Caldey and Carreg Cennen Weatherman Walking

Sea, sand and sunshine. But what's missing?

A super stroll and somewhere where they make home-made chocolate.

And that's it for today. I'm off!

Here we are in sunny west Wales for another two wonderful walks,

ONE done by the sea - in fact, surrounded by the sea,

the other up in the hills with an iconic castle as its centrepiece.

So later in the programme,

we'll be heading on a circular walk around Carreg Cennen castle

but first, we're heading for Caldey, a beautiful and very walker-friendly

little island near the Pembrokeshire seaside town of Tenby.

And what better way to start a walk than with a relaxing boat trip.

Just a 20-minute hop across the water, Caldey Island is

a popular day trip destination. Well-known for its monastery,

monks and lavender perfume, it's also a super place for a sunny stroll.

My guide around the island is Jonathan Miller whose family,

would you believe, run a chocolate factory on the island.

Jonathan and his brother Matthew grew up on Caldey

and went to primary school there.

He's now a third-year medical student and

though the family all now live on the mainland, he still returns to the island

to help with the chocolate business during his summer holidays.

Because of the low tide today,

the boat leaves from the pontoon on the beach.

At higher tides, it goes from the harbour.

-Hi, Jonathan.

-Morning, Derek. How are you doing?

-All right, thanks.

The trip takes about 20 minutes and during the height of summer,

eight or nine boats shuttle back

and forth, carrying up to 40 visitors each journey.

So what's it like for you, then, going back home?

It's quite a strange feeling, really. Obviously, Caldey has been...

You know, I've always considered it home.

But I've been coming back and forth for a long time now

obviously had to move off part-time to the mainland for school.

It closed when I was eight years old.

But it's always going to be a special place for me and I do love going home, especially on a day like today.

Well, this is my first ever visit to Caldey, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, this is gorgeous. We could be in the Caribbean.

Yeah, we certainly could. This is Priory Bay.

This is sort of low tide now but when the tide comes in,

all you can see, it covers right up to here.

So now is probably the best time to be on it.

Does it ever get busy here?

To a certain extent, but it's never heaving. It's never busy, busy.

There's always space and you'll always be able to find somewhere nice and quiet.

So here we are in sunny South Pembs,

just three miles across Caldey Sound from Tenby.

Our figure-of-eight route takes us up from the jetty past the monastery and small village,

calling in at the old priory on our way to the Lighthouse.

From there, a new extended section leads to West Beacon Point,

then back to the village and another loop around the woodland walk,

returning to the jetty before we miss the last boat back to

Tenby, having walked a peaceful and easy-going four-and-a-bit miles.

-Do many people live here, then?

-Yeah, there's a dozen or so monks full-time.

There's obviously the island community as well. They help out with certain things, running the shops

and things like that, making the chocolate.

Um, looking after guests who come to the island.

-And they live here full-time?

-Yes. Yes, the majority of them do, Yeah.

-Well, I wasn't expecting this.

-Yeah, this is the monastery.

Very striking, isn't it?

Yeah, it was designed by John Coates Carter,

supposedly a leading light of his time in the Arts and Craft movement.

The building was finished in 1913 and it wasn't actually intended to be the final monastery.

It was going to be a boys' prep school and there was going to be a much larger, grander monastery,

built through the woods. Unfortunately, the Benedictine monks at the time run out of money

and this was converted to be a full-time monastery.

It reminds me of some of the buildings you see in Portmeirion in north Wales.

As well as the abbey, the monks are well-known for their perfume

and this is the perfume shop just here.

It started off in the 1950s when they were selling bunches of sort of wild

flowers, such as lavender and gorse and it went on from there, really.

-The lavender perfume especially today is well-renowned.

-I'll have to get some for my mum.

At various points along our walk today,

we've arranged to meet some of the monks. Pleased to meet you.

First up to take us to the old priory and St Illtyd's church

is Brother David.

The Cistercian monks who live

permanently on the island have a strict daily routine,

beginning very early at 3.30am with the first prayer service of the day.

Monastic life is not a cushy number.

It was relatively recently in the 1920s that the Cistercian order

took over from the Benedictines, whose old priory and St Illtyd's church next door,

with its leaning spire, date back to the 14th century.

