Time & Tide

Readers of this blog will remember that I enjoyed a wonderful guided walk to Worm's Head on  Gower last summer.  I recall how pleasant it was to amble with my fellow-walkers through the rocks that connect the tidal island with the mainland.  I took this photo as we approached the traverse.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself at exactly the same spot, but in altogether different circumstances.  Where the inviting causeway had been was a tempestuous mass of surging waves and an icy gale chilled me to the bone.  The contrast between my memories of summer and the scene in front of me was profoundly disturbing, and acted as a reminder of how insignificant we are when faced by the power of nature.

To read the original blog post about my walk 'to the Worm' click here

Memories of a Blizzard on the Welsh Coast

We don’t often get arctic weather on the Welsh Coast.  But the recent cold snap has brought back a flurry of memories of the great blizzard of January 1982.

I was working on the Llŷn peninsula supervising a group of youngsters doing conservation work on a youth training scheme.  That morning we were working near my home, Tan yr Ardd, about half a mile from our work base at Plas yn Rhiw.  

Not long after we’d started work, we noticed fine snowflakes drifting on the stiffening easterly breeze.  By lunchtime, the snow started to get heavier and we retreated to the cottage.

As we ate our sandwiches and chatted, I turned the radio on and was surprised to hear that roads were being closed.  It didn't seem that bad at the cottage, but even so, I decided to call it a day and take my three trainees home. 

As soon as we reached the road where my van was parked, the full force of the blizzard hit us.  The air was full of thick spindrift, driven by gale force winds which made it impossible to breathe or even open your eyes.  We staggered into the van and drove off down the snow-covered road.  Within a hundred yards we ploughed into drift as high as the bonnet and came to an abrupt halt.

We had no choice but to fight our way back on foot through the snowstorm to the cottage – one of the most exhausting experiences I've ever endured.  I remember thinking how easy it would be to get lost and die in such conditions.

I lit a fire and then headed off alone to my neighbour’s house to find to my relief that the phones were still working.  I got messages to my trainees’ families that they were safe and staying at Tan yr Ardd.

The storm raged all night.  Fine snow blew in through tiny gaps in the door and windows, creating small drifts inside the house.  At about 10 o’clock, the flimsy ceiling collapsed under the weight of snow, which had blown into the attic from under the slates.  This covered the floor and furniture with yet more cold damp snow, making it one of the most miserable nights I've ever known.

The next morning, we emerged to a changed world of monstrous drifts.  Most of the lanes had been completely filled with snow from hedge-top to hedge-top.  We found the van buried in snow, with only its roof showing, then walked in a four mile circuit through the fields around the trainees’ houses. 

The Rectory at Rhiw, near where the van was buried in a drift

I’ll never forget approaching one house at Pencaerau which was completely hidden by a huge drift.  Alan, the trainee that lived there, had to climb up it until he was almost level with the roof and then slide down the other side to get to the front door.

It stayed cold for the next fortnight, which I spent walking around Llŷn, fetching food for my elderly neighbours.   It was a very strange time.  The whole of Llŷn was cut off and people walked everywhere.  The fields became pedestrian highways and, here and there, people could be seen chatting in groups comparing stories of the storm.  Dozens of people such as postmen and travelling salesmen had to be put up by locals and there was no such thing as ‘last orders’ at the pubs.

It took five days for the diggers to reach Aberdaron and my van was eventually extracted from its icy temporary grave ten days after the storm. 

I doubt I’ll ever see conditions like it again on the Welsh coast.  But every time we get a bit of snow, my mind goes back to those unforgettable two weeks in Llŷn in 1982.

To take a look at what conditions were like, click here.

Down Llyn's Memory Lane

Tan yr Ardd, Rhiw.  As it looked when it was my home in the early 1980s.

Heaven lies tucked down a grassy lane on the eastern slopes Mynydd Rhiw on the Llŷn peninsula.

Well, that's what I think anyway.  But then I'm biased. 

This was my home in the early 1980s, when I was in the brave summer of my youth.  Then, the rising moon’s silvery path led over the bay to my doorstep and at other times, the roar of the surf on Hell’s Mouth beach after a storm would keep me awake at night. 

I’ll recount the tale of my arrival here some other time, but suffice to say that I was offered the tiny cottage of Tan yr Ardd as my first independent home, and that the four formative years I lived here – and the fond memories of my farming neighbours – have become a big part of what I now am.

So it was an absolute delight to have the honour the other day – as the last long-standing occupant of the cottage – to rekindle a fire in the grate to celebrate the completion of its restoration, and that of its nearby twin, Fron Deg.

