Slightly lost on the Coast Path

After a refreshing night's sleep, I posted today's morning prayer link to WhatsApp at seven, then listened to the news before walked the short distance to the hotel for a delicious cooked breakfast at half past eight.

Then we pulled on our hiking boots and set out along the beach for Three Cliffs Bay. When we reached the river flowing out of the nature reserve at the far end of Oxwich beach we were surprised to see that it had changed course. Instead of running straight into the sea, it's created a big S-bend in the sand. 

The first of the two bridges upstream was washed off its foundations by a strong tide last winter I think, but it looks as if it's been washed a bit further upstream since then. It's constructed of a steel framework with strong wooden decking. Although heavy, a strong tidal surge when river level is high would be strong enough to lift and shift it. 

On the other hand, the river water, reduced to a slow trickle in time of drought, when most of the sandy riverbed dries out and tides don't come in as far as the bridge, would make its own way to the sea across the surface along a line of least resistance, not straight, but S-shaped. I recall hearing about this in school geography classes sixty five years ago, but this is one of the few instances since then, that I've seen this combination of natural forces at work in the real world.

We followed the coast path from the bridge, running between the lower edge of Nicholaston Woods and the sand dunes. After a while it begins to climb up steeply to the ridge and the coast path signage became rather misleading. We climbed up too high and reached a farm unexpectedly. We couldn't work out where the coast path ran, as we'd taken a wrong turning. We retraced out steps, found the signed path again, but after a spell of walking uphill, walking down again took its toll on our leg joints, so we turned back, about a mile from our destination. Next time we'll just trek along the shore line as far as we can before going up and over the ridge above Three Cliffs Bay. By the time we reached Ivy Cottage, footsore and tired, we had been walking for over four hours, and done seven miles, including diversions. 

The tide was by this time on its way out, and I got a few photos of Dunlin feeding at close range along the line of the last tiny breaking wave, plus one in flight, I was well pleased with. We also glimpsed a couple of buzzards riding the thermals above Nicholaston cliffs, but just for a moment, disappearing too quickly to switch on the camera. It's just great to know they are still there during the avian 'flu epidemic.

We opted to have supper at tea-time, as we'd just had fruit and a hot drink while out walking. We both had fish and chips, which went down well after such strenuous exercise. After Clare's nightly injection ritual at the hotel again, early bed, hoping for another long walk after breakfast and vacating our room tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Then we return to Cardiff after lunch before it gets dark and life returns to normal. I wish we lived nearer!

Foraging in Porthkerry

We had a lie in, followed by our Saturday pancake breakfast this morning, then we drove to under a blue sky to visit Porthkerry Country Park for a walk along the coast path. We've walked there from Cold Knap in Barry several times, but I'm not sure if we've driven there before. A wooded valley with a broad grassy meadow runs down to pebbled beach through a saline marshy area, with different vegetation, albeit dried out at this time of year. A nice new boardwalk has been constructed running from the cafe to the beach, about three hundred metres, excellent for wheelchair users. I don't think it was there when we last visited three years ago. 

The entire domain is very well managed and litter free. The cafe is run Italian style with a wide range of usual snacks, but also offering a range of canoli worthy of a Montalbano story. The car park has Pay and Display machines, a pound for two hours. These incorporate contact-less pay devices linked to the mobile phone network I think. It worked fine, although the payment signal sent to the banking network took about a minute for verification to be transmitted. I stood peering at the rather dim black and white screen waiting for my ticket to be produced, and a kind lady stopped and asked if I needed help. I wondered if she'd often seen older people peering at the device trying to figure out how it works.

The coast path heads up from the beach, a stiff climb of about 70 metres. As the tide was at its lowest, we could have walked along the beach, but big pebbles make for a slow ankle twisting trudge, so the climb was the lesser of two evils. I say this as two years of park walking on the flat have reduced my climbing fitness, so my legs feel very stiff and take ages to loosen up. Clare went up faster than me, as she uses her exercise cycle several times a week. I wish we lived nearer some really steep hills for daily walking.

The Coast Path route takes you through Porthkerry Leisure Park, with over a hundred chalets owned if not rented on the clifftop and in a quarry cut into the cliff facing the sea. We walked to a headland on the far side of the Park and ate out picnic lunch there. Considering how close the coast is here to the flight path from Rhoose it was fairly quiet. I noted only two planes taking off, one Vueling and one KLM. It would be much busier in a normal summer season. I saw three different butterflies,white brown and blue. There were swallows and swifts in the air. A big black furry bumble bee was browsing the undergrowth at my feet and then I watched it take off. One of several passing swifts snatched it before my eyes. Something I've never seen before.

We didn't go much further on the coast path as we'd already walked for an hour, but we stopped to pick blackberries, from the abundance of bushes along the way, a pound and a quarter. On the way back to the car we stopped for coffee and canoli. There was a ten minute queue to be served, but it was worthwhile. I had to go and sit down and leave Clare in the queue as my feet were hurting more than usual, perhaps the wrong choice of walking shoes? Anyway, it didn't stop us from calling at Lidl's for groceries and wine on the way home.

