From Port Enyon to Casewell

This was the final day of our planned loop around the Gower Peninsula.

The last tranche of the walk covered the coastal path from Port Enyon to Casewell Bay, the place where we started from on Monday.

For the second night, we woke up in the same spot where we stayed the night before. We slept well and deeply but not enough; a herd of cows were mooing loudly around Dora at 6.00 am. We had no choice but getting up.

 

 

What I most liked of our final walking day was the variety of the landscape; we had a bit of woodland, a bit of cliff, a bit of beach and a bit of countryside. We walked on different types of terrain: flat and up and downy footpaths.

Soon after we started the walk, the route led us to a steep and rocky path. Under other circumstances, I would have climbed it rapidly and gracefully but not today; I still felt quite stiff and achy after the 28 kilometres walk from the previous day. I had to wait for a good hour for my legs to respond to movement so I could start enjoying the walk.

 

 

Sea King helicopters flew over us.

 

 

The coastal path led us to lush woodland for about an hour. The woods were so dense, that it was hard to believe we were walking along the sea.

 

 

 

Gradually, the path opened up to the cliffs again with breath-taking views to the open sea.

 

 

 

Cafe con hielo, (iced coffee) is a popular way of preparing the coffee in Spain during Summer, simply by mixing a double espresso with sugar and pour it over a glass full of ice. And, as it has been so hot and sunny over the last couple of days, I have been craving for one. Of course, it is tough to find a place in the UK where you can have it, unless you go to high street chains, like Starbucks. Today at last, we found a lovely coffee shop in Oxwich Bay where, once we explained, the waitress was able to provide a double espresso,sugar and ice.

 

 

 

After the coffee we continued to walk along the beach where we saw some locals taking photos of something laying on the shore, which turn out to be a massive jellyfish. It was incredibly beautiful; its skin looked like a piece of thick plastic, perfectly stretched and waxed, similar to leather. It also seemed cleaned and shinny. Its intense blue colour matched exactly with the deep blue of the sea; tremendous camouflage. I was tempted to turn it over with my foot but I thought I better not to, in case it was still alive. I wonder what happened. Perhaps it was sick or dead, or it was simply an accident and it just missed the tide. One of locals sent a photo to his two daughters, who just happened to be marine biologists. “It is very rare to see a jellyfish that big on the shore” He said.

 

 

Happy to have seen such a rare animal, we continued to walk for another half an hour to the place we decided to stop for lunch. It was a quiet little bay around the  corner of this cliff with stunning views to the open sea.

 

However, to get there, we had to time the tide correctly to avoid getting wet feet.

 

 

We successfully got to our spot with dry feet. Once we got there, the view was breath-taking, it was worth walking all this way.

 

 

After lunch, the steep path led us to the top of the cliffs where we could see the bay where we were having lunch an hour before. Watch out how much the tide had gone out since we left the bay. The place circled in white was the tricky corner we went around to reach our bay.

 

 

Walking on sandy dunes was tough. The temperatures seemed to be rising, even though it was already 16.00.

 

 

 

After a walking on a cliff path for another hour, we reached our destination, Casewell Bay.

 

 

 

We had successfully completed the route.

Start: Port Enyon

Finish: Casewell

Distance: 17 kilometres

Walking time: 5 hours

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we missed the last bus back by 5 minutes. Dora was still 6 kilometres away across the countryside, so we decided to try our luck by hitchhiking. Only after 10 minutes with our thumbs out at every single car, we were picked up by a lady with her 18 months old child at the back of her car, and she kindly took us all the way back to the car park. She was very sweet. Apparently she used to go travelling for months in her youth. “I felt sympathy for you because I used to do hitchhike all the time when I travelled. It is a shame that no one hitchhikes these days any more” She said. She was very charming and told us she run out of money so she used to make jewellery out of seashells to earn her living. I hope this doesn’t happen to us

SM