Rossili Beach at the far western end of the Gower in South Wales is a fantastic beach. It is very popular with locals from the Swansea / Cardiff area and a popular destination from much further afield. There is a great campsite at Hillend, with all the facilities you could expect. The beach was the location for an attempt at the biggest mass skinny dip record in 2011!
The beach is know for being very busy in the middle, and at the south end, but the rest of it is pretty quiet, even in the summer (except at weekends), and the north end has a history of nude sunbathing at the top of the beach and in the extensive dune complex behind the beach. When the tide goes out, it goes a long way out, up to half a mile or more, this is what makes it great for naked walking. I have drawn the map below to show where the approximate low tide mark is, as this is the best time to walk naked on the beach.
From the carpark walk through the dunes on the well worn sand and boardwalk path, then turn right on the beach and walk north until you find a secluded spot at the top of the beach to get naked and stash your clothes and bags. It is best to then walk straight down to the waterline and decide which way to go, north (right) or south (left) and get walking!
Most days in the summer there will be people on the beach, but if the tide is right out, you have a massive expanse of sand to walk on, and you can usually avoid too many encounters with the textiles. If you walk north, when you get to the top end of the beach it is possible to cross over the rocky band and continue walking past the headland. The beach is a bit narrower here even at low tide and you will stand a very good chance of meeting textiles out for a walk or enjoying the seclusion of the small beaches round the corner. Usually there will be a few people sunbathing naked round this corner, so mostly the textiles dont mind.
If you want to, you can walk back south and go the full length of the beach to the south end and then back up to your gear stash point, this gives a good long walk of around 5-5.5 miles as you effectively walk the length of the beach twice. If you do this then you will have to walk past the busy middle section of the beach, but again, at very low tide, even on a very busy day is is possible to avoid contact with most of the textiles who are either in the sea, or walking up/down to the waterline..
We have camped a few times at the Hillend site and on those trips have managed to walk the beach several times fully naked having left all of our clothes and bags at a stash. We have never had any problems other than the usual gawpers who we couldn’t avoid whilst walking, and once we walked the beach when the tide was only about 1/3 of the way out, so were much closer to the top of the beach. On that occasion it wasn’t too busy so we calculated that it would be OK, and we just walked straight past the main gaggle of textiles in the middle of the beach. It felt a bit sketchy at the time, but all in all it was fine.
Its a great beach, superb for swimming and surfing, there is always plenty of room for everyone, an amazing place to be naked in public and it is a great walk to do naked – not too long, and in a superb setting.
Rossili Beach (Photo credit: olixilo)
Rhossili Beach on the Gower Peninsula of South Wales. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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