Southern Wales Coast

We're back at the very edge of our isles.

But now we're on a whole new kind of adventure.

A unique great guide to our coast.

But this is a guide beyond anything you'll find

in your average tourist brochure.

A guide crammed with local knowledge,

amazing discoveries and stunning, secret spots.

Coast and her expert crew have spent over ten years

navigating this ever-changing natural wonder.

And now we're bringing it all together, and more,

to give you the ultimate guide to our coast.

We've selected eight stretches of British coast.

North, South, East, West.

And some of the best bits in between.

Each week we'll be taking to the sea in a remarkable

array of boats and ships.

We'll have a completely fresh perspective on the coast.

We'll seek out charismatic characters...

Andy, fancy seeing you here!

..momentous events...

This is Britain's most deadly shoreline.

..secret spots,

and surprising stories.

There's no denying that there is a charge to be had

from holding something like this.

A brand-new view of our coast,

with all the inside info you need to enjoy these shorelines like a local.

Haul away, sailors, haul away.

This time I'm heading for Wales.

This is Coast.

The Great Guide.

Stunning southern Wales.

A wild delight.

Towering cliffs,

beckoning beaches

and rolling surf.

Perfect for extreme sports.

A coastline book-ended by contrasting cities.

A capital on the sea, Cardiff and its marina,

and, just over 100 miles away,

St Davids is Britain's smallest city.

Though, of course, there is a cathedral.

The Coast experts have teased out the shoreline's secrets.

That's unbelievable. I can't believe anybody managed to build that.

Digging deep into every aspect of its culture, nature and history.

Our new mission brings you the very best of those breathtaking

discoveries, as we get to grips with what gives this coast

its wild appeal.

This is our great guide to southern Wales.

The new journey I'll be making around this coast is a beauty.

Britain's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to be precise.

The Gower Peninsula.

Harnessing the wind, I'll sail around its south coast,

making for the golden curve of Oxwich Bay.

From then on, it'll all be down to muscle power

as I kayak to Port Eynon,

and journey's end will be Penclawdd on the Burry Estuary.

En route I'll be compiling our great Welsh guide from a wider canvas of

stories that stretches all the way

from Cardiff in the east to St Davids

on the furthest tip of western Wales.

My own journey starts at the gateway to Gower - Mumbles.

Two outstanding offshore features supposedly give Mumbles

its unusual name.

The twin islands over there were christened by French sailors

Marmelles, which is French for breasts.

Marmelles became Mumbles.

No comment.

I'm here to find out if I've got what it takes to master a must-do

watersport in our great guide

and to succeed I'm going to have to get to grips

with a boat that's Celtic to its core.

It's action stations time.

I'm casting off in a traditional craft that is making a bit of a

comeback with the local community.

Hi, guys.

The Mumbles Amateur Rowing Club

is going to put me through my paces in a Celtic longboat.

I've never seen anything like it.

Where does it originate from?

Well, this is a traditional kind of boat design.

It's actually based on the old Irish currach.

But there are lots of different kinds of longboats.

Sea rowing competitions have taken place in south-west Wales for

centuries but the sport was revolutionised 40 years ago when

Pembrokeshire boat builder Des Harris crafted a longboat

that could cope with the steep waves of this wild coast.

It became the template for countless copies,

known as Pembrokeshire longboats.

And today Wales boasts 29 sea rowing clubs.

I used to row, I mean, reasonably seriously.

But it looked nothing like that.

It was like a sort of fibreglass pencil.

Oh, yeah, that is the sort of river boats,

they are much more about finesse and technique.

This is quite a tubby kind of boat, really.

And it's quite a rough art, really.

You're out in the sea against the waves.

I think it's wonderful.

But I think river rowers think it's a bit of a rough old sport.

But we love it.

Each to their own.

I feel a little bit scared getting in with you rough experts.

-Sea dogs.

-Sea dogs.

-Yeah.

So where have you put me? I'm stroke side, by the way.

-You're going to be rowing in number three.

-Number three, OK, fine.

So let's go.

This is unlike any boat I've rowed before so I need to pick

up a few tips and fast.

-Lean back more.

-Yeah.

That is better.

It's almost like ten to and ten past the hour.

If we leant like this we'd have got kicked out of the boat.

-Better?

-Yeah.

-I still feel I'm not leaning forward enough.

-No, that's good.

Better, definitely.

My oar's going a bit deep.

Lean.

I'm deep.

Two.

After Meg's masterclass, it's time for a challenge.

Can I unleash my inner Celt

in a race against an experienced longboat crew?

These are hardened rowers whose idea of a good time is a jaunt

across the Irish Sea,

90 miles, in one of these.

Three, two, one!

Row!

And one!

Two!

Three!

Four!

I'm forgetting to feather.

Sorry, I forgot to feather.

-Are we winning?

-Yes, we're winning!

Bang.

Bang.

Oh!

Are we winning significantly?

Keep going!

