Gower Trip - Rhossoli & Worms Head

After Oxwich, the weather started to clear late morning and with the low tide hitting about mid afternoon, I wanted to take the boys to beautiful village of Rhossoli and see if we could hike across to Worms Head.  Worms head is a tiny spine of rock that hangs off the Western tip of the Gower, and you can only cross over to it at low tide when a rocky land-bridge is exposed.   Historically 'Wurm' is another word for dragon and the rocky outcrop is called this due to its resemblance to a sea serpent.  

 Worms Head off in the distance and waiting for the tide to recede before making the crossing

The crossing and pictures taken from the Island
Looking at the seals far below.  Third shot you get a good view looking back to the mainland with the land bridge exposed
Shots of Rhossoli bay - considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK

Gower Trip: Oxwich Castle

On Sunday after packing up our campsite, the plan was to head further west on the peninsula and do some exploring.  A few miles from the campsite we decided to take a detour to check out Oxwich Castle.  Not much different than other castle ruins we have been too, but the boys love to climb around (as long as no-one is looking:)  Bit disappointed that they charged £3 per person to get in to this one...

Camping on the Gower Peninsula - Three Cliffs Bay

This past weekend I took Hunter and Noah camping on the Gower Peninsula of South Wales.    The Gower is a beautiful are with amazing beaches.  People come from all over to stay there.  The site I booked was a place I tried to get to last year but was full.  It is called Three Cliffs Bay Campground.  In 2006 the Independent ranked it the best campsite view in the world.  Its definitely must be up there for sure.  

View from the Campsite and our setup

Ice Cream and dinners at the local pub

Hiking and playing at the beach and nearby Pennard Castle 

Beach Day and climbing up to the highest of the 3 cliffs

The Gower Peninsula: Port Eynon Bay

The Gower Peninsula is about 70 Sq miles in size and sticks out from South Wales into the Bristol channel.  It is classified as an 'Area of Outstanding National Beauty' within the UK and in fact was the first area to receive this designation in 1956.  The weather took a turn for the better this past week and with a 'Proper British Summer' in swing (at least for a few days) we decided to take trip to the Gower. 

As is often the case, I overplanned and had too many 'options' identified for the day - at least too many for a family with 4 young kids in a car on the first nice weekend in a while that also co-incided with the first weekend off school. (everyone was out and there was a lot of traffic)    I am also not as adept as Kelly in planning car rides (snacks, in car entertainment) so unfortunately while the weather started off great, the atmosphere inside the car was stormy. 

We drove through Swansea, and then toured through a small seaside village called Mumbles.  From there we drove further down the peninsula and settled on going to a beach at Port Eynon Bay.  It is one of 4 Blue Flag beaches (rating for quality beaches) on the Gower. We spent a good amount of time here having lunch, playing in the sand and water at very low tide. (see pictures below).  A very good beach for kids as the car park is only about a minute walk to the beach. 

 

Here is a video.  Excuse my miss-pronouciation of 'Port EYnon (as in Eye). 

From here, I wanted to go down and check out what many consider to be the crown Jewel beach of the Gower - Rhossili Bay.  We found it, but due to the lateness of the day, and drive home we decided to skip actually going down to the beach on this trip.  I definitely want to come back to this place again at some point.

Picture below is the view of Rhossili Bay.  The second picture is the church that sits just above the bay, and overlooks it.