Wild Welsh Swims: 2011

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Lone Wolf Campsite

28/04/11

We stayed at the Lone Wolf Campsite at Glyn Y Mul Farm (near Neath) last night. Real cool place, you can have fires, camp in the woods or on the river bank. Loads of local wild swimming potential. Real fun night, would recommend the site to anyone....... http://home.btconnect.com/glyn-y-mul-farm/

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Llyn Idwal

22/04/11

We headed up to Llyn Idwal today for a quick dip in the blue water. When we arrived the car park was allready full and people were parking all over the place. It was really busy but as soon as we got up to the lake the place was big enough to loose the crowds he had made the effort to walk up to see it but walked no further than the large shingle beach. By the time we got to the beach my youngest had stripped off and was dunking his head in the water. We chilled out for a bit and watched the mountain rescue helicopter pull someone off the mountain (we later found out that a walker had broken her ankle). We had a picnic of BLT's and Discos's. The kids took over the island for the afternoon and we mucked about jumping and diving off a ledge into the crystal blue lake.

Another classic day.

Secret beach Anglesey

21/04/11

We hit up a secret coastal spot in Anglesey today and scored the beach to ourselves, all day!!

We drove past the hordes of holiday makers at the more popular beaches and headed off down long single lane country tracks and ended up at this beach which has featured on the BBC's Coast programme in the past. The water was crystal and extremely cold, colder than usual. I came close to quitting as i got to crotch level but stuck with it, mainly not to loose face as my younger brother was already in.

We swam out through a gulley on the lookout for spider crabs, but there weren't any there yet. Last year Owen had swam out over hundreds of the crabs and managed to grab a few for the pot.

We swam around the point into a rocky bay, feeling more comfortable now that we had acclimatised to the cold. We dove down into the seaweed forests scaring each other by suddenly emerging through thick blankets of seaweed. As we surfaced for air we noticed a seal was watching us presumably wondering what the hell we were doing!

We headed back to the beach and mucked about on the kayak and catching crabs with the kids. Jake, the chief fire starter got the fire going and then it was hot dogs all round. We drove back to base a little sun burnt, a little tired and with little smiles on our faces knowing we had just shared a memorable day.

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Wild Welsh Swims - Llyn Idwal

Sunday, 17 April 2011

Porth Yr Ogof

17/04/11

Ive just been to wild swimming heaven, too many pools too little time................
We parked at Porth Yr Ogoth just north of Pontneddfechan (Ystradfellte). If you like wild swimming, get over there!!

Enjoy

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Merthyr Mawr Warren (........and beach)

13/03/11

The weather was supposed to be sketchy today but we woke up to blue skies so decided to go out for a picnic. We decided on a local spot, Merthyr Mawr sand dunes near Bridgend. I got to work on the picnic, as usual the kids all wanted something different. B.L.T.'s for me and Lor, Tuna pasta for Jake, Ham sandwich (with crusts) for Finn, ham sandwich (without crusts) for Rudi.

We started the walk and within a minute the dogs collar snapped, so we had to make a homemade one out of the remnants and some rope. Jake tripped over a tree root straight into a pile of thorns and spent the rest of the day picking thorns out of his hands with the tweezers from my swiss army knife. It was a bit of a trek to the beach but the boys enjoyed jumping around in the dunes on the way.

When we got to the beach we set up camp and lit a fire. I went for a quick dip, although the sun was out the water felt particularly cold in the wind. I always find the hardest bit of swimming in the sea in the winter is the slow aching walk to get to water deep enough to dive in, sometimes its a struggle to not just turn around and walk back up the beach.

When i got out it was nice warming my toes in the hot sand by the fire. We had food and dozed for a bit, hidden away sheltered by a baby dune. The boys were playing hide and seek in the maram grass and very kindly let us doze.

The walk back was typical (you'll know all about it if you've got young tired kids) 40 minutes of "are we there yet?" "my legs hurt" "will you carry me?" etc.