Wales car camping in the time of covid, Gower Peninsula (part 2)
Three Cliffs Bay, starfish spotting.
On the Gower Peninsula, we camped at Three Cliffs Bay with a pitch directly overlooking the sea - the beach with the stepping stones. The Bay is always changing with the tide and the weather to remind you: you’re on the beach’s schedule, not the other way around. There’s a path to scramble down to the dunes, and then long stretches of sand, which means you need to plan your day well with tides and snacks. The climb weeds out those who want to bring a trolly of accessories for their day at the beach and the exercise is a bonus part of the package – at least it helps you earn your ice cream from the shop up top. At low tide an empty in between beach opens up to the west and you can walk on towards the vast stretches of Oxwich Bay.
At Rhossili, we parked on the surfer side, with Worms Head jutting out to the south. As soon as our blanket hits the sand there’s a predictable request: “I need a wee.” I’m of the opinion that my children have gotten way to comfortable weeing all over the place during the pandemic and now we can’t get the genie back in the bottle. My problem is not that my children feel free doing it, but rather it’s the hassle to find a place for them to do it in public in a discreet way. And there’s the filth factor, but I remind my husband that urine is sterile and “in fact Bear Grylls has nearly made a career of being in situations where he’s forced to survive by weeing on his shirt and drinking it. So how bad could it be?”
Once sorted, we were able to focus on collecting razor-clam shells which made fierce sandcastle turrets. It was a questionable partly-cloudy kite-flying kind of day. We brought the kite, and had had only mild success in getting it up before. I’ll leave this to the physicist husband. Getting some paper and stick into the air should really be the basics if you’re paid to teach people quantum mechanics, which he is! The kite went up and swiftly down. Lula, set on flying the kite, took the string and ran off full speed down the beach, caught the wind and could keep it flying as long as she was running - with little Olive chasing behind, fuelling the collective effort with her own speed. Many tries, and finally Olive revolted in protest about not getting to do it “herself”.
Lula could barely keep it in the air, but we gave Olive the string and she knew exactly how fast to run. I was out in front of her on the beach, watching her run with the all the power of a younger child determined to best her sister. And she ran, her blond hair flopping back and forth, glancing back to check on the kite’s height. And when it went up, she soared, smiling so wide the pride welled up into tears in my eyes. You could see the littlest flash of the woman she’s going to demand to be. My baby that still wants me to tuck her in and scoop her up, this little baby is going to be just fine on her own. As she ran down the beach and we all cheered.