Take a Walk on the Wild Side – Rhossili to Paviland Cave, Gower
The television programme, Countryfile, broadcast on the BBC every Sunday evening, is a national treasure. For years, millions have tuned into watch and learn about the UK’s diverse landscape, and its environmental and farming issues. At Bayview, Oxwich, we’re avid viewers. We also enjoy its hugely interesting online presence.
Wales often figures online, as well as our very own Gower peninsula. We recently revisited a wonderful article written by Jules Brominicks in which she highlights a walk that we now recommend to guests to our luxury holiday rentals at Bayview, Oxwich if they’re up for a walk on the wild side of the peninsula.
Jules, who is well known for profiling the Welsh landscape, gives a call to action in beautiful prose inviting hardy walkers to lace up their boots and set out on this walk along Gower’s famed southern side, with its dramatic limestone cliffs and caves. As she says, the walk is not for the faint-hearted and its walkers have to heed the tides and the terrain as they tackle the 7.8 mile/12.5km linear cliff-top walk from Rhossili, south-east to Paviland Cave.
To read the well-researched and detailed article, and to see maps, (OS Explorer 164) please see www.countryfile.com but to get a feel for the route and what you’ll encounter, it is summarised as follows:
Start at Rhossili (easy parking in National Trust car park) and head out towards (but not crossing to) Worm’s Head.
Lookout Station Worm’s Head
Fall Bay
Mewslade
The Knave
Deborah’s Hole
Paviland Cave
Expect to see:
Tidal islands
Shipwrecks
Surging surf
Gower wild ponies
Spectacular limestone cliff-scapes
Dry stone walls
Medieval strip field patters
Beautiful vegetation including rockrose, spring cinquefoil and squinancy wort
Iron Age promontories
Caves
The site of Paviland Man buried 28,000 years ago
The walk should take 5-hours and is a return walk. The walk is rough underfoot and can be slippery, and the descent to Paviland Cave itself is a dangerous scramble with the cave being only accessible for 1 hour on either side of a spring tide.
If you don’t fancy a challenging trek on Gower’s wild side, but want to experience it nevertheless, then simply park up at Rhossili and take the 3-mile sandy walk along the beach to the north end of the bay to Burry Holms, or along the Coast path that skirts Rhossili Down. Either way, you’re guaranteed the best of what Gower has to offer.
And when you’re done with the walking, you can hunker down and relax in the luxury of Bayview Oxwich's luxury rental holiday properties. Contact Wanda and the Team to discuss which of our contemporary cottages, luxury apartments or even an exclusive retreat would be best suited to you and your family and friends.
Imagery: © Horatio | Hawlfraint y Goron / © Crown copyright (2024) Cymru Wales