Its no secret that mine and Marias favourite place is Rhossili Beach on the Gower so I thought Id share a few thoughts about the place.
Hillend is a none bookable campsite so does get busy and is often full in the summer holidays, particularly at weekends. If you read reviews of the place it gets a generally bad press but I would like to dispel a few of these as we think the facilities are great and the location couldnt be better:
Rude staff. The staff at the site are generally fine but its the night staff that people tend to have an issue with. With such a busy site I actually think they do what they need to to avoid you having to lay there listening to a group of overexcited teens screaming and shouting all night! If you dont want to settle after about 11pm then you should be camping elsewhere. It appears only people who are told off at midnight complain!
Overcrowding. This is a busy site, but also is full of cool people, surfers, families and student groups. When packed it has a nice chilled festival vibe, which I quite like. Most of the youngsters go down to the beach and light a fire so are well out of your hair if you want to sleep!
Facilities. The toilet block is always spotless and there are outside showers for surfers. granted there are queues for the showers at weekends in the summer but hey just go mid afternoon.... There is a great shop on site which sells everything you could need from groceries, booze to magazines, not badly priced either. There is a restaurant on site as well which we havnt used but gets good reviews and plenty of patronage.
Overpriced. currently the site is £18.50 a night for a pitch midweek and £22.50 a night weekends. This is per tent/van and not per person. vans can put up Awning for the same price and it doesnt appear to matter how big or small your pitch becomes its all one price. Gazeebos are extra I think. Its £3 to park for the day.
Being just yards from one of the best beaches in the UK makes it a great place to stay. Rhossili bay is 3 miles of sandy beach with the Worms Head at the south and Burry Holm on the northern end. Both are excellent spots to go picking mussels!!
Here are a couple of pictures from our last trip.
Walking back to the van we spied a ginger van parked in the carpark... great to catch up with Kiteman for a coffee on his road trip around Wales!
Camp Albert
Hillend camp site with Burry Holm in the distance.
The Worms Head. You can trek right to the end when the tides out
Seal watching on the Worms Head is a real treat!
Albert in his natural environment!!
TimV Admin
Cabin : Flight 001 Location : Brighton, East Sussex U.K. Posts : 14337 Join date : 2009-09-27
As entering Hill End beach car park noticed a green brazzie and wondered if that was Albert, only to have by suspicions confirmed when I got back to Ginger and foung a note under the wiper.
Stopped for a coffee and a chat then headed off to Kennexstone campsite about 1.5 miles down the road, as Hill end was full.
Looked like you chose the right day to go home, did nothing but rain on Saturday.
As a Gower boy what I real find annoying about Hillend is that the dunes are actually national trust land and so is part of the area where the car park is - not all but good part - and well is free access. If you can park on trust land Hill end can not charge for parking so they charge instead for entrance to the road. For years the trust have been willing to come to an arrangement with Hillend about access and putting an attendant to take parking fees across the whole area but at a the other end of the site straight out onto bessies Meadow rather than Hillend burrows which is a SSSI (Site of special scientific interest) - so for years there has been dune erosion in one section without the ability of the owners - the national trust to control it because basically hillend are not interested in helping
BTW as a teenage I built the National Trust money box and cairn near to the entrance of hillend on the oath onto the downs
My personal fav is Broughton camp site - though we have also camped at ship farm at middleton
btw if you ever on Yr Gwr and get caught in one of our wonderful series of wet days - the accomadation at the king arthur at reynoldston is brilliant
Tim, remind me where to get those side repeater covers and bulbs and I will sort it out... just for you mind!
Belgium Bay.. I sympathise with your point about the access, Hillend is a money making machine and I can imagine they have little regard for the stretch of coast in front of them. WHats the walk like from Broughton over to Rhosilli? thinking with surf boards?...
TimV Admin
Cabin : Flight 001 Location : Brighton, East Sussex U.K. Posts : 14337 Join date : 2009-09-27
walk from broughton isnt to bad (included a screen grab from google)
Broughton itself is ok if you longboard it can be a rough and wild though for most, though as a teenager used to ride it on a gul thruster when gennith filled up with tourists.
If you walk through the dunes you come out right onto the peaks which is much nicer to surf than the main beach (imo) normally cleaner, a bit like St ouens on jersey.
Zac
Cabin : Club Location : Oswestry Posts : 41 Join date : 2011-04-28
Subject: Re: Hillend campsite - Llangenith Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:00 am
I love that place.. The first time i went there was with S4C, tv program 100%fit a surfing program they used one of our brazillian campers the one pictured Van Outen. I stayed at another campsite though, Three Cliffs Campsite briliant!... If you go to Llangenith pop in to PJ's surf shop and have lunch in the pub...