-It does feel very old but very beautiful as well, here.

-Yes.

This is the sanctuary of the church we are coming to now.

Amazing floor made of pebbles.

-Yes, they would be pebbles from the beach.

-What's this old stone here?

This is the Ogham stone.

Ogham was a very early form of writing in Ireland,

with an alphabet of simple strokes along a line.

You see here, a Latin inscription. Here you see the Ogham markings.

It's faded now and broken away.

But you can see from the markings, perhaps you can see one line,

two lines, three lines, they formed an alphabet.

Ogham stones are mostly found in Ireland

but also on the west coast of Britain,

carved by Celtic tribes,

who settled on both sides of the Irish Sea about 1,500 years ago.

Whilst we now head off towards the lighthouse,

we leave Brother David to attend a prayer service

and to get on with his gardening and librarian duties.

Most people who visit Caldey manage to get as far as the lighthouse and

even if you don't go any further, it really is worth a stroll up here.

This is the lighthouse just above Chapel Point here.

It's been here since the early 1800s.

This is where the original lighthouse was built,

on the site of a chapel.

It works in conjunction with the lighthouse over on Lundy.

Together they guide the shipping in the Bristol Channel.

Either side of the light tower are two identical old lighthouse

keepers' cottages where Jonathan and his family lived for a while.

I remember the noise made by the windows.

It's a howling noise whenever the wind came up so yeah, it's a

-lovely place to be.

-And you can see for miles from here, can't you?

You can see what, across to Gower?

Yeah, that's the Gower over there and Worm's Head.

And even the North Devon Coast, a little bit hazy and Lundy Island.

-Yeah, that's Lundy Island over there.

-Fantastic.

-Shall we carry on?

-Yeah, let's go for it.

# We could be lifted

# Lifted

# Lifted

# We could be lifted

# From the shadows

# Lifted... #

Waiting for us at a junction with the cliff-top path

is Father Daniel, abbot of the monastery,

the main man here on Caldey, head of the household.

Originally from Belgium, he was a monk in Germany

before coming here 23 years ago.

-Absolutely gorgeous today.

-It's beautiful.

-But, of course, it's not always like this.

-You are lucky today, Derek.

It's exceptional but the weather can be quite different here.

Some very severe weather

but, actually, I don't mind too much, severe weather.

I like it, it energises me.

Then I really go out for a brisk walk.

-You like walking in a force 10, do you?

-Yes, I do.

How do you feel about the number of visitors that come to the island?

Do you think there's a conflict between the peace and tranquillity

that you have here?

No, not really.

It may appear as a conflict

but they come from 10:30 in a morning,

until about 5:30, 5:15 in the evening.

There's also a part of the island, the visitors see not everything.

There is a substantial part that we keep for ourselves.

Erm...

Apart from that, I think it's very important that we meet visitors

and listen to their story, their experience in life.

Because, otherwise, there's always a danger to take things for granted

and we should not do that.

We're now at West Beacon point, the southwestern tip of the island,

which, until recently, was out of bounds to the general public.

I'm so glad that, at last,

the visitors are able to experience Caldey as an island.

Before that it was only from the jetty to the lighthouse and back.

Now they really can experience and breathe in

the healthy, fresh, sea air.

-And these wonderful views.

-Definitely. I'm delighted.

And I'm so delighted that you took time to come and see us, Derek,

but, I'm afraid, I have to go.

It's only half an hour away that I have to go to my prayers.

-Take care, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

Wow, what a beautiful beach.

-Yeah, this is Sandtop Bay.

-And there's no-one on it, not a soul.

No, unfortunately, this part of the island isn't accessible to visitors.

Why is that, the tide?

Yeah, unfortunately there have been one or two tragic incidents

here over the years.

There's a very strong undercurrent and rip tide.

There's a few caves over there, isn't there?

Yeah, a lot of them were explored by the monks in the 1960s

and found remains and tools, and things like that,

that they think might date back as far as 5,000 years ago, something like that.

-What is that island called over there?

-That's St Margaret's Island.

You can see the ruins over there, the old quarrying houses used

to house the quarry workers.

The island is out of bounds now, it's a bird sanctuary.