When can we wind down?

HOOTER BLOWS

Easy oars, easy oars.

That was what's called a decisive win in rowing.

-Two lengths?

-Yeah, definitely.

Almost rude, but what can you do?

Longboat rowing is only one of the watersports that draw thousands of

visitors to Wales each year.

Atlantic surf makes these shores a mecca for world-class canoeists

and surfers.

But it's not all about the waves.

The wide, lonely expanse of

Pembrokeshire's Freshwater West beach

whips up the ultimate challenge for kite surfers.

World champion Kirsty Jones

gave us a kite surfing masterclass for our great guide.

It's my favourite beach to come surfing, really.

It's a world-class surfing break.

OK, here we go.

And we're going to hit the wave on this one.

Kite surfing is using a big power kite

to pull you along on the water.

And you can do tricks, you can do jumps.

Going to do a little grab now.

You can just cruise along on the water.

It's just an amazing sport.

I'm going to go for a forward loop now.

Freshwater West is just amazing when it's like this.

Wind power is the best way to appreciate

the outstanding beauty of this coast.

I'm leaving the calm waters of Swansea Bay and setting sail

around the Gower Peninsula.

I'm headed for Oxwich Bay on a boat that's a piece of living history.

Built in 1909,

the Olga plied her trade around the Bristol Channel for decades,

taking out pilots to guide ships into port.

Time was money,

so the Olga was built for speed

but in rough seas that can make for a choppy ride.

I've got to be honest, I'm yet to fully find my sea legs.

But surely there's no better companion

on our great coastal guide.

And no better way to get up close and personal with these waters.

Atlantic currents collide with the Bristol Channel,

washing in waters abundant with nutrients.

Rich pickings for dolphins.

And Wales is one of the best places in Europe to spot them,

if you know where to look.

Miranda Krestovnikoff went out with a local.

Today we're searching for short-beaked common dolphins,

who come here in spring and summer.

-Hiya.

-Hi.

-Any sign of anything yet?

-No, nothing as yet. We're still looking.

Dolphin!

Suddenly, in seconds, we're surrounded by about 20 dolphins,

checking us out and riding the bow wave.

Oh, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

There's one just on the bow and another one.

This is fantastic.

So we can see them swimming, we can see them moving,

we can see them interacting.

Why do dolphins come here? What's so special about the waters here?

It's an incredibly rich area for food and like all breeding animals

they need the food.

And if the food's there then they're going to thrive.

Over the years, we're coming to the conclusion

that this is a nursery area.

So, yeah, important.

Probably important in world terms.

Usually out dolphin watching you're lucky to get five or ten minutes

with them but this group were brilliant and they stayed with us

for nearly an hour.

But with each encounter, it's becoming clearer that these

waters are crucial for families of dolphins raising their young.

And it's a real privilege to watch them do it.

The winds off Gower can turn a sedate sail

into more of a roller-coaster.

But whatever the weather, this untamed peninsula

takes pride of place in our great guide,

as Britain's first-ever Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

National Trust ranger Kathryn Thomas has the local knowledge.

There can't be any more wild way of experiencing the Gower than this.

But you can just about make out through cliffs behind us now,

coming into view,

one of the Gower's sort of iconic beaches.

Let me get this right, it's an AONB.

That's right, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

And Gower was the very first one in the UK.

So we're celebrating our 60th anniversary this year.

On a clear day it's a microcosm of contrasting landscapes...

..squeezed into a pocket of land

no more than 70 square miles in size.

So we've got the dunes and the cliffs and the marsh

and the woodland and our famous Gower beaches.

We're a bit like the sort of little brother

of the National Parks, basically.

There are restrictions on planning, things like that.

There is a very timeless aspect,

and especially looking onto it from here because you see no

development, no cars, not even a telegraph pole.

Yeah, that's what it's all about,

it's keeping it like that.

We have visitors that come to Gower and they came as a child

and they're 80 years old now

and they come and they say, "It's not changed."

And looking out today, it's a very uncompromising landscape, isn't it?

You know, the kind of dreich clouds

-sitting right down on top of the cliff.

-Yeah.

-It's unforgiving.

It is, although... Well, we have picked a special day today!

It's interesting to see it from this perspective, though.

There's just some slightly terrifying looking caves.

KATHRYN LAUGHS

This is Coast's great guide to southern Wales.

On my journey around the Gower Peninsula,

I'm heading for the tranquillity of Oxwich Bay.

It's there that I'm meant to spend a night under canvas,

hop out feeling fresh as a daisy and plop myself into a kayak,

from which, I'm told,

I'm going to get the best views of a Welsh stunner,

Worm's Head.

This is a coast of true contrasts.

Millions are drawn to its natural beauty.

What they may not know is that it nestles next

to some pretty heavy industry.

Communities here have been created by a hunger for natural resources.

Copper, steel, natural gas -

they've all seen fortunes ebb and flow.

The South Wales coast is rich in minerals and fossil fuels.

