No, you’re not seeing double. We were recently incredibly lucky enough to be invited to stay for a couple of nights at the Into The Sticks campsite in Pembrokeshire. I should explain firstly that intothesticks.life and the Into The Sticks campsite are two entirely different entities – we just happen to share a name as well as a passion for the great outdoors and the natural world…and Wales.
So, to help with any confusion whilst reading this:
Into The Sticks = Amazing campsite in the heart of Pembrokeshire, owned and run by Jo and Kev
Intothesticks/intothesticks.life = that’s us – James and Sarah
This is not just going to be an article about a fantastic camp site, this is more of a journal of our entire trip to Pembrokeshire – an itinerary I would recommend to you for your stay at Into the Sticks.
Into The Sticks & The Tiny Home
For quite some time now, I have followed Into The Sticks on Instagram, initially to see what other ‘intothesticks’ entities there were in the world, but they very quickly took my interest as they’re all about getting back to nature and the wilder things in life. Over time we interacted via various posts etc. but not much more than that until earlier this year when a very friendly message unexpectedly came through inviting us to stay in their ‘Tiny Home’ for a couple of nights. Tiny Home is a beautiful shepherds hut set in its own private area tucked nicely away from the world. It was a very easy and immediate ‘yes’ from me, however, these days it seems my calendar is absolutely jammed from about March until November with various courses, mountain work and so on. So it was more of a, ‘yes we would love to stay…in about 6 months’ time.’
So eventually the time came to make the journey from north Buckinghamshire to Pembrokeshire, to take in the world of Into The Sticks and embrace everything they have to offer.
At the end of a winding track, nestled in a peaceful valley bordering the Priskilly Forest and under the watchful eye of the Preseli Mountains, sits a humble farm, surrounded by 22 acres of serene wilderness. Within that wilderness you will find the pitches belonging to Into The Sticks. Immediately after parking up, we were met by Kev who stopped what he was doing to greet us and take us to meet Jo before returning to ‘cut these limbs off’ – which we were quickly reassured were tree limbs.
We were taken for a quick tour of the site, including the communal barn with pool table and their essentials shop; washing up facilities; toilets; showers, and then down to ‘Paddle Creek’ which is a beautiful little spot with a little waterfall eventually leading down to the bigger river in the valley. We were shown the tent pitches, nestled within the long grass of the meadows, and then taken to the edge of the site to where our ‘Tiny Home’ sat at the top of a little hill, over looking the valley with views of Priskilly Forest and, not too far away, out towards the sea. Just the other side of the fence live a small flock of sheep and a couple of miniature ponies.
Tiny Home is nestled away in its own private space, giving the sense of not being anywhere remotely near the rest of the site. It’s almost entirely off-grid, powered by solar panels, and you can be totally self-sufficient with your own toilet and external kitchen area. The only reason you would need to leave it would be to walk about 100m to the shower or to go off on an epic adventure. Our stay couldn’t have come at a better time, right at the point where we needed to just stop for a moment and take a breath between our busy schedules – and this place was the perfect place to do so. I don’t particularly care for technology and being attached to my phone or looking at a screen 24/7 (I certainly get enough of that with my ‘normal’ job) and, as I’ve said, Tiny Home is almost entirely off-grid, with just lighting and water pump being the only use for electricity there. Panic not though, if you do rely on your phone, all you need to do is pop to the communal barn just around the corner where you will find a charging station for everything you need.
I don’t want to give too much away about this cool little shepherds hut, I want you to experience it yourself – but I feel I need to give it the justice it deserves. As soon as you step through the stable door into your tiny home, you are greeted by a little kitchen area and a wood burning stove – the likes I’ve not seen since staying in cabins in the Swedish wilderness. You could see that so much effort and love was put into every small detail, from simple drawers and curtains, to the tiny decorations scattered throughout. There is a little dining table for two and the comfiest super-king sized bed I’ve slept on for a very long time. The show stealer, however, is the view from the double French doors. Stepping out onto the deck, you immediately take in it all in. A highlight for me, and it’s a simple one, was the firepit on the deck. Not even an hour into our arrival I was sat on the deck with the fire alight and thoroughly enjoying the serenity.
