Member-only story
Clifftop Footpaths
A mindful experience, right on the edge
The zingy sea air is crowded with bird calls. A herring gull’s ear-piercing screech shoots past my right ear, like a bullet, zipping down to the Aegean-toned sea, 250 feet below. From the craggy cliffs beneath my narrow, bare earth path, the chattering gobble-like chunder of gannets rises, and intermingles with the dainty, high-pitched twitterings of guillemots, carried on the gentle breeze. It’s a cacophony of spring. Of life.
I’m perched on the ground, my bottom squashing several fresh fronds of bracken, luscious grass, and vibrant buttercups, as I gaze out across the sea. My walking boots are dusted with the fine particles of parched path that comes with a dry spring. The shine on my boots may have disappeared, but it’s not worn away from my walk. The cloudless sky allows the sun’s warmth to penetrate my skin. I feel the energy passing into me.
I’m on Dinas Head, or Dinas Island as some maps call it, although head is technically correct because it is not an island … yet. If sea levels rise another couple of feet, then one day, this vast, pentagonally-shaped rock with a three-mile circumference will break free from its Pembrokeshire motherland, into the Irish Sea. Yet it has the air of an island. It can be circumnavigated easily within a couple of hours. But I, of course, am taking my time.