Its geology has shaped its history, from the coal seams

of Glamorganshire to the natural harbours of Pembrokeshire.

We went time travelling for our great guide,

beginning in the 19th century,

when Wales was the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution.

What helped put it there was copper.

Swansea once produced two thirds of the entire world's supply.

Mark Horton discovered how this city's copper

forged one of the greatest victories in British maritime history.

200 years ago, Swansea's copper was in demand.

Who was after it?

The Royal Navy.

-Hello, David.

-Hello, Mark.

-Croeso y Abertawe.

-Oh, fantastic.

David Jenkins knows the story of the city's copper-bottomed deal

with Nelson's Navy.

This is what gave Nelson's Navy massive tactical advantages.

-Fantastic.

-It's a sheet of copper ore from the hull of HMS Victory.

You can see here Vivian & Sons, Swansea.

Look, I can see. Look, and a number, 2802.

That's right, yes. Copper ore and obviously copper itself, too,

was very, very valuable

but its value was not so much monetary as tactical.

Indeed, the manoeuvring that took place before the very

Battle Of Trafalgar owed a great deal of its success

to the fact that Nelson's ships had this on their bottoms.

And it means that no weeds grow on the hull of your ship,

the water slips much more quickly over the hull of the ship

and therefore it gives the ship excellent manoeuvrability.

Swansea's dominance of the world copper trade

meant that the Royal Navy

had copper-bottomed boats but the French didn't.

Swansea was nicknamed Copperopolis.

Further along these waters,

another industrial powerhouse found fame to rival Swansea

in the 20th century.

Its very name, Port Talbot,

a clue to how crucial the sea was to its existence.

Built on the coast, where iron ore could be easily unloaded,

a Welsh engineering marvel sprung up - the Port Talbot steelworks.

That, too, goes into our great guide.

Four years ago, I investigated.

So how do you build a steelworks on something as soft

and as shifting as this?

Engineer David French is going to let me in on the secret,

using bricks and sticks.

So how do you get around this problem of building on soft sand?

Well, what we need are deep foundations called piles.

What we're doing is pushing the pile through the sand,

through the thick layer of peat,

down into this secure founding stratum.

This is the clay, sticky bit?

Yeah, this would be a mixture of stiff clay, gravels and sand.

And that's going to hold the still in place.

-That's it, you've got it.

-I see.

So can we replicate what was once done here at Port Talbot?

Well, hopefully we can, Tess, yeah.

Let's try.

HE GROANS I think I'm hitting some sticky clay.

Yeah, right, now hopefully we've got our stilts in

and we can put our building on top.

Yeah. Do you want to have a go?

I do, yes.

And another one.

So who says you can't build on sand?

Yes, it can be done.

How many of these piles were driven into the site here at Port Talbot?

Well, amazingly, 33,000 of these piles were installed

across the site.

Work on the steel plant began in 1947,

part of rebuilding Britain after the war.

Boys have been forged into men here since the early 1950s

when steel first rolled out over the sand.

The steady stream of resources flowed into the plant.

With cargo carriers getting bigger,

in the mid-1960s a new deepwater harbour began construction.

The days when Port Talbot was powered by Welsh coal

are long gone.

This was once the biggest steelworks in Europe...

..and Wales's largest employer.

It now faces an uncertain future in an unpredictable global market.

The sun has set on the golden age of Welsh industry.

Today, a very different fuel flows in from 7,000 miles away,

shipped into a brand-new terminal at Milford Haven.

This energy success story goes into our guide.

Nick Crane was there right at the start to witness the birth

of an industrial heavyweight.

Here in Milford Haven they'll soon be importing natural gas by ship.

To a geographer like me, this is a ria, a flooded valley,

but to shipping it's one of the deepest and finest

natural harbours in the world.

By the end of 2007,

some of the world's biggest ships should be navigating their way

to this pier,

coming all the way from Qatar on the Arabian Gulf.

Transporting Qatar's gas 7,000 miles to us

relies on a remarkable idea.

Turn the gas into liquid.

This refrigeration plant concentrates the gas

down into liquid by supercooling it.

14 supertankers are being specially built to keep the natural gas

insulated so that it stays liquid on its trip from Qatar.

When natural gas is super-chilled,

its volume shrinks by 600 times

and this makes it economic to ship.

So our gas will arrive here in Milford Haven as super-cold liquid.

It's then got to be kept chilled to store it as a liquid.

From the bottom of the site,

these tanks didn't look much but up close they are absolutely massive.

Each storage tank in the Pembrokeshire National Park

is big enough to contain the Albert Hall,

and there are five of them.

These tanks act like giant Thermos flasks.

They'll be full of liquid natural gas stored at minus 160 Celsius.

When it's warmed up again it will expand 600 times,

making huge amounts of gas ready for us to use.

Today, South Hook gas terminal is in full flow.