Each evening, Into The Sticks has a different ‘theme’. We arrived on Friday and Friday just happens to be one of the best: Baked Potatoes and pool night. We had arrived in the morning though, so the potatoes had to wait. Whenever I find myself in Wales, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I always try to get to the coast. The Welsh coastline, to me, is one of the best. So what could we possibly do for the day? Get the to beach. Needless to say, wherever you go along the Pembrokeshire coast you are in for an absolutely treat. It is the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park after all. One of the closest beaches to Into The Sticks (and you have a lot to choose from) is Abermawr. It’s close enough that, should you want to, you could walk there if you fancied a scenic, longish walk through the Pembrokeshire countryside. We had in fact planned to walk there at some point during our stay, but opted to drive instead.
Abermawr
Abermawr is a beautiful, wild and rugged beach, found at the end of another winding wooded road. During low tides you can even spot the fossilised remains of the ancient forest which stood there almost 10,000 years before. With limited parking, Abermawr is a quiet place with just the occasional passers by, walking the coastal path – a very small section of which we would join ourselves the next day. We couldn’t hang about for too long though, the thoughts of potatoes were intruding, so we had a schedule to stick to. Not too far down the coast is Britain’s smallest city, St David’s.
St David’s
I’ve always wanted to visit St David’s but previously never really had the chance to, but now was the time. So small is St David’s, that whilst driving down it’s high street, Sarah didn’t realise we were actually in St David’s. Somebody, and I can’t quite remember who, once told me that Pembrokeshire is like Cornwall but without the people, and actually that’s not a terrible description. St David’s is very much like an old Cornish town. The highlight, and what of course actually makes it a city, is the cathedral.
St David’s cathedral is found below the city, which sits on a hill, and is almost 1000 years old. OK, it’s about 850 years old, but it’s closer to 1000 than it is to 0. I confess, I’m not religious in particular, but still absolutely love visiting a good church, abbey or cathedral. From working in the mountains and doing a little studying of geology, time is something that, for me, is just unfathomable and blows my mind – especially when you’re talking hundreds of millions of years – well churches and cathedrals etc. getting on for almost 1000 years have that same effect for me. The beauty of the architecture and the effort it must have taken to sculpt and build the places is just insane, let alone the utter significance the place held. St David’s Cathedral does not disappoint. One of the last cathedrals I was in was that of Santiago de Compostela, and St David’s is almost (almost) a miniature version of that, without the ineffable grandeur. Without going into so much detail and going totally off track, I’ll just say that the place really is something quite special and, yes it’s true, you hear people say that you walk uphill when you walk down the aisle in St David’s, and you most certainly do, it’s quite a strange sensation. After you visit the cathedral based on this utterly spellbinding review, I highly recommend taking a walk up the steps into the city and popping into The Bishop’s pub for a very tasty beer or two. Oh – also, based on some research, apparently St David’s has the population of about 1,100 people but from our experience it must also have the population of about 5,000 dogs. They are bloody everywhere, but I do love a good dog, so that’s fine by me.
Potatoes and Pool
Anyway… back to baked potatoes and pool. Two things I enjoy enormously. One of them I do very badly and the other one I am also quite terrible at too. Now, Into The Sticks has about 7 or 8 pitches, so although it’s a huge area of land, only a small percentage is used for camping, the rest is left for nature (more on that shortly). So because of this, the sense of community at Into The Sticks is fantastic. Everybody is super friendly and, as I understand it, they return each year to stay at the site, meaning their children have the opportunity to reunite with their camping buddies and grow up together. Each Friday there is a pool tournament – wait, let’s start with potatoes… So we walk into the communal barn and find a large Dutch oven filled with perfectly baked potatoes, gallons of beans and under a cloche an absolute mountain of cheese – these are a few of my favourite things, I believe somebody sang at some point in a film. Needless to say I went back for seconds, and no, I’m not ashamed to say my second potato was filled with nothing but cheese, lots and lots of cheese. I have a feeling I might be becoming slightly dairy intolerent these days though, so maybe I should be ashamed… I don’t know. Then it was time for the pool tournament. Jo created a game (I assumed Jo was the creator of this game but I’m not sure) using a deck of cards. Each person has four lives and you take it in turns to take your shot, if you don’t pot a ball you lose a life and last person standing wins. I had the Jacks from the deck, so I was 11th to take a go in each round. Sarah was 10th. Sarah was actually quite paranoid about not only just having a barn of people watching her but mostly because she has a…unique way of holding a pool cue – or at least positioning her balancing/bridging hand (the one on the table). Most normal people would use the normal pool/snooker shape to balance the cue across the hand for aiming, but the only way I can describe the way Sarah does it is by saying it’s incredibly similar to the ‘sex’ mime, putting the cue through the ‘O’ shape of your thumb and forefinger. Just a warning here, I’ve tried to find an example of the ‘sex finger mime’ on google and I can’t say many of the results are at all what I was expecting… Anyway, I digress once more…Needless to say, rapidly and early on in the tournament we lost our lives and were out of the game. I don’t know if that was anything to do with the bottle of wine we polished off beforehand, but I’ll blame that for now. We had fun nonetheless and watched right to the end when the winner actually donated his winnings (a pack of marshmallows) to the runner up and their family. What a bloody legend.
