day 16

Day 16

“ did you see the graves today with weeds all overgrown?”

(r wakeman)

Another grey morning in Swansea. As the forecast say it would not have rains, I just pick a light coat, as it was chilly, and went to explore the Gower peninsula. Things were not as I expected, as the bus services during the Sundays are quite poor, so I had to choose between wait for two hours for a coast cruiser or pick one to the middle of the way. I choose the quick one and it was not good option, as the bus would not really anywhere. As I acquired the ticket for the whole day I left close to the Killay park, but the rain was tough, so I give up and went back to town. Try to take another bus, but that one won’t take my ticket and I did not want to spend more money on that. So going home feeling miserable I found a bus to Pennard which was actually a good choice, for I could go after Parc Cwn and Pen Maen Burrows, both burial chambers.

PENNARD CLIFFS and PENN MAEN BURROWS

Pennard Cliffs

When I arrived in Pennard I had no much idea of where to start, as the maps on the area are very poor. I decided the walk around the coast through the cliffs, and it was lovely. I was followed by an Irish Setter most of the time. It took me a while to understand the whole place, but basically all is around the mouth of a river.

I got a friend

more of Pennard Cliffs

the Three Cliffs

The tide changes here is the second in the world, and I had seem it in other areas of Wales. Today the tide was low, so the valley of the river could be crossed easily. The cliffs were all exposed and it was possible to walk through them. There is a castle which gives name to the area, Pennard castle, in the top of a little mountain.

Pennard Castle

the Three Cliffs at the low tide

It wasn’t very easy to find the burial chamber in the field, as I had no much idea of how it looked or where it was. These chambers, quoits or dolmens, call it as you want, are not very big and mostly very poorly signed, so it is quite possible to miss it if you are not aware. But I did found it in a meadow, with two standing stones and a huge capstone fallen. It was taken by the plants around and looked just forgotten there.

Penn Maen Burrows

CEFN BRYN

the Gowan Way

Leaving the cliffs I figured a mountain and a path. As I wish to see the area from the top, I went up and realized that it was in a park called Cefn Bryn, and decided walk around there. My short experience with the monoliths teach me the most of them are in high places, close to the top (but strangely never on the very top) of the mountains.

wild poneys in Gowan Way

As I started to walk that extraordinarily well paved track, I realized that it was much bigger than I thought. In fact it was the Gower Way, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales itself, and it cover the higher areas on the peninsula. From there is possible to see both sides of the sea and most of Gower. Walking close to the main track I spoted some stones around and found some that looked much like a quoit, although it is not described in any map or guide.

loose stones at Cefn Bryn, or alignements?

the other side of Gowan Peninsula

Some other stones around showed much like they were placed there, and some of them had some clear alignments which it’s been rare to observe so far. In fact a very famous quoit named Arthur’s Stone is not far from there. Not to take the name very seriously, because, as we’ve seem in Glastonbury, apparently no other character in England has been buried so many times as Arthur. In the area there’s a lot more to explore, including the Cat Hole Cave and an Iron age hill possible to be seem from the top of Cefn Bryn.

Tomorrow I must come back and try to reach some those sites. It will be probably my last day in Swansea, and the buses must be in their regular time, so I think I can do it without wasting so much time. Sometimes buses and transport or bad weather leaves me irritated, but the beauty of the sites, and discovering new and exciting places makes the balance.

Again is hard to say if I have found any Ley line, but today I had this vision of some aligned stones starting at the quoit, and I could have a glimpse of how it would look.

In the end it was a bad start but a very surprising day.