Stepping off the bus, I watch the couple and their dog go along the Welsh Coastal Path. I can see that the dog has been here before. He whimpered excitedly as the bus rolled down the quiet road, long before it even was close to the little bus shelter at the road’s end. I don’t watch for long as I have my own destination. Straight ahead, the road rolls between a white building with a sandwich board outside advertising hot drinks, ice cream and various kinds of foods – the best pizza being one of them. I will get something there (maybe this best pizza) afterwards. The chocolate bar I ate earlier still fuels me.
The rain is like a weeping mist. On the right is a hotel – also painted white. There are many folks about and the ones in front of me are grabbing at their clothes. I soon know and feel why. As I come away from the protection of the buildings, the wind is racing across the little peninsula jutting out into the bay. It’s blowing seawater too. On my lips, I can taste the salt.
The walk to the cliff’s edge is enough for me. Buffeted is the only word to use. I am buffeted by the wind. I look down on the beach curving on my right and glance around for the path below. The sand is a pale salmon. Sheep with daubs of a pinkish red dye proclaiming their ownership to those in the know, perch and climb on the jagged cliff-sides. Some are nonchalantly balanced on the very edges of the iron-grey rocks, nibbling at wisps of grasses in the crevices. It’s fascinating watching them. Any minute now – will they slip? Do they ever slip?
At the Worms Head Watch Station, I’m invited in to peer through the binoculars. There across the strait, at the base of the rocky cliffs are seals swimming in the water. The tide is going out. I had read the sign posted before but read it again. Low Tide is at 12:16 pm. There are five hours when it will be out. Signs double-warn about trying to swim back if caught on the island. The time now is exactly 12 noon. I forget about finding the path to the sweep of gentle beach and decide to cross the strait. Worms Head – Pen Pyrod is the tiny mountain of an island when the tide is high. And now I think, there will not ever be such a timed chance. I missed getting to Ynys Llanddwyn on Anglesey because of rain and high tide but now here is an unplanned substitute. A gift of adventure dropped at my feet. Dare I? My cautious mind baulks. I turn to one of the Watch Station personnel and say –
‘ I’m going to walk over.’ My brave utterance – aloud – to someone seals it.
She smiles, impressed.
Worms Head. The name derived from the Norse – Wurme – means dragon or serpent. It lies across a causeway on the western tip of the Gower Peninsula. From Rhossili, one can clump over at low tide to this minute island. Wurme. One of the few areas in Wales where the Vikings were able to invade Wales was on the Gower and here is left a trace of their legacy in the name. Wurme. A sleeping dragon, the Vikings imagined its shape to be at high tide. The blowhole on the northern end flushing out spray sealed the image.
Rhossili – the community and village carry the same name with records dating back to the 6th century. It is here that one finds Goat’s Hole of the Paviland Caves where the ‘Red Lady’ was discovered by Rev. William Buckland in 1823. The Red Lady, whom we now know to be a young man aged in his twenties, is the earliest evidence of ceremonial burial in Europe.
Rhossili is the first area in the UK to receive (in 1956) the designation of Area of Outstanding Beauty and it is drawing ramblers, bird-watchers, star-gazers, hang-gliders, artists and bridal parties taking photographs. It is here that Antarctic explorer Edgar Evans took his very first exploratory steps. Edgar Evans was born in Rhossili in 1876 and it was on his way back with the Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole that he died on February 17th 1912.
It is here in Rhossili Bay where the crew of the cargo ship, Helvetia thought it had reached a safe bay to wait out the gale force winds. These winds in the Bristol Channel kept it from docking into the Swansea harbour on that last day of October 1887. The plan to wait it out off of Mumbles found the crew wrestling with more high winds and waves. The crew brought the ship from the dangerous Helwick Sandbank off Mumbles around Worms Head into the relative quiet of Rhossili Bay but the quiet did not remain. Taking a stroll there now at low tide, like spare ribs, the remains of the ship from that day’s event protrude from the sand.
Rhossili, the parish includes Middleton, Pilton Moor, Pilton Green, Pitton Cross, Pitton and Rhossili, the village. The Rhos means ‘moor’ with the rest of the name in honour of St Sulein. Rhossili, spelt with one ’s’ in Welsh is a beautifully stoic cluster of houses with the twelfth century St Mary’s Church up on the cliff-top – Rhossili Down – overlooking the bay. It also watches over the original medieval settlement – a discovery made in the winter of 1979 when a storm uncovered traces of houses and a church. The Warren.
On the island, I see the seals close-up. Plump creatures slithering in and out of the rough waters. Again signs double-warn about trying to swim back if caught on the island and I am extra careful to keep track of the time. I don’t stray far from the others who have tramped over with me. Looking over, the mainland is shrouded in fine mist. The sky above begins to drizzle.
I come back from Pen Pyrod, very impressed – even bowled over by my daring of crossing the causeway with the sea parted but still visibly and audibly crashing its waves, roaring about until it could come tumbling back to cover the crusts of mussels, limpets, whelks and barnacles clinging to the jagged rocks and down inside rock pools. What a sight that would be – the returning waves chasing off the gannets, petrels and other seabirds from foraging off the seabed! I don’t wait to watch but press back through the rain and blustering wind, past the wild ponies, past the guesthouse and bistro café with the best pizza and back to the shelter to wait for the last bus.
Getting there:
By bus: #119 from the bus station at Swansea market.
By car: The A4118 from Swansea.
