Kilvey Hill - Swansea's version of Ayres Rock. Words fail to describe its relevance on the world at this time.
Kilvey Hill is the sacred, mystically hill that provides land dwellers with superb views of Swansea and close up views of burnt out Escort XR3i's and rabbit excrement.

It is a great place to take the fish for a walk or to get away from the hectic, hollywoodness of the city centre and you never know, whilst strolling along you may bump into a native tribesman or even find the mystical lake who's water, according to legend, can give you weils disease and tastes of roast chicken.

Fortunately, the Jedi Master of Kilvey Hill, Nomad, has been kind enough to send us some pics and use his extensive knowledge of Kilvey to write the article below.

Ah Kilvey Hill what can I say? First time I remember going up it was when 0I was on the mitch from school, it seemed to be huge. We had to keep an eye out for Boney Maen boys in them days as there was no bridge and we were on their side of the river, so we made our way to the top and got back down again without really taking much in. This was the Boney Maeners mitching area and ours was around by the Viaduct, the Baldwins etc... and there were always conflicts. I didn't bother much with Kilvey again for years as I was doing real mountains like Cadair Idris, Tryfan, Snowdon, Ben Nevis and most of the hills in South and Mid Wales Pen Yr Fan, Drygan Fawr etc...

Nowadays the bridge has been built and we all seem to have integrated and I use the hill a lot to keep myself fit enough to do the real ones easily. First time I started walking up it I hated it! Even though it's sort of like wilderness you are constantly reminded of the fact that you're right in the middle of a City. Police sirens, cars, trains and peoples voices are the first reminder then you keep coming across burned out stolen vehicles and Joyriders on motorbikes, you've also got that stench that floats over from Port Talbot when the wind blows it over every so often.

Apart from that if you can ignore all these influences you will learn to love it. I now go up there for hours at a time even staying the night sometimes just to mellow out, watching the City below in it's never ending quest can get very intriguing.

On most days at a certain time you'll see this old bloke riding around on his horse like as if he's patrolling the hill, I've often wondered if he's ever been down into city as you just can't imagine it, then you've got the Army type nutters who train their Pitbulls up there every so often. You used to get the Rabbiters with their Ferrets and shotguns up there before but I haven't seen one of them for years! Maybe they've all evolved into the Army types. You also get the Mountain Bikers and there are tracks everywhere which they are constantly upgrading, I know my brother used train there every day when he was into mountain biking I even recall a race being held up there.

Apart from that I can't think of much else off-hand, I know you can't drink the water because of pollution but Mad Richie would disagree, he used to say "If it's good enough for my dog it's good enough for me" and he's still alive! :-)