Month: May 2013

Story of the week: Walking the Wales Coast Path

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* This is the latest post in a weekly series, highlighting stories from my travel-writing archive. Subscribe to the RSS feed for more. This week’s piece is particularly timely as last Sunday marked the first anniversary of the opening. Want to read more? Try Wales Coast Path blog for Visit Wales.

The landscape opens up in widescreen, all crashing waves and wide-open skies.

I feel a frisson of vertigo as I peer over the sheer cliff drop but steady my gaze on the path ahead, the promise of wooded glades and secluded beaches luring me onwards. I fill my lungs with fresh air and close my eyes, emptying my mind and tuning into the rhythms of nature instead.

Better still, I’m the only walker on the trail today.

I’m walking a section of the new Wales Coast Path, the new 870-mile trail from the Welsh border near Chester to Chepstow in the southeast. It connects existing coast paths, such as Anglesey and Pembrokeshire, to form one continuous circuit – making it the very first coast path to outline an entire country.

Along the way it showcases the best of Welsh landscape and wildlife. Think near-deserted coastal trails, wave-lapped scenery and a natural habitat rich with flora and fauna.

I’ve chosen a walk along the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, a 14-mile section from Porthcawl to Aberthaw, as a microcosm of the entire path. It’s also the nearest section of the path to air hub, Cardiff.

For me, walking the Glamorgan coast was the perfect way to discover one of the lesser-known regions and uncover some warm Welsh hospitality. The Glamorgan coastal path skirts the Bristol Channel with views of ruined Ogmore Castle to the north and south to Exmoor.

“I love the contrasts of this walk. You look across to Devon, not a blank horizon of sea,” says Principal Ranger Paul Dunn. “You can almost touch it on a clear day.”

I had started walking just beyond Porthcawl, first tackling the sand dunes of Merthyr Mawr before progressing onto the salt marsh of the Ogmore estuary. Numerous flower species, including the rare Tuberous Thistle, line the trail and the twice-repeated refrain of a song thrush serenade my steady progress.

I stop for tea and a chance to read up on local geology at the Heritage Coast Information Centre at sheltered Southerndown Bay.

This sweep of South Wales may be sandwiched between the industrial hubs of Port Talbot and Barry, but it’s the last ice age that forged the landscape of rocky outcrops, built on layers of Carboniferous limestone.

It lends the coast an otherworldly feel captured by the TV series Doctor Who, which renamed Southerndown as Bad Wolf Bay for a season-ending climax staring David Tenant.

The path then climbs up from the beach through the former deer park of the Dunraven Estate, following a new public footpath to increase access. After ducking through a maritime-ash woodland, I take a detour at Nash Point, heading inland for lunch at the Plough and Harrow in the village of Monknash.

Back on the coast path, Nash Point Lighthouse was the last manned lighthouse in Wales. The twin lighthouse keepers’ cottages have now been converted into self-catering accommodation with the ultimate sunset vista.

I push on, low-slung afternoon sun softening the landscape, tracing a line along the coast past Tresilian Bay and Summerhouse Point to the trailhead just before Aberthaw.

St Donat’s Arts Centre, an old tithe barn just off the path in the village of Llantwit Major, is staging a performance of Welsh jazz that evening, but I’m heading back to Olivia House, a stylish but homely guesthouse in Porthcawl, for a long soak and a chance to rest weary feet.

After a day on the trail of fresh air, stunning views and escaping the crowds, I’ve got a tasting of walking Wales.

Just another 856 miles to go.

* This story was first published in BA High Life magazine in 2012. Read the original piece here. 

Have you got a favourite section of the Wales Coast Path to walk?

Post your comments below.

Pink ribbons

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They released pink balloons for her birthday.

Then they gathered in unity along the main drag, Heol Maengwyn, to mark her special day, wrapping everyday objects as if gifts and hugging each other tight against the cold of the spring that never came.

But there was no cake that day, no sing-song rendition – just a numbing void. The spectral presence of the little girl was everywhere.

We felt it, too, when we arrived weeks later.

It saturated us like a fine drizzle as walked past shops selling crystals and dream catchers. It followed us around the Spar supermarket as we bought supplies for a makeshift breakfast.

And it pricked our fingertips like freezer burns as we touched the tiny pink ribbons left behind, which splashed bloodspots against the grey-slate facades and the weather-blackened railings.

“The impact was immense,” said Bethan, mixing up bergamot and lavender oils in preparation for our holistic massage. She tossed aside her mane of dreadlocks and looked us in the eyes.

