Day 43
Rhossili to Oxwich: 11.5 miles
Winners of the day: Mary Ellen and Emerson
Reason: After flying halfway across the world, doing whirlwind visits to London and Stockholm, and being surprised that the drive from London, to Stonehenge, to Gower. . . takes a bit longer than the internet says it does (as does everything here) - they hiked 11.5 miles with P and I like champions. Also we had breaks like champions too - with Gower Power being high on the list. Also, all photo credit goes to them for the day - since my camera seemed to hear this was supposed to be the best walk on the Gower and decided to revolt and mysteriously shut off.
After dinner in Port Eynon, Let's hike to. . . Port Eynon
So, when ME and E arrived last night. . . Actually, now I'm debating what Mary Ellen's initials should be as ME reads weird - I feel like I'm yelling about myself. ME!!!! Let's try MEl. Ok, even though the upper and lower case reads like she's some kind of robot or e-device, that looks better.
Anyway, so when MEl and E arrived last night, we didn't have time to walk any further than I'd already done - and in any case fog had rolled in. So we'd gone to Port Eynon, just down the road (P being kind enough to not drink with us so he could drive) and we went to the Smugglers Haunt for dinner. This gastro pub and pizzeria was one of only a few places to choose from for dinner in south west Gower, but it was great. I got the lamb and tried not to think about the fact that it might have been one of the ones yelling at me over the over the last few days.
It was a cute little space, and we had dinner and dessert and wine and followed that up with more wine back at the cottage. Also I was given fabulous presents, including a Swedish elk sausage which I'm really looking forward to eating on a hill someday.
But this morning, we of course had to get up and hike. And the place we were hiking to was. . . Port Eynon. Since it was so foggy the night before, really it was still going to be a surprise what the town looked like.
So P drove to Port Eynon and was going to meet us halfway, and MEl, E and I walked out the backdoor to take up the trail where I'd left off. Of course we immediately met some giant long haired, horned highland cows, which terrified me. Luckily the trail turned right before we had to go through them, otherwise I was close to making us hop over a barbed wire fence.
The trail started up just as pretty as it had left off - with views of lots of undulating cliffs falling into the sea. And here's where I have to say that hiking with people (and people I actually like) was so different than hiking by myself, and pretty wonderful. Everything went by so much quicker (for me anyway, who's now used to hiking continuously for however long it takes) having fun people to talk to.
Anyway, one of the historic highlights you can take on this walk is a visit to Paviland Cave. That is where the so-called 'Red Lady of Paviland' was found. The 'Red Lady' was actually a young man, whose bones were discovered here in 1823. Dated from 26,000 to 34,000 (yes, you read that right, 34 thousand) years old, it was the first human fossil ever found in the world, and it is also believed to be the oldest ceremonial burial in the world.
So, we turned off at where you'd go to find Paviland cave. And I'm going to tell you we found A cave. It was definitely A cave. However, reading about how tricky it is to get to Paviland because of the tides, I'm going to guess maybe we weren't in THE cave, but who knows. We were Paviland-adjacent in any case, and had a nice time in our cave.
After that short diversion and my constant, possibly unbearably constant reference to wanting to see 'Deborah's Hole' (the name of one seaside area on this walk), we passed over cliffs, hills, lovely stone beaches, some ancient forts, some things that may have been ancient cairns, and through several youth hiking groups to come upon Port Eynon. Walking down from the southernmost point in Gower past the marker at the top of the (again) National Trust managed site, we walked past the Old Salt House. This of course being a place for salt extraction, and, inevitably in this region, for hiding smugglers like John Lucas.
The views here were lovely, and when we got to Port Eynon it was hard to believe we'd been there yesterday. In the fog you'd barely been able to tell one thing from another. In the bright sunlight the small roads and white houses had bright flowers everywhere, and though there were caravan parks around, the town was very cute.
But of course what we needed was to have a drink and lunch. So I introduced MEl and E to the joy of hiking in Wales - i.e. that halfway through nearly every hike you can find a pub and have a drink. In this case, we had a lovely drink and a lovely lunch and a lovely rest at the Ship Inn. Much like the rest of Port Eynon (the church was used to hide kegs under the altar), the Ship Inn was supposed to have ties to smuggling. Now it's cozy and on a sunny day like today the flower potted porch was a great place to be.
And the fact that I got to have halloumi, and E got to enjoy some Gower Power was also a side benefit.
But, wait, there's more?
After lazing about a bit, I convinced my newly relaxed friends that we still needed to walk to Oxwich. The book I had said it was 4 miles away, which shouldn't have been too bad. Of course, it's hard to tell where the distance was measured from, and according to MEl and E's Apple Watches, actually it was more like six. Oops.
Also I learned that I burned approximatly 20,762,893.54 calories a day on these hikes. Or something like that. It was more than the halloumi returned to my body anyway. Not carrying any kind of electronics myself, I'm forced to just be oblivious to such things. This was a nice information break - but I wouldn't want to calorie count every day. Nor would I actually want to know the exact distance every day - right now I'm just relying on my body being tired for when I should stop and that's fine.
But like I said - nice to know for once. As we walked out of Port Eynon, the path carried us around Oxwich Point - where at one point it got hot enough that we made our way slowly down to the cobble beach so that E could dunk his head under the water. I was jealous, but didn't follow suit because from the looks of it you'd have to be capable of doing a push up to get back up again. And, well, I'm not exactly great in the upper body strength area at the moment.
Anyway, while the path doesn't gain much height, it skirts around Oxwich point, whose massive hulking overarching rock face with a fort on it reminded me of a mini Twelve Apostles in Cape Town. With fewer people. And less apostles.
About this time the alcohol wore off and we all got a little tired. Though the views around the point were lovely, we all hoped we'd get to Oxwich Bay sooner rather than later. It seems later was in the cards though, as the path turned the point and entered forests, we then ran into P, who had been skulking at the bottom of a giant set of 200+ stairs on two sides hoping we'd come down before he came up them. Waiting for a half hour, he decided to keep walking, and so had the joy of going up and down about 1000 steps (two sets of 250 steps twice). So we all grudgingly took up the steps - which at least were in the shade - and then on the far side checked out the small church of St. Iltyd's.
Although accounts say there has been a Christian building on this site since the 6th century, the building currently there dates to the 13th. Unfortunately the church was locked, but we had a good look around the churchyard, going past the resting place of the body of an unknown Royal Navy soldier whose body washed up in Oxwich Bay during WWI. We missed, however, the holy well that I learned about afterwards is haunted by a ghostly white horse called a ‘ceffyl dwr’ or water horse in Welsh. Which is a shame because I'd really been looking to get to know more terrifying farm animals.
By the time we got to the sweeping sands of Oxwich, we were quite tired and decided to just drive back to Rhossili. Which, well, now I feel guilty about. Because if we'd driven a bit further on and hiked in from the road - MEl and E would have gotten a chance to see one of the most stunning views I've seen in Wales (or anywhere else) - Three Cliffs Bay.
But P and I got to see it. So selfishly I say. . . Oops.
