Slate Trail and a Southern Shore Weatherman Walking

It's official - it's the closest thing to perfect exercise,

it lifts your mood, helps you sleep and it's free.

Bore da! Good morning!

Oh, and it's sociable. Let's go for a walk.

Are you ready?

In this programme, we've got two smashing walks

as different as chalk and cheese -

one up north, inland with plenty of ups and downs,

the other in the south, along the coast, and on the flat.

So, later in the programme we'll be walking beside the Loughor estuary,

near Llanelli, though I'm not sure

I'll be able to keep up with one of my guides.

But first we're in the shadow of Snowdon, Wales's highest peak,

following in the footsteps of quarrymen.

Most people who come to Llanberis head off to the summit of Snowdon,

either by foot or by train,

but I'm going thataway for a journey back in time.

My guide today is former Welsh language

punk revolutionary Rhys Mwyn.

But don't worry, I'm told he's calmed down a bit recently.

He's still involved with music, but these days

he's also gone back to his other passion

for Welsh history and archaeology - working as a tour guide,

showing people the highlights of historic Wales.

Today he's my own personal tour guide, here to lead me

through this dramatic landscape and the story of slate.

-Shall we go?

-Let's go.

Just seven miles inland from Caernarfon and the coast,

our walk starts in the centre

of the popular tourist town of Llanberis.

We call in on Dolbadarn Castle

before heading for the Vivian Quarry,

then on to the old quarry hospital,

and up through the woods

of Padarn Country Park.

Above the tree line, we head into

the impressive old Dinorwic quarry,

then down disused inclines

and quarrymen's paths back to the start.

A compact four-miler,

but quite a steep up and down.

Right, we're going to turn up here, Derek,

show you something that people quite often miss in this area.

So we'll go down here.

'Mention North Wales and you may well think of quarries and castles -

'one of the world-famous Norman castles along the coast, perhaps.

'But here in Llanberis,

'we have a little gem of a castle that's home-grown.'

Oh, wow. It's not Caernarfon Castle,

but it's still very impressive, isn't it?

It is.

'But unlike Caernarfon Castle, you don't have to pay to go in.'

What we have here is Llywelyn the Great.

He's the Welsh prince of all Wales,

and he's mimicking the round tower of Pembroke Castle,

so in effect, you've got a statement here, haven't you?

"I'm the Prince of Wales, here's my castle,

"and you are under my control." It's brilliant.

Well, they say it's all about location, location, location,

and this certainly has it.

Absolutely...you know, you have stunning views

over Llyn Padarn, Dinorwic Quarry.

The castle's built in the valley, in the pass, Nant Peris,

so it's strategic in the sense

Llywelyn was controlling access to and from Snowdonia.

So what happened to the castle once Llywelyn the Great had passed on?

Well, his brother Dafydd carries on the rebellion for a few months,

but in the end, this is captured by the English,

the forces of Edward I, and of course,

he establishes his castle in Caernarfon,

so once Caernarfon's established, this is really the end of Dolbadarn.

The story of Dolbadarn comes to an end.

So we're coming up to the National Slate Museum now.

I've been here before and it's well worth a visit.

It is indeed, and it's the site of Gilfach Ddu, the old workshops,

and Dinorwic Quarry was completely self-sufficient,

so the lads working here in the workshops produced everything

from the trains to the tracks, everything done here. Superb.

And it's been left pretty well as it was.

Closed in 1969, the museum opens in the early '70s.

They were in early enough to preserve things, and they've just been left.

It does have that feel that people finished work,

whatever the date was in 1969, and they've left things.

It's in effect what you could call a time capsule, isn't it,

that you step back in time as it would have been.

Right, then. Before we go up into the woods,

we'll just take a detour into the Vivian Quarry, the old quarry here.

It's like another world in here.

It is, and you'll notice now that the quarry's filled with water,

which is what happens if you don't pump the water out.

Streams run in here.

-So it's a bit different now to what it used to be like?

-Well, it is.

If you got back 100 years, you can imagine people hanging on ropes

and they used to tie one rope round the legs

and hang in there loosening stone, and the noise and the sounds

and the dust must have been a sight, you know.

