Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes Length: 2.6m, 4.16km How to get there: Service bus Freshwater East Grid ref: SS018983
Expanses of dunes and petrified forests - what will you see here?
Look out for: Dune reclamation Freshwater East
Freshwater East became a popular recreation area in the nineteenth century with the growth of the Naval Yard at Pembroke Dock. The dune system here was put under severe environmental pressure by plot development between World War One and World War Two. The development was halted after Pembrokeshire was designated a National Park in 1952 and since then the Park Authority has worked in partnership with local groups to conserve the local landscape and wildlife.
Currently, work is underway to reclaim the Burrows dune system. In dune systems plants like sea rocket, prickly saltwort and sea beet colonise the fore-dunes behind the tide-line using rotting seaweed as humus, whilst sea couch-grass and marram grass can survive further back in the dunes binding the sand together with their long root systems (marram grass is often planted to repair damaged dunes).
Plants like sea holly and sea bindweed colonise sheltered areas and sand sedge and sea spurge then help to bind the surface of the dune. A drowned ('petrified') forest can be seen in the bay at very low tides.
Click here for a map of the route.
Characteristics:
Livestock on Trewent Point, paths can be sandy
