The Graig Fawr Horse-shoe

Pontarddulais

Saturday 27 January 2001

Paul Saunders and Bill Grey walk one of the lesser hills

in the Swansea area.

A brief description of the photographs:-

1        Paul at the start of the walk                                             2         Cefn Drum and the green path ahead.

3        A view of Mynydd Pysgodlyn from Cefn Drum         4         The Cefn Drum ridge

5        Paul approaching the summit of Cefn Drum              6        Paul at the summit

7        A view of Mynydd Garn Fach                                          8        Graig Fawr in the distance

9        Twyn Tyle                                                                           10        Paul at Graig Fawr summit

11      Trig point on Graig Fawr                                                12        North Gower at sundown.                  

THE WALK

We started out after lunch at about 14.00hrs on what was a really nice afternoon. The photos show the lovely sunshine we enjoyed.  The walk started from the outskirts of Pontarddulais from the SW of Cefn Drum. The land rose fairly quickly, but not too steep, and after about half a mile of lane walking we came to the hillside proper with "green" paths through the bracken(pic.2). From here on, it was delightful and the vistas opened up as we ascended the hill.  Another local hill Mynydd Pysgodlyn (pic.3) soon became visible to the East across the valley. Ahead of us was the gentle rise to the summit of Cefn Drum. The ridge of Cefn Drum (pic.4) continues roughly NNE to Twyn Tyle at a height of 883 ft (old 1" map!). A sharp descent (pic 9) took us off Twyn Tyle northwards to pass by some ancient earthworks, and on to the  summit of Graig Fawr at 286m(pic.10) This was our most northerly point, and the GPS came in handy to define the otherwise indeterminate "peak".

We then turned and headed approximately SW  to the trig point on Graig Fawr at 276m (pic.11). By now it was becoming decidedly dusk, and the photo of Paul at the trig point had to be taken with flash. We made our way back to our start point in increasing darkness.

We completed the walk in about 4 hours, a distance of 6.5 miles with a lot of photo stops. The views from the high ground were really good with the Loughor valley to the west , the snow clad Carmarthen Fans just visible  to the NE, and a great view of the Loughor Estuary and North Gower to the South.

There are several interesting hills around Swansea, and we hope to visit most if not all of them soon.