But they're still climbing here, interestingly enough,

not to quarry but for pleasure. And of course, the other thing here,

because they've stopped draining the site,

people now come here to dive,

so the slate quarry has become an outdoor activity area.

OK, so we've got Llyn Padarn here, Lake Padarn, obviously,

and what we have here which is exceptional is the Arctic char,

a rare fish, and it's a leftover from the Ice Age

that has been stranded here in the lakes.

-And it's quite rare in this part of the world.

-It is in Britain,

and there have been concerns recently

about the future of the Arctic char, and what they've done,

they've created reserves in other lakes in Snowdonia and collected

the eggs so at least then there's a future, cos obviously it'd be

a great shame if we lost this unique fish from this lake.

The path now leads across a footbridge

over the lakeside railway.

At one time it carried slates down to ships

in the Menai Straits at Port Dinorwig,

to be exported all over the globe - to "roof the world".

These days, it carries tourists down to the end of the lake and back.

'And next stop on our walk is another fascinating time capsule.'

So here we are, Derek, Ysbyty Chwarel, the quarry hospital.

Built in 1860 and really designed

to get the workers back to work as soon as possible.

If we take you into this first room on the right here...

'Despite some of the gruesome and primitive-looking equipment

'used to treat some horrific injuries -

'many involving broken or crushed limbs and amputations -

'in its day, the hospital was quite advanced.

'This early X-ray machine was used here

'soon after its invention in Germany.'

And this is one of the wards?

Yes, I think this brings it to life, you know.

The quarrymen paid a sous,

a shilling from their wages every month towards hospital costs,

and this is obviously before 1948,

before we had the National Health Service.

Very, very atmospheric place,

and you can still smell the hospital smell.

It still smells like a hospital, oddly enough, doesn't it?

Nice bit of woodland here.

It is. What we have here is an ancient woodland of native trees.

It's well known for its Sessile Oaks.

So what's a Sessile Oak?

Well, this is a form of oak.

Stunted oak, a smaller oak that grows in areas of poor soil.

What we've got here, really,

are the remnants of the Royal Forest of Gwynedd,

so you're going back to the same period as Dolbadarn Castle,

the time of Llywelyn, when they had these forests for hunting.

It's a rare thing these days, an unspoilt natural wood,

and it's lucky in a way,

the side of the hill was too steep for clearances for sheep farming.

Must be nice to come here in the autumn

when the colours are changing.

Stunning, of course.

Stunning.

It's amazing, isn't it, Rhys,

the sheer size of all that waste slate?

It is. One of the things with slate quarrying,

it's somewhere in the region of 80 to 90% waste.

In its day, in the 1880s,

this was the second largest quarry in the world,

second only to Penrhyn Quarry, which is literally over the mountain,

and it was producing 100,000 tonnes of slate for roofs

and employing 3,000 people, so the scale of it is immense.

Amazing view now, Rhys, and that's what I love about the north,

the sheer size of the mountains.

They're like the backbone of the country. You can't beat it.

We're now in the heart of the old quarry,

but a safe and level track leads to a fabulous viewing point.

And from here, we can just about see the summit of Snowdon

peeping through a gap in the cloud.

Well, you can see just about everything from up here.

Including the castle.

Including our Dolbadarn Castle.

It's almost as good as an aerial view, isn't it?

And just visible down by the lake

is the entrance to the underground hydro-electric power station,

also known as Electric Mountain.

It's the largest man-made cavern in Europe,

and it's used at peak times. The idea is,

water's dropped down from Llyn Marchlyn above

down to Llyn Peris here, turns the turbines,

and the joke is that it supplies people with electricity...

You know the times when you've got the FA Cup final

and everybody has a cup of tea at half-time...

-There's a big surge?

-There's a surge.

And that's what this supplies.

What we should do is have a little chair and picnic table up here

and just stay here a couple of hours and enjoy the views.

As we leave the viewpoint heading for a path down an old incline,

the sight of this massive quarry in front of us is breath-taking.

It does feel as if we're walking through history here.

What we have here, Derek, now,

is part of the system of the inclines,

obviously bringing the slate down from the higher levels,

down to the mills at the bottom,

and we'll see as we walk down parts of the old tramway.

