Day 39
Gowerton to Landimore: 10 miles
Beer of the day: Gower Power
Reason: Not only does it rhyme, it tastes nice and I heard no less than three older men have conversations about the fact that it has a 5.5% ABV. And not one of these overheard conversations was actually in a pub or on the periphery of an alcohol purchase - people were just talking about beer everywhere.
First, the cockles
Leaving Gowerton, the path cuts inland for a bit and has some lovely views from the tops of hills beside some small farms (one of which, incidentally, was named Tahrir Square and had a lovely blue name plate with Arabic characters). Unfortunately, I managed to leave my camera out of my bag so I have no proof of this.
The day was a bit overcast though, and so the salt marshes of the north coast looked pretty much like what they are - giant mud pits. While they're giant mud pits criss crossed with little canyons and giant patches of grass, on a grey day like this the north part of the Gower peninsula doesn't have a lot of color.
It does, however, have a lot of cockles. P is visiting, and while he was walking from Crofty to meet me on my way from Gowerton, he made a new 70 year old best friend who told him all about his retirement, the Gower peninsula, and the cockle industry.
First of all, to clarify - cockles are teeny tiny little clams. They're very small, but they live where most clams do, just under the shallow muddy surface of salt water coasts. And, just like quahogs and little necks at home, you use a rake to get at them. Although here I'm not sure there are such strict regulations about this as in, for example, Cape Cod. At home you absolutely can't use motorized means to dig up clams - which is why every morning my parents wake up to a bunch of clam diggers literally in their front yard with rakes. There are also strict limits for personal use, which all our neighbors seem to fall afoul of when the Harbormaster comes by (that's why I call him the clam police).
Here, I saw that there were limits for personal use - but really 8 kilograms (17 lbs) seems like you'd be up to your eyeballs in cockles. And I saw people driving out to the cockle beds, but didn't see people raking - so I'm not sure whether they still do it by hand. What I do know is that according to P's friend up until the mid-1970s they were still using horse drawn carriages to bring the women to the cockle beds. Now the carriages are definitely gone, as are most of the women - since the mines and factories closed most of the cockle gathering is done by men.
In any case, something is apparently not going well - as the cockle population is dwindling, and the industry isn't doing great. I only saw a few cockle gatherers on my walk - though of course the tide might have been wrong. I did however, see the cockle factory and giant piles of discarded cockle shells - a lot of cockles here are sold de-shelled and canned.
And even better, it smelled like the coast. Many people might not need the smell of a shellfish factory to feel like they're actually on the beach, but for some reason not many places here seem to have that salty ocean smell I'm used to at home. But boy oh boy did the cockle factory make up for that.
Then, of course, the wild swamp sheep
Beyond the cockle factory was Llanrhidian marsh - yet another National Trust Wales Coast site. This is basically an extensive marshland, with a lot of diverse wildlife - but most of what I saw was sheep.
I've seen Gower Salt Marsh Lamb listed on many menus, and walking by the butcher here you could definitely smell the lamb even from the street. I'm fairly certain Gower sheep are a specialty, sought-after 'thing' - but I'm not totally sure. What I do know is that in practice this leads to many, many sheep grazing in a salt marsh as the tide comes in and out. And many, many sheep wandering aimlessly down the one road (that doubles as the Coast Path here) that's often underwater at high tide. And thus many, many frustrated and/or laughing people trying to get all the sheep to get out of their way.
Although it isn't actually a swamp, I decided to call my thousands of newfound friends the swamp sheep. And one thing I know about swamp sheep - they like to talk to each other. They had a kind of call and response thing going. One sheep would yell in a low pitched voice, and then like 30 sheep would answer. It was at this point I also realized sheep have very, very different voices. And some of them, let me tell you, sound like idiots.
But moreso than just anthropomorphizing sheep, I was spending my time realizing how damn loud these animals are. I mean really. They would not. be. quiet. And I was in the middle of like a thousand sheep. It really was not the relaxing hike I was looking for, with sheep bleating from every angle, and/or pooping and running away from me in all the stupidest directions (sheep seem to always get scared and then run directly into your path rather than away from you. Then they get more scared and do something even stupider).
Anyway, by the time I got to the town of Llanrhidian I was ready for a break. So P picked me up and we went to the lovely Greyhound Inn - which used to be the brewpub for the local (and now relatively powerhouse) Gower beer, but now that that label's expanded it's just a pleasant inn with good food where I will admit I got a lamb burger out of spite.
In the end, I returned back to the trail with a little Gower Power ale in my belly, and the fact that I was walking through dusky, dark, Blair Witch Project-esque woods didn't seem to bother me all that much. Plus it was only a few pleasant miles to tiny Landimore, and overall the salt marsh had meant a pretty easy ten mile day without much hill climbing.
I was, however, anxiously waiting to get to the famous vistas of south and west Gower.
