Day 6: Crossing Gospel Pass

A crisp bright start to our 3rd day of hiking. I was back with the Hard group again and as we had 3 more miles to hike over the Mediums, 11m/2100 vs. 8m/2030', we were dropped off 30 minutes prior for a head start.

We began with a 1/4 mile walk along a shady paved farm track before we broke out into the sun to face what one fellow hiker called the dragon's backbone. 3 very steep ascents broken by short leveler bits. My calves were so tight climbing up I actually wondered how steep it'd have to be before they'd break! We stopped for a tea break on one of the hills and looked back over Castell Dinas, another Iron Age hill fort topped by a Norman castle. All we could see from our viewpoint was the vague circular layout of the mound with lumpy bits that may have once been the castle walls.

Onwards and upwards till we reached a great grassy plateau with a few grazing ponies, and wonderful valley views down to the west.

We're quite regulated on our walking schedule: no matter what time we start we stop at 11:30am for tea, 1pm for lunch, then 3-ish for afternoon snack. After lunch we dropped down a touch to cross the road at Gospel Pass, not only the highest road pass in Wales, it's also the scene in the U.K.'s Antique Roadshow's closing credits where the little car with a huge grandfather clock sticking out the back comes toodling up around a bend and over the hill. Unfortunately no car came along to mimic this for me but this was the spot.

We soon passed the Medium group as our leader had us going quite a good clip all day, and we dropped down off the ridge into the fields and pastures below.

       (Looking back at our last descent)

The last few miles were cross-country following the long standing rights-of-way paths across farmer's lands. Past skittish sheep, dodging their plentifully strewn pellets; through thick uneven clumps of yellow mounding grass; carefully giving wide berth to a bull and his cow harem; and through narrow leafy forested tunnels. It was quite slow going near the end as many of us had accepted the challenge of participating in the Wildflower Bouquet competition. The idea was to gather items along our walk, create a masterpiece that would be judged by our peers, the winner determined by how much money in votes their arrangement won. (We judged by depositing loose change before each entry). All monies collected went to the Pathways fund so it was a win-win situation.

Some walkers took this very seriously. The Canadians banded together for a group effort and when I passed them at lunch they already had a plastic bag full of collections. Annalise, in my Harders, trailed so far behind us at the end, snipping and plucking that we actually lost her once and when we found her it was exclaimed that she looked like a walking bush with 2 little legs sticking out!

                    (Canada's entry)

In the end, my home country won by a landslide, £18.75 of the £66 raised, proving that quantity can triumph!

Day 5: Strolling on an Easy Walk

            Nythfa House, HF Holidays

I received a bit of gentle ribbing and a few questioning glances when I signed up for the Easy Walk today (7m/900') but it promised views, a botanical preserve, ruins of an Iron Age fort, standing stones, and beautiful pastures - how could I resist? The Hard was 10.75m/3000', steep climb to a ridge, down/up to another ridge, repeat, repeat. Sounded a bit repetitive to me. I can do distance & elevation at home, on vacation I'd like to see interesting things, so I stuck to my guns.  Sheila really enjoyed her hike leader yesterday and was ready for a more challenging hike, so she went on the Medium with him (9m/2000', ridges 1&2).

The weather was glorious again and I at least had wonderful valley views all day long. The going and pace were easy, and the conversation entertaining, so I had a really enjoyable day.

Sheila hiked up from just out of the right-hand side of the picture frame below to the first peak in the middle, along the ridge to the one on the left, back to the first and descended the ridge down and out the left-hand side of the pic.

                One happy hiker.

Our two groups met up at the same place - the National Park Visitor's Center. Us Easy-Peasies having plenty of time for a Cream Tea. In fact, even the Mediums had a good amount of time as our bus seemed to have forgotten to pick us up! A kefuffle with scheduling meant we didn't get back till 6pm, which was a short amount of time to de-pack, and get cleaned up for our Briefing at 7pm. Dinner was again a scrumptious 3-course feast, and we had to waddle ourselves down to the meeting room afterwards to listen to an quite interesting presentation by the local National Trust division chief on local conservation efforts and trail maintenance and NT properties in Wales.

More of the same tomorrow!

