Friday, April 9: Wales Walking
If there is one thing about this trip that has been a major
shocker, it’s been the weather. We haven’t had rain since our first afternoon
here. The last couple of days have been really sunny and fairly warm. That’s
not what we expected at all! When we planned today as a hiking day, we expected
it to be wet, muddy, foggy, and chilly. Instead the day was dry and so was the
path, almost. After today's hike, though, I have an added admiration for the British hikers who take the rainy, cold weather in stride, because it would have been a much different experience for us.
We didn’t exactly rush out the door this morning. We went to
get groceries for lunch in an older part of the town we are near, Aberdare, and
I felt for once that we were in a real place where people really lived. There
were a number of resale shops, some discount stores, and a lot of very normal
people going about their daily routines. Not at all the posh atmosphere of
London or the quaintness of York, and it was kind of a nice change. By the time
we got the car pointed in the right direction, it was already noon. Today’s
destination was Brecon Beacons National Park, quite near where we are staying.
Brecon Beacons has tall hills, at least one of which is
named a mountain, though that seems a debatable designation. This isn’t
Yellowstone or Yosemite, but it has a unique charm of its own. The tall hills
are sometimes bare, sometimes covered in grass, and many are scattered with
sheep and horses—even some wild horses. The area was filled with coal mines
about a hundred years ago, and a few of them still remain. You can see remnants
of them in many places
.
First we drove up to a visitor center to get a bit more
information. The place was packed! Apparently this weather is attracting lots
of people. Then we decided to drive up to the highest point, Pen-y-fan. Seemed
like a good place to start. We plugged it into Google Maps on Brian’s phone,
and instantly we had a route to follow.
We drove to higher ground, and we passed one spot where cars
were parked up and down the small road. People were obviously excited to see
something there, but we couldn’t see anything on our park map to indicate what
the draw was. Shrugging our shoulders, we continued on, following the nice blue
line on the phone. At a certain point it told us to turn onto a side road, and
so we did. Perhaps you are already getting a hint of how this played out.
That side road was very narrow, and it continued to wind its
way upward. There were no other cars, and it was so narrow that if we met
another car, one of us would have to go in reverse for a long time before there
would be a good spot to turn around. We felt ever more certain that this was
some sort of service road, not meant for the casual visitor. When we had only
traveled about a third of the distance on that road that Google was calling
for, we decided to turn around and head back to the main road. As it turns out,
you don’t drive to Pen-y-fan. You hike. And all those people parked along the
road a ways back were heading out on what looks to be a 6-mile roundtrip hike
to the high point.
Google maps and smartphone directions have huge benefits and
equally huge drawbacks. We have a paper map of England, but sometimes it just
doesn’t give the assistance and detailed info that smartphone maps do. When
they are working. But if we didn’t have a paper map, we’d be in big trouble,
because there have been long sections of our drive during which we couldn’t
connect with anything. That’s when we realize that we haven’t got any real
directions to our destination—we might have an address for a hotel, but that
only gets you so far without a place to tap it into.
And as you drive through roundabout after roundabout, the
Welsh names start to blend together. These town names are not like any words we
are familiar with, so there is nothing to help us remember them! Lots of
consonants, and not quite enough English. The Welsh seem intent on keeping
their language alive, which makes for interesting and confusing signage,
because they always give the instructions in Welsh first, and then in English
(slow, give way, whatever). Admirable, but when you try to read a sign that is
whizzing by, you tend to only catch the first word or two!
The other drawback of Google maps is that I never know where
I really am. I mean, I know I am that blue dot on the phone map, but it takes a
concerted effort to zoom out and try to find myself in the bigger picture.
Especially in a big city like London, where apps can get you to the best Tube,
rail or bus connection, but you end up not knowing exactly what part of the
city you just visited.
Well, back to the national park. We stopped at a whisky
distillery to use their picnic tables for our lunch, which was only slightly
enhanced from the fumes wafting out of the building. Then we went toward the
area where there are a number of waterfalls. The funny thing is that the roads
that were clearly pointed out for visitors to use are just as narrow as the
service road we wandered up by accident.
We found a parking area, got on the trail, and started
walking. There are several caves on the river, where the water runs through,
fast and cold. We saw a few caves at the beginning of the walk. Not too far
away is the cave that was used for the batcave in the Batman movie, “The Dark
Knight.” Andrew is hoping we can somehow squeeze a visit to that cave into
tomorrow’s agenda.
The trail made us feel that we were in another world. Open
meadow on one side, the river on the other. The rocks and trees near the river
are covered in moss, softening their edges and creating the feeling of walking
through a fairyland. I’m sure it’s just a side effect of the higher river and
the frequent rain they usually experience. But if New Zealand holds the
stomping grounds for the giant trees called Ents in “The Lord of the Rings,”
then Wales holds the nursery for them. As you traverse alternately dry, flat
paths and wet, rocky ones, you hear regular bleats and bahs from the sheep
placidly munching on the other side of the fence.
Just when we, tired of picking our way through, were ready
to call it a day, we came to the big waterfall on our path, Sgwd Clun Glyn. It was gorgeous,
and people were walking around it at the top, on a shelf halfway down, and down
below. Young children were swimming in the icy waters downstream. It was
amazing. Then a mountain rescue ranger came striding down the path, looking for
someone who had called in because they’d had an injury on the path. Apparently
the coordinates given were inaccurate, and a whole team of rescuers were
searching. 
As we took our own turn walking around at the water’s edge
below the falls, a woman on the ledge slipped and fell pretty hard onto the
rock shelf she’d been standing on. She limped back to the side and was sitting
there in tears, and we wondered if she had broken a bone or something. After a
while we realized that a young man from her group was splashing around at the
bottom of the falls, and that the major disaster had not been her physical
pain, but that her cell phone had bounced on the rock shelf and plunged over
the falls. He found the phone in the swirling waters at the bottom, and a cheer
went up from her whole group when he gave the thumbs up—it still worked.
Perhaps they were all afraid they’d never get out of the park without Google
maps. Who knows.
On the walk back, we could hear the mountain rescue
helicopter making a zigzag pattern, back and forth across the river, searching
for the injured person. When we got back to our car, an elderly couple we had
talked to at the beginning of the hike were still waiting for the rest of their
party to return, and the search proceedings were making them anxious. We
assured them that we had not seen any sign of injury on the portion we walked,
so they were likely fine.
We came back to the cottage tonight to make dinner and take
it easy. Tomorrow we are going to the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, where
the long-running TV show is set, so you know, have to be in tip top shape.
Should we ever get there, that is.
.jpg)