So back we went to our tiny home, lit the fire once more and relaxed to enjoy the tranquility and peace of the Pembrokeshire countryside, which I like to think I accompanied with my less than average mandolin playing. The best way to end the day was definitely sitting on the deck, playing the mandolin with a campfire and a sunset.
Whitesands, St David’s Head & Carn Llidi
We were staying for only two nights, so Saturday was our only full day. I’ll mention here too that every morning and evening you can join Jo on a walkaround the site to visit and feed the various animals they have including the sheep, ponies, pigs and chickens. Something that Sarah was very keen to do, but equally too comfortable in bed in the Tiny Home to make it on time.
To fulfil our plan of walking a little section of the coast path, we opted to start at Whitesands then around St David’s Head and then up and over Carn Llidi and back. A very small, but beautiful route with incredible views.
Whitesands Bay is no more than a 30 minute drive from Into The Sticks, if that. We arrived fairly early and were met at the car park by an elderly lady asking us to pay for parking, absolutely fine by me but the card machine was apparently broken. Long story short, we opted for dumping the car in a layby up the road by the golf course and starting our walk from there instead. This was a bonus as we were able to walk the full length of Whitesands beach which is a surfers haven with excellent waves coming straight off the Irish Sea, not to mention the vast pristine sand, which I guess was kind of white, so it goes with the name. If you do intend to go to there, which I highly implore you do; get there early as the car park is taken over by surf schools, and take cash to please the elderly parking woman.
Just off the beach and around the coast line is St David’s Head. St David’s Head marks the divide point of the Celtic and the Irish Sea. If you were to look at a map of Wales, it’s the bit right at the tip of Pac Man’s bottom lip – the western most point of the mainland. The whole area is covered in beautiful wildflowers, heather and heath. A bit like Dartmoor or the New Forest but even closer to the sea, and it’s absolutely steeped in ancient history. Those of you who have been on one of my courses might have been lucky enough to be given some totally random point in the middle of the map to take me to, just because I know there’s supposed to be evidence of an ancient village, or fort or burial ground there, just to find a small dip in the grass or ditch in the woods. But I love that stuff, it’s super cool if not a bit geeky. So, almost central to this spot is Coetan Arthur, a neolithic burial chamber. There’s far more than just a slight dip in the ground here though. What remains is what is believed to be part of the chamber to the much larger passage grave. Ok, it’s a few massive boulders stacked up, but when you think about it, it’s incredibly cool and interesting…it is.
Whitesands and St David’s Head are impressive, sure, but they are both under the watchful eyes of Carn Llidi. Carn Llidi towers over them both and certainly dominates the surrounding area. It’s a slightly intimidating sight from a distance but the closer you get, the friendlier it becomes. I am a big fan of climbing high things in Wales, especially if they are by the sea. Sarah, on the other hand, not so much but is always willing to try. We approached Carn Llidi from the north western side and, once the initial steep climb away from the coast path is done with, all you’re left with is a little scramble to get to the ”summit” (it’s only 181m). As far as remember, I think this could have been Sarah’s first scrambling experience, but she tackled it like a pro. We were fortunate enough that it was a sublime day for weather and the views from Carn Llidi on a day like that are outstanding. Below, as mentioned, you have St David’s Cathedral, Whitesands and St David’s Head as well as Ramsay Island (need to go there at some point) then in the other direction you have Strumble Head and the rest of the coastline snaking away from you. Apparently on a good day you can even see the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. It was a beautiful day but I didn’t spy the Wicklow Mountains, mostly because I didn’t know you could until afterwards, so I didn’t look. If you use the path that goes up and down Carn Llidi directly from Whitesands, it’s much easier and doesn’t require much of a scramble, but where’s the fun in that?
It was such a nice day that we would be coming back in the evening to catch the sunset, but we had other business to attend to back at our Tiny Home first.
