My 200-mile Welsh adventure left me crying in a convenience store - but I'd do it again

Looking for a challenging two-day tour, Steve Shrubsall heads to the wild Pembrokeshire coast of Wales (UK) – and gets exactly what he wished for…

Images from Steve Shrubsall's Wales ride
(Image credit: Future)

Well, this wasn’t in the brochure. It was day two of my cycle tour of the Wales' (UK) Pembrokeshire coastline and I’d erred somewhat from the itinerary. I was standing in a Nisa Local convenience store in St Clears, a small town in Carmarthen, South Wales. Outside, a howling wind tore rampantly through the high street while rain thrashed out a ferocious pattern on the shop window. Inside, I had become the focal point of much intrigue. Drenched and dirty, I looked like I’d just been dredged up from the bottom of the Bristol Channel (midlands, UK). And I was as hungry as a half-starved Bull Mastiff.

Having negotiated some 100 miles in monsoon conditions, I’d all but cleared out my glycogen stores, and my energy levels had ebbed, flowed and ebbed again. I was weak, so very, very weak. And lastly, but definitely not least on this little list of woe, as things stood I didn’t have a red cent to my name. The rain, you see, as well as having soaked me through to my internal organs, had been so heavy that it had infiltrated the little plastic bag I keep my phone in and essentially marinated it. Wet, cold, hungry and with no means of payment, I threw myself at the mercy of the good people of St Clears and begged for their charity.

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