Our accommodation is lovely and quiet and we were both pretty tired when we went to bed, so I’d hoped we might get a bit of a “lie in” this morning. However, that early morning light still defeats us, we were awake before 7!
At least we could take our time over our breakfast and getting ready but we were still ready to hit the road for our day before 9am. Ad the other bonus was we woke to bright sunshine! We set off to the South-East from here to the Gower Peninsula
The area is the UK’s first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Peninsula has a beautifully diverse landscape with golden beaches, salt marsh and pretty countryside. Initialy we couldn’t see it as we were negotiating the now familiar narrow roads and hedgerows, but after a while we suddenly hit high open country with beautiful views down to the sea.
We were headed for Rhossli, a tiny town on the very tip of the peninsula. The National Trust maintains a wide grass path towards the National Coastwatch Institute (NCI) lookout. From here, you have spectacular view of the Worm’s Head. This giant sea-serpent shaped tidal island is only accessible for around 2 1/2 hours either side of high tide across a rocky natural causeway. We parked at the National Trust car park and set out to walk a looped pathway down to the lookout and around the bay, around 7 km in total. The weather was stunning! We felt so lucky as the sun was shining and there was almost no wind. Rhossli beach down below was wide a golden sand and just gorgeous , and almost deserted. We really noticed the difference here to our time in the SW of England where there are many tourists enjoying the landscape.
By the time we returned back to the National Trust building the car park was fuller and there were more people around, but still relatively quiet for such a beautiful area. WE set off back up the peninsula and then crossed the marshy salt flats to the tine town of Llandeilo, where we stopped to see Kidwelly Castle. Kidwelly castle was built by the Normans in 1106 but saw hundreds of years of conflict with Welsh princes . It has a romantic history including ownership by a beautiful Welsh princess who defended the castle but was captured and beheaded!. In modern times it is also famous as being the filming site for the opening scenes of the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. We enjoyed walking around it and down into the dungeons and up to the highest point on the tower, it has more intact features than some of the other “ruined” castles that we have seen.
We were both pretty peckish by now and in need of coffee, so we drove on to the town of Carmarthen to find a cafe for lunch – nothing special just a toasted sandwich at the local Costa Coffee chain. I poked my head into one of the shops in th town but wasn’t inspired so we returned to the car and headed back to Llandeilo. Before returning to our cottage we stopped in to see Newton House in Dinefwr Park. The house is a Jacobean Mansion in vast wooded deer park and is now maintained by the National Trust. We enjoyed wandering through the rooms but it is not grandly furnished like some other houses as it had fallen on hard times before the National Trust acquired it. The Parterre garden and grounds were lovely.
It was only a five minute drive back to our cottage where we spent some time catching up on our blogs before settling out on our little terrace to enjoy nibbles and dinner. This cottage has been wonderful, so nice to have a bit of space and some extra facilities. Tomorrow we head back into England for a couple of nights.
