Dolphin Spotting, Gold Mines, and Coastal Walks: A Week in West Wales 🐬

25 Apr, 2026

We recently spent a week in Wales - the goal for the week was to see dolphins, but we also visited some National Trust Properties along the way. My wife has wanted to see dolphins for the longest time so the trip ticked multiple boxes.

We started off with a tour of the Victorian gold mine at Dolaucothi, Carmathenshire. This National Trust site was so very different from the usual house/garden combination that I think it ranks nearly at the top of my list for "best sites to visit".

Dolaucothi Gold Mine and Llanerchaeron

Dolaucothi has been mined over thousands of years, but not for very long each time. The Romans found gold here, and in fact these are the only known Roman gold mine across Britain. After the Romans left, the site laid dormant until the Victorians came along in the 19th century and a new group in the early 20th century before the site closed in 1938 for good.

My wife's great, great, great grandfather obtained a licence to mine gold here in 1871!

I didn't take many photos from the mine tour because our group was so small (only 6 people on our tour!), there wasn't much time to stop and take photos. However, a memory that will stick with me is when we turned off our head lamps, and the guide lit a candle. Crazy to think about the working conditions here over the centuries. The candle was blown out, and the resulting darkness was unreal. There was so little light that it was impossible to see your hand if you put it directly in front of your face.

To exit the mine, we were given the choice of leaving by the level route we'd entered by or by climbing the "roman stairs". Less stairs, more like a steep ladder! We clambered up the ridiculously uneven steps one by one grasping the very wet rope as we went. It took about a minute to ascend, but it felt much longer - this is another memory that will stick with me for a long time.

After completing the guided Victorian Mine tour, you can head to a self guided walk through the Roman mines. We got our kit, and set off through the woods. It was a bit weird walking through the woods with a helmet, but it also felt strange to carry it... After a short while, we made it to the entrance of the mine and entered. It felt like a tunnel I'd build in Minecraft. Dead straight, directly through the hill. Just standing here and absorbing the history felt great.

We exited the Roman mine, and it immediately started hailing! Better than rain we thought! The walk through the rest of the site lead through some farm land, passed ruins of the old processing buildings and looped back around to the main site. All in all, a very interesting day out.

On the way back to New Quay, we stopped at Llanerchaeron. This was a more typical National Trust affair consisting of a Georgian house, plus a large well maintained garden. No magnet for sale that we could see in the shop though!

The house had some curious taxidermy specimens; I don't recall seeing too many fish or snakes before. The garden and lake were spectacular! The weather had cleared off (this would be a reoccurring theme for the week) leaving glorious sunshine. I would include this property along with Dolaucothi on a list of things to do if you find yourself in West Wales at any point.

Dolphin Spotting

We booked an afternoon dolphin spotting cruise but received a phone call a day earlier to let us know that not enough people had booked our timeslot and therefore it likely wouldn't run. We swapped onto an earlier cruise that already had some bookings and this trip thankfully did run. Our tour was with "New Quay Boat Trips"

We walked into New Quay from the Haven site (along the coastal path, this takes around 20 minutes) and waited on the harbour wall for our time. The boat Suncatcher pulled in, and away we went. Our trip headed west along the coast in the direction of Cardigan - we get as far as Cwmtydu Cove which apparently has quite a history of smuggling!

We saw sea birds, seals, but unfortunately no dolphins on the trip. They are wild animals, and the sea isn't a zoo so sometimes that does happen. The host of the tour was super interesting, and we learnt quite a few new things about the animals we did see so we didn't feel as though we'd wasted our money.

At the top of the cliff we saw an observation post which they told us was about a 45 minute walk along the coastal path so we committed to walking out there later in the week.

Towards the end of our trip (luckily...) one of the boats engines cut out, and they couldn't make the turn required to get back into dock. They sent out another smaller boat, and we were transferred over. They didn't seem overly concerned, so I suppose this has happened before. Thankfully the sea was pretty calm so all went well. Still, what an interesting thing to happen!

The Coastal Path

A few days later, we packed our lunch and set off west along the coastal path. The start of the path from New Quay is very steep but soon levels out once you reach the top of the cliff around New Quay Head. The walk from that point is pleasant, and you get good views of the cliffs and out to Cardigan Bay. I plotted a route using the Ordnance Survey mapping tools, and it said there is 150m of elevation gain along the walk from the bottom in New Quay to the observation hut.

We saw more sea birds (including cormorants, and herring gulls), a seal on the same rock as a few days prior (probably the same one!), and finally we saw a dolphin! We were told to keep an eye out for the tour boats because the dolphins like to play with them. This turned out to be very good advise because we saw both Suncatcher and a small private boat seemingly stop for no reason. After a few moments, a dolphin surfaced behind the boats!

Further along the coastal path, we came to the observation post we saw from the boat. This was an ideal spot to stop for lunch. This building was originally built in the 19th century as a look-out point for the coast guard, and it is preserved today to allow us to stop for lunch! After contemplating the views for a while, we headed back into New Quay.

We spent the rest of the week recharging our batteries, and generally having a nice time. The swimming pool at Haven Quay West is small but serviceable for a daily dip. We didn't try the main menu food at the on-site pub (Mash and Barrel) because we ordered some chips on Saturday night and they managed to screw those up so we didn't have any confidence in their other offerings.

One evening we decided to partake in the entertainment. And won a lovely bottle of Lambrini because we someone won the quiz by one point... Not really sure how everyone else was so bad that meant we won, ha! We sat on the beach for hours the following day, and on another day we went to see some local family which was nice as we rarely do get to see them!

The weather was mixed, but honestly it was how we like it. Not too hot, not too cold. A bit rainy, but very changeable. Nothing a good rain coat can't sort, and exactly the weather you should expect if you come to Wales in early spring time.

On the way home we dropped into Powis Castle (getting more use out of our National Trust Membership) to break the journey. We will certainly consider doing this in the future as National Trust sites are much nicer rest stops than crappy petrol stations.

Throughout the week we managed to visit two National Trust properties, successfully saw a dolphin, and spent tons of quality time together away from the realities of day to day life.