A return to cloudless skies and gentle warmth today, and after breakfast a walk southwards on the beach as far as Pembrey's 19th century harbour wall. A vast expanse of fine sandy beach with a tide formed fringe of multi-coloured textured pebbles below the sand dunes. I was disturbed to see how much litter had been dropped, in the dunes more than the beach. As Clare had a free degradable plastic bag from the Co-op, I was able to start collecting rubbish. Most of it came from one campfire picnic site. Altogether I collected eighteen cans, seven plastic bottles, two plastic disposable lighters and large fragments of a couple of broken bottles, in twenty minutes. I parked the bag in a place I could remember and took it to the nearest bin a quarter of a mile away, when we returned.
Just off the beach edge there's an enormous bank of sand, deposited there in recent decades due to coastal erosion. Shallow waters separate beach from sand bank. The tide comes in stealthily at speed making a return to shore difficult and dangerous. Warning signs are posted everywhere but rescue emergencies still occur. Just as well Burry Port has its of lifeboat station nearby.
Why there should be a huge flat tidal plain area about a quarter of a mile square in dimensions adjacent to the old port wall, with a tidal watercourse snaking across it, was a puzzle. We returned to the harbour in Burry Port, and had a sandwich lunch in the delightful and traditional Harbour View tea room. It was very well appointed with paintings and art photography pictures on the walls. The toilet walls with decorated with a framed compendium of photos taken by our host on her youthful travels in North America and Australia. A lovely homely touch.
After a siesta back at the house, Clare went down to Burry Port harbour, and I returned by a different route to explore the Pembrey Harbour entrance, to try and identify what purpose was served by the remains of nineteenth century maritime trade. I found a history board which stated that the quarter mile flat area next to Pembrey's port wall was a tidal pond with gates, built early in the 19th century. Its waters were fed though channels in the harbour wall to flush encroaching estuary silt from the harbour mouth to keep it free for navigation.
The tidal gates, lighthouse and buildings on the harbour wall are long gone. The flushing pond is now a tidal water meadow. The watercourse snaking over it seems to have been created by a freshwater stream entering at the pond's inland extremity. The pond's semi saline waters help create a localised eco-system. It must be very interesting for any environmentalist to study.
On returning to the house along the edge of the dunes, a skylark rose from cover and ascended thirty anf then fifty feet, singing loudly. I got a couple of photos of the bird singing loudly. They weren't much good, as my Olympus long zoom lens was at the limit of its reach, but it's a moment I'll treasure anyway.
I cooked supper for us, then enjoyed looking at uploaded photos, confirming as far as possible without recourse to the written historical record what I'd deduced from observation. What a stimulating day!
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