This pair of crog-loft cottages – or tydynnod in the parlance of the Llŷn folk – has stood empty and apparently unloved for over a quarter of a century; their chimneys missing the “hances o fwg” (handkerchief of smoke) that used to indicate the presence of a community. 

Well, all that’s about to change as the Trust and its partners get to grips with one of the most exciting parts of the HLF-funded Llŷn Landscape Partnership project.  

The ‘Mab y Bwthyn’ (Son of the Cottage) plan will see Fron Deg being developed as a destination for guided educational walks that will provide an insight into the crucial part the tyddynnwyr played in the making of Llŷn’s landscape.  My former home Tan yr Ardd will be reunited with its land – a dozen acres of heathy pasture – and let as a modern smallholding, giving a lucky new tenant an opportunity to combine working the land with caring for the neighbouring cottage.

“Would you be interested in coming back?”  More than one person asked me.

“No, never go back” came the melancholic answer.

I hope you enjoy some photos of the occasion....

Tan yr Ardd - newly restored, thanks to the Llyn Landscape Partnership

Fron Deg - the best-preserved tyddyn in Llyn?

NT General Manager, Trystan Edwards, invites the project partners to take a preview of Tan yr Ardd
(a public open day is being organised for the spring).

 

Trystan and Operations Manager Andy Godber are interviewed for a film about the project - soon to be available online.

Colleagues and partners come to admire the builders' handiwork at Fron Deg

Surfs up at Stackpole

The beach clean team.
Photo: Mike May

The Surf Ambassador Scheme launches at Stackpole in Pembrokeshire.

The National Trust at Stackpole is one of the partners that look after one of the most stunning parts of the Pembrokeshire coastline; Freshwater West. This beautiful wind swept beach attracts a huge number of visitors all year round, but it is also known as one of the most consistent surf destinations in Wales, providing ideal conditions for the sport. The Welsh Surfing Championships have been held here, the latest in 2012, and the Pembrokeshire Surf Ryders held their recent Surf Ryder cup at the beach earlier this month.

So, Freshwater West was the natural focus for the Stackpole team and National Trust Surf Ambassador, Raife Gaskell a local to the area, to launch their first event working together.

A pre-release screening of the British surf movie 'The Endless Winter' was shown at the Stackpole Centre followed by a beach clean at Freshwater West the following day.

Tickets to watch the film were sold out whilst over 80 people turned up the following day to help collect as much litter as possible off the beach totalling a fantastic 117 bags.

The Surf Ambassador scheme was originally formed to support and promote the conservation work carried out in the surfers' playgrounds along the Devon and Cornwall coast and now the scheme will be involved in the Trust's work along the Pembrokeshire coast.

Rebecca Stock, operations manager at Stackpole said "the Surf Ambassador Scheme will help us at Stackpole to build relations both locally and regionally and give us the opportunity to engage with a much wider audience. We were absolutely delighted with the turn out to both events this weekend which was purely down to Raife and his influence within the surfing community. I'm really looking forward to working with Raife, who is passionate about the work we do, to organise more events and further raise the profile of the work we do in preserving the beautiful coastline here in Pembrokeshire"

Following our Founders' Footsteps in Barmouth

On Saturday, I came across one of the strangest sights I've seen on my travels around the Welsh Coast.  

On a rugged and gorse-covered hillside hundreds of feet above the roofs and chimneys of Barmouth were a group of Victorian ladies and gentlemen enjoying an afternoon tea.

L-R: Fanny Talbot, Robert Hunter, Octavia Hill and Hardwicke Rawnsley

In an imaginative play on the concept of 'open-air sitting rooms', my colleagues in Snowdonia had staged the event at Dinas Oleu as part of this month's celebrations of the life of a remarkable woman who was a driving force behind the founding of the National Trust. 

Octavia Hill, social reformer and champion of open spaces for the benefit of the public, had visited Barmouth on at least one occasion.  She had travelled there to meet her friend and fellow-philanthropist, Fanny Talbot, who had kick-started the fledgling National Trust by donating the hillside above the town as its first acquisition.

In a letter that was written in 1911, only a year before she died, Octavia Hill wrote:

 I visited in the spring the cliff at Barmouth, which was the first possession of the National Trust.  It was given by Mrs Talbot, a great friend of Mr Ruskin’s.  It is steep and wild, the path along its face is cut in the rock high above town and sea; at one place the path is widened, a semi-circular seat is hewn in the face of the cliff, and above the seat is an inscription telling of its dedication to the people for ever.  As we stood there the rain clouds suddenly parted and cleared off; the sun broke out and lighted up the whole magnificent view of sea, and bay, and headland; and one felt what an abiding possession such a view was for the townspeople, and the many visitors from all parts of England.

