Ep 76 – Swansea & Port Talbot – MINING METALS & MOVIE STARS

Great ride, sunny day, fantastic facts and other stuff you might be interested in.

Hello and welcome to the Great British Biking Adventures Coast Series. In this series we are travelling around the coast on our motorcycle, a Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer.

A lot of our viewers are bike enthusiasts but this series will appeal to a wider audience. Why? Because there’s so much more to the Coast series than motorcycles. There’s the challenges, the journey, geography, history and people. You get to travel the entire coast of England and Wales with us, see how we did it, share our ups and downs, experience English culture, the history and hear about the people that made Britain ‘Great’!

What’s also good about the coast series is it doesn’t matter when you start watching, it’s like one of those open top bus tours – you can get on at any point and just keep going until you arrive back where you started.

Who are we? We’re a husband & wife living in an unremarkable coastal town in England. We’ve been married 35 years and were brought together by motorcycles. One day, Esther’s Honda Melody broke down and she brought it to Jarrod’s motorcycle shop – the rest (as they say) is history.

One cold February day, we started riding along the seafront and just kept going. We wanted to record the experience to have something to watch in the future – the YouTube channel was an afterthought. Take a look at those first few episodes to see just how novice we were, cobbling together what little phone footage we had to try to make a story. To make up for our amateur recording and shyness we added information in the editing. This set the tone and style of our videos, we hope you like it. We like to think we’ve improved and hopefully you’ll agree, take a look, compare our earlier videos with the later ones and let us know in the comments.

There’s also the filming and production journey. When we started we knew nothing about filming, video and audio production, editing, YouTube and the like. We’ve learnt loads and spent loads in time and money along the way but it’s been almost as enjoyable as the journey itself. You’ll hopefully appreciate how far we’ve come.

But what’s with all those bible verses we hear you say. We know some of you don’t appreciate this aspect, one or two have told us in the comments! That’s fine – it really is. All are equally welcome here, believers and unbelievers. It would be a pity if you enjoyed everything else but just stopped watching because of the Christian references but we completely accept you’re free to do as you please.

Our faith has prompted us to include a bible verse in our videos and sometimes a Christian perspective on the things we talk about. The channel is not about Christianity but our faith cannot be separated from it. We hope and pray that it will make you think, inquire and even bring you into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