Over 500 of the world's biggest liquid natural gas tankers

have docked here with a helping hand from the astonishing geography

of the Milford Haven waterway.

The flooding of this Ice Age valley 11,000 years ago

created the deep estuary that today means this terminal

can supply up to a fifth of the UK's natural gas needs.

Where copper and steel once flowed out of South Wales to the world,

gas now flows in.

As the tide of history turns,

this coast remains a vital gateway connecting Britain

to the rest of the world.

On my journey around this southern Welsh shoreline

I've reached Oxwich Bay.

From there I'll head for Port Eynon beach

and secrets hidden in the sands.

I'm hoping for a close encounter with seals at Worm's Head before

trying my hand at an ancient art on the Burry Estuary.

For now, the weather has somewhat dampened my enthusiasm for camping.

People say the Gower Peninsula has its own microclimate and I certainly

feel I've experienced something of that in the last 24 hours.

I really wanted to show you some of the cracking views from the beaches

here but I'm afraid no can do this evening.

Mind you, this unpredictable Welsh weather hasn't stopped generations

of day-trippers reaching for their buckets and spades

when summer rolls around.

There's some great old footage here.

Even a cheeky holiday snog.

A real reminder, in fact, that the beaches here in southern Wales

have long been the go-to destination for miners

and their families really in need of a holiday.

SCREAMING

And when it comes to traditional Welsh seaside resorts,

there can only be one choice for our guide -

Barry Island.

In its heyday, over 100,000 visitors

would come to this beach on a bank holiday.

Neil Oliver discovered why.

The annual trips organised by the pits and by the Sunday schools

of chapel and church were THE highlight of the year.

Over 50 years ago, Jane Ward didn't come to the beach alone,

her whole village came, too.

-Hello, Jane.

-Hi, Neil. How are you?

-I'm well.

-Good.

What's with the giant numbers on the wall?

Well, when we used to come on trips,

people arranged to meet on the beach and we would say we were arriving

at different times, we would meet at a certain number.

So, is either of these two children you?

-Yes, here.

-Fantastic.

Brilliant. How did you get here from the valleys?

By train, steam train.

So imagine now, we were 250 Sunday schoolchildren,

a mass exodus from the village.

So you travelled together and you colonised one patch of beach

-and you all stayed together the whole day?

-More or less.

And in the course of the afternoon,

we'd start singing our choruses from Sunday school.

One would start and then another group would join in

and before long you'd have the whole beach singing.

# Each little flower that opens... #

After a day of sea, sand and community singing,

they were ready for all the fun of the fair.

It's no job for a grown man.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Today, Barrybados, as the locals call it,

is enjoying a 21st-century renaissance.

Barry Island is now the only beach in Wales that offers free Wi-Fi

and the Gavin And Stacey effect is helping pull in

over 350,000 tourists, all searching for a spot of Welsh sunshine.

Good luck with that.

This is Coast's great guide to southern Wales.

Our expert team has scoured the Welsh shore for over ten years

in search of hidden stories, but if you were on a whistle-stop tour,

what are the unmissable sights you must see

to say you've experienced this coast?

This is our flying visit to southern Wales.

Many Welsh adventures begin here,

with a bridge or two across the Bristol Channel.

Within half an hour,

the familiar landmarks of Cardiff and its historic bay draw into view.

Just down the coast is St Donat's,

a medieval castle rebuilt by the real-life Citizen Kane...

..William Randolph Hearst.

In truth, Hearst wasn't just a lover of history, he was a lover,

a man with a mistress.

So, a little Welsh hideaway a few thousand miles from home

suddenly starts to make sense.

The Kenfig dune system is here.

Buried beneath it is an entire medieval village and castle

swallowed by the shifting sands.

Then, of course, there is Gower's stunning shoreline,

right where I am now.

The limestone cliffs of Culver Hole hide a medieval dovecote

that Nick swung by to see.

As front doors go, this is fairly inaccessible.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

And when it comes to beaches,

Wales has got some of the finest on the planet.

Rhossili beach on Gower's western edge is Britain's best

and in the world's top ten.

There's even a little bit of England in this bit of Wales,

Tenby, for those who like their tourism genteel.

Further on, the coast twists and turns as majestic cliffs

and sandy coves dominate the coastline.

Hidden in a cleft of these cliffs is an historical treasure,

the unique house of worship that is St Govan's chapel.

By now, we're firmly in the Wild West of Wales,

St Brides Bay and the island paradise of Skomer,

a treat for twitchers.

And at the far end of the bay,

the most westerly point in mainland Wales,

a spiritual haven, St Davids and its magnificent cathedral.

But if you only do the unmissable sights,

then you're missing so much more.

Follow us for the fuller picture.

On my journey around Gower,

I've reached the shimmering waters of Oxwich Bay.

I'm preparing to set off in a back-to-basics boat,

the best way to get up close to nature on this peninsula.

I'm about to go kayaking and what a difference a day makes.

It's almost flat out there, but, even so, I'm taking no chances.