It does feel like it's towering above us, doesn't it?

As long as it doesn't all come crashing down.

So we're coming through one of the drumhouses on the incline.

Surprising how quickly things deteriorate, really, isn't it?

With a workforce in the quarry of over 3,000 men at one time,

of course not all of them were locals and so they needed lodgings.

You get people from places like Brynsiencyn

and Llangristiolus coming here.

So they're commonly known as the Anglesey barracks.

They've come here early on a Monday morning,

worked throughout the week

and then leave at lunchtime on Saturday,

so they don't have much of a home life,

and the incredible thing here is four to a house.

There are 22 cottages here.

There's something special about the cottages, isn't there?

Well, you're looking at people's homes, aren't you?

That's what you're looking at.

They came here after long days, cold, wet.

They do have fireplaces, so they had at least

a chance of drying their clothes before the next day.

It was a tough life.

After a surprise visit by the local Public Health Inspector in 1948,

the barracks were condemned as unfit for human habitation.

After that, the Anglesey quarrymen became commuters,

travelling by bus each day.

Well, Rhys, thanks very much. Not far to go now.

It's been a pleasure, Derek.

-Diolch yn fawr iawn.

-Croeso.

Well, there we are.

I'm glad I didn't go up Snowdon today along with

all the other tourists.

I definitely made the right choice in following

in the footsteps of the quarrymen.

It's been fascinating, and I fully recommend it.

And if you fancy trying this,

or one of the other walks from the series,

go to bbc.co.uk/weathermanwalking

and take a look at our interactive website.

It has everything you need,

from detailed route information for each walk,

as well as photographs we took along the way,

and walking maps for you to print off and follow.

For the next walk in this programme, we head south and west

for a much flatter walk through the Millennium Coastal Park

near Llanelli.

I've got a lengthy stretch of coastline to cover,

and along the way I'll be meeting up with some locals

to share their knowledge of this much-changed landscape...

..so I'd better get a move on.

So here we are, on a stretch of the Carmarthenshire coast

near Llanelli. Starting from the Bynea car park,

a footbridge takes us straight down to the edge of the Loughor estuary,

on past the Wetland Centre and the Machynys Peninsula,

to reach the halfway point at North Dock Visitor Centre.

Then on through Sandy Water Park, and just beyond Burry Port harbour,

the end of our walk.

A flat 11-miler with a regular bus service back to the start.

It's difficult to believe that just 15 minutes from the M4 motorway,

and I'm surrounded by rural countryside on the one side

and a stunning coastline on the other.

And almost immediately the path leads down to the water's edge,

with views across to North Gower and the town of Penclawdd,

famous for its cockles.

This is a far cry from what much of this area looked like

at the height of its industrial past.

For nearly 200 years the tall chimneys of steel,

copper and tinworks dominated the North Loughor skyline.

A little further along the path is the National Wetland Centre,

where I'm due to meet up with my first guide of the day.

Nigel Williams has worked here since the centre first opened

more than 20 years ago, first as a volunteer and now as the boss.

-Hello, Nigel.

-Hello, how are you? All right? Nice to meet you.

-And you.

'Now it would be great to spend a few hours in the centre,

'but I've got about 10 miles to go, so we'd better keep trucking.'

So what's that building behind us?

Nothing to do with the Wetland Centre?

No, no, that's the Trostre Steelworks, the last link with tin

or steel for the town, really. We'll see some other parts of

our industrial sites as we go along the walk.

So it doesn't put off the birds and wildlife then?

Not at all, no. And in fact, in the evenings, it's actually because

it's lit up at the side of the building there,

it actually does help to draw in birds to the reserve, really,

so it can be an advantage, yeah.

'Along this section, the path runs behind and below the sea wall,

'but here and there are places where you can climb up to take a look

'at the estuary, and at the right time of the year,

'tens of thousands of migrating wildfowl and wading birds.'

So what's special? What's unique about this area?

This area is really one of the last remaining salt marsh areas

on the north shore of the inlet.

It's of outstanding national importance really. One, the habitat,

and two, its bird numbers and its bird populations, in particular

because we get up to 50,000 birds that actually spend their winter

on the entire estuary, which is an awful lot of birds.

So why do they choose to come here specifically?

