Mid Wales travels

Over the last few years we have been making our way up Offas Dyke. Our Offa's Dyke trips
This year we decided to make a side trip to the Brecon Beacons.
 


On Friday night we stayed in the YHA hostel at Danywenallt. Next morning we drove along the side of the reservoir to a small car park at Taf Fechan Forest. It was a beautiful bright day but a bit cool in the wind. When we got to the main tracks at the top it was fairly busy, as always, but the high winds added some excitement. We reached the top via Cribyn and then followed the swooping ups and down to Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du. We left the southern ridge at a large cairn on the rocky path which drops back down to the valley.

That night we stayed at Llwyn-y-Celyn, known in our family as the Falklands Hostel. As my Dad and I stayed there the day in April 1982 when the conflict in the South Atlantic started. This is a proper hostel with big tables in the dining room, strange utensils in the kitchen and an ever present whiff of damp coats. Not a wine list in sight.

The next day we headed north to see what else mid Wales had to offer. Our next stop was the River Ifron near Abergwesyn. A beautiful spot where the river narrows and then opens out into a large pool before the ford at The Wash Pool

Our trip continued north towards my latest ebay purchase, more on this later. The last stop was at Red Kite Centre to watch the afternoon feeding. It may not be seeing them in the wilderness but it was inspiring to see them so close and in such numbers.

Sport Relief - What a relief

I have got a bit of a blogging backlog going on. My sense of order means I have to write up one of our previous adventures first.

Will’s challenge for Sport Relief this year was to swim 400 metres, Bike 40 miles and run 4 miles from South Dorset to Somerset (where his grandparents live).

We had to delay this event due to illness a couple of times. Eventually the plan was set for a Sunday in May. The weather forecast was high winds and heavy rain. The weather forecast was right.

Well we decided to set off anyway and see how it went. The swim went well, Bridport leisure centre kindly let him swim during Adult only lanes session because it was a special event.  The first bit of the bike leg to Axminster was hilly and wet and cold. We struggled and I thought this would be the end. But we were saved by our support vehicle (Mum and sister) with hot drinks, dry kit and cake.

As we got nearer to the Somerset border we were turned back twice by flooded roads.After meeting up with the support vehicle a couple of times we eventually made it to the start of the run.

What could go wrong, well nothing until we were a mile from the finish. The fields around the River Tone were flooded and we struggled to even wade through the water to get to the bridge. A great effort and a great day.