Pembrokeshire Holiday South Wales June 2014 - page 3
Our visit to Skomer Island, famed for its abundance of
adorable puffins and other seabirds, sure was the highlight of our
Pembrokeshire holiday in Wales! We caught the 'Dale Princess'
across from Martin’s Haven, located at the end of Marloes Peninsula to
spend the day wandering Skomer and observing the island's abundant
seabirds, and particularly those cute puffins, close up as they went
about their business around their burrows - simply magical!
Skomer Island, an important wildlife site, is located in south west
Pembrokeshire and is both a National Nature Reserve (NNR) and a Site of
Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
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We wisely arrived bright and early at Martin’s Haven to secure our
crossing ticket for Skomer from the Lockley Lodge Visitor Centre, run
by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. With around...
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...two hours to kill before our sailing we wandered up to the
coastguard lookout on the headland above Martin’s Haven, known as the
Deer Park, where we found a geocache
and enjoyed the...
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...delightful Pembrokeshire coastal views including, of course, the
view across to Skomer Island. Before long it was time...
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...to join the line along the rough path by the cliff-side to board the
Dale Princess for the island. Dive boats are also operated from
here.
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Here's our contribution to the world of selfies with our pic of us on
the Dale Princess crossing to Skomer Island. There are three
sailings a day (but not Mondays); at 10am, 11am and 12 noon.
There's no advanced booking, it runs on a first come-first served basis
so our advice is: arrive early on popular days. The crossing from
Martin’s Haven...
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...to Skomer takes around 15 minutes.
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After the climb up several flights of concrete steps from the boat
landing we were greeted by the resident warden for an enlightening
lowdown on Skomer...
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...before continuing along the main island track to the Old Farm at the
centre of the island to eat our picnic in the shade and use the
delightful composting loos.
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The Trig point alongside the Old Farm marks the highest point on Skomer
Island at 79 metres (that's 259 feet). There's various...
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...designated trails over the island. Skomer in the springtime is
covered in bluebells and red campion, but as we were there in June we
decided to head to...
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...The Wick and its abundant puffin population at that time of
year. The puffins of Skomer Island are undoubtedly the main draw
for visitors; there are in excess of 10,000 of those guys resident...
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...during the breeding season. The Wick is also the place to spot
kittiwakes and auks. Taking a brief reprise from puffin spotting,
we also bagged an earthcache here at
The Wick.
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The Skomer puffins nest in grassy burrows above the cliffs. Can
you spot the guy seabird spotting through the telescope down there?
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The seabirds on Skomer are a naturalist's photographer's delight and
the delightful puffins seemed only too willing to oblige!
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The Wick was formed by geological fault activity when softer rock
eroded leaving this dramatic cliff face of harder rock exposed.
Now how's this for a...
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...close-up of a puffin in his nesting burrow? We were amazed at
how unfazed by people the puffins were, even wandering up to within
feet of us.
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As you can imagine, we - and everyone else - were snapping away
catching those adorable puffins at every opportunity.
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June and July are the best months for observing the Skomer puffins as
that's their breeding season; by August they've left their burrows to
live at sea.
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Visitor numbers are limited to 250 a day and we seemed to encounter
most of them at The Wick! Other seabirds on Skomer are the Manx
shearwater, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars.
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Following the Wick Farm Loop trail on Skomer we next arrived at the Mew
Stone, a volcanic stack isolated from the island when softer rocks
between it and Skomer were eroded.
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This delightful view is towards The Neck, a rocky outcrop from
Skomer. Sadly we were now on the track to catch the boat back to
Martin’s Haven, our visit to delightful Skomer Island now all but over.
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Now, what does it cost to visit Skomer Island? For
our 2014 visit the boat was £11, there's a £10 landing fee, and
parking in the huge National Trust car park at Martin’s Haven was £5
(NT members free).
As you can see we enjoyed some wonderful sunshine on our
visit to Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire, just don't expect it to always
be so - it is Wales after all!
So that just about wraps up our wonderful Pembrokeshire
holiday. Visiting Skomer was most definitely our highlight, but
the scenic walks along the Pembrokeshire
coastal path came a close second.
Don't forget to check out our huge collection of UK tourism resources, useful if
you're planning a visit to Pembrokeshire or elsewhere in the UK.
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