Tag: walking
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Wales Coast Path, day 2: Caldicot from Goldcliff
Like many coastal settlements on the Bristol Channel Goldcliff still remembers the disastrous year 1607. Behind the Farmers Arms in St Mary Magdelene’s Church – a shady avenue of limes leads to its porch – a brass inscription, now about three feet above ground level, reads (the dates refer to the old Julian calendar) as…
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Wales Coast Path, day 3: Goldcliff from Newport
We surprise J. by arriving early, for the first time ever. We’re at Lighthouse Road, Duffryn for a walk round the industrial underbelly of Newport and on into the Caldicot Levels. It’s a cloudy day, but warm, with the promise of faint sun later. The river Usk cuts a wide gash through the city, in…
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Wales Coast Path, day 49: Llangrannog to New Quay
We’re back in Llangrannog, at an early hour, for a longish walk north to New Quay. It’s a cooler, cloudier morning, for which we’re thankful. From the beach the path climbs up, past Carreg Bica, a ‘great lump of freestanding Ordovician rock’, in Gerald Morgan’s words. Bica was a giant afflicted by toothache; in the…
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Wales Coast Path, day 48: Aberporth from Llangrannog
With extreme care we nudge the car down the narrow winding road and hairpin bends down to Llangrannog. At the seafront M. and his binoculars join us for a shorter trip than yesterday, from Llangrannog to Aberporth. It’s a breezeless morning as we set out up the hill above the sleepy village. The first person…
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Wales Coast Path, day 47: Cardigan to Aberporth
Today we open a new front on the Wales Coastal Path: Ceredigion. Our starting point is the old quay in Cardigan – Aberystwyth without the university, as C. calls it. We’ve already toured the car parks until we find one that doesn’t ban all-day walkers. A sculptured dolphin marks the beginning of the path, but…
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Wales Coast Path, day 4: Newport from Rumney
The Wentloog and Caldicot Levels are like no other part of Wales. They’re flat lands that lie partly below sea level, protected from the Bristol Channel by earth walls and drained by artificial watercourses – more like the Lincolnshire fens than Wales. Three of us set out, on a fine windless April day, to walk…
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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. …
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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…
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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…
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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…