Day 27 –Swansea to Bridgend

 

Date: Saturday 1^st August 2009    Distance: 32.97

 

We left at 6.20 in the morning with bike in car for Cardiff Central Station. Arrived in plenty of time for the hour earlier train and a small guard’s van made fitting the bike in easy. So at 10.45 we left Swansea station for the coast in a light drizzle of rain. After a little orienteering we found a cycle way heading in the right direction alongside a fairly deserted main road. Little in the way of eating places we waited till Port Talbot for lunch where we found a thriving café in busy precinct near the bus station.

 

We followed the cycleway (route 4) down back alleyways that were like mazes. There were smells of sulphur as we drew near the steelworks. We noticed enormous pink hydrangeas in this area and wondered if this was because they loved acid soil. I didn’t notice holes in the washing but sulphur and rain would be a mix for sulphuric acid! Later on there was another chemical smell we couldn’t place but I was trying hard to hold my breath. How it must be awful for people living here. The weather improves, as does the scenery and now we can really see out to sea.

 

A quiet B road takes us past a wedding and then a pub with live jazz in the garden with a line up of upright pianos with numbers on their backs. If we’d had more time we could have satisfied curiosity but we pressed on past nature reserves towards Porthcawl.  Here the growling of the sea and the high spray as it crashed into the rocks lent an exciting atmosphere. There were many people along this shore, walking, playing chicken with waves, fishing from rocks and then at the more sandy end, surfing. There was a proper seaside town flavour and an unusual couple had a barrow on a street corner with lifelike monkeys that they used like ventriloquist dummies. When the lady came to buy an ice-cream she was talking to the one round her neck and it was squeaking back quite realistically.

 

We travelled up the main road towards Bridge End but then diverted onto bridle-way as this road was very busy. The bridle-way was hardly visible, just a vague path through bracken and I asked Bob if he was sure this was the way as it seemed unlikely. We pushed the tandem through deep, soft sand and met some horse riders who confirmed the route. Then I heard what sounded like horse hooves in water. The whole path was like a river from bank to bank. Off came Bob’s socks and shoes and he gallantly paddled beside the tandem while I tried to take the high route treading down vegetation as I went. At one point he used the tandem to prop me up and once he carried me on the saddle across an unnavigationable bit. I stayed dry but I hope he didn’t get anything nasty from the water. We came out at a car park with a small castle ruin and picked up the cycle-way through a lovely area of thatched cottages. It was up little roads to the Great Western hotel where we were booked.

 

The hotel was a pleasant surprise with a ground floor room with French windows looking onto a pool (being refurbished) and garden. A short walk brought us to Bridge End that had several eating places but we opted for the tried and tested Wetherspoon where we knew we’d get a decent pint. It was very busy and noisy with lots of large groups of young people and even groups of those a lot older. Everyone seems a bit cliquey but very social.