Tuesday 13th May

This morning I did my long run along the Brecon Canal. I did an out and back of just over 21K. The scenery was gorgeous. This was probably my favourite run of our trip, especially since I did not need to think about where I was going because the run started and ended at our accomodation and I couldn’t get lost if I just kept running alongside the canal. At one point the canal runs across a bridge over the river which was pretty cool. I don’t think I could holiday on a river boat—they travel slower than I run! I think they were even slower than me when I was on a walk break.

Afterwards it was food, shower and a 25 minute nap. We had tickets booked at the Big Pit Coal Mine for 1:30 pm which was a 40 minute drive away. Most of the drive was on good roads except one bit through a village with a very narrow bridge. You had to drive through two bollards before the bridge to make sure your vehicle was narrow enough to fit on the bridge.

The Big Pit Coal Mine is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Blaenhavon Industrial Landscape. The underground tour was led by a former coal miner (although from another mine) and was very interesting although it was very sad to hear about the children working down there. At one stage we turned off our lamps at a point where 5 y.o.s would have been stationed to open the doors for the ponies. It was absolutely black and I can’t imagine being a child down here in the dark for their twelve hour shifts. We also saw the stable for the Pit Ponies. They worked eight hour shifts, living underground for 50 weeks of the year with a two week holiday above ground in the summer.

After the mine tour we went to the audio/visual installation the shows the more modern mining techniques as well as the exhibition in the mine baths. The baths were built so that the men didn’t go home dirty to their homes.

After we’d finished checking everything out we drove across to the Blaenhaven Ironworks, another major site included in the UNESCO World Heritage designation. It is run by Cadw so we were able to use our Cadw explorer pass. There is a multimedia presentation in the smelting shed to help visualise how it ran. G found it pretty interesting because he subcontracts to Chinese foundries so he has spent a bit of time in modern foundries (we also had our own foundry in China for a few years).

Also on site are the workers cottages. They are furnished in the style of various periods from the 1840’s when they were built, until 1967 when the last tenants left. The row of workers cottages also included the company store, where the company would charge outrageous prices to the workers. It really was a time when workers were squeezed for everything. Afterwards we wandered around the town.

For dinner we drove to Felin Fach Griffin for a very fancy pub dinner. Great food and good wine.

Total Steps: 31,962