Sunday 2 August 2009 - A Walk Across Wales - Day 2 - Llanidloes to Soft and Hard Camp (A Wild Camp below Plynlimon - see previous posting)

We took advantage of the weather and enjoyed a rare 'day without rain' for the walk to Plynlimon and beyond.

It started along the gentle paths of the Severn Way and Glyndwr's Way. Gentle, but sometimes undulating and navigationally interesting. Slow going.

Mewing buzzards again kept us company. They dominated the skies above the rolling farmland of mid Wales.

A highlight of today's walk was the massive dam at Llyn Clywedog (pictured), below which we paused for a lengthy break after a steep descent.

Before that, a swarm of hikers had appeared, walking in the other direction. "You'll have to say that twenty times" joked the first. We didn't mind a few 'Good mornings' - these were the only 'proper' walkers we have seen so far.

Beyond the dam came a really quite scary path. I'm sure Gayle will have described it in graphic detail, but it seemed to me that someone had devised this path through deep bracken at the top of a cliff that didn't really look like a cliff because it had a wide lip of the bracken that festooned its face. You couldn't really see the path, so we had to feel our way along hoping not to place our feet over the edge, which looked all the more horrific when we viewed it a few minutes later from the other side of the ravine.

The difficulties of the path eased, but at Brithdir we were engulfed by a swarm of small dogs, one of which, Max, was intent on coming for a walk with us. He was eventually rescued by his owner, but I think Mick would have taken him home, given the chance!

A short road walk in forest scenery saw us lunching on a picnic table at Hafren picnic site. It was fine at first, as we brewed up and fed ourselves on this sunny Sunday lunchtime. Then a man with a lawn mower appeared and grew ever closer to our bench as he noisily mowed the picnic area, homing in on the various picnickers in ever decreasing circles before forcing them away from their lunches. Rather an odd time to be doing this, we thought.

Plynlimon was easy in comparison with earlier paths, a lovely route up by the infant River Wye. It was a bit hard going for 2 km on a bearing up to the summit ridge from the top edge of the forest, though.

From the barren summit we enjoyed good views of the coast despite the black clouds that were hurrying towards us, before dropping down to this heathery spot, where I have a soft but hardly flat pitch in some deep grass, whereas Mick and Gayle have chosen a flat spot on some grassy hard core.

I then settled down in a bid to further reduce tomorrow's pack size - on this short trip I've brought a few heavy, bulky, items that have been in the backpacking larder for far too long. I'm pleased to report that most have now gone - here's this evening's instalment:

Tea
Vegetable soup
Chow mein with crispy noodles
Strawberry angel delight
Hot Chocolate Fudge

Delicious - in a little tent after a long day.

Goodnight.

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