Jersey Marine and Crymlyn Burrows

All week the weather forecast for the day of our walk looked pretty awful with torrential rain for the entire day.I kept checking and checking so much, that at one stage I thought I had "crashed" the BBC website all by myself but later found out to my relief that the "crash" had been caused by a cyber attack!!!

A few times, the forecast changed to show a little glimmer of sunshine (hopefully) appearing in the middle of the day and I kept hold of that thought even when sitting in my kitchen on the morning of the walk with the rain outside absolutely hammering down!!

Thank goodness that other people weren't put off and were determined that the weather would not spoil this very lovely walk in a little known area of Swansea.

At one stage when we were assembling in the car park the women outnumbered the men by two to one but in the end it was even stevens with five women and five men, although the women did want to include Lecky's dog Pippin on our side to "pip", (no pun intended) the men!!

New member William was welcomed and soon we were up and running, well I mean walking of course. 

The rain had stopped as I drove to the meeting place but as we set off by the canal the rain started again though luckily not as heavy as earlier in the day.

We took a detour into Pen Y Sais Fen, a lovely nature reserve complete with boardwalks, and then rejoined the canal.There were interesting bridges along the way and an old lock where some of the wooden frame still existed.

We squeezed between some large concrete pillars --no, not a rock and a hard place!!--making our way underneath the M4 and two motorway bridges to reach the River Neath and where we had great views over to the opposite banks and an area called Giants Grave where shipbreaking took place including World War Two ships.

We walked beside the River and at the edge of a golf course and by this time the skies had cleared and we had blue sky and sunshine so we decided to stop for lunch in a lovely green hollow with interesting views over to Briton Ferry and Port Talbot.

People were very content to stay awhile eating and chatting in the warm sun but eventually it was time to make our way across the "Burrows"--sand dunes--to the new Swansea Bay University Campus.

Meic who had hobbled some of the way due to a leg injury, left us here to walk back to the cars, saying "I'll be back!!"

By this time we could see the sea and the large expanse of the Campus appeared on the skyline.

We made our way up and down the sand dunes with great views in all directions eventually arriving at the University.We then detoured to see the sea and beach area which is directly at the back of the Campus and Swansea Marina was in clear view.

We then walked through the higgledy, piggledy, mish mash of buildings consisting of all different shapes and sizes and made of all kinds of different coloured brick and stone materials.

People had their different views and likes/dislikes of the modern buildings.

The rain had started to fall again so we made our way back along part of the Burrows, back to the cars.

A few of us stayed for coffee and hot chocolate--just who did have the most chocolatey hot chocolate??!!

A relaxing cuppa is always a really nice way to finish.

A very special thanks to the people who came, and had faith in the unpredictability of the welsh weather and were prepared to brave the elements, to support this really different and very interesting walk, it was very much appreciated. 

 

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