Sunday 8th September 2024

Day 7 – Port Talbot to Swansea

And then there were four. Our lovely David Jockel had to leave us yesterday to return to something they call ‘work’ … sounds like a swear word to me!!

Sadly, yet another day of setting off in the rain. Drove to Swansea, train to Port Talbot and hot footed it down to the promenade to commence our stroll back to the car – a mere 12 miles or so. Despite the evident wetness, we were uplifted by the wonderful stretch of Swansea Bay beach and envied the groups of kayakers enjoying their Sunday morning activities.

It was soon a choice between heavy going sand dune walking and the easier coastal path route of roadside – rightly or wrongly we chose the roads … BUSY roads!! Unfortunately we had to endure about 7 miles of that, in the rain, struggling to find ourselves an acceptable picnic spot. We finally turned off the main road into the village of Jersey Marine and pounced upon the first bench, despite the continuing drizzle, to devour our sandwiches. It was way beyond lunchtime and we were ravenous. To any passers by we must have looked hilarious.

From this point we had a two mile amble along the riverbank. The path started off a little narrow and uneven, as well as wet and muddy underfoot. The river was unnervingly high and flowing fast as we fought our way through overgrown bulrushes and ferns plus the inevitable brambles and stinging nettles – we could have been in the Amazon jungle. Half way along it morphed into a tarmac surface, and comfortably wider. In our damp state we uttered those immortal words .. “just a parkrun to go.”

The final stretch was back to busy and noisy traffic in the city of Swansea, as we trudged our way back to the station car park. It had been a day of contrasts, it had been a day of downpour, it had been one of those days that just had to be done to complete the coastal path. David suggested the word ‘perfunctory’ which I thought was a great word – checking the dictionary later I would agree with ‘carried out without real interest’ but I would challenge the ‘without effort’ part. But I don’t like to disagree with teachers … it’s not respectful.

Now we’re back, showered, dry and warm and Steve has a roast chicken dinner on the go. Our grey day is now positively glowing.