{"id":8472,"date":"2024-07-30T21:39:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=8472"},"modified":"2024-08-20T08:10:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T07:10:34","slug":"mid-fing-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/mid-fing-wales\/","title":{"rendered":"Mid F***ing Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Off to mid-Wales last Saturday, eventually arriving at New Radnor – AKA Maesyfed – about 2PM. Not a location I’d visited before, but one which held three Hewitts<\/a> in close proximity to one another, and what looked like a nice run on my now-recovering Spine legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Route: Up the right-hand side of the valley through the fly-infested bracken until you get high enough for the breeze to blow the infernal things away.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was hot and muggy in the valleys, which appear to be called ‘Dingles’ in this part of the world, but nice and fresh up top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
I’ve no idea what this is about, but I can’t argue with its geographical accuracy.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I took a clockwise loop over Great Rhos, Black Mixen and Bache Hill, skirting an MOD range in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sheep excluded from Bache Hill, where all kinds of native flora are springing up.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Bache Hill trig point, with Black Mixen mast visible and Great Rhos somewhere behind the skyline.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This place really is the boundary between the flatter stuff and the proper hills.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was a quite a lot of pathless wandering, or vaguely following sheep trods, but on the descent back towards the village I started to feel like my old running self, which was nice. It didn’t last long because I had to navigate a variety of disused and overgrown rights of way, but the brief glimpse I had was quite satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On reaching the van I drove another 20 minutes westwards, and eventually pulled up at Elan Oaks, the campsite known from Dragon’s Back recces and the Trans-Cambrian<\/a>. Sunday dawned cloudy and a bit chilly, but I grabbed an early start to bag the summit of Gorllwyn on the bike via a bridleway to the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Still not great weather by the time I reach the reservoir bridge.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After about 25 minutes of road work I started back-tracking a familiar route, before then spending a few minutes searching for the start of the bridleway I was aiming for. It was a little overgrown and not very well-used, and things deteriorated as I climbed a steep field with no obvious signs of previous traffic. At the top of the field I was presented with a five-bar gate flanked by a ludicrous amount of chest-high bracken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The light is lovely, but the access is appalling.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The map suggested there were another four such boundaries on the way to the summit, and after the vegetation-bashing of the previous day on foot I was in no mood to repeat the exercise on two wheels. I therefore beat a hasty retreat and decided to attack Gorllwyn from the west instead. This necessitated a bit more urgency to ensure I completed the extended route before I had to remove the van from the campsite, so I pushed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The route took me first up a valley I’d not been up since a very enjoyable Day 4 of Dragon’s Back with Darren, and the reminiscing was a nice distraction from the fairly awful hike-a-bike that the route presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pausing to look back at where I’ve just ridden<\/s> pushed up.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The awful hike-a-bike continued as I turned east, pushing both because the ground was boggy and because I was now on a footpath rather than a bridleway. After two horrendous kilometres I reached a very nice west top followed by a very pleasant summit, both incongruous in their less exciting surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Summit. Bike. Inversion. What more could you want?
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The foggy start to the day in Elan had by this point revealed itself as an inversion, which lifted my spirits somewhat. With the summit ticked I reversed my route (a bit less intolerable, particularly because I knew that all proximate Hewitts were now ticked and I needn’t return!), slogging my guts out to squeeze in a descent of the tiny but fun red trail at Nantgwyllt<\/a> on the way back. Then it was a rapid shower and out of the campsite in a homeward direction with one minute to spare. Hewitts ticket and hard work put in, hurrah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Off to mid-Wales last Saturday, eventually arriving at New Radnor – not a location I’d visited before, but one which held three Hewitts in close proximity to one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1429,420,1428,434],"class_list":["post-8472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-elan","tag-fell-running","tag-hewitts","tag-mtb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}