Porthgain to Whitesands Bay

This stage takes you from the industrial end of the north coast to the busiest beach in Pembrokeshire, and the transition is abrupt.

Porthgain is a harbour the size of a large garden with a wall of brick hoppers above it that once held crushed granite for road stone. It shipped slate and then roadstone until 1931 and the buildings were simply left. Nowhere else in Wales looks like it.

The first two miles are the best-known bit of the whole north coast: an easy, well-made path past Traeth Llyfn — a fine beach down a long steel staircase — and on to the Blue Lagoon at Abereiddi, a slate quarry breached to let the sea in when it closed in 1910. The colour is genuine and comes from the minerals in the slate. Above it stand the roofless quarrymen's cottages. Expect company here; expect much less of it after.

South of Abereiddi the character changes. The path swings round Ynys Barri and out onto a rougher, higher coast with the volcanic crags of the peninsula rising just inland. Carn Penberry is the big one — the path climbs steeply round its seaward flank on rocky ground and it's the hardest half-hour of the day. From up there the view runs the whole way back to Strumble.

Beyond it the path stays high, past Penllechwen and above a string of coves you can't get down to, before the ground opens out towards St Davids Head. If you have time, the short detour to Coetan Arthur, the Neolithic burial chamber on the headland, costs fifteen minutes and is worth it.

Then the path comes over the shoulder and Whitesands appears below — a mile of pale sand facing Ramsey Island, with surfers in the water most days of the year. There's a car park, seasonal lifeguards and a café.

Where to finish. St Davids is two miles inland and has the widest choice of anywhere on this coast, plus the cathedral and the Bishop's Palace if you've any energy left. Porthgain, at the other end, has the Sloop and the Shed.

Shortening it. Porthgain to Abereiddi and back is three miles and easy — see the Abereiddi to Porthgain route. The Whitesands end is covered by the St Davids Head circular.