Day 5 - Worms Head with Chris Street

Gower Peninsula

Worms Head from the Causeway

Worms Head from the Causeway
An infrared photograph with adjusted colours (reduced red)

Chris arrived around 7am and we set off for the Gower, pausing briefly on Cefn Bryn to take a couple of photos of Oxwich Head. The light was incredibly clear, the North Devon coast was clearly visible, as was Lundy Island, the Pembrokeshire coastline as far as St Govans Head, and even a lot of the Cornish coast. I've rarely ever seen light so clear. Not a cloud in they sky, except for a low bank in the west.

Making our way quickly on to Rhossili, we checked the causeway times and set off for Worms Head, stopping enroute at various photo viewpoints. As we approached the westerly clouds gradually drifted our way. The rocky causeway stank with the smell of a million mussels and the tide appeared higher than I expected for the time. I'd estimated that the causeway would close at 11:15am, but the information at Rhossili said 11:55am.

Once on the Worm I heard strange noises and we soon located the source as being a family of seals basking and swimming nearby, perhaps eight or so. Creeping into some nearby viewing positions, we spent some time watching and photographing the seals. Unfortunately the sunlight had gone by this time.

After the lengthy distraction, we were about to head off to the end of the Worm, but looking back at the causeway the tide seemed suspiciously high. We had a choice between trusting the posted times and possibly getting cut off, or playing it safe and returning immediately. We sensibly chose the latter.

On the other side of the causeway we hung around for a while, taking photos as the sunlight gradually returned and the clouds developed in interesting ways. The causeway eventually became cutoff at approximately 11:30am, closer to my original estimate and 25 minutes before the posted time! Just as well we chose not to take the risk or we'd have been stuck out there for 7.5 hours.

Chris Street at Work

We then strolled around the coast to Tears Point, stopping first to let Chris take some macro photographs of some worm like fossils in the area. Then around the headland there was a fine view of Fall Bay with the long line of cliffs stretching away, topped by interesting clouds. I took a few panoramics while Chris concentrated on butterflies and flowers.

The final uphill was a struggle with all the weight of camera gear we were carrying (not to mention Chris's Manfrotto tripod), but once we overcame that obstacle it was an easy stroll back to Rhossili. We were both pretty hungry by this time and ended up going to the Gower Inn for a rather nice meal of chicken breast topped with bacon, cheese and barbecue sauce.

It was a pity that we never made it to the end of Worms Head, but we grabbed plenty of good photographs in the excellent light, and had the unexpected bonus of the seals to entertain us.