We had a wonderful salmon soup for supper, from the bones of the filleted fish which arrived yesterday. The blackberries plus some apples we bought went on to cook, and then left overnight in the filtering bag used to make fruit jelly. Wonderful seasonal stuff! Then we watched a recording of Elin Fflur on S4C performing superbly before an audience in Bangor. Her show featured Eden, a trio of clog dancers, with an original way of dialoguing with the rock band, like a second drummer. The sound is different from the Irish folk style, in which musicians are more of a backing group for the dancers, an element of Welsh pop which isn't an echo of other genres of pop music.

Back on the coast path

Warmer sunnier weather today, so after promising ourselves an outing to Penarth for the past week and never getting around to it, we drove there this afternoon and walked along the coast path, as far as the one place where you can climb down to the beach seventy metres below. You can see across to the Somerset coast, to Weston, Brean Down and Bleadon Hill, where my sister Pauline lived for forty years. Whenever we walked here before I'd look across the Estuary and think of her, looking across at Glamorganshire from England. Even though she's dead, old habits die hard.

The fields inland from the path looked neglected as if they'd been left fallow this year, or else not planted because of pandemic restrictions on labour. Normally at this time of year they stand high with ripening grain. The path itself showed signs of not having been maintained, broken fencing, overhanging vegetation and a surface which in places had been scoured into rainwater gully making it hard to push anything with wheels on, let alone walk on. It was nice to see three different kinds of butterfly, which is usual along the coast path. Today is Big Butterfly Count nationally, but we didn't take part, as I didn't put the counting app on my phone. I imagine other regular path users will however.

Walkers were good about stepping aside on the narrow parts of the trail to let people pass at a safe distance, always with a hello, a smile and a thank you. At one place where we stopped, I noticed in a space at the back of the hedgerow a metal pipe concreted into the ground, and next to it a concrete cubic construction with an opened hatch on top. My first thought was that it was a well, although it was an odd place to locate one. On closer inspection, there was an iron ladder descending a shaft with a resonant echo. Then it dawned on me. Remnants of World War Two military installations. The solid metal pipe had a mounting plate on top of it, most likely for a gun. Underground, a bunker where soldiers watching the Severn Estuary for invaders or aircraft could shelter from  enemy fire. There are several relics of wartime military infrastructure along this section of path.

When we got back we both admitted how tired we felt although we'd only walked six and a half kilometres. It was my first time to drive since Ibiza and I only tried to change gear with my right hand twice. It was a journey and a walk we've both done many times before so why did we both feel tired? I think it's something to do with the impact of months of confinement on mind and body. You get used to inhabiting a limited environment and have to get used to a degree of freedom and to occupying a place in the wider world again, especially due to circumstances in which fear and self preservation keep you confined. This change demands extra energy and that's tiring.

I went for another short walk after supper. Llandaff Fields again hosted dozens of groups of people, also an informal Asian cricket match, to judge by the language I could hear, plus a group of half a dozen thirty something guys practicing their rugby moves, and keep-fit addicts exercising. As gyms aren't open the parks are much used. Will this change when they re-open, or will outdoor workouts become part of the 'new normal'? Until the weather stays wet and cold for weeks on end maybe, and then we'll be back to worrying about the resurgence of viruses again.

  

After a coast walk, a thoughtful movie

Clare made pancakes for breakfast again, then late morning we drove to Cold Knapp for lunch at the excellent Mr Villa's Fish and Chip Restaurant. But first after parking above the marvellous pebble beach, we walked around the headland and back. After lunch a walk along the clifftop to Porthkerry. 

The climb from the car park up to the continuation of the Coast Path is steep - 115 steps and then a further climb up to the top, as rise of about 150 feet. I was surprised at how stiff my legs became as I climbed, despite going up and down thirteen stairs at home a dozen times a day. I had to stop and rest several times, to avoid getting utterly breathless. It made me realise that the thousand odd miles of keep fit walking I've done have all been on the flat, so there are some leg muscles which have had far less exercise, and need working on. And, I need to work on exercise that will raise my heart rate too, in order to retain as the cardiovaascular condition possible. We live and learn. If we don't we die.

The weather was overcast, and a shower of light rain dampened our return journey to the car, but we covered five miles. That's the furthest Clare has walked for some time, so it did us both some good.

In the evening BBC Four treated us to a marvellous, beautifully crafted Norwegian movie called the King's Decision, all about the role of King Haakon in the run up to the Nazi occupation of Norway in April 1940, when Quisling's coup d'etat took place. 

I hadn't realised Haakon was the first Norwegian King to be elected. He saw himself as a champion of Norwegian Parliamentary democracy. Hitler wanted him to endorse the Quisling regime, but rather than do so he abdicated and went into exile in Britain, returning only when the war ended in 1945. 

Hitler rose to dictatorship by exploiting populist sentiment. The King believed firmly that only a Parliament freely and legally elected by its citizens had the right to govern his country. Showing this film when the British Parliament is under attack from populist fervour whipped up by right wing  movements and tabloid newspapers couldn't be more timely. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC now gets castigated for its selection and scheduling of a European movie of such thoughtful quality.