I think I've got on a wet suit,

a dry suit and then, somewhere in the middle, a onesie

because once I get out around the headland,

I've got no idea what's going to greet me.

With rocky beauty comes real danger.

The coast of southern Wales

is littered with the legacy of shipwrecks.

Lighthouses.

We're putting one of these into our guide.

One that keeps a dark and bloody secret,

a grisly tale of death and insanity.

It's a secret that would

revolutionise lighthouse-keeping on these shores.

Neil flew out to Smalls Lighthouse to discover why.

Back in 1775,

a guy called Henry Whiteside won the contract

to build the first lighthouse out here

and the solution he came up with almost beggars belief.

What he did was, he erected a circle of massive oak beams,

great posts rising 70-odd feet into the sky.

This is a picture of the thing.

People must have thought he was off his head when he showed them this

drawing, but his solution was that the waves would break through these

massive posts and, instead of breaking them,

would just carry on and he was right because this thing stood up to

the westerlies for over 70 years.

Now that was surely enough to get this place its spot

in the history books.

But there is another story.

The winter of 1800-1801 was a particularly savage one.

And during that time, Smalls Lighthouse was being manned,

as was the custom, by a two-man team.

Now, Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffiths

were notorious for one thing and one thing only

and that was their constant arguing.

So, when Griffiths died out here on the lighthouse in a freak accident,

Howell had a predicament.

What he wanted to do, quite naturally,

was to get rid of the body

but he was panic-stricken in case people would think the pair had had

another fight, he'd killed Griffiths

and dumped the body to get rid of the evidence.

So, in fear of a murder charge, he decides to hold on to the body.

He puts it in a makeshift coffin and settles down to wait for the rescue

party, but the storm is so relentless that nobody ever comes.

After a few days, the body starts to smell and in desperation he drags

the coffin out onto the balcony that surrounds the lamp house.

During one of the worst storms yet,

a massive wave shatters Griffiths' coffin.

The putrefying corpse spills out

and, by a cruel fluke of the way it lands,

the wind is able to take one of the arms and blow it thus

so that it looks as though the corpse is beckoning people

onto Smalls Lighthouse once again.

And this is the sight that greets the rescue party when,

after more than three months,

the storm has abated enough for them to get out to the lighthouse.

Inside the lighthouse they found Thomas Howell,

and folk that knew him didn't even recognise him.

His hair has turned completely white

and his ordeal had driven him stark, staring mad.

The tragedy changed the lighthouse world forever.

From then, until the mid-1990s, when they were all fully automated,

every lighthouse in the UK was assigned a three-man crew so that

if disaster should overtake one of them,

there would still be two to help keep each other sane.

The coast of southern Wales is an ever-changing wonder.

Its shores have shifted over millennia.

The drifting patterns of sand and tide conceal and reveal clues

to those who once lived here.

On my journey around Gower I've landed at Port Eynon,

once a swampy marshland.

I've come to this landscape to search out a 6,000-year-old secret

for our guide.

Tread lightly when walking on this beach at Port Eynon,

because you're walking in the footsteps of our ancient ancestors.

Archaeologist Rhiannon Philp is part of a Cardiff University team

that has made a rare discovery on this stretch of Gower's coast.

Human footprints preserved in prehistoric peat.

How on earth did you find these footprints

among all the contemporary ones?

So, most of the contemporary ones are within the sand,

whereas what we are looking for is footprints in the peat.

So, on this beach there's quite a lot of peat exposed at low tide.

So, these are ancient footprints only available

to the naked eye at very low tide,

which is why we can't see them at this time of year?

-Yes.

-Have you got any examples?

I have. So this is an adult footprint.

It's quite eroded, but within it you can actually see their toe marks.

So, how frequently are footprints like this discovered?

They are actually quite rare in Britain.

There's probably only about nine or ten sites that have been recorded

as having human footprints on the beaches.

And three are right here on the South Wales coast.

How exciting.

Is photography the best way of recording these?

It's one way, but we've also been experimenting with photogrammetry.

We've taken lots and lots of photographs all the way around,

made a 3-D model and then we've been able to 3-D print that.

And what's this showing us?

So, this is probably a six-year-old child.

We've got the big toe here.

It looks like he or she has got a very low instep.

What's going on here?

This is a hoof print, basically.

In other words, a child has trodden on the ground, and then

superimposed on top of that is the print of a cloven-hoofed animal.

-Yes.

-Which suggests a slightly more advanced period, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, and suggests that they are utilising this kind of marshy

environment for their livestock, which is quite interesting.

I love the idea of a child running through the peat,

herding its livestock.

-Yes.

-Maybe goats or something.

Our beaches are incredible time machines in many different ways.

Over the years on Coast,

we've found the weird and wonderful buried beneath the sand.

But the next discovery going into our Great Guide is one unearthed

at Pendine.

Seven miles of golden sand.

But beach-goers here may be blissfully unaware of the sand's

special qualities.