-It is a gorgeous spot here, though, isn't it?

-It is lovely.

Looking across to Tenby and you can see the Preseli Hills as well.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

And now for the bit I've been looking forward to all day...

..chocolate.

The monks started making chocolate here on Caldey in the 1980s

and the business is now franchised to Jonathan's dad

and this is where it's made.

Dad? You've got customers.

-Hello.

-Shwmae.

-Shwmae.

-Welcome to Caldey.

-Great to be here.

-And you brought the sunshine with you, as well.

-Of course.

-Oh, bless..

Right, can I have some chocolate?

Spanish Cistercian monks were, in fact, making chocolate

way back in the 1500s,

when cocoa beans and a recipe were sent back from Mexico

to a monastery in Spain

and so started the 500-year-old custom of chocolate making

by the Cistercians.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank YOU very much.

Well, this lot should keep me going for a while.

Leading us on the next short section of our walk

is Brother Teilo who became a monk at the grand old age of 68,

more than 50 years after a visit to Caldey

that made a lasting impression on him.

He finally gave in to the call of monastic life 14 years ago.

So here we are at the old school,

which has been closed now for about ten years

because the pupils went down to two, or even one.

Yeah, that's right. I was actually the last student here.

They had to close the school

because the next year I would have been the only one on the island

and the council just couldn't afford to fund one-to-one teaching.

-That's a shame, wasn't it?

-It is a shame. Yes.

It was sad, very sad, indeed.

We are heading up to the statue of St Samson now.

St Samson, the patron saint of the island.

Very important to us.

St Samson was the second abbot here back in the 6th century,

before he left to work as a missionary in Cornwall,

and later Brittany.

In Wales we have forgotten about him, to a large extent, except on Caldey.

But here he is very precious

and we have our annual holiday on his feast day, 28 July.

-Do you get a day off?

-We do in the monastery, yes.

It's a holiday for us.

St David's, the island's parish church

stands on a pre-Christian burial ground,

probably going back as far as 2,000 years.

Today, the simple wooden crosses mark the graves

of both monks and islanders,

but the Celtic burials may have been of people from the mainland,

in keeping with the Celtic belief

that islands represented a bridge, or stepping stone

to the afterlife.

-What a beautiful little church.

-It is lovely, isn't it? Yes.

Look at those stained glass windows. They're beautiful, aren't they?

Absolutely.

One of the Benedictine monks in the early 1920s,

Theodore Bailey, was a remarkable stained glass artist.

If you look up there above,

you can see the tree of life window which he put in.

You can see the three trees and the sun above.

That's symbolic of the three crosses on Calvary.

-Vivid colours.

-Absolutely vivid.

We say farewell to Brother Teilo,

and Jonathan and I head along the last leg of our walk,

a short loop around Caldey's woodland.

-How beautiful are the daisies.

-Yeah, they're lovely, aren't they?

A perfect time of year for them.

It's a great effect with the sunlight shining through the trees.

Here we are now at Paul Jones Bay,

named after the famous 18th-century pirate, Paul Jones.

Born in Scotland, Paul Jones was a ruthless marauding pirate

and he often moored up in this sheltered bay,

hidden from the mainland, to take on a supply of fresh water.

When it got a bit too hot for him around here,

he want across the Atlantic, over to America

and is credited with being one of the people who founded the American Navy.

An amazing tale of villain to hero, if ever there was.

Well, I'd love to stay a little longer

but Jonathan needs to get back to chocolate making

and I need to catch the last boat back to Tenby.

-See you again.

-See you again.

-All the best.

Well, one day on this gorgeous island is just not enough

to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern day life.

I'll definitely come back another day.

And, besides, this won't last long.

And if you fancy trying this,

or another one of our walks,

go to bbc.co.uk/weatherman walking

and take a look at our website.

It's got everything you need,

from detailed route information for each walk,

to walking maps for you to print off.

There are also some photos we took along the way.

Our next walk is also in West Wales

but this time we're heading for the hills.

In Wales, you're never far from a quarry, or a castle,

and you guessed it, in this walk we have some quarries

and a very special castle.

Carreg Cennen in Carmarthenshire, the most dramatic, photogenic

and romantic castle in Wales.