hello and welcome to our trip around the English and Welsh Coastline in the last episode we showed you around the Glorious gawa Peninsula we’re making our way along the main road from mumbles to Swansea but it’s a lovely long sweep of a Coast Road around Swansea Bay isn’t it from mumbles head all the way into the city although it looks like a glorious Sandy Beach I do believe it’s a lot like Western super mayare and it’s muddy and sinking sand so that’s probably why there’s not many people on there to our right lies the Bristol channel the Welsh have their own name for it more hafron which literally means 7c in fact up until chuda times it was only known as a 7c Upstream the channel leads to the river 7 the Bristol channel is the biggest Inlet of its kind in the UK and separates South Wales from Southwest England it has the second highest tidal range in the world tidal range is a difference in height between high and low tide in the open sea this is normally about 1 M closer to the coast this range is much greater the Bristol Channel acts like a huge funnel for the massive Atlantic ocean that lies to the West twice a day it rises and falls at an average of 12.3 M and regularly experiences highs of 15 M where the land gently slopes like here at Swansea Bay and where we live on the other side in Western supermare this means the tide goes up to 1 and 1/2 miles out that’s why it seems like the water’s always out when people visit Western the scale and effect of the tide here is hard to Fathom the Bristol Channel flows into the S estery and meets the river 7 where it is still tidle at Gloucester docks other rivers and inlets such as the aen usk and Y are similarly affected by the tide it’s massive it is accepted that the powerful currents and volumes of water that flow in and out twice a day could be used to harness huge amounts of electrical energy various schemes have been proposed but nothing has ever materialized the Bristol Channel also provides access to numerous ports today the biggest and most active is at aen mouth historically the channel has serviced Commerce and Industry such as coal and steel on the walide and the merchant shipping at the Inland ports of Bristol and Gloucester as far back as the 13th century the tides are extremely hazardous and have garnered a reputation for producing the best Mariners in the world even today with powered ships and sophisticated autonomous navigation Pilots are required to board and guide shipping into the docks at aen mou and portbury just just imagine what it must have been like when competing Pilots raced their Cutters to reach sailing ships that they then navigated the tides and winds up the rivers s and Aven to reach Gloucester and Bristol not so long ago South Wales was dominated by industry primarily due to its large deposit it of Premium quality coal Coal fueled the steam engines and furnaces of the Industrial Revolution as well as being exported throughout the world it gave rise to heavy Industries throughout South Wales mainly smelting works from the early 1700s to the late 1800s Swansea was the world’s leading copper smelting area copper and other melting ores were shipped from Cornwall and Devon as well as from North and South America Africa and Australia because each ton of copper oil smelted used about three tons of coal it was more economical to ship the copper ore to Wales rather than sending the coal to the copper mines in the 1850s Swansea had more than 600 furnaces and a fleet of 500 oceangoing ships exporting Welsh coal and bringing back metal oil from around the world smelters also processed arsenic tin zinc and other metals the city expanded rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries much of the grand architecture here dates from that period copper smelting at Swansea declined in the late 1800s today there’s virtually no sign of the hundreds of furnaces that were once here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] this is All That Remains of the Swansea slip Bridge you might be able to make out that it once supported a span over the road it seems to be Overkill when people could more easily cross the road but let’s take you back a 100 years and it will all make sense this is the view from the bridge it once crossed a railway and a Tramway in fact the railway that ran from Swansea to mumbles was the first in the world to carry passengers and was pulled by a horse back then the bridge itself was iconic one of the few remnants from the Victorian era following the long period of de-industrialization and swansea’s Devastation from German bombing in the second world war but it fell into disrepair and the bridge was removed in 2004 and sits at the side of the road a few hundred yards back [Music] the prison on the seafront well the about to smell the sea this is the Sixth and last prison we will pass on our trip around the coast hold on a moment Esther and let’s just go back a few frames I think we may just have witnessed a prison break he certainly seemed to be in a bit of a hurry it was constructed between 1845 and 1861 which makes it one of the 90 Victorian prisons that were built this was the most significant period of prison Construction in UK history and this is one of the 32 Victorian prisons are still operating today nowadays they are criticized for poor living conditions but at the time they were a groundbreaking model of prison reform and were a huge Improvement on the existing prison accommodation and system before this prison was built inmates were incarcerated at Swansea Castle 15 executions have been conducted here and The Condemned men are still buried in unmarked Graves within the site so yeah the marina is this way this is why I’ve got us coming this way yeah nice like many areas in the UK South Wales has undergone a very slow transition from its heavy industrial past to what you see today considering most of the smelting Works disappeared over a 100 years ago it’s quite surprising how much waste ground there still is and how long it’s taken for areas like this to see some sort of regeneration it makes you appreciate the scale of the industry that was here that such large docks were built just to manage manage the logistics of moving the materials this is only what’s to the west of the river t to the east lies a much larger area of docklands and the wastelands of the old Industries it also makes me think what Swansea and areas like it do today how exactly does it manage to sustain itself and contribute to the greater economy it no longer produces and processes raw materials like coal and copper and it doesn’t appear to have any significant manufacturing presence presumably it has embraced the terer sector but how can a society survive on just trade transport and tourism [Music] wow eend and something yeah yeah they are looks like something at colonist Russia yeah cuz you be have people’s H oh it’s a [Laughter] university why I take a wrong turn back here what supposed to be up there [Music] crumbs which way now yeah this way yeah sorry you just go and band up back down the road you came on my dear yeah well it’s the bridge we went across this is the bridge we should have got it yes presely the old one we have a rule when crossing rivers on our Coast adventure and that is we try to take the bridge or Ferry closest to the coast the M4 is strictly nearer than the a48 bridge and on this occasion we had intent ended to break our rule but Jared took a wrong turn so we’ve had to turn around so that we can get to the seafront and explore this fascinating stretch of Coast unlike Swansea the heavy industry is still very much in evidence here we’ll tell you more about what that industry is in the next episode but for now we’ll take a look along the beach and show you what makes it different we have occasionally come across similar places like this although it’s heavily populated there’s not much of the usual Seaside attractions the few C face that are here are relatively new and are in effort to bring some of that tertiary sector that Jared spoke about earlier to this tough hardworking Community looks like it’s shut down from the summer yes or maybe just for Saturday yeah here we are the SE destination looks delightful [Music] wow look hous is on the sea front tonight but where is the sea front just like there I wonder if there’s a beach I don’t know do yeah there is I can see you can see the beach on the map you’re going to go in the car part here going have a quick look good yeah there it is oh nice it’s a nice Beach isn’t it it’s gorgeous [Music] Beach absolutely lovely s Junes as well really [Music] nice it’s fascinating is it is a cafe yeah ice cream yeah oh it’s beautiful look at that got a lovely long stretch of sand and looks like it’s all right sand because there’s people all well you know in the sea and on the sand it’s not like it’s all sinky it looks like good sand as opposed to sinky muddy sand I mean yeah I agree look what you got is a backdrop the cranes the Smoke Stack oh look at the LI oh I love it whatever water park water park for the gorgeous yeah that’s just what you need on a day like this [Music] lots of space lots of space yeah lot parking lots of little nice cafes which are all full people enjoying the sunny weekend yeah it’s got a nice feel to it yeah yeah it’s not bad is it I mean that’s a massive Council house the state mind it’s been all the way along well that’s seen better days unfortunately family bar and restaurant that’s doomed we’re doomed which is a shame because it’s right on the sea front we are essentially in Port Talbert the main part of the Town sits back from the coast and Industry on the lower slopes of the wonderful Welsh Hills that virtually Crown the entire stretch of South Wales the M4 cuts through the town on stils to one side Rises the backdrop of the beautiful countryside and on the other the town full of tiny Terraces with the industry and Coast beyond the elevated Motorway gives a surreal perspective of the rooftops imagine growing up with the view and SS of the busy Motorway just yards away from your bedroom window during this series we have tried to highlight any notable people that were born or have lived in the places we have visited along the way just in case you were wondering why I didn’t mention Dylan Thomas earlier when we were in Swansea where he was born and wrote his earliest and some say Best Literature Thomas got a full feature in episode 65 you’ll have to watch it to find out why also in episode 65 I commented how abber iswith boasted an association with 266 famous people and yet I’d hardly heard of any of them sorry abber iswith but it appears Port Talbert’s claim to fame is more credible and really quite impressive for such a relatively small down to earth town I may not know most of the 47 men and women it cites in its Wikipedia page but there are some pretty big hitters among them even the unfamiliar names have impressive credentials in particular PA Talbert seems to gener generate a disproportionate number of actors and singers if you know why let us and everyone else know in the comments well it’s not down there by the look of it no it’s not down here this is me just taking us somewhere yeah oh that byway there is whatever it’s called Pier is T oh yeah love it yeah little bit of everything including [Music] industry backdrop of the Welsh Hills I [Music]