It's superfine, which makes an exceptionally hard, flat surface.

A rare combination, tailor-made for speed.

Neil paid a visit to Pendine to witness a remarkable resurrection.

In April 1926, this car was brought to this beach,

and together they created history.

In the '20s was this really what was capable of the world record?

Yes. This is a 171-mph land-speed-record-holding car.

And this is still capable of high speeds?

It's certainly capable of doing the wrong side of 150mph.

But given that it's a World War I aircraft engine,

it takes a little persuasion to get started.

When it does get going, it's something to behold.

In the '20s, this beach was the only place in Britain big enough and

flat enough to really let Babs rip.

Babs was the car owned by Wales'

very own magnificent man in a flying machine, Parry-Thomas.

He vied with Pendine's other famous racer, Scotsman Malcolm Campbell,

to be the fastest man on earth.

In March 1927, it was Thomas' turn to try to regain the crown.

As he slowed down beyond the measured mile,

there was a cloud of spray and sand and it had all gone wrong,

and the car had had a major accident at a significant speed,

and Thomas was killed.

Once it lost control, Parry-Thomas never stood a chance.

Hard sand and high speed are an unforgiving combination.

In an almost pagan ritual,

Babs' seats were slashed and her dial smashed

before she was buried in the dunes.

In 1968,

Owen Wyn Owen excavated the wreckage

and painstakingly brought Babs back to life.

Now, occasionally he brings the car back to the beach that Babs

and Parry-Thomas once made the fastest place on earth.

Babs was back on the beach this year for her 90th anniversary,

driven by Geraint Owen,

the son of the man who painstakingly restored her.

This is the Great Coast Guide to southern Wales.

My journey around Gower has taken me from Mumbles to Oxwich Bay.

I'm headed for Penclawdd,

but to get there I need to negotiate Worm's Head.

As the most dramatic natural landmark on this peninsula,

it just had to go in our Great Guide.

I'm braving this infamous serpent by sea.

But if you dare to venture out on foot,

it pays to check your tide times.

Once again, Neil was the right man for the job.

The scramble across the jagged causeway

that connects it to the mainland isn't for the faint-hearted.

I've got to read the tides right.

The current that comes swirling in across the rocks can easily

cut you off or wash you away.

You can't afford to hang around.

One adventurer who got himself marooned out here

was the poet Dylan Thomas.

He told tales of being trapped on the rocks by the rising tide

as darkness fell.

Once you've scrambled along the rocks of the low neck,

you reach a jagged arch cut by the sea clean through

the body of the beast.

It takes you to the outer head, the loneliest tip of Gower.

They call this the Devil's Bridge,

and I'd love to cross over and carry on,

but I'm going to have to leave that little slice of heaven to the birds.

I'm here in May and at this time of year,

the tip of Worm's Head is strictly out of bounds

because the sea birds are busy nesting.

This isolated spit of land offers sanctuary for wildlife.

Today, I'm going in search of the marine life

that's drawn to Worm's Head, with an expert.

This is Andrew Price's local patch.

"Worm" actually derives from the Viking word "wyrm",

which means "serpent" or "dragon".

So when you look at it from the sea you can really understand why they

would have thought that.

I've been really struck by how dramatic the landscape is.

That limestone rock, it's like it's been literally carved by Vikings.

It's been carved, but not by Vikings.

It's been carved by

erosion from the sea, really,

and that's what gives us this distinctive landmass.

It's desolate. I can see now why it's this area of protected beauty.

Andy, this is unbelievable. Look what's straight in front of us!

Well, we've got Atlantic grey seals on the rocks, mostly females.

They've got the light underbelly and mottled fur.

I just can't believe how chilled out they are.

We are this close and they haven't moved.

This is probably as close as we should really get to them.

If we'd come down from the rocks, would it have been a different case?

Would they have got spooked more easily?

They certainly would. Coming from the land, they would see us

as a land-based predator.

Because we are in kayaks, we're just seen as another seagoing mammal,

I guess.

-Marine life with a bit of extra help.

-That's it!

-And there's a lot of them.

-I see dozens every time

I come round this north side of the Worm's Head.

Of course we've got a lot of herring gulls,

and a nesting site towards the tip there.

We also have guillemots and razorbills in pretty much the same

area as well. So it's a huge nature reserve,

massive bird colonies all over the Worm's Head.

What's staggered me is so often you go on a safari or a wildlife trek

and you see nothing.

But today it's been like a sort of feast of wildlife.

A buffet of nature, isn't it?

Yeah, I was trying to think of the word, something like "elemental".

I mean it's just... Whoa!

I'm discovering the very best

the coast of southern Wales has to offer.

Its headlands and islands give sustenance to some of Britain's

richest wildlife.

But one island off the Pembrokeshire coast is a cut above the rest.

A breeding colony for feathered friends.

Skomer attracts around 10,000 puffins every year,

and flies straight into our Guide.

