Tag: walking
Wales Coast Path, day 11: Porthcawl from Port Talbot
Port Talbot, Tai Bach, Margam: for J. and me this is new territory, but it’s home turf for C. and H. So we’ve the luxury of expert commentators as we take to the streets and move east. We parked in the centre of Port Talbot, near where H. grew up and C. went to school. […]
Wales Coast Path, day 10: Dunraven from Porthcawl
By now we tend to see the Wales Coast Path as ‘our path’. We don’t expect to see many other long distance walkers, and having planned our routes we expect to execute them without hindrance. Imagine our indignation, then, when we find that the car park at Dunraven is closed because filming is taking place […]
Wales Coast Path, day 5: Rumney from Penarth
At last, a dry bright morning. C, J and I stroll down past Alexandra Park towards Penarth Pier. Bafflingly a woman with a small dog says we look like the Three Musketeers. She may be unaware that the only fences we tend to come across are ones that divide fields. After a coffee in the […]
Wales Coast Path, day 7: Barry from Rhoose
It’s a dry and sunny morning after torrential rain in Swansea. C and I are drawn back irresistibly to the famous ‘Rhoose Point Transport Interchange Car Park’, this time with H as our companion, for a gentle amble east to Barry. Suburbia is the theme of the first section of this stretch of the coastal […]
Wales Coast Path, day 8: Rhoose from St Donats
I’m back with C and J in the King George V Field, St Donats. The morning’s not as bright as the weather forecast promised, but there’s no wind, and it’s not cold. So off we march down the field to join the coast path, and turn east for Rhoose. We’re high above crumbly sandstone cliffs, […]
Wales Coast Path, day 9: St Donats from Dunraven
We could be accused, C. and I, of cherry-picking the best sections of the south Glamorgan coastline. I have a hunch, though, that the least promising looking sections of the Wales Coast Path may turn out to be the most interesting. Anyway, here we are in the car park at Dunraven, below Southerndown, with our […]
Walking poets
In 2012 the Huddersfield poet Simon Armitage published a book called Walking home, about a trip he made on foot two years earlier from north to south along the length of the Pennine Way. He started without a penny in his pocket, paying for his accommodation and meals through poetry readings he gave at various […]
Zennor in light
Penwith is as far west as you can go in England. At the toe of Cornwall, it’s a region that looks and feels Atlantic. Its place-names are mostly Celtic. Prehistoric remains lie scattered across its open granite landscape. Three nights we spent recently in Penwith give me the chance to taste the South West Coastal […]
Wales Coast Path: day 42: Whitesands to Portgain
Friday is hotter still. There’s almost no breeze. We decide to head south-north for a change, starting from Whitesands Bay and repeating a little of our mini-walk in May. It’s so oppressive that Ca. turns back at St David’s Head to join us later. The rest of us sweat onwards, through the rough gorse and […]
Wales Coast Path: day 43: Porthgain from Aber Mawr
We’re back in north Pembrokeshire, with H. and Ca., to fill in the ‘gap’ in the coast path left when we were rained off in May. This time there’s no complaint about being damp: we’re half way through the hottest and driest spell for seven years. We resume at Aber Mawr, almost immediately accompanied by […]