we found everything immediately.
After making ourselves comfortable with the place
we left for the first stroll through the neighbourhood which is not more than a couple of houses and a camping ground.
The dunes and the sea are only five minutes away and presented themselves in beautiful light.
Our planes for Saturday included the visit of a traditional farmers market in Grovesend. Since the description on the internet was not very detailed we actually had no idea what to expect. Arriving at the Community Hall in Grovesend we were nevertheless a bit surprised to see the market consisting of not more than ten booths selling stitching, embroidery and other craftwork but barely food. The only meat stand displayed a sign saying that there was no meat today but orders could be left for later delivery. We didn’t even ask whether delivery to Little Hill End Barn was possible. All in all our visit did not take longer than 10 minutes. The disappointment did not last long and after a short shopping stop at a nearby Tesco we continued to Lllanelli for a coffee.
Back at the Barn we decided to walk to Worm’s Head to find out how long it would take us. The small island is only accessible during 2.5 hrs before and after low tide. A trip therefore has to be carefully planned.
We found out that it is only a 45 minute walk either on the beach or at the bottom of the hill. We helped ourselves with some free information material at the National Trust visitor center and stayed for a mocha at a small café overlooking the beach.
On our way back we planned to visit Worm’s Head the next morning after a traditional English breakfast at the small café.
Since the weather didn’t look very good the next morning
we changed our planes and took the car to visit some of the suggested sites on the Gower peninsula. We started with King Arthur’s stone - a somewhat 6,000 years old dolmen, mentioned in documents more than 1,000 years ago.
From there we drove to Oxwich castel were we luckily weathered a strong rain and hailstorm while having a stroll through their small Welsh history museum.
Next stop was Three Cliffs Bay and Pennard Castle. The castle is located in the middle of a golf course. It acts a bit as a symbol to the course – very much like the old pipe on the course I used to play in Oberhausen just from a totally different period of time.
Three Cliffs Bay is a marvellous piece of earth and from the top of cliffs we had a great look.
Finally we made our way to Mumbles to have a scoop of Apple Crumble ice cream at Verdi’s café. Thanks a lot to Hermeet for the great advice. The ice cream and the amount of interesting people in the café were definitely worth the trip.
Weather on Monday morning looked much better. So we made our way to the small café for a full English breakfast which should give us enough energy for a whole day on the Worm’s head. With enough time left to the next high tide we started the climbing tour to the small islands. After a while of balancing over stones and cleft we finally enjoyed a great look over the surrounding.
On Tuesday we went only for a small trip to the small island on the opposite site of the Rhossili Bay. Burry Holmes is not even half as big as Worm’s Head but enables a nice look around as well.
We spent the afternoon sitting in front of the barn up to the point when it got too cold.
On our way back to Oxford we stopped in Cardiff the Welsh capital for a quick city tour. Totally tourist like we took one of the red double decker to see Cardiff’s main spots in round 60 minutes.
After five totally relaxing days we finally got back to Oxford in the early afternoon and prepared our place for the visit of the Kontny girls...
You can see more pictures of our trip to Wales here.
