Coast Walking (Wales): Kenfig to Porthcawl 24 May 2016

We walked this section in reverse to fit in with bus times. We therefore drove to Porthcawl and walked west around the harbour and along the front, which at first was the usual concrete promenade above a rocky beach, with a road on the landward side. Where the road cut across a slight promontory we were able to walk along the cliff edge; the official path unaccountably continues beside the road. While the grassland was species poor, we were surprised to find the odd patch of Spring Squill. On the low cliffs and rocks below were Thrift and Rock Samphire. After a brief resumption of the roadside just before the golf course club-house, at the road's end we were again on the cliff-top path. The second bay we passed, Pink Bay, had unusual conglomerate rocks on the shore, grey limestone pebbles in a pink calcite matrix with quartz veins, formed in Triassic times by rubble washed by floods into gullies in the underlying Carboniferous limestone. Sea shells here were few and all common species. Leaving the golf course behind, we passed a couple of fields inland of the rocky Scer Point and then entered Kenfig NNR yet again, this time at the south end. We walked north for half a kilometre and then took a footpath east towards the visitor centre. This took us through more typical dune and wet slack communities much like yesterday, but less rich, although plenty of Early Purple Orchid spikes made it colourful, and Small Blues and Small Heath butterflies continued. Some of the Burnet Roses were subject to the webs of Lackey Moth caterpillars. At the edge of one marsh we found the shells of two snails, the common Marsh Pond and the rarer Moss Bladder Snails, the latter very shiny and sinistral (our first discovery of this snail). We only saw two other orchids this time – a few Southern Marsh and many Twayblade. We arrived eventually, just before the village of Kenfig, on a lawn-like grassland area, much used by dog-walkers and other day-visitors, and walked down to the edge of Kenfig Pool to have our lunch at one of the picnic tables. Here we saw Coots and Great Crested Grebe on the water – surprisingly few birds. The clear water had some areas of Reed marsh at the edge, and Fennel Pondweed washed up to the shore. Blue-tailed and Common Blue Damselflies were frequent. We walked counter-clockwise around the lake, firstly along the edge of pasture-fields – disturbing Mallard, Canada and Greylag Geese roosting on the banks. At the NE corner we re-entered the nature reserve at a reed-marsh, where a useful walkway ran out into the water (to a bird hide), giving a view of some of the water plants, such as Gypsywort, Amphibious Bistort, Marsh and Water Horsetails, Narrow Buckler-fern. At the hide, which looked mainly on to reeds, we had a good view of a Reed Warbler, which also gave its typical reeling call. Returning to the lake-edge path we followed this as far as we could, through clouds of damsel-flies, until it became too wet to continue. We then found a small path taking us further up the dunes into a drier portion and continued at this level around the lake. When we reached the NW corner we altered our course southwards, parallel to the water’s west edge, with occasional views of the visitor centre roof and a windmill to guide our direction, as dune land is a very disorienting environment. Just as we got very close to the SW corner of the lake and to the main path leading to the visitor centre we hit another flooded area of woodland filling not only the path but also well to the side, so that we had to retrace our steps and take small tracks to the west until, after a couple more failed attempts to get across the flooded valley, we eventually ran into a footpath that found a drier way between the pools, and eventually regained the visitor centre track. We arrived at the centre with ten minutes to spare for the next bus to Porthcawl, so we had to miss out on its facilities and go straight to the road. The bus took us to the centre of the shopping-centre in Porthcawl, where we walked down a pedestrian street with quite decent shops, not many chains (although we did take a coffee at Costa), all the way to the front. Porthcawl is a pleasant and relatively quiet seaside town. The small harbour was packed with boats and the walls had Sea Pearlwort. We are staying again tonight, as last, inland in Laleston outside Bridgend, at Great House Hotel, where the restaurant has some culinary ambition.