Miranda got wet to get close to them.

That is chilly, it's very chilly.

Puffins are easily spooked, so we have to be patient and move slowly.

But we are being rewarded with a rare chance of swimming

within just a few feet of them.

Some of Skomer's grey seals are lounging nearby,

but, for me, it's the puffins that steal the show.

Absolutely surrounded by puffins,

maybe just five or six feet away from me.

Some of them just skimming over the top of my head.

Incredible.

Seven miles from Skomer,

Grassholm is one of the most important gannet colonies on earth.

Every spring, over 70,000 flock here from Africa and Spain.

In breeding season, this tiny rock, barely half a mile across,

is home to 7% of the world gannet population.

On my voyage around the Gower Peninsula,

I've reached my final destination, Penclawdd on the Burry Estuary.

This tiny hamlet has a big reputation

for a delicacy that's world-famous.

A marine mollusc that lives beneath the mud.

How well do you know your Magna Carta?

Because it was that agreement 800 years ago that ensured King John's

subjects were given certain rights, such as access to a fair trial.

But less well-known is that it also enshrined the right for everybody

to be allowed to pick 8lb of cockles from the foreshore.

And that right still exists in most parts of Britain today.

Pick more than 8lb of cockles, and you'll need a licence.

For generations,

the Jones family has had that license

to harvest Wales' finest cockles from this foreshore.

Cockles have been gathered on the Burry inlet for hundreds of years,

by women at the beginning,

walking out barefooted with their donkeys, gathering the catch,

just the same way we do today with a rake and a riddle.

Bringing the cockles ashore,

cooking them on the shore then selling them at local markets

in Swansea.

I'm the fifth generation in the family to be gathering cockles.

-Have you got some pictures?

-I have.

So we've got the very early days.

There's a donkey which they used to carry the cockles on.

There's probably 50-60 kilos in that sack.

So one old woman picking 100 kilos of cockles in a day.

Yep.

-My goodness!

-And here's my grandmother.

She was gathering cockles up until a few years ago.

Look at that look. They're sharing a moment, aren't they?

Yeah, there's nobody else to talk to!

Why was it women in the early days?

It's now predominantly male, I presume?

Yeah, most of the men worked in the mines, local mines,

in and around this area.

The women went out to do the cockle gathering.

It was seen as a woman's job,

and I think my grandfather was one of the first men in the village

to actually become a cockle gatherer at the age of about 11.

And why particularly this estuary, this inlet?

We're so far south, I think, and we are on the Gulf Stream.

We think this is the best, sweetest cockle we can get around.

And that's the fleshy bit that you eat, is it?

-That's the fleshy bit.

-Lovely, it looks delicious.

Taste that.

-Mm.

-Nice?

It is good, actually. It's kind of sweet, you're right.

-It is really sweet.

-Almost a lemony something...

-It tastes like it's been seasoned.

-Yes, it's got a taste of its own.

Yeah, it really does. That's the first time I've had a raw cockle.

-Yeah? Good.

-That's delicious. Really delicious.

And is it a skill, cockling?

-Somebody like me...

-It's a way of life, it's a way of life.

It's like everything. A miner would go and dig coal,

we go and dig cockles,

and we just love it because we are out in the open air,

and we just love our job.

So, could you take me now and show me how to cockle?

I can show you how to cockle,

whether you would cockle, I don't know.

You've got to have a back like a wire rope, I think,

to bend for six or seven hours a day.

But it's worth having a go at it.

-What have we got here?

-We're going to fetch our tools.

I'll be looking to learn the craft of cockling later.

But it's great to see the Joneses, father and son,

still plying their trade here.

For other family businesses,

changing times have brought generations of tradition to an end,

as we found with the remarkable story of the Severn Princess.

Beneath the shadow of the Severn Bridge is a jetty that once bustled

with travellers.

60 years ago, before the bridge, there was a ferry.

The Severn Princess sails into our guide as a genuine piece

of estuary heritage.

Seven years ago, we visited her at her new home in Chepstow.

My name is Richard Jones.

I'm the oldest grandson of Enoch Williams, who was the founder

of the last incarnation of the Beachley Aust Ferry.

This boat on which we are standing at the moment

is the Severn Princess.

This crossing was very important because it was the only crossing

available for car traffic.

It was a lifeline to many people in their daily business.

Many people courted on the ferries.

Girls in England meeting gentleman from Wales, and vice versa.

The last day that the service carried cars

was September 8th, 1966,

the day that the Severn Bridge opened.

To commemorate the first crossing of the Severn Bridge,

I have great pleasure in unveiling this plaque.

It was a joyous day in some ways, because everybody likes a party.

But it was also very sad to see my grandfather's lifelong work

come to an end.

Today, the ferry refuses to sink without trace.

Richard is now a key member of the Severn Princess Restoration Group,

working tirelessly to preserve the Princess.

Most of the work now has been trying

to stop the weather getting at her

in terms of rust.

