83 miles from Llyn Teifi to Cardigan Bay
The path is open. Source at Llyn Teifi in the Cambrians, sea at Poppit Sands. About 83 miles, mostly public rights of way, through three counties. Fingerposts are new. The river is old.
The idea sat in a Dyfed drawer. When the three counties split in 1996 it went cold. Walkers along the valley, Ramblers, Walkers are Welcome towns, footpath groups, picked it up again after 2021. Kay Davis of the Teifi Valley Trail Association is the name most people attach to that revival. Tom Cowcher, the chair, cut the ribbon in Llandysul after Ben Lake handed him the scissors.
Launch day started at 2am. Toby Hellman and Iain Prentice ran the whole line from the Teifi Pools and hit Poppit at 2.11 the next morning. Fifty walkers did a civilised four miles to Coed-y-Foel and back to Y Porth. Llandysul Paddlers went past on the water. The guidebook went on sale in the garden.
James Williams of the association put the point without romance: backpacks and boots, money in the pubs. The coastal path already does that job on the rim of Wales. This one is a bet that the valley still has a job after the mills quietened and Lampeter’s undergraduate teaching was wound down.
Three stages
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Stage 1 · 31 miles
Three days. Llyn Teifi and the pools, down to Strata Florida and Pontrhydfendigaid, Cors Caron, Tregaron, Lampeter. High, wet, and empty at the start.
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Stage 2 · 22 miles
Two days. Llanybydder to Llandysul and on toward Newcastle Emlyn. Farm and floodplain. This is the stretch most likely to be rerouted after rain.
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Stage 3 · 30 miles
Three days. National Wool Museum at Dre-fach Felindre, the gorge, Cilgerran, Cardigan, St Dogmaels Abbey, down to Poppit. Overnight stops already used include the Emlyn and Cardigan Castle.
What it is not
It is not the Coast Path. Waymarks are younger, some stiles will fail the first hard winter, and you will share gates with stock. Y Talbot in Tregaron and the New Inn at Llanddewi Brefi have already had the early walkers. Spend something; that was the point of nailing the posts up.
Further out, the association still talks about a Celtic Circle: this trail, a slice of the Wales Coast Path to Borth, and the Spirit of the Miners line back to Strata Florida. That loop is not open as one thing. This one is.