DAY OUT: Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire
Between two rivers
Julie Brominicks revisits a historic maritime village on the southern coast of Wales, where cockle pickers have foraged the mudflats for hundreds of years – and still do today
Beyond Afon Tywi and a strip of bright sand is a string of colourful buildings and a wooded headland on which sits a broken castle. My first glimpse of Llansteffan from Glanyfferi was 10 years ago, when you had to walk another 17 miles to reach it via the first crossing of Afon Twyi at Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen).
The walk was green and interesting, but I regretted the disappearance of the ferry, which travellers of old had used. But now, the ferry is back. It is the way to arrive.
Llansteffan, after all, situated on the spit between the Tywi and Tâf rivers, is maritime in spirit. But it is also sylvan, with its woodland known as The Sticks. A place where both cockle shells and beechnuts crunch underfoot.
ESTUARINE BEAUTY
The village is charismatic, too. Although the local shop no longer boasts a post office, it now sells a darn good pizza instead. The Pound – acircular building once used for rounding up cattle – is a gallery these days, the pubs serve up banter and beer, and the silence within the thick walls of Sant Steffan’s Church is as rich as ever.
We buy brownies from Kevin, whose Coastal Delights shack overlooks the beach. “My wife is Llansteffan born and bred,” he says, “but I’m an import. I used to work in Swansea, but we thought we’d give it a go ’yere, and I love it.” The saltmarsh is blowsy with aging flowers, sea rocket still clings to the sand. From up at the wrecked castle, the vistas are one glorious estuarine swirl. You can see the cockle pickers from here, and their boats, just dots.
The Sticks are bronzing. Sycamore, ash, beech and oak make vignettes of the sand. We walk on to it, over mud slicks and shells to where the cockle pickers are busy with rakes, riddles and net sacks, as they have been for hundreds of years, or at least since July. They’re a cheery bunch. “You know you’re fit,” one tells us, “doing this. If you weren’t you’d just fall down flat.” He grins.
Julie Brominicks is a landscape writer who lives in Wales.