Port Talbot to Porthcawl, Monday August 28, 2017

There was a choice of routes today.  One could walk along back streets near this:

which the guide book strongly discouraged, or one could take the "high route," which the guide book strongly recommended, even though it was a mile and a half longer.  I cannot vouch for the difference in mileage, but the 15 mile day was more than 19 exhausting miles.

The start to the walk was in the same confusing place as yesterday's.  Behind the Civic Center in Port Talbot, where some combination of the A48, B4290, A483 and M4 converge in hideous roundabouts. There are Coast Path markers (not labeled, mind, just symbols like at Leila Day) for two routes toward Swansea and two routes toward Porthcawl, and aside from the web of roads, there are rivers that have to be crossed, highways that have to be walked under after another is traversed, and you, the walker, have to locate yourself in this confusion.  It took me about 15 minutes using the GPS to figure out how to approach the nice magenta track-line the device was displaying.  Such a good feeling when, at last, you figure it out.

Lots of climbing, lots of stairs, some mud, NO RAIN, you are on the way!  But you know that coming up is a wretched diversion due to a steel company's refusal to allow a short passage through their land.  "The walker is diverted, instead, to Pyle" (pronounced Pill) first forced again to deal with a horrible roundabout and then, once it is found, three miles along the A 48, a major highway. Since I have complained so much about the rain, this is a rare opportunity to complain about the sun and the heat. "Rescue me from this asphalt," you want to cry out as the cars whizz by making their loud
 V R O O M sounds one after an other after another.

At this gas station, you can wash your car, gas up, get your beverage of choice at a bargain price, and take off:

This is Mike who was right behind me in his very large tractory thing.  A mighty nice guy he was, too!  Soon our directions diverged.

It wasn't all highways and city streets.  There were dunes.  Have I complained yet about walking through sand?  Just in case I missed doing that, let me say that when you have on your heavy pair of boots as opposed to your Hokas, it is quite a lot of work. These dunes do not show the sand paths:

There were gorgeous beaches and estuaries as one neared Porthcawl:

A rare summer day in Wales during the 2017 season: