A Year Abroad: Day Five. Porthcawl to Ogmore.

Today was up in the air for a good while. First I was going to go to Caerleon, then Caldicot castle. But finally I settled on a south coast walk, following a track that goes right around the UK, but doing a piece of it from the Wales Coastal Path.

It took some getting to, especially as there's no train that goes there, and it was a Sunday, so public transport that was running was at odd times.

I took a bus to Bridgend, which took about 40 minutes, then a bus to Porthcawl, which took about another 40. The bus was an interesting ride. It was like 20 of my grandfather put into one space, but of all ages and gender. Everyone knew each other, and when someone new got on the bus, everyone would stop the conversations they were having and ask how the new persons mother was doing, or something like that.

Porthcawl was a very small coastal town, but pretty. Much as you'd expect a coastal Welsh town to be like. It looked like it was going to rain, and the wind was pretty chilly. I stopped to check with a local if I was going the right direction to Ogmore, and as the Welsh are so lovely, she chatted to me for about 15 minutes about how she always does that walk, and if I kept going past Ogmore, there are spectacular cliffs you can walk along. I was also the first real Australian she'd ever met or heard.

I kept walking, going along the amazing coast line. The weather began clearing up as I was walking along my third beach, and it became pretty hot once the sun came out. It was such a surreal experience. There weren't many people around, so walking along a beach with both rocks and pebbles on the coast of Wales pretty much alone was pretty cool.

Once I got to Ogmore, you have to cut back up about 2km inland and cross a bridge at Ogmore castle and then walk back down to Ogmore. The place you're aiming to get to is literally 15 metres away across a stream running out into the ocean. I began walking back inland and the landscape changed quite dramatically quite quickly. It became really really green, and there were sheep and horses everywhere! But pretty much just sheep everywhere you looked. Once I got to the castle, I think the tide was up because I couldn't cross the path. The river was pretty wide at that point. I had no choice but to walk back the way I'd come from and try another way. The other way was crossing the stream from the beginning. It was moving pretty fast and I was wearing three-quarter pants. So I chose a path that looked like the shallowest way across, and where the water wasn't moving so fast, took off my shoes, took of my pants, put my shoes back on, as I thought they would provide more grip than bare feet and it wouldn't hurt as much, and crossed pantless (It was fine. It was a beach, so I pretended I was in my swimmers).

Once across, I dried off for a bit, and then kept walking. Ogmore is just houses, there's no town there. I kept walking for about a km to find the cliffs, but found they were several more km's down, and it was already mid afternoon, so I turned around and went back to the bus stop. The next bus was an hour away. So I walked to the next bus stop about 3 km away and waited there.

All in all I walked about 25km.

Getting back into Cardiff on a Sunday evening was dead... There was no one around. So I cooked dinner and watched some Hart of Dixie, and went to bed.