Around the Edge of Wales (11).....Swansea to Loughor

Around the edge of Wales (11) – Swansea to Loughor

I’d never really understood why the Gower peninsula was rated so highly - until now. I thought back to my visits over the years and realised that they’d all been connected with work and that my view of this little corner of Wales had been shaped by my experiences of travelling to  meetings along the peninsula’s narrow, choked roads - always racing the clock as a result of my inability to gauge Gower travelling times correctly, and always on the verge of being late. But to walk around the edges of this peninsula is a totally different experience.

From the misty haze on Mumbles pier the day opened out into brilliant sun. Langland Bay was a outdoor gym packed with teams of young people from the local Nippers watersports club,  watched by a throng of spectators along the network of urbanised paths around its edges. Rows of painted beach huts curved around the sweep of the bay. Green and white, identical, precise. The path wound onwards past a mass of white comfrey and wild garlic along its edges. Green and white.  Clean, smart.

Other beautiful bays on the southern coast were quieter and wilder. The secluded Pwlldu beach had to be my favourite . The clifftops were stunning. The narrow paths that wove through expanses of yellow gorse were tunnels of coconut-scented heat.  I was glad of a pint in the community-run pub at Pennard.

Three-cliffs bay has been voted the most beautiful beach in Britain. Undoubtedly a magnificent place and I would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the poor signage that took me back up to the incredibly busy Penmaen-Oxwich road. I tried a few times to return to the coast, but  in vain. I passed a few interesting features though, as a result of these failed efforts – such as the new and impressive turf-roofed beach cabin that was being built at the western end of Three Cliffs Bay and a sycamore growing in a pillar of pure, eroded sand at the edge of Nicholaston Burrows , with its mane of fine roots exposed to the air – a triumph of survival in extreme, hostile conditions. I gave up trying to get back to the coast after about four attempts – I didn’t have the energy to retrace my steps any longer and opted to suffer the suffocating Gower traffic until I knew I could pick up the path again at Oxwich.

Late afternoon at Oxwich was beautiful. The muted colours of the marsh were easy on the eyes at the end of a bright day and the hour of intense concentration on a traffic-infested road. St. Illtud’s church nestled in soft wooded greenery above an emptying beach, ravens croaked and stonechats chattered as dusk settled on the dramatic rocky bluffs around Oxwich Point. Port Eynon marked the day’s end, celebrated by a fishcake treat from the beach chippy for one extremely tired dog.

I pressed on the following day to complete the peninsula. The path rose above a ruined salt-processing plant at Port Eynon and through grey limestone rubble peppered with a blaze of rock rose, trefoil and stonecrop flowers.  It was another hot day. I climbed past a collapsed lime kiln to reach a series of dramatic limestone headlands. The coconut smell of gorse flowers rose again on the warm air and skylarks trilled madly.  A couple of walkers snoozed on a carpet of  spring squill turf, their white cotton hats shielding their faces from the glare of the sun, chough calls filling the air above them. An elderly walker suddenly appeared around a limestone cliff, having stripped off her clothes in the stifling midday stillness of the mini-heatwave, apologising profusely. I knew how they all felt – I also needed a rest and a chance to cool down.

Rhosili was busy and at low tide walkers were swarming out to Worm’s Head. I chose the low route across Rhosili mountain – which was spectacular. I missed some key waymarkers signs at the north end of Rhosili but discovered  alternative routes that took me through lovely hamlets of Llangennydd and Llanmadog and down towards the Hebridean-looking Broughton Bay and past the wooded hill of Weobley Castle.

I fell in love with north Gower. Its quiet expanse of saltmarsh and understated settlements, its watery horizons that played tricks on the eyes, creating islands out of low headlands, sandbanks and teams of cockle gatherers at low tide. It seemed just a little forgotten, a bit less discovered than the southern part of the peninsula. More ponies than porsches. The path wound around the  edge of the saltmarsh from Llanrhidian but petered out, as did the waymarking signs, beyond the cockle processing plant at Penclawdd. It was fortunate that someone happened to be working on the small industrial estate at the edge of the Penclawdd marsh and was able to unlock the gate that led to the main road – otherwise I’d have been paddling through creeks and wet marsh on a rising tide for an uncomfortably long time.

It was still hot. The road through Penclawdd was busy The prospect of a long walk on a roadside pavement to  Gowerton didn’t fill me with excitement.   The dog kept on lying down in protest, refusing to budge each time until she’d had  a five minute break. I couldn’t refuse the offer of a lift  from a group of friends who were on their way to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre in Llanelli for the afternoon. I dropped off at a pub in Gowerton  where we could rest in the shade for a few hours and where I could rifle abandoned plates for leftover chips and chicken pieces for the dog – my food stocks were running low.