I don't know whether Bernard Llewellyn, my guide for the walk,

is a romantic but true love brought him here from Pembrokeshire

when he married Margaret, the farmer's daughter.

Besides the farm, they also happen to own the castle

and, over the years, they've gradually developed the farm

and castle as a tourist attraction, with a cafe, shop

and a place to tie the knot.

Now there's romantic for you.

-Good morning, Bernard.

-Good morning.

-Good to meet you.

Good to meet you, sir.

Does a farmer really have time to take me on a walk like this?

Perhaps I don't but I think perhaps we should do it anyway.

-Shall we get going?

-Absolutely.

Just a few miles east of Llandeilo,

at the western end of the Brecon Beacons National Park,

our circular route takes us up to the castle

before dropping back down to cross the River Cennen.

Rising back up the other side through woods

and fields onto open moorland,

we follow a short level section of quiet mountain road

before dropping down to the Cennen again

and back to the castle having walked a very undulating 5.5 miles.

This is a very dramatic location for a castle, Bernard,

and I believe it's been voted the most romantic castle in Wales.

That's probably due to the fact that an awful lot of people

come here to get engaged,

or I should say, for the gentleman to propose.

-Does it make you a romantic?

-HE LAUGHS

I don't think my wife would agree!

# Let's get married

# I love you!

# And I want to stay with you... #

The Llewellyn family are in the rather unique position

of being the owners of this Scheduled Ancient Monument,

which they bought by accident!

When they drew the deeds up

they put this red line around the outside

of the circumference of the farm.

In reality, I suppose, what they should have done was put

a red line around the castle to exclude it. That was never done.

As you say, we are the owners of the castle.

Do you get lots of visitors here?

Yeah, we get about 100,000 visitors a year

but only about 40,000 of them actually go to the castle.

I mean, that's probably what they come for, in reality.

I think it's just an amazing view.

The Black Mountain, you can see across the top there,

with the burial mounds, can you see those little...

They look like little humps from here, anyway.

Then it goes all the way round to the Carmarthenshire vans

and eventually then the Brecon Beacons are beyond it.

We're going to go down the path there

-but perhaps we'll have a little look from the castle first. What do you think?

-Good idea.

MEDIEVAL MUSIC

Perched on its dramatic cliff top pedestal,

this striking 12th century fortress,

which changed hands between the Welsh and the English numerous times,

seems to have been more of a status symbol than a strategic stronghold.

The present castle was basically built as a Welsh castle,

modified quite a bit by the English as time went on.

Basically, it was a presence as far as they were concerned,

where the English were in charge.

Then the English dismantled it, basically to stop the Welsh

using it as a stronghold.

We now head downhill through an oak woodland

that's protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

More insect species live on oak trees than any other native tree.

Along with the insects, acorns are a valuable food source

for a variety of wildlife.

So we're coming down to the River Cennen now?

Yeah, that's the Cennen, running down towards the Towy,

which is the main river in Carmarthenshire.

We'll go across the bridge here, Derek,

and out towards the hill.

-Sturdy bridge.

-The Army built this.

They've done quite a lot of work on this footpath as a result

of them being allowed to use the Black Mountain for training.

This is the piece of the path that's probably most relevant to me,

as a farmer, from just back down there.

It's the way they used to take the sheep to the mountain.

It was, well, as a lot of these paths are,

it had a very practical purpose.

It was an access to the hill.

Onto the open hillside now?

That's the last of the farmland for a while.

We go out onto the hill now.

For the next section of the walk, we've arranged to meet

geologist Alan Bowring, who is the Fforest Fawr Geopark officer.

This area is of particular geological interest.

If you're into your rocks, then this is the place to come.

-How are you?

-Good.

We've come to quite a good spot here.

I think it's worth just taking a look at the landscape

and, you know, trying to read it, if you like.

We have been walking up these slopes

and we have been on the old red sandstone.

Here is an outcrop of rock which is clearly quite different,

it's a sort of grey colour.

Geologists call it the grey grits, but it what it marks

is the end of the old red sandstone and we're now into the limestone.

All of this, this short cropped grass here,

and there's the remains of a limekiln here, it tells us we're in limestone country

and, if you look beyond, we're looking up to the sandstone hill.

