Ffynone Waterfall is like something out of a fairytale: a beautiful cascade that flows into a narrow gorge, surrounded by dense woodland and a pool at the base that sparkles emerald in the sunshine. It’s the sort of place you can lose yourself in total serenity for a while. If you’re looking to spice things up a bit, you can even go for a dip in the crystal clear water, which is breathtaking in every sense of the word.
Here’s everything you need to know about visiting Ffynone Wood Waterfall.
The walk to Ffynone Waterfall
The stats
Distance: 1 mile return (1.6km)
Elevation gain: 30m
Difficulty: Easy
Summary: The trail to Ffynone Waterfall is in good condition and almost entirely flat, making this a very easy place to access. At half a mile each way, it should take around 10 - 15 minutes at a leisurely pace. However, the trail isn’t signposted, so check out our directions below.
The trail
The trail leads directly from the car park (details below) and begins by heading along a gravel road. The trail leads very gently downhill and the conditions underfoot are good, making it a very easy start to the walk.
You’ll soon see a sign outlining some of the folklore surrounding the falls and there’s a path off to the left here - but it’s not the route to the waterfall, for that you want to continue walking down the road.
Although walking along a gravel road might not sound that exciting, there is some lovely woodland on either side of it, so it’s really quite pretty.
After 250m you’ll pass through a gate and see a house ahead of you. There’s a left turn before the house, but this leads to a dam, the waterfall lies straight ahead.
The path flattens and heads into a denser patch of woodland, with towering pines which provide full shade and lots of beauty.
Roughly 700m after leaving the car park you will see a trail leading downhill to the left. It’s a little bit steeper, but in great condition and easy in dry conditions.
After another 100m you will arrive at the foot of Ffynone Waterfall (800m from the car park).
Ffynone Waterfall
The waterfall itself is fairly slender, particularly if you’re not visiting after heavy rain, however the setting is just magical. The gorge walls and stunning woodland create an almost fairy glen type atmosphere.
The water is so clear that at first I thought it must be very shallow, but it does get deep as you get closer to the gorge wall.
Depending on whether light is shining on the water, it’s either emerald or a deep green, and both are spectacular.
There’s a bench set back from the stony river bank and plenty of fallen logs to perch on right by the water’s edge. The logs catch the afternoon sun and were the perfect place to relax after a refreshing swim.
Swimming at Ffynone Waterfall
Ffynone Waterfall is a special spot for a dip. The water is very cold (even in summer), but you can swim a bit to warm up and I got used to it pretty quickly.
Although it starts off shallow, it gets very deep at the start of the gorge wall and through the narrow chasm to the waterfall itself.
Accessing the pool is very easy because there are no big slippery rocks like you often find at waterfalls; they are more like small, relatively grippy pebbles.
It’s probably one of the nicest waterfall pools to get into that I’ve visited yet.
You can swim right up to the waterfall itself and as soon as you get up to the gorge walls it feels very secluded.
There was a large family group visiting for a while when we were there, but in the pool itself I felt like I was completely alone.
Later on we got the whole place to ourselves, which was even more special.
After visiting the main waterfall you could also scramble up the path through the woodland to the right of the pool, or up the footholds you can see in the main cliff wall to the left of the falls.
This leads to more pools, but it can be a slippery scramble.
We had a quick look but as we ended up with the main pool to ourselves for quite a while, we used most of our time there and didn’t swim further up - one for next time!
Keep them wild
Please remember to take all rubbish with you and keep these places wild and pristine - as with anywhere in the outdoors. It’s important to leave them exactly as you found them so they will remain beautiful for generations to come.
Litter tends to breed litter, so if you do spot any and are able to pick it up and dispose of it outside the park, it will go a long way to keeping the area clean.
The best time to visit Ffynone Waterfall
Ffynone Waterfall is relatively popular, after all it’s such a short easy walk to reach a spot this beautiful. For this reason if you’re visiting on a warm weekend or during the school holidays, you might want to come early or late in the day.
We arrived at 4pm in the July school holidays and it was a little busy around the pool until 5pm, when suddenly everyone left. No one was actually swimming when we visited, so the pool itself wasn’t busy (which is good as it’s not large) but the area surrounding it was relatively busy.
Parking for Ffynone Waterfall
Ffynone Waterfall is accessed from the Ffynone Waterfall car park (postcode SA37 0HQ), which is free of charge and has no time limit. It’s not huge, but there was still a decent amount of spaces left when we visited in the summer holidays.
The Ffynone Waterfall car park is located just under an hour’s drive from Pembroke, 45 minutes from Haverfordwest and just over 15 minutes from Cardigan.
Unfortunately there is no way that we could find to visit Ffynone Waterfall by public transport.
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