20th June 2011

This weekend my husband and I went back to Wales and stayed in the Castle Hotel, Merthyr Tydfil. The trip was an enjoyable and enlightening experience, made more memorable by the fact that on the Saturday morning a naked man tried to reverse out of the window opposite (on the second floor!) and appeared to be attempting suicide... Fortunately he wasn't, and the reasons for his strange behaviour are beyond my imagination and, fortunately, outside my comprehension.

The purpose of the trip was to go walking, which we did in some variable weather. However we had the clothes for the job so rain, wind and squelchy ground didn't matter. The only bit of kit that let me down was my Gri-Sport boots, which let in rather a lot of water. However this could be due to lack of maintenance on my part, and I still have to commend boots which have been properly used and abused and have never given me one blister!

We walked 11 miles on Saturday (altitude climbed was 2,400 ft) and climbed Fan Frynach via a Roman Road and some lovely valleys which we have eye-balled as future camping spots. On Sunday we went for an "easy" waterfall walk which was supposed to be less strenuous than Saturday's experience! It was slippery, great fun, 9.7 miles, and the altitude we finally climbed was a whopping 4,400 ft according to Andrew's GPS. We walked under a waterfall called Sgwd yr Elra and got pretty wet. It was rather good doing the waterfall walk after so much rain, as the sounds and sights of the water were impressive from start to finish.

Altogether Sunday was a rather long day, and by the time I had driven back to Wiltshire I was knackered. But a change is as good as a break, as someone said. We are going to return to south Wales for a weekend in July, and both agreed that Merthyr is very interesting but perhaps we will stay somewhere else next time. So Andrew is looking at bothies, bunkhouses etc for us in the Ystradfellte region.

This final picture shows the corn fields near home.