Inside a tent is my second favourite place to wake up, topped only by outside a tent. Welsh weather dictated that this was an “inside” day. The mist cleared by breakfast and the dewy grass cooled my flip-flopped toes. After porridge and packing up (the new netflix n chill), we headed South West to walk the “must-see” four waterfalls trail.
We drove along the road that we’d trudged along, semi-lost, two days before, and it was breath-taking. I’ve never seen the Brecons in all their glory – on previous visits they’d been shrouded in thick, grey fog. I suppose the landscape was the same as it had been on the Friday, but we were slightly higher and could appreciate it so much more. We pulled over to take photos and admire the view: golden, grassy plains edged by dark, evergreen forests backed by protective, sweeping ridges. It wasn’t the wet, wind-beaten landscape I’d experienced before; the unfamiliar sun was shocking Wales into calm serenity and I couldn’t get enough.
We arrived at the car park near Ystradfellte an hour or so later and were surprised to find it manned by a handful of forest wardens. We knew it was popular but had no idea it would get so busy. We got there early so had no problem parking, checked the route and set off. The beginning and end of the trail is along a gravel track through the forest. It’s lined by tall, dark evergreens which are far enough from the path so as not to block the sun, and the route is well-marked enough so no need for a map.
The first waterfall was pretty but inaccessible, the second was wide and entered into a deep, round, inviting pool, and the third was my favourite. From the woody, leafy bank, we de-shoed and crossed the river onto a sunny, flat slab of rock to have lunch. The water here flowed between deep, round pools, all connected by shallow mini-waterfalls, with the main one on our left. A couple of guys in wetsuits joined us, and after lunch I dived into the pool for a swim.
It was lovely (after the initial shock!) – cool, deep and refreshing. I swam around and explored up and down river, scrambling over slippery rocks and scaling the jagged walls, nearly injuring myself only once. Apart from the people walking and sitting on the opposite bank, it was idyllic: the sky was clear blue, the water was cold and fresh and we were surrounded by the bright, glowing green of sun-drenched spring leaves.
We could have been there minutes or hours for all I knew, but eventually we packed up and headed off. A semi-strenuous uphill section took us back to the main path, and when we got near waterfall four we had to join a queue of slow-moving traffic to take the stairs down to see it. It seemed like the whole world had taken their children, husbands, grandparents and grandparents’ dogs to look at this waterfall; I don’t know where they all appeared from.
The waterfall itself was stunning – the widest and tallest one yet, with lots of space behind it. However, the sheer number of people devalued it almost entirely. There was a crowd of yellow, blue, red, any-colour-you-can-think-of t-shirts and no space to walk around at all. I couldn’t believe that so many people would choose to hang about or have their picnic in a spot so teeming compared to the rest of the trail. One photo later, we turned and trudged painfully slowly back up the steps.
The signpost at the top reckoned it was 55mins back to the car park, but we did it in 35. It was an attractive walk back; forest-ey, but not boring. MapMyWalk says the route was 8.4km and we did it in 1hr32mins, not including breaks and stops. I’m dubious.
When we left, the car park and the drive up to the car park was rammed with cars and the wardens looked exasperated. We drove back to Brecon for an ice cream before heading to the Black Mountains – the easternmost of the three mountain groups in the Brecon Beacons. Confusingly, the western mountains of the National Park are called the Black Mountain Range.
This area is more agricultural than the wild, central Beacons. After driving along several narrower-than-narrow farm roads, we reached the car park of our target fifth mountain: Lord Hereford’s Knob. At only 690m high, it was the smallest peak of the weekend but it won the name competition hands-down. We’d tried to climb it previously but the weather had been against us and we were pushed for time, so we failed. This time the weather was much clearer and we were determined to find the elusive summit.
I enjoyed the walk to what we thought was the summit, clad in a knitted grandad jumper and flip flops (until I took them off a hundred yards in and went barefoot). At the top there was a lovely, panoramic view that was semi-cultivated, semi-wild, with rolling farmland shouldered by dramatic ridges. There was a small cairn but surprisingly nothing to announce the mountain’s glorious name, so we broke a rule and pulled our phones out to check sat nav. We hated the thought of thinking we’d done the Knob, only to find out later that we’d missed it. Unfortunately, Google Maps said the actual summit was ahead of us and to the left, so we begrudgingly followed it downhill and towards the next peak (which looked a long way away).
The land we walked through was more rugged, and shortly after passing through a herd of super-photogenic wild ponies the path disappeared and sat nav decided that the Knob was actually in roughly the direction we’d come from. Frustrated, hungry and aware of the fog rolling up the valley to our left, we took what looked like a quad-bike track back towards the ridge we’d started on. The terrain was all bracken and bog, and I nearly lost a flip flop more than once. We climbed the steep side and followed sat nav along the top, back to the very cairn we’d been at about 45mins previously. We couldn’t help but laugh.
We walked back down the same way we came. We’d done five mountains and four waterfalls in two days, plus spent an extended period being lost on a hike on Friday; needless to say, the Subway we eventually found open at 10pm in Gloucester was the most well-earned “dinner” I’ve had in a long time.
Lesson learnt: trust Ordnance Survey (and your navigation skills) more than Google Maps.