It's usually cold weather in the winter because they come through

Siberia, a lot of the birds, and the colder it gets,

the further west they come.

The colder it is, we enjoy lots more birds at this particular stretch

of Southwest Wales, really.

So winter is the best time to come here, to come bird-spotting?

Absolutely.

'Legend has it that, during the sixth century, there was a splendid

'monastery on an island somewhere near here.

'The island was called Mynach Ynys,

'which means Monk's Island in Welsh.

'Then, in the 1800s, the island became part of the mainland

'when they reclaimed some of the estuary as land for heavy industry.

'But the island lives on in this area's name today -

'that's Mach Ynys Golf Course over there.'

That's an amazing view, Nigel.

Looking right up the Loughor estuary.

So what exactly are we looking at here?

What we can see, looking out towards the mouth of estuary,

is Whitford Burrows off to the left.

You can see, just about, the Whitford lighthouse

-that you see on the horizon.

-Been there!

-Yes!

And just across from there you can see the Pembrey Sands,

the start of, and then moving across Burry Port and back around

to the town of Llanelli, back off to the right here.

-It's lovely, isn't it?

-Beautiful. My favourite part of the walk, this.

-And you can feel the sea breeze today.

-Yeah, yeah.

There's a bench here, Nigel,

with Bwlch y Gwynt on it - Windy Gap.

Yes, and this is to commemorate the lost village, really,

the village that used to lie here, beyond this here,

and this is a little plaque just to commemorate that, really.

"Near to this site stood the lost village and community

"of Bwlch y Gwynt, 1880-1973."

Yes, so here there would've been a community and lots of heavy

plant factories, big employers.

'Despite opposition, the residents lost their homes

'when they were demolished in the 1970s

'and they were rehoused in other parts of Llanelli.

'I wonder what they'd make of the executive homes

'just around the point today.

'As we continue around this landscaped

'and redeveloped old industrial and dockland area,

'our route leads us beside a silted-up old shipping channel.

This area is the channel that leads up to North Dock area

just behind us here. And this, at one time, would have been quite a deep

and a wide channel that would have taken large boats and ships

at one time up along here. But when I was a young lad back in the '70s

I was in the Sea Cadets, so I used to spend a lot of time here,

and at that time there was a naval ship that was doing a survey

of the estuary then and they said that in 30 years or so that this will

be like a bowling green, and it's something we never believed but now.

-They were right.

-Yes!

-You wouldn't get very far today. You'd get stuck in mud.

-Yes!

'After crossing the bridge over the North Dock entrance,

'I say cheerio to Nigel

'and head off to meet up with my guide for the next bit of the walk.'

Based here at Parc y Scarlets Stadium,

Lisa Pudner works with Disability Sport Wales and goes out

to schools in Carmarthenshire to share her experiences

as a Paralympian who competed in the Sydney 2000 Games,

coming 4th in the power lifting.

Lisa often used the coast path when training

and these days still regularly uses it to walk her Heinz 57 dog.

-Hello, Lisa.

-Hiya, Derek, how are you?

-Nice to meet you.

-Thank you.

-And who's your friend?

-This is Jazz, my rescue dog.

-Lovely, isn't he?

-Yes.

-Shall we go?

-Yes, off we go. Come on then.

So why's it called Sandy Water Park?

VOICES FADE

Well, I knew Llanelli was the town of the saucepan

with its steel and tinworks, but I wasn't expecting this.

Yes, it's been hidden behind the industrial units and now,

since the millennium, it's been opened for the public as a right of way

and it's traffic-free.

And you come down here most days, taking Jazz for a walk?

Yes, and we meet at a dog walkers' and have a lot of fun and exercise

at the same time.

So you work for Disability Sport Wales. Places like this

must really help you in your work.

Yes, as you say, the Carmarthenshire Leisure Division

is "More people, more active, more often."

So, whatever ability, you could use different parts of the path

for leisure or serious training, whatever you feel fit,

or just have a look at the views.

'We now have a bit of a climb to take a look at Sandy Water Park,

'whose transformation from industrial dereliction to a green

'and watery Teletubbie land was the catalyst for the creation

'of the whole 13-mile long Coastal Park.'

