My mother grew up in Burry Port in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, where her family had lived for generations. We often visited my grandparents there when I was a child and I now have a great affection for the place. Dave, the dog and I went off down memory lane last week when we stayed in Burry Port for a few days.

Even though so much time has passed since those childhood visits, I found the town largely unchanged. There is one enormous difference though – Carmarthen Bay power station, built at the harbour in 1947 and completely overshadowing the little town, was demolished in 1992. This is a huge improvement but, because it was such an iconic Burry Port sight, a part of me strangely misses it:

Looking across to Gower from Burry Port dunes:

My grandmother often told the story of her great-grandfather, John Williams, a vet in Burry Port in the early 19th century, who used to ride his white stallion across the estuary to the Gower at low tide to tend to the animals over there. When the tide is in, as it is in the photo above, this story seems pretty far fetched – but a bit of internet research reveals that there was indeed some sort of causeway between Burry Port and the Gower across the estuary in earlier days.

This photo was taken at Cefn Sidan beach at Pembrey at low tide, when it no longer seems impossible that a white stallion could be ridden over to the Gower:

The upper reaches of Burry Port beach is covered in black slag rocks, telling the tale of heavy industry in the area in days gone by:

There are no such rocks at Cefn Sidan beach at Pembrey, though, where glorious sands stretch as far as the eye can see. Other than a narrow, central, life-guarded section, the beach was mostly deserted even on a sunny weekend in August:

There were razor shells washed up on the beach, some of which were filled with the eggs of the netted dog whelk:

There were also some of these netted dog whelks themselves:

There were signs around the beach about the strandline beetle, Eurynebria complanata:

This large (20mm) black and sandy-coloured beetle hides under driftwood at the strandline by day but comes out at night to feed on sand hoppers and other invertebrates. It used to live on sandy beaches throughout the UK but hasn’t been seen in England since 2002 and is only now known to be on three beaches around Carmarthen Bay, one of them being Cefn Sidan

Another bit of invertebrate interest is the number of snails we saw in the vegetation both at Cefn Sidan and on the dunes at Burry Port:

Back in the 60s I remember visiting Kidwelly Castle with my grandfather, when we had to knock on the door of the caretaker’s house to get the key to let ourselves into the castle.

The castle is under the care of Cadw, the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage, and visiting it these days is a bit more official. The dog was allowed in though, so long as she remained at ground level:

We so enjoyed our time in Burry Port and found it an excellent low-pressure place to visit with the dog, even in the height of summer. It’s a very long way from the east coast of Kent, though – as most places are unfortunately

After our few days in Wales we made our way down to Dartmoor in Devon. The Landmark Trust saves imperilled old buildings from ruin and sympathetically restores them. It then rents these buildings out as holiday accommodation to raise funds for further rescue missions. They are now caring for about two hundred buildings and we were staying in one of these – an old chapel in an ancient hamlet at the very edge of the moor.

It was all very beautiful and historic, although did involve driving down some very narrow lanes with few passing spaces.

We love Dartmoor but hadn’t been there since March 2020, just as covid was taking its stranglehold on the World. There were then off-putting stories of it being completely overrun by holidaymakers during the Covid summers. But we have returned now to find it gloriously easy to get away from everyone once more and feel like you are in a truly wild space.

Back in the Bronze Age (2,300 to 800 BC), the climate on Dartmoor was milder than it is now and many people lived and farmed there. Their monuments can still be seen across the moor today.

One morning we visited Grimspound, a late Bronze Age settlement with 24 hut circles surrounded by a massive stone wall.

I had brought a trail camera with me on holiday and we were very charmed to see that it was a lovely hedgehog that bumbled up each night to eat the peanuts that I put down:

I’m always excited to see a hedgehog because we don’t get them at home unfortunately.

Ten years ago our plan was to move to Dartmoor, but instead we went in the opposite direction to the east coast of Kent where we have family. For many reasons, that was the right decision, but I really regret how far away we now live. However, now that we have returned to Dartmoor after our four year break and rediscovered its wonders, I hope that we will manage to get there every year once more.