Glyndŵr’s way: day 6 & 7

I promise I’ll upload the rest of this trail sometime (I have the notes just can never be bothered to go through them, not the best memories on this trail)

I had two days rest in the chapel / reading about the Spanish wars and convents and Victor Hugo’s opinions on religion in Les Miserables.

Day 6

On day 5 I packed and mum and dad drove me south again. I started from Abercegir after 10:30, they walked with me. Hills of sheep, with slightly more irregular and interesting tops. I left them near cefncoch gwyllt and took a short cut down to cemmaes road. Rain started with a heavy shower heading on 12. There weren’t any stiles on the footpath so I had to climb a few barbed fences (I don’t think any other footpaths exist in reality besides glyndwrs way out of the national parks!). I ate lunch (the cheese and ham sandwiches mum made for me :) ) crouched on a plank in the rain. White clouds crept out of every valley and over each pass. My shoes squelched. The rain was not terribly heavy but it was persistent. It turned sunken tracks into streams and earth into mud. At the top of a forestry hill the rain stops and on a slope of long grass, both the white puffs of thistles and white raindrops hanging from the tops of grass glitter - outshining the low light. The descent to Llanbrynmair had an annoying route diversion, then I had 2-3 km of road walking but was in camp by 4:30 which I was very pleased with- this 19kn day has felt easy, maybe I’m getting good at this stuff or it was a less hilly day. Although I like the camp and am pleased with its COVID signage and lots of handsanatiser, but when I went to reception the lady came out coughing into a hanky, she got into a golf buggy and asked if I’d get in right next to her to get to the pitch site- no thank you! I pitched, called, had a lovely shower, and ate in my tent. Yet again I was ill after cup of soup :( but I sorted stuff and got my previous blog posted.

Day 7

The rain had stopped in the morning thankfully. I left at 9:05. The long but now peaceful route back on the road to llambrynmair. I was considering sun cream but then it started to drizzle. Some steep climbs, but from the ridge the views into the valley I stayed last night are magnificent. With these round topped hills rising one on the other, domed tips and light dappling between dark green forests and deep green fields- dusted with white spots of sheep. I sit on a stile on the saddle between two hilltops on Cerrig y Tan and air my feet to dry and dry them a bit so they’re not too wet all day. The ground falls steeply to my left and right and rises in front and ahead in a grassy curve, freckled with tufts of long grass - a hyperbolic paraboloid. I rest a while as I’ve only 20km today and yesterday I started an hour and a half later for that. After the uplands I pass into a big conifer Forest at Cors Fforchog, but it is peaceful and beautiful - the undergrowth is thick with moss and at points where trees have been felled young native shrubs grow up and streams rush over stones and small birds call loudly . I kept stopping to snack on bilberries. They were decent but not plentiful- I don’t think it’s a good year as they’re weren’t many near the chapel either. At the forest exit a stream has gorged down a metre to the rock. The next part was very boggy and wet. I ate lunch on the rubble of a small quarry. Heavy grey clouds were coming in after. I could see it raining On The wind turbines on a further hill. It rushed over the forests to reach me. The first drenching stopped as soon as I’d got my waterproofs on. I met a road which I walked in for a long while, past stressy cows with their calves, a pretty farm house with blue windows and chapel like ours at Neinthirion, impressive Afon Cannon stream, and over the pretty still flat valley. Through a farmyard with all different types of confusing gates and a massive cow and onto more pretty hills- once the site of a hill fort. I panicked another lot of cows on an enclosed track- they kept running straight at the fence to get away poor things. I pass beutiful welsh ponies on the slopes.

Over gorse slopes and down, I join mum and dad and we walk to the village, stop for a drink in the cafe and head back to the chapel (I couldn’t get accommodation for tonight)