Coast Walking (Wales): Llantwit Major to Barry 27 May 201

We parked at the beach and walked east up to the top of the cliffs, which were low for 4km at the edge of arable fields. Birds sang from every hedgerow and we noticed quite a lot of songbirds – Blackbird, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Garden Warbler, and Stonechat – even a Skylark singing on a fence post. Botanically it was poor with one major exception – Corn Buttercup grew at the edge of our path in just one field planted to wheat. The cliffs here are eroding and there are frequent warnings and paths forced further back than they had once been. A particularly striking reminder was a fence suspended in mid-air where the ground beneath had disappeared. At Summerhouse Point a former coastguard station - Canolfan Seawatch Centre, which collects or collected data on weather and coastal conditions, is now apparently closed "all day, every day" according to the notice-board. We came down to a small cove here, where we were forced to walk across the boulders at the top of the beach, the (Un)Christian Centre occupying the shore not allowing a path through their grounds. Due to the crumbling cliffs along this section the beach-heads are strewn with boulders and extremely difficult to walk. Then we were allowed back to the field edges, but the path had been obliterated, and ploughed land with large stones remained for us to plough through ourselves. After this field a coast path sign directed inland along a hedgerow, but no room had been left by the rape crop and we carried on along the former route at the edge of the field, at one time having to circumvent a pile of cut scrub occupying the path. We were now approaching Aberthaw Power Station, but the path, although rough, was now manageable just above the boulder beach. After an area of saltmarsh with English Scurvy-grass, that path ended at a car park beside the power station, where a concrete walkway was provided all the way around the edge between tall security fences on one side and a concrete embankment the other. This was dull but at least easy to walk, apart from it being appropriately named “dog shit alley”, as none of the local dog-owners seem to have heard of removing their by-products, which had accumulated all the way along. After crossing the River Thaw we had an open grassy path above the beach through a “biodiversity reserve” below a disused pumping station, with Pale Flax beside the path and a large lake with reed islands and a scattering of water-birds such as Heron, Pochard, and Tufted Duck. Pale flax seems to be a common ingredient of these industrial wasteland restoration sites, perhaps a constituent of some standard seed-mix used by them. Above the intriguingly-named Andrew's Pant saltmarsh was a bank of scrub below the railway from East Aberthaw which is renowned as the site of True Service-tree, but we could not find these trees or the rowans that we saw here twelve years ago, the scrub being submerged under Traveller’s joy and Ivy. In 2004 we found several trees, but none with the distinctive fruit, the leaves only separable from those of the rowan by a slight difference in the serration. Just after this a series of steps led to the top of the cliff and a surprise, making up for the disappointment of not rediscovering Sorbus domestica, was a little group of Purple Gromwell, the first time we had seen this neat plant with bright blue-purple flowers, a few at the top of each stem. The path at the top of the cliff bordered a very long caravan park and mown grass of no interest above Ffontigari Bay. Beyond this was a flattened stony area that used to be a quarry, with a few limestone plants such as Carline Thistle. Another disused quarry area followed with various stone constructions (such as a stone circle) and a few lakes that seemed to hold no birds. The most salient feature here should have been Rhoose Point, the southernmost point in

Wales

, but the point itself was fenced off and the best photo we could take was of the sign for it! Some rough scrub after this was followed by a new large caravan park on what was once part of Porthkerry Country Park, now really “Porthkerry Caravan Park”, a shameful addition to the “Glamorgan Heritage Coast”. After a trudge through the caravans along roads away from the coast, we returned to the beach and found a log on the shingle to take some lunch, before crossing the lower edge of what was left of the park (although much of this is now a golf course!) and ascending the steep steps to the top of the final cliff before Barry. There was more Purple Gromwell here beside the steps and a large population to the left down the cliff. At the top was a mown grass recreation area for the Barry suburbs, descending to Pebble Beach, Cold Knap Point and, round the corner, Watch House Bay. The tide had flowed out sufficiently to allow us to try to walk across to a peninsula of Barry Island, which we did, but the muddy sand was soft and feet sank under, while there was a clamber over rocks to get on to the "island". Crossing the Little Island peninsula, we walked across the slightly firmer sand of Whitmore Bay, with a funfair at its head, the main part of Barry Island. Here was a climbing wall with "holds" made of strange plastic coloured shapes spelling out "Barry Island", succinctly symbolising the tacky gaudiness of the resort. Rounding Nell's Head we took roads along the other side, heading back towards the mainland, overlooking Barry docks. Before reaching the A-road causeway we found a walkway that similarly led through wasteland (with lots of White Mignonette) across docklands into Barry, but we had difficulty finding Barry Station (which was never signed) through newly built shopping areas, and missed our train by a few minutes. Rather than wait an hour we found a taxi back to our starting-point. Looking back over an unremarkable day, we reflected that as the day warmed up and sunshine increased there were more common butterflies to be seen, of which Speckled Wood were perhaps the most frequent in paths between hedgerows.