CARDIGAN ISLAND COASTAL FARM PARK

Pembrokeshire is rightly known for its coastal scenery and is one of Britain's eleven National Parks. Where the scenery continues into the next county at the northern extremity of the park, it is very similar but now becomes known as the Cardigan Heritage Coast. Cardigan Island is a little part of that coastline lying just offshore from a rocky promontory near Gwbert-on-Sea, three miles north of the town of Cardigan.

The island and the bay that also bears the name of Cardigan are home to a resident population of bottlenose dolphins and a colony of Atlantic grey seals. The Coastal Farm Park we were visiting is one of the best places to view them in their natural habitat from the safety of a fenced cliff top.

Our eyes soon became accustomed to picking out the seals and distinguishing them from the buoys in the water. Whichever direction we looked, heads were bobbing out of the sea.

And when two of them swam close together, for a moment I thought the Loch Ness Monster had taken a vacation from its traditional home north of the border!

We had travelled the last mile or so to the cliff top over farm tracks from the car park on a trailer hauled by a tractor. The driver dropped us opposite the island and pointed out a colony of seals on the rocks below.

But even with the camera on maximum zoom, the seals were still too far away to see in detail.

Before the tractor driver left to return to the car park to pick up another trailer load of passengers, he pointed me in the direction of a gate in the fence. With a cheery "Go through there and look over the edge. There's a female basking about 15 feet below" he left me to my own devices. Following his instructions, I passed through the gate and scrambled to the edge to peer over.

I found myself on the side of a narrow gully leading to a cave and there indeed, immediately below me, was a basking seal. It was only later when I recalled the precarious position I was in to obtain the photo below that I started having the nightmares! Me, a non swimmer, on the edge of a water filled precipice with only an Atlantic grey seal for company. To paraphrase the TV programme, "I'm not a celebrity, but get me out of here anyway".

The farm park has many more attractions including rare breed cattle, wallabies, a llama, sheep, pigs, ponies, ducks and geese to name but a few but I had had enough excitement for one day so we hitched a ride back to the car park in the tractor pulled trailer and headed back across the Preseli Hills to Saundersfoot. Unfortunately the dolphins had only put in a fleeting appearance during our visit and that was far off out in the bay. You can however find out more about them at the Cardiganshire Coast and Country web site and there is also a site for the Cardigan Island Farm Park.