Here we are, Derek, at the glorious Sandy Water Park.

-We made it!

-We made it. And, as you can see, the Gorsedd Stones

or the Eisteddfod, which was held here in the millennium, in 2000.

And across there is the Eisteddfod Festival Fields,

where the concerts were held.

Of course, it never used to look like this, did it?

No, here until 1980 was the Duport Steelworks,

so there used to be billowing smoke everywhere

and people didn't used to come here.

So, since the millennium, it's been right of way then

and people can access it and have leisure and recreation

and see the wonderful wildlife.

Thank you very much, Lisa, for bringing me this far.

I've got to hurry up now and meet my next guide.

Thank you very much, Derek, you're welcome.

-Take care.

-Bye.

-Bye, Jazz.

-Bye.

And my guide for the next part of the walk is Richie Powell

from Ffos Las, a few miles outside Llanelli.

Richie is a world-class wheelchair athlete who's been racing

for over 20 years.

'He trains along this stretch of the Coastal Park

'up to five days a week, come rain or shine.'

-Right, so going this way, towards Burry Port.

-Yep.

-It's about a mile and a half.

-Not too far then.

-Not too far.

-Shall we get going?

-Yep.

-It's a lovely day for it.

-Oh, it's wonderful. Absolutely glorious.

So, Richie, what makes this path special for you?

Well, apart from the climate, the weather's pretty good

all year round. The path itself, in its structure, is very smooth,

very flat. It's very wide as well for a cycle path.

Most cycle paths I see around the country are quite narrow,

so you can only fit a couple of bikes side by side.

But this is more like a road, and because we're so close to the sea

there's a lot of headwind, which you don't get inland.

So I'm constantly training against the elements as well

so I find I'm a lot stronger than most of the other athletes competing.

We're not too far from Gower just over there but you don't have to go

that far, do you, to come across a wonderful beach?

No, Derek. Burry Port wasn't really renowned for having a beach

but the last couple of years, the tide has shifted quite heavily here

and deposited quite a lot of sand on the front of Burry Port harbour

and down the coastline in front of us, and it's just all really nice,

soft sand out there at the moment and the place has totally changed.

-Big pond here, can you go fishing?

-Yeah.

Actually, all the lakes and the ponds on the side of the cycle path

all the way up you can see are run by Llanelli Angling Club,

so if you want to come down and fish you just get in contact with the club

or the local tackle shop and you can fish any one of them.

I actually fished the World Championships in 2001

-on the lake down the bottom.

-Did you win?

-I won on the second day.

-Is there nothing you're not good at?

'Burry Port harbour was built

'to export coal mined in the nearby valleys.

'These days it's a modern marina for yachts and fishing boats.'

-Nice little harbour, Richie.

-Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it?

You've still got the original lighthouse over there,

which was built in 1842 for the costly sum of £32, I think it was.

But the marina itself, I think,

has brought a lot of business to Burry Port town itself

and it's very picturesque as well, it's a lovely place to be.

-Right, where to next?

-We've got to move round the other side -

-I've got something special to show you.

-Sounds intriguing.

I've brought you to the other side of the harbour to... If you look

on the floor here, as you can see it's in commemoration

of Amelia Earhart.

Amelia came over from America, she was a passenger in a sea plane

that landed just off the coastline in the Burry estuary over there.

And at the time, which was 1928,

she was the first woman ever to do such a feat.

And she got very famous in America

and obviously it's a famous story for the locals around here as well.

'A few years later she flew across the Atlantic again, solo,

'and became an American icon.'

It is an amazing story and it certainly put Burry Port on the map.

It certainly did.

'Just a bit further on is Richie's regular snack stop

'after a hard day's training - and how could I resist?

'I must've burnt off a few calories on my walk today.

'And this is also where I say cheerio to Richie

'and head off towards the end of my walk.'

And what a great place to finish, at Pembrey Old Harbour

with a cracking view back up the inlet to Llanelli,

Machynys and beyond.

Well, there we are.

What a fascinating walk through a landscape of change

and transformation, packed into an 11-mile stretch of beautiful

and accessible coast.

The path continues on to Pembrey, Cefn Sedan and beyond.

But I think I'll leave that for another day.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd