Hill End to Spaniard Rocks & Back: Step-by-Step Part 2

Diles Lake is really a stream that drains the Llangennith marshes lying behind the dunes at Rhossili in Gower. The water is frequently dammed back to resemble a lake by banks of pebbles pushed upshore by strong tides – but the water always works its way through the pebbles and sand to flow across the beach, spreading out into myriads of shallow channels as it approaches the sea. Underwater, the many colours of the pebbles are clear to see, contrasting with the dry stones stacked to the side often showing a black coating caused by earlier burial at deeper anaerobic levels of the beach.

It can be quite tricky to cross the stream but on this occasion someone had conveniently made ‘stepping stones’ from an old pallet and driftwood. I noticed that the stream exiting the dunes had long trailing clumps of unpleasant-looking brown filamentous algae of a type resembling something more typical of polluted water – but I must have been mistaken because the water sampling point for Rhossili is nearby and it has only recently been declared of excellent bathing quality.

The heaped pebbles once over the stream had brightly coloured pieces of knotted rope from fishing activities and a scrunched up newspaper (perhaps it had held bait). My eye was also caught almost immediately by a much larger piece of vivid flotsam washed up and stranded at mid shore level. It was about 1 metre in diameter and hip high and made quite a sculptural addition to the beachscape. Faint embossed lettering provided the clue I needed to do an internet search and discover it was a wrecked rigid mooring buoy style MB350 made by the Norfloat company in Exeter.

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