Birds of a feather

Low tide at Rhossili with Worm's Head in the distance

So Rhossili has been awarded third place in a list of best European beaches.

In a survey of worldwide tourists by TripAdvisor the windswept Welsh beach, popular with families and dog walkers alike, was beaten only by Rabbit Beach at Lampedusa, Sicily, and Playa de las Catedrales in Ribadeo, Galicia, Spain.

In the unlikely event that any reader hasn’t visited Rhossili, this magnificent three-mile stretch of sand lies on the tip of the Gower peninsula.

Thousands visit Rhossili annually to stroll along the beach, surf its waves and splash around in the sea.  As a tourist destination, Rhossili offers everything: miles of white sand, (at low tide) several shipwrecks, a public house, cafes, a National Trust shop, toilets, two small tidal islands and, most important, a large car park.

Two miles to the north, and tucked just behind Burry Holms, lies an equally beguiling stretch of sand but here the similarity ends. 

Whiteford Sands is largely ignored by the crowds

Unlike its buzzing, tourist-friendly, cash-grabbing neighbour, Whiteford Sands has no amenities and requires a ten minute walk from the nearest car park at Llanmadoc. 

Wild ponies graze the mud flats near Whiteford Sands

Our preferred route around Whiteford Point takes a good deal longer but passes some of the Gower’s most contrasting scenery and provides plenty of photographic opportunities, e.g. wild ponies grazing on the mud flats.

Now Rhossili has been crowned one of the top European beaches it’s likely to encourage even greater numbers to explore its attractions, leaving the peace and tranquility of Whiteford Sands to the locals and ‘those in the know’.

It’s the same story in the Brecon Beacons. The National Park's own website claims it is visited annually by ‘some 3.8 million people who spend around 4.2 million days there’.

So are the mountains thronging with hikers, trekking in convoy over the ridges?  The mere thought makes me chuckle.

Last spring and summer, Harri and I completed over 20 walks for inclusion in Harri’s forthcoming book on the Brecon Beacons for Vertebrate Publishing. 

Most days we saw hardly saw anyone at all, except when we ventured into villages and towns. Occasionally, we might pass a couple of hikers, or even more rarely, a small group of walkers, but more often we had great expanses of Welsh mountain all to ourselves. 

The truth is that the only places in the Brecon Beacons where you can reasonably expect to encounter large groups of walkers are on the well-walked trails leading to the twin peaks of Pen y Fan and Corn Du and in the popular waterfalls area at Ystradfellte. Hike anywhere else in the Brecon Beacons and it’s quite possible, and very probable on drizzly, grey days, that you’ll not pass another person all day. 

That’s right. No-one. Anywhere. There are more sheep than people in this part of Wales. 

I recall watching a television programme several years ago which rated the ‘must-see’ places in the world. No prizes for guessing which large American gorge came top of the list. Tourist after tourist gushed over the Grand Canyon – almost to a person describing it as ‘awesome’ – though few had done much more than gaze across the mile-wide chasm before turning their attention to the man-made attractions which line the cliff top.

Bryce Canyon, Utah with not a cafe or shop in sight

A few months later, we were there ourselves, having first visited the rather more accessible and equally stunning (if far less frequently raved about) Zion and Bryce Canyons in Southern Utah.

‘There’s only so much red rock you can look at,’ Alanna pronounced, at eight clearly unimpressed by this geological monster of nature.

Flicking through an old guidebook recently, I read that almost all visitors to the Grand Canyon visit the South Rim (the hotels, cafes, gift shops, 3D cinemas, etc, are located here) where they spend just 40 minutes of their two-three hour visit looking at the canyon. North Rim is apparently just too far off the beaten track for the majority.

It’s exactly the same story in Madeira, where coach loads of tourists flock to Monte for the toboggan run or to Rabaçal for the waterfalls. Not that either of these places isn't beautiful and well worth seeing, of course, but so is the magnificent and largely deserted high plateau of the Paul do Serra. 

St Ives: the most visited resort in Cornwall

In Cornwall, the big draw is St Ives, where on a rainy day in August, we were hard-pushed to find standing room in a pub. 

In Pembrokeshire, it's St David's that attracts the madding crowds (Harri will never forgive me for having to queue twice in a heaving beer garden for two halves of cider because, as I maintain, ladies don't drink pints!). 

Everyone, it seems, flocks to the same places for no reason other than these are the places that people flock. In our hundreds, we swarm into the pubs, cafes and gift shops that spring up in response to demand, though in some instances the natural landscape is so inaccessible, the commercial landscape now appears to be the main attraction, e.g. Cheddar Gorge, Tintagel. 

It often makes me wonder if humans really are birds of a feather… or just sheep?

 Birds... or just sheep? 

Live stock

I've gone off bacon sandwiches for good!

Two decades ago, as a breast-feeding mum, I watched a lamb tugging at a ewe’s underside as it tried to suckle and felt a sudden affinity with this other, slightly woollier, mother.

From that day, I stopped eating lamb completely except in situations when to refuse would offend, or worse, embarrass, my hosts.  I even went vegetarian for a few years until another pregnancy – and severe anaemia – sent me heading back to the meat counter.

After an abysmal April when our walking boots barely saw the light of day, we’ve been getting out and about again. And guess what – I’m getting all sentimental about baby animals to the point where Harri is forbidding me to take any more photographs of sheep, lambs or anything else with four legs.

Worse, I’m starting to consider vegetarianism all over again – yesterday’s evening meal was a delicious homemade butternut squash curry. 

You see, while it’s easy to divorce those hermatically sealed packs of raw flesh from live animals when you spend your days in town, it’s horribly difficult to cook bacon after you’ve spent a good ten minutes chatting to two friendly and oh-so-cute tail-wagging piglets on the escarpment above Llangattock.

Still fancy a beefburger?

And has anyone looked into the eyes of a young calf recently? Those big trusting eyes and eyelashes to die for – oops, wrong word but you get my drift. Somehow even the leanest fillet steak loses its appeal when you start joining the dots and working out what happened between number 1 and number 20.

Thankfully, I’ve never eaten mutton – I mean, how could anyone look at those dozy animals and think ‘haute cuisine’? 

Go into a field full of sheep and the entire flock does one of two things – runs away from you in terror or runs towards you in anticipation. 

One of the braver lambs

It’s impossible to predict their reaction from day to day. My theory is that it’s linked to what we’re wearing. Yesterday’s pink fleece was clearly sheep language for ‘we're here to feed you’ because we were quickly surrounded by up to a hundred sheep, while last week’s mass exodus was down to the subliminal message sent out by my navy fleece (‘we're here to eat you’).

I admit I’m a bit sheep obsessed. I must have taken at least thirty sheep photographs yesterday – most now consigned to the rubbish bin it’s true – but sheep are entertaining in so many ways. For a start, ewes are hapless mothers who seem incapable of keeping their young charges in the same field, let alone under mama’s watchful eye. There’s a tragic inevitability to what happens when we climb over a stile into a field of ewes and their lambs on a recognised footpath. One sheep spots us and baas loudly to warn her own offspring of oncoming danger (navy fleece warning). Within seconds, there are lambs running around in all directions, each one beating desperately like the kid in the Rolf Harris song ‘I lost my mammy’ . Meanwhile, another ewe emits a few gentle baas but doesn’t look unduly worried that in his blind panic, junior has managed to get his head stuck in a fence.

Oh, the joys of spring hiking. Where’s that tofu?