Walk 21: Llansteffan to St Clears

Apart from an unfortunate incident at the end, the walk from Llansteffan to St Clears was lovely. Regrettably, though, said incident has somewhat haunted me ever since!

This was the third of four Taf Estuary walks we completed on our trip to Wales in August 2022. We were dropped off at the pickup point of our previous walk, at the entrance to a wooded area in Llansteffan. It was a warm, sunny day, so it was a relief to be walking in the shade to begin our walk.

The path took us around Llansteffan Castle, with lovely views of the bay when the trees cleared. This section of the path was idyllic – at one point, we headed down to St Anthony’s Cottage, where people were enjoying the sunny weather – before heading back up into the woodland to continue our walk.

As we walked, we noticed that we could spot Worm’s Head in the distance. One of the fun things about the Wales Coast Path is the moments when you can see far into the distance, and think, ‘we’ve walked all of that!’.

We exited the woodland, still following a lovely path through bracken-filled fields with estuary views, before we reached a National Trust-gated section which was full of blackberry bushes, perfect for harvesting.

With the most scenic part of the walk behind us, the rest of the walk was made up of walking along quiet roads and through farmland. This was generally pretty easy walking, especially the road sections. We caught occasional glimpses of the river at first, which waned as we got gradually further inland as we walked towards St Clears.

We eventually reached Foxhole Farm, which I had read bad things about, so was expecting the worst. This actually wasn’t the worst part of the walk, although it wasn’t great – the path had been obscured by a couple of electric fences, which we had to crawl underneath, and we had to pass a couple of fields that were absolutely full of cows. Thankfully, the cows weren’t close to the path and didn’t seem bothered by us. Nevertheless, we were relieved to get away from them. I understand that there is now a diversion in place that avoids Foxhole Farm, as the farmers have clearly been very resistant to the Wales Coast Path – so hopefully there will be no more electric fence-ducking!

Once we were passed Foxhole Farm, we followed a wooded farm track which took us to a gate which went into another field of cows. This was actually two connected fields, both of which the cows had access to. The path takes you along the right-hand side of the first field, and then through the open gate to the second field, which you are supposed to walk along on the left-hand side and through a gate to the road – easy!

The first problem was that cows had congregated along the path, taking shade under the trees. We continued past them, gently explaining we were just walking through, as we always do. They seemed a little agitated by us, but let us past. When we reached the open gate into the second field, we discovered that their food and water had been placed in that small section, and there were quite a few cows gathered there. We decided to turn back, and walked back along the path past the cows we’d just passed.

We were reluctant to divert, as this would have involved going back through the fields of cows at Foxhole Farm and a significant amount of additional walking – if we could only get past these cows, we would reach St Clears and finish our walk! But we spotted another path to the left-hand side of the first field, so we decided to attempt to walk around them (we didn’t know at this point that the only entrance to the second field was the one we’d walked away from). We wouldn’t have done this if there wasn’t a path.

At first, this seems to be going well – we were giving the cows a much wider berth than when we walked along the first path – but then, suddenly, a couple of cows became interested in us, and started trotting down the hill towards us. At this moment, I genuinely thought we might die – they were getting closer and closer with no signs of slowing. Cows are much larger and stronger than people, and there are regular instances of people being killed or severely injured by frightened or angry cows. I honestly don’t blame them – they’re right in thinking people are a danger to them. But while we continue to breed cows, it would be so, so helpful for paths to be separated from them to avoid tragedy.

But back to the cows running towards us – we were doing everything we were supposed to do – we didn’t attempt to outrun them, tried to stay as calm as possible, and had our arms out to make us look as large as possible. Then, out of pure instinct, Liam lifted an arm and confidently said ‘woah!’, and they stopped! I’m certain they were just curious and weren’t on the warpath – they probably would have stopped when they reached us – but they really did scare the crap out of us.

We headed down into a wooded area at the bottom of the field, safe in the knowledge that they could no longer see us and couldn’t easily reach us. But we weren’t out of the woods yet (literally!). There was a fence and a stream between us and the field we needed to be in to make our final escape. Thankfully, there was evidence that others had had the same experience as we had in the past – there was a bit of fence that had been cut. So, we carefully slipped through the fence, scrambled over the stream, and found ourselves in the next field, which was, thankfully, cow-free. Knowing they could still get to us if they wanted to, we quickly made tracks to the stile at the bottom of the field and got the hell out of there.

We walked across the concrete entrance to the farm towards a bridge which took us into St Clears – we were so relieved to be through the field, we weren’t even that perturbed when we realised there was an old bull on the grass who could have wandered over to us if he’d wanted to! After crossing the bridge, we walked along the road to St Clears, and, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to decompress, we continued down the road for a short stretch, shaving a bit of distance off our next walk, before being picked up.

I’ve never been super confident around cows, but this walk really did teach me to be wary of them, and, most importantly, that if it ever feels unsafe to walk through a field of cows, it’s always worth the extra distance of a detour. I wouldn’t say I have a fear of cows – I’m just respectful of the damage they can cause. Walking in the countryside shouldn’t be a deadly activity, and I just wish there were more measures in place to prevent unnecessary deaths.

🥾 Distance: Just over ten miles.

⭐ Highlight: The first half of the walk was stunning.

👎 Less Good: You guessed it – the cows!

🚗 Transport: We were dropped off and picked up by my sister, who was staying in Wales with us.

🛏️ Accommodation: We stayed in a lovely cottage in St Clears – Y Bwthyn – which had stunning interiors and was the perfect base for our walks!

🌱 Food: We cooked at the cottage in the evening.

🗺️ Map: This route is featured in the official Carmarthen Bay and Gower guide.

Still not convinced? Read my ten reasons to walk the Wales Coast Path. If you’re ready to start planning your walk, you can find lots of resources to help you on your way here. Please note, I collect a share of the sales from the links on this page.