But actually, the structure is pretty sound,

considering what the boat has been through

in the 50 years since the ferry finished running.

She still is very vulnerable but, happily,

we've been able to slow down that deterioration.

I just feel very much attached to her

and I would like to see her preserved.

The group hope that the Princess will one day sit proud

in a Heritage Park on the Wales coastal path.

On the coast of Gower, history is very much alive and kicking.

I'm about to be schooled in a cockle gathering technique

practised here in Penclawdd for centuries.

You can see the cockles are just underneath here.

-OK.

-And as I'm scraping them back...

Yeah.

There's cockles here, see?

-You can feel them under your rake, can't you?

-Yes.

I'm getting competitive. I don't want you to get more than me.

Forget your 50 years' experience!

-Not bad, is it?

-If you can roll it around.

You've got way more than me!

Why do they live just under the sand?

When the tide comes in, the peaks of the cockles will come up,

and they feed, filtering the water.

There's millions of cockles,

and they all squirt up some water at the same time.

-Right, OK.

-And it's where we say the cockles sing.

I'm not feeling the urge to burst into song, myself.

After half an hour of cockle picking,

it's hard to believe Brian's mother spent hours doing this

well into her 70s.

It's actually backbreaking.

Cockles have fed the people of the Burry Estuary for hundreds of years.

But far older sea creatures can be found on these shores.

In Victorian times,

the coast of southern Wales attracted scientists searching for

evidence to challenge the Church's view of creation.

In a secluded cove, JW Salter unearthed a find so special

it rewrote our understanding of the world.

Our Great Guide salutes the man and his discovery.

Hermione Cockburn followed in his footsteps.

In 1862, Salter's boat took a wrong turning,

and he landed, purely by chance, at this rocky inlet

near St Davids called Porth y Rhaw.

Salter uncovered evidence here that supported the idea that the Earth

hadn't just existed for thousands of years,

it had to be hundreds of millions of years old.

A literal reading of the Bible

suggested the world was around 6,000 years old.

Salter found a fossil that said otherwise.

-Hi, Bob.

-Hi.

Dr Robert Owens knows that priceless fossil better than most.

So, Bob, tell us about what Salter found here.

Well, he found these.

My goodness!

Giant trilobites.

This one I'm holding in my hands comes from this very spot.

This is enormous.

Absolutely, yes. Imagine splitting a rock open and that's facing you.

What would this creature have been like when it was living?

Well, it's a distant relative of the crabs, lobsters, scorpions, spiders,

the arthropods, in other words.

That group of animals. This probably lived on the seabed,

crawling around, and it was probably a predator-scavenger.

It was probably fairly high up in the food chain.

How old are these trilobites?

On our present estimates, they are about 505 million years old.

505! So, a lot, lot older than any dinosaur, for example.

Yes, I mean, over twice as old as the oldest dinosaur.

Really right back to the beginnings of large life forms.

-That's right.

-And this geological period that they come from,

it's called the Cambrian. After...

After Wales, where rocks of this age were first recognised.

A truly Welsh fossil, then.

If there were to be a national fossil of Wales,

I think this might well be it.

My own expedition to the Burry inlet has turned up a bucket full

of specimens.

We've got so many, they are spilling over.

-It looks greedy.

-You can carry that.

I knew you were going to say that.

I'll carry that one.

-Ho-ho! It weighs a tonne!

-It does.

-There we go.

-Let's see if we can make something out of this sand.

So what do we do now with them?

-We are going to try to wash them, now.

-OK.

-Where do we wash them?

-A drop of water, they'll be fine.

If you put your sieve down there.

-OK.

-And put yours flat.

Are you just tipping, to get the excess sand off?

Yeah, we're going to take that sand off there.

Very rewarding to get cockles from a piece of sand.

And people will take them home, and make some money on them.

It's like something for nothing, although it isn't,

-because it's hard work.

-Yes.

-Perfect job.

-Good stuff.

And how long would you expect to take to fill a sack?

Not very long.

It would take me at least 4-5 hours to make at least 10

of them bags filled to the top.

-Would it?

-Yes.

And you're tired by then - tell me you're tired!

You want to go home then, you want to lie down somewhere after that.

I want to lie down right now to be honest with you!

And I've only got half a bag!

At the end of my journey, I'm exhausted...

..but looking forward to tasting some of the natural bounty of Gower.

A peninsula bursting with wildlife and breathtaking views,

on a coastline stuffed with stories.

Touring with our Great Guide, at Freshwater West

we surfed wind and waves...

..on Gower's epic edge, we explored a landmark like no other...

..at Pendine Sands, we walked in the wake of Britain's fastest men...

..and went to sea in search of wildlife.

This is a coastline built by natural beauty, natural resources,

and an industrious people who make the most of what surrounds them.

A treat for the eyes and the taste buds.

There's so much packed into this amazing stretch of Welsh coast,

that really wherever you go, you're bound to find something new.