“Immense,” she added.

We talked with her about realigning chakras and then retired to our treehouse bed, gazing at the full-moon sky through the porthole window.

It was peaceful in the forest but we didn’t feel at peace. We wanted to know our children were safe before we could sleep that night.

But there was no signal in the darkness of the ancient oak woodland. No electricity to charge flat batteries.

At first the town had attracted all the healers, hippies and Led Zeppelin hangers-on from across Wales and the borders.

They followed when, in the early Seventies, a group of environmentalists set up a green technology centre in the wooded river valley across the ancient stone bridge.

The city high-fliers formed the second wave with their flash cars and trophy wives, casting aside pin-stripe suits to run feral through the forest.

But going off grid attracted a premium rate and the commune dwellers soon found themselves not just staring down the cold-steel barrel of capitalism, but nursing increasingly itchy trigger fingers.

“I would find them naked by the first morning,” says Michael, tidying the yurt for new arrivals. “They’d gone back to nature.”

Recently the news crews arrived. The nights were dark and the atmosphere heavy as the community gasped for air amongst a deluge of vox pops and live links to studio.

By the time they left again, spring was late, lambing snow blighted and the double dip entrenched.

Now everyone is looking for vital signs.

“I feel the town is finally on the up again,” head chef Sam told us as we perused the low-food-miles menu.

“We’ve moved back here from Shrewsbury to start this business and we’re determined to make a go of it. There are others like us.”

We left the tow with its quiet dignity, our problems seeming trivial by comparison. We had come for healing but instead found perspective.

There were more pink bows and pairs of angel wings, pinned against tree stumps and clinging to road signs, as we drove away.

We arrived home that night and collected our respective children, hugging them to us and dreading the inevitable moment in the darkest recess of the night when thoughts too terrible to bear would shake us violently awake.

Her face was back on the television the next day and it stopped us dead in our tracks, peeling potatoes for dinner while the girls bickered between themselves oblivious.

The five-year-old girl who went out to play one night and, as every parent dreads, never came home.

Benelux: More to food than fries and waffles

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Think the Benelux countries. Think food. What comes to mind? Chips and waffles? A smoke and a pancake?

This summer I’ll be heading across the Benelux region to disprove these very myths.

The Benelux Economic Union formally came into being in 1944 but, historically, there’s a common heritage of local produce and traditional recipes to bond the three Benelux countries together.

And, as part of a new joint initiative between the Holland, Flanders and Luxembourg tourist boards, they’re ready to tell the world there’s more to lowland Europe than hackneyed stereotypes.

Traditional Benelux recipes, such as salt water fish waterzooi (a broth of fish and eggs) and Hustepot (braised pig trotters), have been passed down the generations from the Middle Ages. They draw on the farming tradition and seasonal produce of the region.

We still find them today but, in a region increasingly known for Michelin-starred restaurants, organic markets and celebrity chefs, they come with a contemporary twist – a common heritage blended with external influences.

That’s the angle I’m planning to explore.

It’s not the first time I’ve covered this region from a food angle. I’ve just writen a piece for The Independent about the cheese trail in Holland (watch this space for more details) and I wrote a story for the Financial Times a few years ago about the frituur culture (pictured above) of Flanders.

Here’s an extract – there’s no working link online:

The Flanders region of northern Belgium is home to the very finest frituurs, a simple, informal eatery and a Belgian institution, where master friars prepare superior fries and serve them in a paper cone. The best fries are prepared from Belgian Bintje potatoes, cut to a length of 11mm and fried twice for extra crispiness.

Antwerp alone boasts over 200 frituurs and they are seen as a place where people from walks of life can come together amongst Formica tables and plastic sauce dispensers to chew the fat.

“As a country with no obvious symbols of nationalism, the humble and improvised frituur is our only symbol. It reflects the ad-hoc nature of the Belgian personality, our indifference to aesthetics,” says Paul Ilegems, an art historian, who has devoted 25 years of his life to collecting images of the fried potato throughout history.

“Fries are originally Belgian with the term ‘French fries’ a corruption of the word,” he explains, handing me copies of his books to browse, amongst them Frietgeheimen (Secrets of the Fries) and Het Volkomen Frietboek (The Complete Fries Book). “The American slang term ‘to French’, meaning to cut into thin strips, was only brought to Europe by American troops after World War I,” he adds.

Keep reading for more details of commissions and trip plans. Meanwhile, please post your favourites place, top foodie tips and suggestions for places to visit or dishes to sample below.

I’d love to crowdsource some suggestions.