This Saturday turned out to be a similar day.  It had rained in the morning, but after enjoying some of the celebrations in the town - including a re-enactment of a meeting between Mrs Talbot and the Trust's three founders and talks about Octavia Hill and the town's history - a group of us walked up in sunshine to admire the 'magnificent view of sea, and bay and headland'.  

L to R: Rhodri Wigley (Area Ranger), Dame Fiona Reynolds (Director General) Vanessa Griffiths (Wales Countryside Assistant Director of Operations) with her children Quinn & Róisín, Jane Richardson (Wales Head of Membership & Supporter Services) and Trystan Edwards (General Manager, Snowdonia & Llyn). At the cairn built in 1995 to commemorate the centenary of the Trust's founding. 

I was reminded of the day we unveiled the centenary viewpoint cairn 17 years ago when I took a photo of Fiona's predecessor, Martin Drury, together with the Trust's Chairman, Wales Chairman and Wales Director, sheltering from the wind on the same spot.

Perhaps it should be made obligatory for every Director General to pay a pilgrimage to Dinas Oleu.  I'll suggest that our new Director General, Dame Helen Ghosh visits in her familiarisation tour.  

But I can't guarantee that there will be a sofa and tea to greet her when she arrives. 

Autumn Walks in South Wales

Autumn is undoubtedly the best season for country walks.  Perhaps it's the quality of the light, the absence of crowds or the promise of nature's hedgerow harvest.  And it's not only the colours that are mellower: people seem friendlier and the pubs and cafes seem cosier.  

But most of all, the dying days of summer lend a wistful retrospection that I find so conducive to appreciating landscape.  Like tunes, I find that the best walks are in the minor key.

So it was my good luck that last week's visit to South Wales gave me an opportunity to further my quest to walk every section of the National Trust's 200 miles of Welsh coast.  And appropriately enough, both of them are featured in our Great Welsh Walk, which runs until the end of October.

The view of the secluded cove of Pwll Du, on Gower's south coast

The first walk, which takes you past this wonderful viewpoint to the hidden cove of Pwll Du on Gower's south coast, rewarded me with a glimpse of a kingfisher - darting up the stream in Pwll Du Wood - and gave amazing views of the south Wales coast as far as Porthcawl to the east and north Somerset and Lundy to the south.

Video clip of my description of the Pennard to Pwll Du walk:

The second walk was in Pembrokeshire's wonderful Cleddau woods, near the picturesque village of Lawrenny.  This walk had the benefit of starting and finishing at one of the cosiest of cosy autumn cafes, the Quayside Tearoom at Lawrenny Quay.  I had been told that it was one of the best in the county, and I was not disappointed.

The perfect combination: Lawrenny woodland walk and afternoon tea at the Quayside

To follow in my footsteps and sample the hidden delights of these two walks click the links:

Pennard Cliffs, Southgate, Pwll Du and Bishopston Woods

Lawrenny Woods

If you've enjoyed these walks as much as I did, why not use this blog's 'comment' facility?

A Taste of the Sea at Porthdinllaen

As I approach the village by sea, I can see the crowds in front of the Ty Coch

The picture postcard village of Porthdinllaen is amazing whichever way you approach it.  But by far the best way, is by sea.  And that is how I arrived at Porthdinllaen this afternoon, on my way to join the first Blas y Mor (Taste of the Sea) festival.

The event was organised the National Trust as part of the Llyn Coastal Festival and included seafood cookery demonstrations from local cooks Mary White, Selective Seafoods, Heather Jones, Gegin Grug, Nick Grimes and Russel Smith from the Woodlands Hall Hotel and Mel Thomas, Hafan Hire.

Other activities included beach games, free canoeing trips with Llyn Adventures, face painting and a fascinating exhibition about the area's rich seafaring history, provided by the Nefyn Maritime Museum.

I've visited Porthdinllaen hundreds of times over the years, but I don't think I've ever seen it so full of life.  After catching up with colleagues, family and friends - and sampling some of the cook's dishes - I paddled out to see the new Porthdinllaen Lifeboat, the John D. Spicer, on her mooring out in the bay, before heading for home.

Below are some photos of the event, and a video in Welsh of Coastal Ranger, Laura Jones.

Hundreds pack the beach in front of the the famous Ty Coch Inn

Russel Smith dishes out his tasty Cawl Cranc Llyn - Llyn Crab Soup.

Three happy members of the Llyn Visitor Services Team: Val, Steph and Joan, in front of the Ty Coch

A group of youngsters head off for their first taste of canoeing, with Llyn Adventures 

Ceidwad Arfordirol Llyn, Laura Jones yn siarad am gwyl Blas y Mor

(Video in Welsh only)