Wednesday 14th May 2025

This morning we had coffee and pastries at Coffee#1 in Brecon and picked up some BLT sandwiches while we were there for a picnic lunch. We were headed for Pen-y-Fan, the highest mountain in South Wales. When we arrived, there was a National Park Warden at the trailhead who let us know that they were doing helicopter airlifts to Carn Dhu so that part of the track was closed. This meant instead of taking the track up and over Carn Dhu we had to take the track that passes round the back to get to the summit of Pen-y-Fan.

The track follows a pretty steep uphill, but is very well made. The wind was blowing a gale and we almost got blown off as we came up through the dip between the two valleys as the wind was roaring up through the gap. I was a bit worried about what the top was going to be like, but it actually seemed less windy—maybe the hills were resulting in a bit of a wind tunnel. The views from the top were amazing. We sat down for a while on one side looking out. It was a bit like sitting and looking out at a wide expanse of ocean, being almost a meditative experience.

Almost back at the car park, we stopped beside a little waterfall to eat our lunch. The whole expedition did not take us that long, so once back at the car we decided to drive to Hay-on-Wye, also known as the book town. There a heap of different book shops, with new, used and genre shops lining the streets. The book shop that started it all is Richard Booths and it was huge. I wandered around and browsed. I found a copy “The Lathe of Heaven” which had been on my TBR for years and was not in our local libraries. I bought it as a little souvenir of my time here. We also browsed some vintage maps in the map shop and picked up a copy of “How to teach your dog Welsh” for the girls. We had an ice cream and wandered along the river before driving back to Brecon. Dinner was some yummy burgers with a view at Hills. G said his was the best burger he’s had in a long time. They were pretty good.

Total steps: 19,165