Into The Sticks Nature Trail
Before Sarah could properly settle down and have a nice relaxing afternoon, I wanted to get out and explore the rest of the Into The Sticks site. Partly to be nosey but mostly because they have created a little 3km nature trail which pretty much takes you around the whole place. Jo and Kev have done an absolutely incredibly job at managing the land and nurturing the wildlife and environment that surrounds Into The Sticks. Just a matter of feet from the Tiny Home’s door, you’re walking through the silent meadowland full of wildflowers, rare butterfly species, dragonflies and enjoyed by the bats, badgers and foxes at night and under the surveillance of the local Red Kites.
We weren’t entirely sure if we were actually on the nature trail to be honest, but we were following one of the mown paths through the meadow. There is so much to explore and places to lose yourself for a while, I feel we only experienced such a small fraction of what there is to offer. We eventually hit the river, which after looking at one of the information packs in the communal barn I believe may be home to some elusive otters. Following the river back in the direction of the campsite, there are so many little areas to chill out and relax, enjoy the serenity and feel miles away from the rest of the world without another soul in sight.
The trail eventually pops you out at the edge of the tent pitches, each with its own firepits and picnic tables. Each pitch has a sense of privacy as they too are cut out of the meadow and surrounded by the long grasses and wildflowers. Throughout our trip, in one way or another, I was talking about ‘nature in balance’ and I believe that what Jo and Kev have achieved with Into The Sticks is an absolutely perfect example of everything in balance with nature and the surrounding environment. Maintaining it, shaping it and using it just enough for what they need, and I know the work that goes into maintaining that much wild land must be so immense but it sure pays off.
Whitesands Sunset
After a quick dinner on the deck, we headed back out to Whitesands to catch the sunset. It’s almost the perfect place for it too as it faces almost due west so the sun sets just off central to the beach uninterrupted by anything on the horizon. I also recommend South Stack on Anglesea/Holy Island for a great coastal sunset in Wales, but that’s north Wales and we’re talking about Pembrokeshire today, so forget that for now.
We arrived with some time to get out for a walk along the sand and to watch the surfers getting the last bit of fun in whilst the light was still good. There were surprisingly few people there but the rocks above and all along to St David’s Head were peppered with silhouettes of fellow sunset enthusiasts. As tradition has it, maybe just my tradition, whenever you go to the beach, whatever the time of day, whatever the weather or the occasion, you need to touch the sea and we walked out to water to fulfil this duty, the remaining wash on the wet sand perfectly reflected sky like a mirror.
We caught the sunset, watched it drop below the horizon and made our way back to the tiny home for our last night in this beautiful place.
Of course we lit the fire once more and enjoyed another bottle of 19 Crimes (best wine in the world) on the deck whilst making s’mores. Here’s another confession for you, I’ve made and enjoyed countless campfires all over the world, but I had never made s’mores before-s. Apparently that’s just part of my deprived childhood. But what I very quickly discovered however was the true nature of the semi-molten sugary pillow as a piece, straight from the fire just before it made biscuit contact, was caught by the wind and well and truly stuck itself to my arm and let me tell you, that stings a bit and leaves you with sweet sugary second degree burns. Luckily though, much like a golden retriever, I’m incredibly blasé and unfussed about most things – I’m just happy to be here – so I just continued to finish the pack of marshmallows and chocolate digestives.
No, I didn’t learn my lesson, I wasn’t put off and I will be making s’mores in the wind again in the future. In fact, we have a firepit in our own garden, so I might make some tonight. Sue me.
Goodbye, thank you and see you soon
And just like that, Sunday morning meant our time at Into The Sticks was over. We could have stayed a week or more longer, not only because Monday night is pizza night but because the place is absolutely spectacular. Jo and Kev have worked tirelessly to make this site perfect for families, couples, solo trippers and everyone in between. Not only that but they are both so incredibly kind, generous and helpful individuals who have time for everybody and I feel sad we didn’t get to spend much more time getting to know them – but that time will come as we will be returning in the not too distant future hopefully.
I wasn’t asked to write something about our time at Into The Sticks or indeed about our time in Pembrokeshire in general, but these days I tend to write only about the things that particularly touch me and things I feel need to be recorded. Into The Sticks, their Tiny Home, their wildness and wilderness management, their attention to detail, generosity, kindness and helpfulness needs to be recorded and shouted about because they are too humble, too unexpecting and too nice to do it themselves and I hope you don’t mind me saying that.
From one intothesticks to the other, thank you again and see you soon.
James & Sarah
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intothesticks.life 