WCP: Llanmadoc to Gowerton

Thursday 19 March 2014

Distance: 17.6 miles

Weather: Glorious again, although hazy views

I tend to wake up early when out and about walking on a Colin-based trip, mainly because I tend to fall to sleep too early. I woke up early again this morning, which was a bit annoying as it had been a later night than usual and I hadn’t slept well. As a result I felt like i was going really slowly today (hmmm, just looked at my speed profile for the day and my perception and reality don’t quite align).

Unusually, Mick started out with me today, on the basis that 5 miles after setting off the route would take us back within 500 yards of where Colin was parked, having walked up one side of the narrow spit of Whiteford Burrows and back down the other side.

If I had paid more attention to the path closure notice before we set out along the spit, I might have decided to omit the excursion (even the official Coast Path gives the option to omit it), but I’m glad that I didn’t pay more attention, as this spit is well worth a visit. The west side was a large expanse of beach sided by dunes (after today’s news, I looked out for wet wipes washed up, but all I found was the usual thousands of pieces of plastic of various shapes, sizes and types):

Then, within yards of rounding to the east side we were in a green land with a large variety of plants.

It was definitely the highlight of the day, even though we did then find the continuation of the path to be closed (yep, we ignored the closure, hopped over the gate and went to have a look at the ‘washed away section of wall’ which confirmed to us that it’s not passable), causing us to perform a closed loop around the point. With Mick headed back towards Colin, I continued on the 1-mile diversion. I was certainly glad a while later that I had mis-marked the route on my map and didn’t need to walk right the way into Cheriton, as there are now stepping-stones and a permissive path cutting across the marshes.

The following path along the marshes was interesting but not spectacular, then it was onto tarmac for the rest of the day (bar a little section of fields right at the end of the day).

I finished my day at Gowerton Caravan Club Site, even though I knew that it doesn’t open for the season until tomorrow. Instead, we’ve driven a little way to park up for the night, right on the edge of the salt-marsh where we’re watching the tide come in and hoping it’s not a high enough tide to cover the car park (which it clearly does sometimes).