Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Caesar's hole

Last Christmas I bought Husband Ashley's Walks, detailing walks around Gower; this morning we finally got round to trying one.

According to the book it was 4.3 miles but allowing for our, um, 'detours' we must have covered 4.5 if not 5 miles! It's a good job Husband can navigate by the sun otherwise we'd still be going round in circles. On the whole though it was easy to follow the route until the promised signposts didn't materialise.

Starting and finishing in the Southgate car park the route took us east towards Pwlldu Head, the highest headland in Gower. The photo bottom left is looking back across the sea at the length of Oxwich Bay; top photo is looking down onto Pwlldu.


It was a gorgeous morning for a walk, especially a guided one that informs. If you look carefully just to the left of the centre of this photo you'll see a circle of stones. 

In 1760 the Caesar was shipwrecked off Pwlldu Head. The crew saved themselves but ignored the 62 men and 3 women, who'd been press-ganged and were shackled below decks. When the locals went the next day to salvage what they could they were horrified to find the rocks strewn with bodies. The villagers buried them in a common grave marked by the stones.

What makes it worse that at an inquiry into the wreck nobody mentioned the lost men and women and nobody was punished.

There've been numerous shipwrecks off Gower and Gower folk have never been slow to take advantage of the bounty but that day they must have regretted their enthusiasm.

On a brighter note, I felt I deserved an ice cream at the end of the hike. And now I'm off to sit in the hairdressers' for 3 hours. Shall I take a good book or use the time to catch up on the celebrity gossip mags they usually have there? 

6 comments:

jams o donnell said...

Sounds like it has some great walks. The Goer was poisoned for me by a Zoology field trip in 1980.Caught by the tide thanks to idiot teachers on Mumbles, nearly caught again on Worms head, then finally humiliated at the Burry Inlet.

Perhaps one day I will visit and enjoy the Gower in its true beauty!

NitWit1 said...

A great walk with history to boot. Love the history. Maybe a peak at George, in one too(?).

I gave up beauty shops years ago as I have enough Native American Indian in me to make perms and hairdos unmanageble; therefore I get a haircut now and then. I do miss the localgossip but usually found little truth in them by the time I heard them..

Katney said...

I know I'm too late, but I would say a good book.

Katney said...

Jams, a walk in the Gower with George is the best thing ever.

Leslie: said...

Beautiful...I'll be in Wales from Aug. 18-21 when we head up to Liverpool. Hoping to take a day trip to Swansea and meet up.

Ole Phat Stu said...

If you are going to be doing some of the longer / wilder walks, get yourself a small GPS ( from €80). Remember to set a waypoint where you parked the car :-)