It is layer after layer

and it's all tilted down to the south.

And these rocks are millions of years old?

If we had been stood on this spot around about 340 million years ago,

we would have been up to our necks in tropical seawater.

That's where the carboniferous limestone started out.

It was a shallow, tropical sea,

a little bit like the Florida Keys today.

Well, it's a shame that this bit of the earth's crust

migrated north, I'd say.

A walk in the tropics would suit me just fine!

We now find ourselves walking through an area

of small grassy craters.

This whole landscape is dotted with holes.

Some of them unnatural

but these particular ones were made by our ancestors.

They were looking for limestone.

They'd work the limestone, put it into kilns, burn it

-and then spread it on the land.

-OK.

It's an old industrial landscape,

if you like but now it's a national park.

It's quite a change.

Brrrr! There's nothing tropical about these hailstones.

A huge crater in the ground here, Alan. What's caused this?

It's quite something, isn't it, this hole.

Limestone is a special sort of a rock.

It dissolves in water, weak acidic water.

What we're seeing here is the result of limestone

dissolving underground to form a cave

and what happens at the surface is, the surface collapses.

There's a lot of them in this area, sinkholes.

Lots of these funnel shaped pits in the landscape.

We have a bit of a stream coming in.

It's disappearing underground into that cave system

and who knows where it's heading.

It amazes me how water, a pretty harmless liquid,

can actually dissolve solid rock,

but Alan is about to give us a simple scientific demonstration

to show how rain water, a weak acidic liquid,

manages to dissolve limestone.

So, limestone is calcium carbonate.

If we put acid onto calcium carbonate,

then something interesting happens.

I happen to have with me some acid,

some lemon juice.

And if we put a few drops on, if we look very closely,

you can see bubbles.

It's the acid reacting with the calcium carbonate.

We can only just about see the tiny bubbles

from the reaction with lemon juice.

So, to make it clearer,

Alan carefully uses a drop of dilute hydrochloric acid.

This chemical reaction is taking place all over this landscape,

with rainwater falling onto the limestone?

And the caves are developing as a result.

So weak acid, rainwater, is a weak acid dissolving limestone away.

Having opened our eyes to the extraordinary changes

that have taken place in this landscape over millions of years,

Alan heads off but we've got a few more miles to conquer yet.

Now remember the small stream that disappeared into that sink hole on the hill?

Well, on its journey underground, it seems to have joined forces

with a few other sunken streams to become a fully formed river,

the Llwchwr, and by the look of it, it's burst out of the darkness

into daylight right here.

For me, this is probably one of the highlights of the walk in reality.

The eye of the Llwchwr, where it comes out of the rock.

This is not actually the source of the Llwchwr, though, is it?

No, it probably four or five miles, possibly, back under the mountain.

This is the first time it really comes out from under the ground.

The other thing is, and I'm sure you're interested in that,

that little hole up there, that's part of the cave complex

that goes on from here back to the other sinkholes as well.

-Have you been down there?

-Many, many years ago.

I don't think I fancy it.

Quite frankly, I regretted it when I went down, anyway.

These days this is a very popular area for caving

but amazingly the Llygad Llwchwr caves were first explored,

way back in 1841, by an adventurous and remarkable young local man

called Thomas Jenkins.

We know this because, in fact, it's recorded in his diary,

which I just happen to have with me.

Not only was he a caver but also, as far as we're concerned,

he was a great long-distance walker.

It's recorded here on May 3 in 1836,

that he left Llandeilo at a 1:15 in the morning

and he walked to Haverfordwest.

This is 30 miles away!

When he got there he went sightseeing around the churches

and then he walked home the next day.

Do you think we're up to that?

I can't imagine many people doing that these days.

Well, it does say here that when he returned home

he had very sore feet at 11 o'clock at night.

I'm not surprised!

I've got sore feet and I've only walked about five miles...

so far.

Well, we may not have walked as many miles

as the remarkable Thomas Jenkins

but we've certainly had an adventurous outing

in a fascinating and dramatic landscape.

I think we deserve a cuppa in Bernard's cafe

and even a Welsh cake.

# And I would walk 500 miles

# And I would walk 500 more

# Just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles

# To fall down at your door...#