Stack Rocks to Freshwater East

Mile for mile the most spectacular walking on the south coast, with one condition attached: the first stretch belongs to the Ministry of Defence. From Stack Rocks — where the two limestone pillars of the Elegug Stacks carry a deafening guillemot colony every spring, and the Green Bridge of Wales, the country's most photographed natural arch, stands just west of the car park — the path to St Govan's crosses Castlemartin Range East, open only when firing is not taking place. Check the published firing times before you build a day around it; when the range is shut, the walk starts at St Govan's instead and loses none of its best moments.

The limestone here does things no other stretch of the path attempts. Huntsman's Leap is a slot chasm perhaps four metres wide and forty deep, arriving in the clifftop with no fanfare whatsoever. A few hundred yards on, a flight of worn steps drops into the cliff itself to St Govan's Chapel, a tiny medieval cell wedged whole into the fissure, built where a sixth-century hermit is said to have hidden from pirates. Count the steps down and up — tradition insists the totals never match.

Then the softer glories: Broad Haven South with Church Rock standing offshore, the dunes backing on to the Bosherston lily ponds; Stackpole Head's clean limestone promontories; and Barafundle Bay, the beach that tops every list precisely because you can only reach it on foot. The Stackpole Quay tearoom (National Trust, in the old limestone-quarry harbour) is perfectly placed for the last pot of tea before the final headland into Freshwater East.

If the range is closed, the inland alternative from Bosherston past the lily ponds — otters at dawn, dragonflies all summer — is a consolation prize most places would call a highlight.