Caldey Island is an island off the coast of Tenby and easily accessible from the mainland by boat. I had seen it on the Travel Show years ago and it had stuck in my mind. When I first decided to go to Tenby I didn’t know whether Caldey Island would warrant a visit, I wasn’t sure how much there would be to do there. However, after doing some research, it seemed that Caldey Island was definitely worth a day trip, especially if it was a nice day.
Thursday had the best weather forecast for the week, sunny, warm, little chance of rain, so that seemed to be the ideal day to go. There were several options for Caldey Island. There were plenty of companies that offered boats from Tenby where you could sail around the island on a boat tour with commentary, but not land on the island, but there was also one company that offered a boat transfer to Caldey Island, you landed there and spent as long exploring the island as you wanted and then came back in your own time. And this is what I chose to do.
As we were leaving from Tenby, going back to Tenby and the cars were going to be parked up all day, a day on Caldey Island was also the ideal opportunity to have a picnic on the beach with a bottle of wine. So with a rucksack full of wine, cheese and French bread, we went to the harbour to buy a ticket for the boat across to the island.
As the tide was out, we were going to be leaving from Tenby South Beach. The tractor was on the beach with the walkway attached so that passengers could get onto the boat. It was a pleasant 20 minute ride across to Caldey Island. We landed right next to the one public beach on the island and where we would have our picnic later and set off to explore.
Caldey Island has a working monastery where monks make chocolate and perfumes and sell them in shops on the island. As well as this there is a lighthouse and a few hiking trails across the island. My plan had been to walk the perimeter of the island, but this isn’t actually possible, some of the land is out of bounds and you have to stick to the designated hiking trails, but these do cover a good portion of the island and took up several hours of the day.
We started out by walking from the boat dock to the village where there were several shops, a post office and the huge abbey. As with so many things on this trip, in TBC (Time Before Covid) it was possible to do a tour of part of the abbey, which is still home to around 20 Cistercian monks, but it was completely closed up now, which was disappointing. Instead we pressed on towards the lighthouse.
There is a turning before you get to the lighthouse to the Old Priory which is now in ruins. We had a brief look around the ruins and the attached St Illtyd’s Church with its leaning spire and then discovered the chocolate factory behind. It was relatively early in the day, so we only had to wait a few minutes for a couple to come out before we went inside. They made milk, plain and white chocolate as well as fudge and you could smell the chocolate as soon as you went inside as they were busy making some that day. After a purchase and a chat to the lady in the shop who recommended that we do the longer coastal walk from the lighthouse which takes you around the northeastern coastline of the island, we headed up to the lighthouse.
The lighthouse on the north side of the island was closed to the public. The lighthouse was the last to be powered by acetylene gas until it was modernised in November 1997 and is now monitored and controlled from a centre in Harwich at the opposite side of Great Britain.
We continued on the only reasonably long hiking trail on Caldey Island. It follows the northeastern quarter of the island’s coastline with a certain amount of elevation gain and then cuts back overland to the Old Priory. This shore of the island is very dramatic and rugged with high cliffs that fell straight into the sea. As we walked around the northeastern edge of Caldey Island the scenery got more impressive with a mist adding a certain mysterious element to the tall cliffs and waves crashing against the rocks below. There is no option to continue following the perimeter of the island, it’s completely blocked off and the beach, which is illustrated on the map, has no public access. The southeastern part of Caldey Island is completely off limits.
However, we had had a reasonable walk along this hiking trail and after reaching the Old Priory again we were fairly close to the village. It was approaching lunchtime, so this seemed to be an appropriate time to head down to the beach where the boat had docked, find a quiet spot and enjoy some bread, cheese and wine.
The beach along the southern shore of Caldey Island is fairly large, so we were able to find a spot for ourselves to sit down, enjoy the view back over to Tenby on the mainland and relax with an alcoholic lunch. It was a beautiful and sunny day, so it was ideal for a picnic. We opened our bottle of wine and sat sipping Chardonnay and ate French crusty bread and the Welsh Caerphilly cheese I’d bought yesterday.
There were lots of people queuing to take the boat back to Tenby, but no boats appeared for the whole time we were eating our picnic, which seemed rather strange, but we didn’t think carefully enough about to realise there was a problem. We later discovered that the tractor that was used for passengers to embark at low tide had broken down, so there was no way of getting people back to the mainland, they just had to wait for the tide to come in so that the boat could dock at the jetty. That is something to bear in mind if you do go over to Caldey Island for the day. As well as the last crossing back to the mainland being at around 5pm, if there are any problems at low tide, you could have a bit of a wait. By the time we were ready to go back to Tenby later in the afternoon, the tide was high enough for the boats to dock again, but we still had a bit of a wait as the queue went down.
However, after our picnic, we headed back to the village and decided to do a bit more walking, this time in the western part of the island that we hadn’t explored yet.
Most people who go over to Caldey Island don’t seem to venture very far. Most seem to hang around the beach and the village, a few will walk to the lighthouse and even fewer will do the northeastern coast walk that we had done that morning.
It appeared that not many people bothered exploring the western area of Caldey either. This fairly short route takes you closer to the abbey, which was when I discovered it was closed because of Covid, and around to the small Church of St David’s.
This is only a very small church, but it is open so you can have a look inside and see the two famous stained glass windows, the fish window and the tree of life window. Both were designed by monk, Theodore Baily in around 1922. The three branches on the Tree of Life represent the natural, the spiritual and the divine.
From there you can take the short woodland walk to the viewpoint across to the Gower Peninsula. This Bay is known as Paul Jones Bay named after the 18th century pirate who supposedly hid his treasure somewhere near this spot. I didn’t find it! You get a beautiful view over to the distant Gower Peninsula from this lookout. It’s a pretty deserted location, we certainly didn’t see many people bothering to explore this part of the island, but it’s a short distance from the abbey, it’s not a long walk and it’s one of only two circular walks on the island, so if you’ve made the effort to come across to the island and disembark the boat, I’d recommend this hiking trail, as well as the longer one around the northeastern quarter of Caldey.
And now we really had seen everything on Caldey, so short of walking around again, we headed back to the beach to wait for the boat to take us back to the mainland. Once the monastery is open again when the Covid restrictions are removed, there will be even more to do, so it’s well worth a day of your time if you’re having a holiday in Tenby. However, it wouldn’t be pleasant in the rain as there isn’t a lot of shelter and the visibility would be so poor you wouldn’t be able to see anything from the viewpoints, so make sure you choose a sunny day for your visit.
I travelled to Tenby in May 2021.
Information on Caldey Island including a map, can be found on its website.
Caldey Island is a 20 minute boat ride from Tenby. Return tickets cost £14. The island is open from Monday to Saturday from May to September. Caldey Island is closed on Sunday. Tickets are available from the harbour. Embarcation point depends on the tide, you will be informed of this when you purchase your ticket. Advance reservations are not required.
I stayed at Hammonds Park Guesthouse in Tenby, a 10 minute walk from the town centre with free parking and breakfast included. A large double room with a four poster bed and sofa and bathroom with bath and separate shower and a sea view cost approximately £55 per night. I booked through Expedia.
Read about my other adventures in Wales