This photo is just to remind me of what I can achieve when I set my mind to it. It's the trig point on top of Rhossili Downs of course.
I have had two 3 mile walks since, just around the lanes locally, but including some steep hills. I am still cooling down from today's walk, which included walking steadily (but not slowly) up a long hill towards Llanfynydd. That part of the walk took half an hour but I stuck to it and was surprised at how much fitter I am already. The views are lovely round here, very familiar, but still worth gazing at. Back to the last part of the Rhossili Downs walk now.
Views in every direction, and I couldn't resist stopping and taking more photos.
Glorious heather and the remains of another burial chamber.
There are a number of burial chamber remains up on the top and you can't blame them for laying their dead to rest with such stupendous views in every direction.
By this time, Burry Holms was completely an island again. You can clearly see the division made in the late Iron Age and used again when the Romans arrived - which made a promontary fort of the seaward end of the island. Here is the link to the archaeology report:
http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/burry-holms-excavation-newly-catalogued.html
Neolithic burial chamber in the valley behind. Very tumbled and broken. I intend to go back and explore these properly (there were two of them here). They are known locally as Swain's Howes (as in burial chamber) and are portal dolmens, such as those I saw in Ireland on an Archaeology Field Trip. Here's a link for you: http://thejournalofantiquities.com/category/swains-howes-burial-chambers-rhossilli-downs-in-south-wales/
You can see it's position in the landscape here - half way between the "wild" and the "civilized" as it later became. I wouldn't mind betting that little lane is incredibly old too, and perhaps an original transhumance route up onto the Downs for summer grazing of livestock.
If you look at the middle of the photograph, behind my friend, just over her left shoulder, that's where we were parked. It took us an hour to reach it!
This was the pathway down, and it was difficult to manouvre. I am SO glad we didn't climb UP this way!
The Downs behind us as we set out through the Marsh grass . . .
It was like going on safari!
This last stretch was sandy and easy walking, but we had met a chap walking his Whippet, who told us to "look out for adders - he had never seen so many as that afternoon". Fortunately they seemed to have gone to bed by the time we arrived.
I can't wait to go back and walk some of this area again with my husband. It is SO lovely there. Really magic, especially up on the Downs.
