Headlines
A Very Hearty Breakfast!
Driving in Search of a Walk
Walking in the Common: ooooh that's cold
Enough Walking: we drive home the long way, in the rain
====
Stream of Consciousness
A Very Hearty Breakfast!
We're booked into the Lamb for B&B, bed and breakfast. So, down to breakfast. Even though it doesn't start till 8am.
There's orange juice and cereal on the table. After that the basic choice -- the obvious choice -- is Welsh breakfast. Which we obviously choose. Oh, and toast comes whether we ask for it or not.
Btw: the Welsh know how to serve tea and coffee -- with very large cups! Not quite mugs, but large enough. We noticed it once near Stratford. The large cups became standard as we approached Wales. Our breakfast tea / coffee comes in a pot which easily fills two of the large cups. For each of us.
Welsh breakfast looks a lot like a full English breakfast: bacon, egg, tomato, mushroom, baked beans (served in a separate gravy boat, so it looks neat), sausage, hash brown... and blood sausage. Enormous! We eat it all... And decide that lunch will be a light meal.
Oh, and I had a bit of toast and marmalade to finish.
Driving in Search of a Walk
We're on the edge of -- inside, I think -- the Brecon Beacons national park. We -- by which I mean, Deb -- want to find a walk amongst the mountains. I see two possibilities. First, find the park's Visitor Centre. (It's on a map.) Walk any walk that they recommend. Second, come home via a place called Blaenavon... for a fairly level walk amongst industrial leftovers. Or a walk to a place which may have inspired Shakespeare. Cwm Pwca, or Puck's Valley. Cwn Pwca seems to be part of Blaenavon, it's hard to tell from the brochure.
So we're driving along main roads towards Crickhowell and Brecon. Till we spot a sign which points to the park visitor centre.
It's a nice drive. The "Beacons" are large hills rather than mountains. Or so it seems, with memories of Switzerland! The roads are a bit busy but we occasionally pull over, to let traffic pass. The temperature seems stuck on eight degrees.
There's at least one mountain that has snow on the top. And this is spring... The weather website reported zero degrees at six am today.
Walking in the Common: ooooh that's cold
The visitor centre is set on the edge of Mynydd Illtud common. (Luckily we have a brochure, to help with memory... and spelling.) The common is long and narrow, with an iron age fort at one end. Or, at least, the site of an iron age fort.
We walk...
The temperature may still be eight degrees. The wind is blowing -- strong enough to make it feel closer to zero. We're dressed for it but only just.
I'm wearing a thermal top, shirt, jumper, jacket. Warm enough to sweat on the uphills. Except that the jacket is sleeveless. So my arms are cool and my hands are very cold. I've taken to wearing woolen long johns all the time... so at least my legs (and feet) are warm :-) I may need gloves. I sometimes wish for a better jacket. Oh well. Not to worry. Better people than us have been frozen on the Welsh mountains :-)
We walk in the cold and enjoy the view. It is quite a good view! There's a mountain with a good snow covering to one side of us. Neatly laid out fields and farms on another side. Sheep in fields -- and on the common. We're up high, so there are wide views in most directions. All very nice!
It's a couple of kilometres to the end of the common, to the iron age fort. Near the start of the walk, my camera runs out of battery, so don't expect many "common" photos! Just imagine open grassland edged with stone walls and low fences. Patches of gorse and bracken. A few sheep. Gently up and down. With a distinct rise at the end, and that's the fort.
A group of twenty or so high school children are walking in parallel to us, on the other side of the common. We meet at the fort, then we head back.
The other point of interest for this walk is an iron age standing stone. It's back near the visitor centre.
There are quite a few small birds. Lots of tits, Deb tells me. We both smirk. We also spot some small furry thing with a tail, dashing along to hide in a hole in a wall. Snow rat, perhaps... :-)
Having seen the "fort", we have time to notice the cold wind. Notice it even more and comment on it, that is. The thought of seeing the standing stone keeps us going. That and the fact that the stone is on the shortest way back.
And there -- almost hidden behind a sheep -- is the stone! It's a stone, maybe a metre high. It's standing. The excitement :-)
Back to the Visitor Centre, straight to the tea shop. Pot of tea each and a scone to share. (It's about 12:30. We're still full from breakfast. And from several meals yesterday.) Aaaaahhhh... warm again!
Deb asks about the piles of earth that we had seen in some areas. About 30 to 40 centimetres across, ten cm high, looking as though the earth had been pushed up from underneath. Mud volcano, is my guess. Moles digging underneath, is the official answer. Moles!
Enough Walking: we drive home the long way, in the rain
The weather so far has been fine and cold. Rain has been threatening, but holding off. Rain or not, we're not sure if we want to walk any more...
Back into the car, we head for home.
We head for home... the long way. Looking for less travelled roads. Through the mountains. In any direction.
We're driving along one lane roads. Hedges on either side. Very little traffic other than us... Very, very little. Lots of pleasant views of farms and fields and sheep. Occasional views of steep and deep valleys. Very, very nice!
Some of the roads that we follow, go through a farm. And I do mean "through"! We drive into a farm yard, between farm buildings. Make a sharp turn round a barn, or a house. Out of the farm and carry on. These roads seem to have begun life as tracks to the farm.
There are half a dozen teenage lambs on the road! They have not seen many cars, it seems -- they see us -- and start trotting up the road... Away from the closed gate that they had slipped through... Oh no :-(
We stop the car, back up a bit. I get out -- but the lambs have disappeared further up the road. We drive on, slowly. Catch up... This time, the lambs -- most of them -- huddle against a gate leading back off the road. We drive past. One lamb is still ahead -- but wants to follow (like sheep) the others, and darts back past our car.
Last we see, they are all trotting back towards their original field. Phew!
For a lot of this drive, it's been raining. On and off, mostly on. Not heavy. Just enough to convince us that not walking, is a good idea.
We get very high up amongst the farms in the mountains. Then down again, then back to main roads. Time to head -- roughly -- home again.
There's a reservoir, and a visitors centre. A place for tea -- or walking, or bmx bike riding. We drive in. Watch the rain. Drive out again.
There's a new road being built, a dual carriageway road. The GPS is very confused. No worries, we're just following the signs back to Abergavenny.
Back on the "old" road and the GPS knows where we are. It guides us around town, back to home. Where we have coffee and cake downstairs. Light fruit cake. Interesting: Deb & Nana's similar cakes were a lot drier. This one is very moist, almost -- but not quite -- doughy. Taken out when only just cooked? Or just a different type of recipe?
Deb goes upstairs to read or rest or watch tv. I stay downstairs -- with the tablet, the keyboard, and a table to type on -- and write today's journal.
We'll be eating dinner in the hotel tonight. (Again.) There may be more to write... For now: I'll publish... It's just after 5pm. Rain has come and gone, several times. The sun is now shining... I bet it's still cold outside :-)
Till next time...
====
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Agamedes Consulting
====
"A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top."
No comments:
Post a Comment