day 17 - Swansea

just before the post: I misplaced the order of the posts, so this visit happened one day before the visit to Hereford... sorry about that. I've been in North Wales with no connection for a few days, so I could not feed the blog. I am in Dublin right now and hope I can do it from here.

today is September, 1.

Day 17

“I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time

and I am wasted and I can’t find my way home”

(blind faith)

Last day in Swansea, so I had to organize things before leaving. Do the laundry, change some money, buy a present for a friend, this kind of thing. And I’ve been very active during the morning, so around 10:30 I had it all done. Again the bus services were not very friendly to me, and I could only get one around 12:10. I went to Killay and from there I took other to Parkmill, which is the entrance for Park Le Breos, and a medieval deer hunting area. From this we should not take that wild deer lived there, as quite often deer were raised to be hunted. A girl with beautiful eyes give me the information that I need: the location of Cat Hole Cave. Going after old monuments lost in the forest requires great deal in information, and quite often I regret don’t have better maps than mine. After walking a little bit in the park, my attention turned to what looked at distance to be a house in ruins.

PARC CWN

I decided change my way to see what was that, and it turned to be a fantastic burial chamber named Parc Cwn. The site dates back 5000 BC and it is a long building with a corridor which divides in four burial rooms, in which were found dozens of human remains from different ages along with animal remains like pigs, deer and dogs and cremated bodies. This indicates that distinct cultural traditions took place there. Originally it was covered, but it is open now. Excavation took place there in 1869 and 1960.

Parc Cwn burial chamber

the entrance. the whole chamber originally was covered with stones

the four chambers

CAT HOLE CAVE

As I had found it by chance I imagined that I was in the real track, and if so, the Cat Hole Cave would be not distant, and I was right. I could see it from below and what a sight it is. The cave lies beneath a big crack in a limestone rock and splits in little other caves in the interior and served as shelter for hunter-gatherer people between some 20.000 to 10.000 years ago. This means that is one of the oldest places known that humans inhabited, much older than everything I have seem in my journey, dating back from the last Ice Age. Excavations there found remains of extinct animals like the Irish deers, whooly rinocheros and mamooths.

one entrance closed. this is probably another cave still not excavated.

The place is surprisingly big, as it comprises some rooms inside, and it is possible that parts of it have been caved along the time. Being there gives a tremendous sensation of how ancient human people lived, although the view from the forest must have changed a lot from that time to now. Probably there were other kind of vegetation, as the weather was much harder.

the entrance of Cat Hole Cave

inside the cave

remains of the ugliest beasts you can imagine were found in the place

the look from the top of the cave

Walking around I sighted other sites that could be human made not far from the cave. Actually I am seeing stone monuments everywhere. Maybe I was stoned. That was the place I had a strange meeting with two horses that were not so strange as the photos I took from them.

this place can't be just natural

I had my supernatural moment when I met those wild horses in the forest. the photos just can say the whole thing...

LLETHRID TOOTH CAVE

I went back to the entrance of the park just to realize there were another place I should visit which was a shelter where some bodies were found from the bronze age people around 4.000 years ago. It took me almost an hour to find it, as there is no sign indicating it. I had give up to find it and took my old friend Gower Way to go after Arthur’s Stone, a few miles away. It was really strange how some sites caught your senses, as I was walking unaware in the forest when I realized there was something just beside me, and it was it. Llethrid Tooth Cave is basically a round shelter but have some architecture apart from that. There is a round well in the interior, and some of the walls are deliberated curved, perhaps to give shelter. It gets close to some rocky walls which makes it even more protected.

down the Gower Way

Llethrid Tooth Cave, a shelter for bronze age hunters

a cesspit just behind the shelter

the shelter

I went back to the Gower Way, which took me around the mountains that I had been the day before. From below I could follow a parallel track and realized that the Gower was is not one path, but like the Ridgeway it divides into several ways. So I followed the track through the farmlands until reach the road and go after the famous quoit I had missed yesterday. Walking through the road is not usually pleasant but this time was nice. There were grass at both sides and sheep, which made it easier and safer to walk by one side and provided me some company, although some of the most stupid ones. The day was clear and beautiful, so I could walk with no major worries. When I get close to the top of the road, I found a pathway, and decided to enter through it, as it could lead me where I was going to. I was not right, but it helped me, because I could reach the top easily without the cars around. I found some people walking there that confirmed my direction.

Gower Way

ARTHUR’S STONE

The Arthur’s Stone gets close to the road, indeed, where the mountain starts its descent. The view from there is amazing. Again the quoit is located in very special site, not on the very top, but close to it. This site is not like most of the quoits I’ve seen. The capstone is massive and the whole looks as heavy as no other. This stone apparently had broken in two pieces and one is still in position while the other lies on the ground. It looks like the big stone where placed first, and the others been placed caving the soil beneath it, so it would hang without being lifted. It would have spared lots of effort, and apparently it was done this way. There is a lot of theories about how these stones monument were done, that in time I intend to recollect and post here.

Arthur’s Stone

a scale

just beside the Arthur’s Stone. a mound?

way back home

After that I was really tired and wondering why I do such things, but happy for the very intense day and the number of interesting places I have been.

Tomorrow I must go to Hereford spend the last few days there before going to London where I must stay for a while, but don’t intend stop traveling now. I am totally addicted to walking and to the fresh sweet aroma of the fields, to the winds of the hills, the vertigo of the cliffs. Can’t imagine me far from it, really.