On the trail steps 29909 miles 13 – Off the trail steps 18999 miles 7.5. Total Miles over 3 days 20.5! Overall Wales Coast path total 647 miles!
Saturday dawned and I drove first to Halfords in Llanelli. The car needed a new battery as I have been struggling to start it (and have once had to call Green Flag on Thursday!). It was rapidly acquired and fitted and the car is back to starting without issues! (Mr Greenflag had said it should be OK but it really wasn’t!). I then drove back to Bynea car park at the start of the Millenium trail. After an eventful 10 minutes trying to evict a dopey wasp from the car, it was finally dispatched.
I was about to set off when it started to rain, so I was slightly delayed putting on my waterproof trousers. It was a good job I did as it rained on the trail and quite hard for most of the first 90 minutes or so. I crossed a joint road and trainline footbridge at the start and it was easy walking mostly on a combined walkway and cycleway. I was repeatedly passed or overtaken by cyclists and joggers, and only met a couple of walkers. Early on the estuary was visible and I saw quite a few sea birds but most of the way the path was up against the sea wall or heading way from the coast into woodlands so the views were limited. There was also a theme park at the start too
I took a detour into a Wetlands centre to dry out a bit and had a very welcome coffee and a piece of bakewell slice. By the time I re-emerged it had stopped raining and I did a few more miles on the millenium trail. It came out near a golf course and a lake, and then closer to the shore, near a large new housing estate. I was getting weary so I used an app to plot a route back to the car. I established a touching point and set off inland to a bus stop outside Pentre Awel. I took an L2 to the bus station in Llanelli and then a 111 back to Bynea and a short walk back to the car.
I was extremely careful not to allow any more wasps to enter the car and the car started like a dream..
Sunday – Athene had joined me and we plotted to do the missing section from my last trip inbetween Port Eynon and Rhossili. As it was Sunday we did a quick trip to Rhossili to leave one car and the other at the Port Eynon car park. We retraced the path I had taken (with a brief false start) coming out near to the coast path after about a mile and avoiding the headland out of Port Eynon, which I had already done.
I reconnected with the touching point, I had used in June and we set off on the trail. The weather was not kind. Low cloud, rain, cool and poor visibility and it also made it rather soggy and steep descent was tricky due to wet rocks and red sticky mud! I had carefully studied the walk book which said there would be 3 tricky descents/ascents and it was very true about the descents.
It had an eerie quality to it but several long easy stretches on the headland. It was a shame about the views, we only got occasional glimpses. It was the toughest walk I have done on this trip and the going (especially on the steep descents) was slow. We stopped for a coffee on a wall and shortly after that encountered some cows and calves on a very narrow path. Athene tried to move them on but in the end we decided to cut across a couple of fields instead and rejoin the path further on. We met more cows but managed to get past these without any mishap on a much wider expanse of headland.
We got into the final dip above Mewslade bay before finding a suitable lunch slot. We decided to take the inner route back to Rhossili (again which I had used the previous time I was here having already done the coast path from this point as before). We had a little bit of difficulty finding the path and had to get to the other side of a large wall first. We came up a bit further along on a path I had used before (rather than exactly where I had left the coast path in June). As it was ground already covered I made a touching point and we set off into Pitton. We took the path that had been really overgrown from Pitton to Rhossili in June and the good news was it had been cut back. We were soon back in Rhossili and then did the quick trip back to Port Eynon to pick up the second car – before tea and carrot cake at base camp (once both of us had completely changed out of some very wet things!).
It was good to have managed to bridge the gap and to have had company on quite a challenging (at times) route!
Monday dawned and it was still wet with low cloud (though warmer and humid). I decided to plug my other gap between Broughton and the start of the path to Whiteford. This was a shorter walk which was helpful as I was a bit stiff after yesterday’s efforts. I had not done this last Monday as the road access was closed. I parked at Broughton caravan site – which turned out to be free which was welcome.
I did the route out on the coast path – through the caravan park (and the touching point) and then about a mile of dunes, and then a big up on a sandy path – which improved to a grassy one still going up. There was more of the very rusty coloured bracken we had seen yesterday – which was quite striking. I stopped for a coffee on Hill tor having gone off the path (and was disturbed by 2 other walkers!). I suspect they didn’t realise I was there until they were virtually on top of me!
It was a steep sandy descent and then down to the sign about the beetles I had used as a touching point last Monday. I had to follow the coast path back to the dunes down to the beach, which added to the long stretch on the broad sandy beach (as I had to do a good ½ a mile in completely the wrong direction to achieve this).
I saw several more large jelly fish near the tide line. Most of the way along the beach there was also a surprising amount of ‘excrement’ not sure of the source at the tide line too – hard to believe it could all be from live stock that were not in evidence. Disappointing for a beautiful spot.
The weather was less than great and I was walking into a surprisingly strong wind on the beach – strong enough to blow sand and lots of rain at me all the way back to the caravan park.
I followed another set of footprints at times as the sand was quite ‘sinky’ in places. I saw several dog walkers and eventually made my way back up in to the caravan park and back to the car. I was wet enough to have to change again when I got back to base camp.
I have now managed to get from Port Eynon all the way to the edge of Llanelli on the trail on this trip….
The Adventures of Alison 