Day 4: First Day Hiking

We arrived Saturday at the HF Holidays Brecon Beacons house just in time for Afternoon Tea. Excellent timing on our part! After some sweet treats and a cuppa we unpacked and surveyed our new home-away-from-home. It's a converted very large 19th C. private house, now used exclusively by HF for hiking holidays and short getaways. The rooms are basic but comfortable, the food plentiful and irresistible!

We quickly started into the week's routine of a 7pm Next Day's Walks Briefing, followed immediately by dinner, then the evening's entertainment (a quiz - which we skipped).

Today the weather dawned very brisk and misty but quickly cleared to full warm sunshine.  Sheila and I signed up to walk in different groups so photos of ourselves are limited, but I'll post what I have.  We were bussed over to the Western Fans today. For her first hike, Sheila conservatively chose the Easy walk of 7miles/1100' up and around a limestone ridge then down into the Tawe Valley, ending with a lovely walk along the river to end at the pub meeting place. She ended up becoming fast friends with 2 other Canadian couples, enjoying a few pints with them at the end of the hike.

Being volunteered for the Hard hike, I had a cross-country route up to a glacial lake, which we circled around so as to follow the base of the escarpment over to a 2nd lake, then up a steep ridge to follow the top of the escarpment all the way back again, then further, to descend steeply to the road and on to the pub for a total of 11miles/2300' ascent. The top photo shows 2/3rds of the ridge I returned on - so amazing to see how far one can actually walk.

Things I learned. 1: trails are not necessarily set paths in Britain. There's lots of "off-piste" walking. (We headed straight across to the little lake in the photo below, then circled counterclockwise up and around and back along the ridge)

2: One always (obviously) hikes at their own risk. There's no "Danger: Steep Drop Off" signs, anywhere!

3: There aren't zig-zags or switchbacks here. Down is straight down, and up is straight up.  No matter if you're about to fall ass-over-teakettle forward or bump your chin on your knees going up, just do it. This next pic has both extremes but doesn't capture the steepness at all. I was so thinking of sliding down on my bum ...

It was a tremendous first day but it wore me out. My group finished just 10 mins before our scheduled 5pm pickup, so I missed out on the celebratory pint at the end of the day's walk.  A 25 min. bus ride back, shower, wine, briefing, dinner - whew! Sheila partook in the after-dinner Antiques Roadshow Guessing game with her new Canuck friends (and won the prize of a small thermos). I, however, shuffled off to bed, so as to do it all again tomorrow.

Day 3: Croeso I Cymru

Welcome to Wales! I wish I had taken a lovely scenery shot to open today's blog but I'm afraid it didn't cross my mind. So just close your eyes and picture dark leafy forested rolling hills punctuated by small beige or green pastures fenced in by thick hedgerows. Right, that's Wales so far.

We had the morning to sightsee as it wasn't that far from rainy England to sunny Wales, so our first stop was Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. Well, actually it was the Cistercian monks' Abbey long before Wordsworth came along - built in 11-something-something; ruined by good old Henry VIII but made famous to us English Lit grad's by W.'s poem of 1798. I belatedly remembered after I paid our admission fee that I'd actually been there before (high school trip); oh well, that was before digital photography so I'd might as well take some new pics! 

Next was an extremely pleasant drive through the green green Wye Valley to the town of Abergavenney. We didn't stay long but had an enjoyable wander along the High Street and visited St. Mary's Priory, a church in use for over 1000 years. It's known for its magnificient medieval carvings and effigies; we liked its history and simplicity.

John de Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny (died 1324).

Last on the list was was Tretower Court and Castle. The former a rare surviving14th C. manor house (with subsequent restoration), the latter an 12th C. castle tower ruin. It was a lot of fun seeing these! The great hall in the manor was dressed up as if a feast was about to begin circa 1470, complete with tapestries on the walls, fully laid tables, and even food in the bowls! One could totally picture life back in medieval times. Most of the other rooms, however, were barren so one really had to use their imagination to picture what they were used for. Sheila had fun scouting out the tiny latrine closets in each room!

Alas, that rounded up our sightseeing for the day and it was time to find our HF Hiking Holiday headquarters in Brecon in time for our afternoon orientation. It's another private country house used as a base for 4-7 day walking trips aka our Scottish trip last year though I'm disappointed to say not quite as posh. An older building with some squeaky floors and K-mart dressers; nonetheless the people are extremely friendly and the food superb so I'm sure we'll have a great time.

