HAVING had a three-month break in my coastal perambulation forced upon me by various factors including but not limited to biting financial constraints and, thanks to the wettest summer in a hundred years, much of the country being inconveniently underwater, I firmly resolved to begin walking again as soon as was feasibly possible.
Category: Glamorganshire
LXXII – Rhossili to Llanrhidian
WITH flood warnings in place for much of Wales and heavy rain predicted for most of the foreseeable future, I had almost resigned myself to postponing any future walks indefinitely. But when the Met Office predicted that last Thursday would be one clear day amid the ongoing deluge, I seized the opportunity with almost reckless abandon.
LXXI – Penmaen to Rhossili
HAVING given my feet a fortnight or so to recover from any new-boots inflicted damage, not to mention having had other things to do in that period, I thought it was high time I returned to the splendorous scenery of the Gower and traversed a little further along the coast.
LXX – Swansea to Penmaen
THE THIRD day of September was the two-year anniversary of the first of these coast walks, when I walked from Gravesend to Strood. It seemed only right to celebrate this by doing some more walking, although this time I would be making my way from Swansea onto the Gower Peninsula.
LXIX – Port Talbot to Swansea
THE LATEST two days of walking almost didn’t happen. I decided not only to wait until my feet were fully healed from the last sole-destroying misadventure but also to wait until I had bought some new walking boots. Which a distressing lack of inward cashflow promised to postpone indefinitely. And then…
LXVIII – Merthyr Mawr to Port Talbot
I WOKE up early on Sunday morning, stretched, yawned, turned off my alarm and got out of bed, ready to do some more walking. As I stood up, I almost swore under my breath but I didn’t, mostly because that breath had just exhaled itself involuntarily. I had, it turned out, most definitely got blisters on the balls of my feet.
Clearly I wasn’t going to be walking all day. Or if I was, it was going to be with pain accompanying every single step. And that would just be silly. Right?
Continue reading “LXVIII – Merthyr Mawr to Port Talbot”LXVII – Barry to Merthyr Mawr
I MAY, as the twilight began to lighten the horizon on Saturday morning, have wondered to myself why I thought it was a good time to be sitting in Cardiff Central Station (or Caerdydd Canolog in Welsh). The answer, of course, was that it enabled me to catch the first train to Barry and so to resume my walk around the coast. It didn’t, on the other hand, do much for sating my body’s desire for sleep. But hey, it had had a two hour snooze on the overnight coach from London. That would just have to be enough…
LXVI – Cardiff to Barry
I AWOKE on the Tuesday morning to the sound of pattering rain. The skies over Cardiff were heavy and grey. Undaunted, I prepared for a third day of walking in wet weather and soon bounded out of the door of my hotel, having eschewed their meagre breakfast offering.
LXV – Newport to Cardiff
I AWOKE early on Monday morning, refreshed after a deep and restful sleep. I leapt from my hotel bed with a bound of enthusiasm, keen to get on with more walking. I threw back the curtains and looked out of the window, ready for whatever the world chose to throw at me. What I saw out there was Newport.