finished quite yet and were now heading further out to Skomer and Skokholm Islands.

We passed the mouth of Milford Haven and soon reached St Ann’s Head, with it’s lighthouse and cottages perched spectacularly at the very tip of the headland.

The geology too was something I could really appreciate from here, a mixture of grey and red cliffs with lines of different colours visible in the rocks. Quite stunning.

Next we headed for Skokholm Island. (Apologies if it happens, my computer keeps wanting to correct this to “Stockholm”).

The island has, since 2006, been owned by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. It is another island I have not been able to walk around, so I was keen to be a blue to take a closer look. The reason for this is that whilst it IS possible to visit the island it isn’t possible to do so for a day trip. You must stay for several days and this makes going there expensive and time consuming. Something else to come back for, I hope!

Much of the cliffs of the island were a very dark black stone (which the camera struggled with against the bright sky, making them look pitch black on some of my photos).

From the north side of Skokholm we also had fine views of neighbouring Skomer Island, which I have visited (twice) and saw a lot of puffins there on both occasions and soon I was able to spot one flying.

Anyway we now went in closer to the coast of Skokholm.

Again it is an impressive rocky and rugged coastline.

At it’s western end is an impressive lighthouse, below the rugged cliffs.

As you can see the other side of the island has lighter cliffs, with bands of different coloured rock (mostly grey and red) instead.

Sadly, having rounded Skokholm Island the trip was nearing and end as we headed back towards Milford Haven to head up this estuary. The commentator told us that we would again have a pilot boat to accompany us into port and that it would be with us in about 20 minutes before looking out and correcting himself that it was just approaching!

The pilot boat soon came alongside and I am sure was in radio contact with the bridge on Waverley. The pilots that left at Swansea alighted on the move (though I didn’t manage to get a photo) and the reverse was true here, that two members of staff from the pilot boat wanted to board Waverley to assist coming into port. The procedure for them getting on board looked pretty sketchy to me, but was fun to watch. I suppose they do this every day but it looks quite dangerous!

I managed to get a video of them boarding so here it is.

Fortunately now safely on board  they headed up to the bridge (out of bounds for the passengers of course) to help navigate Waverley into Milford Haven.

Now with the pilots aboard, the pilot boat moved further away to run alongside Waverley.

From the back there was a fine view back to Skomer Island.

We soon passed an Irish Ferries vessel operating a sevice from nearby Pembroke Dock over to Rosslare in Ireland.

We passed St Ann’s head again.

Then soon heading up Milford Haven to the town of the same name, passing increasing amounts of heavy industry.

Soon the town itself was coming into sight.

Inside is a window to the paddle wheel. Now the engine had slowed you could see it (normally there is so much water sloshing past it you can’t see anything).

Now approaching the quay the trip was nearly over.

Now the quay was in site, along with the 5 coaches to take us all back to Swansea.

With he tide quite far out the top of the quay was actually quite high off the ground so it took the crew quite a while to get all the gang planks in place and at a suitable height, which involves throwing ropes to people on the quay to pull them up. Quite an involved process.

When planning this trip I had considered travelling to Wales by train, it was just possible but slower and more expensive than driving and the trip starting from the park and ride also made that less convenient. However when I checked the last possible train that would get me home that day would depart around 45 minutes after Waverley arrived. But I needed to get off the boat and walk to the station to and if Waverley was running late (not unusual, I’ve heard it described as running “to Waverley time”) it would be quite stressful as if I missed the train I’d have to pay for a hotel overnight (and possibly a new train ticket), so this is why I opted to drive in the end. Hence I now joined the coach for the trip back to the park and ride in Swansea to retrieve my car and drive home.

The journey back took around 1 hour 45 minutes. Fortunately the coach I got on this time, though full, was 4 abreast seating not 5 so considerably more comfortable. This was longer than I expected but the driver told us he would have to avoid going through Swansea due to a number of road closures in place for some sort of event (I suspect this is why the hotels there were all so expensive), though it didn’t bother me and in fact we arrived a few minutes before the advertised time when I booked of 18:15, so it was no problem.

It took about 20 minutes to get out of the car park however. But after that I had a good journey back home fortunately, with no real hold ups but I had to take a slightly different route (via the A34, A303 and M3) to avoid a section of the M4 that was closed overnight near Reading, but fortunately I was aware of it before I got to the closed bit!

All in all this was another really lovely trip. The trip cost £56. That might sound a lot but given the time on board (around 7 hours) and the distance covered I thought it was pretty good value. It can’t be cheap to maintain a 77 year old steam powered boat to modern safety standards and arrange all the staff to help the docking processes at the various ports too. Waverley is certainly worked hard during the summer as after I got off, she was doing an evening trip from Milford Haven again out around Skokholm Island (as well as a full day cruise again the following day before she headed off to North Wales).

Waverley is now returning to Scotland for a couple of months before coming back south later in the year running cruises all along the south coast, from Lands End in Cornwall round to the Thames estuary, including trips along the river Dart to sail alongside the only other working paddle steamer in the UK, Kingswear Castle (which is based on the river Dart and doesn’t sail on the open seas). Waverley is sailing most days this year until the 20th October. These trips can all be booked on the website.