Sheila has had a wonderful summer training with her Ramblers Group in West Vancouver so she's fine with hiking without me tomorrow. She's decided that I want to do the Hard hike while she gets her feet wet (figuratively, forecast is good) so we will see how that works out! 

Day 2: All in a Day's Drive

Today we really put Portia (our GPS) to the test. Somehow, somewhere, deep in her settings, she's decided that country back roads of the one-lane-walled-in-by hedgerows variety is the desired route for us and we end up with very scenic but very challenging drives.  We started off from our Warminster B&B at a late 9:30am heading to Glastonbury to climb its famous Tor.  Zig here, zag there, where are you going, Portia? Is this really the direct route or are you just playing with us? Luckily we were too late for any traffic and soon enough had the hill and small tower in sight. 

The Tor's a natural small steep hill with an old church tower on top that overlooks a once swampy Somerset countryside. It's recently become a new age hotspot; along with the group laying prone on their yoga mats that we tromped past, we happened to disturb a crystal-wielding she-statue standing dead-center inside the 6 foot-in-diameter tower. "Excuse Me." Humph! Twas a miracle back in the day when this clump of land was the only dry bit around, but medieval drainage works took care of that and no other miracles have really been seen here since!

We mistakenly thought we wanted to see Glastonbury Abbey so we walked on down to the town, coming across the pretty High Street first. Gorgeous flower baskets adorned every lamp post and store front, and colorful shops sold everything from New Age crystals to baby clothing. We ended up skipping the Abbey as it was in ruins and we had lots to do on the schedule! Next: Wells Cathedral.

Portia behaved herself on the way to Wells and offered up a straight shot and quick timing. We stupidly ignored her advice and followed the official tourist parking signs which left us with a 10-minute walk to the Catherdal from a pay parking lot but the sun had come out so bad thoughts were soon forgotten and everything looked pretty on our trek.

Wells was spectacular inside. Very clean lines, gorgeous vaulting, and the only scissor-arches used anywhere.

The world's 2nd oldest working clock has mechanical jousters fighting it out every 15 minutes, and an amazing Chapter House whose delicate fanned ceiling blew us away:

A couple more small sights in town then off again on a driving tour to Cheddar Gorge.

Yes, that Cheddar. Apparently the cheese    is made everywhere but there is a town called Cheddar and there's an amazing steep, narrow gorge one can drive through as well as a deep cave system for exploring. Amazing drive? You bet, Portia was gung-ho! First we swept up past leafy Ebber Gorge, then down a narrow single-lane track upon which a passing farmer and a dog-walker both gave us the Evil Eye. Then we climbed again to swan thru undulating pastureland before falling again to the A371 and the commercial and pleasantly tacky Cheddar Gorge entrance. Both hands were needed on the wheel so photo taking was limited but I did snap one:

By this time it was tea time and we were in a hurry to get to our B&B. Just a few more hair-raising car-meets-car-head-on situations and the farm roads led us to Harptree Court. Not only was their lemon cake reputed to be excellent, the accommodation promised to be grand. We just wanted to check in and luxuriate!

Somehow the Ferrari looks so much classier out front than our VW Golf!  

Our room is in the further 2nd story 1/2 round of windows, our bathroom has the balcony!

After tea was served in our room we strolled the grounds, armed with a hand-written map, to explore the lakes & follies, thick woods and grassy fields, walled flower garden & lily pad pond. So rested and gentrified from our meander, we forwent our gastro pub reservation for another quiet dinner in of pâté, Wensleydale cheese and wine, peacefully watching the sun set from our 2nd floor suite. Another great day.

Arrival Day: England!

Our Virgin Atlantic flight set us down in Jolly Ole England about 1:30pm but the marathon walk to customs and the long wait at Europcar meant we didn't hit the road till a yawn-producing 3:30pm. Mum and I were both tired as no matter how comfortable your class of air travel might be, sleeping on a plane is just never restful. It's a good thing our pub/hotel was only 1h15m away, and that I was driving, as Sheila started to drop off mid-sentence, just as we headed out of Heathrow.

The Dundas Arms was a lovely surprise. The rooms rather posh, the setting beautiful, and the staff super-friendly. We had a restorative cup of tea on our private deck overlooking a side canal then went for a stroll up and down the leafy tow path and up into the town's churchyard in order to ward off any incipient jet lag. So far, a great start to our holiday!