St Dogmaels to Poppit Sands

Almost nobody starts the Coast Path here, which is a shame, because this is where it actually begins. The northern terminus marker stands at St Dogmaels on the Teifi, and the walk from it to Poppit Sands is flat, short and completely unlike the 180-odd miles that follow.

Give yourself twenty minutes in the village first. St Dogmaels Abbey was a Tironensian house founded in the early 12th century and the ruins sit open to the sky beside the parish church, free to wander. The church holds the Sagranus Stone, an inscribed pillar carrying the same name in Latin and in ogham, which is what allowed the ogham alphabet to be deciphered in the 19th century. Y Felin, the watermill down the lane, still grinds flour.

From there the route runs down the estuary. The tide does most of the work of making this interesting: at low water the Teifi shrinks to a channel between mudflats and the birds come in close — curlew, oystercatcher, little egret, shelduck. At high water it's a wide sheet of moving grey. Cardigan Island sits off to the north-west, and bottlenose dolphins come into the river mouth often enough that it's worth carrying binoculars.

The lane section in the middle is the least pleasant part. There's no pavement for a stretch and cars come round the bends faster than they should. It doesn't last long.

Poppit Sands at the far end is a proper beach — wide, dune-backed, lifeguarded in the main season, with an RNLI station and a car park behind it. It's also where the serious walking starts: the path north to Cemaes Head climbs immediately and doesn't stop.

Turning it round. Most people do this in reverse, parking at Poppit and walking into St Dogmaels for lunch, which puts the pubs and the abbey at the far end rather than the start. That's the better way round.

Where to eat. St Dogmaels has a couple of pubs and a café at the abbey, and Cardigan is a mile across the bridge with considerably more choice. There's a seasonal café at Poppit.

With a buggy or a wheelchair. The estuary path isn't fully surfaced and the lane has no pavement, so this isn't a step-free route end to end — but the beach approach at Poppit and the abbey grounds at St Dogmaels are both easy on their own.