Beacons Way, day 1: Abergavenny to Llanthony

I’ve had Ffordd y Bannau, the Beacons Way, in my sights for years.  I bought the guide written by John Sansom, the deviser of the Way, and Arwel Michael, but it lay on the shelf unused for a decade or more till now.  The reason I hesitated is that, as a 100-mile path across almost the whole length of Bannau Brycheiniog, it can be logistically difficult, for transport, accommodation and food.

This month I decided that the time had come to make a start, walking solo.  The original forecast was for fine weather, but it’s gradually deteriorated to rain and even storms.  Still, I’m not going to be put off.  I make an early start on the first day from the centre of Abergavenny.  Whatever the forecast, today the weather’s a long-distance walker’s dream: warm but not hot, a gentle breeze, good visibility and dry underfoot.

Abergavenny nestles between steep hills, but most of them are at some distance from the town, so the walk gets off to a gentle start, around 9:30, along a quiet back road leading towards Skenfrith, past Tredilion Park, an Arts and Crafts mansion used for weddings and parties.  Next, the path crosses a golf course with views west to Mynydd Pen-y-fâl (Sugar Loaf).  Each time I think I’m finished with it, another fairway appears, each one inhabited by a different set of golfers, until I nearly despair of ever getting past them.  I used to think that golfers hold negative feelings towards walkers because we get in their way, or because they believe we’re really no better than trespassers.  It could be, though, that many simply don’t want strangers to see how bad they are at their chosen sport.  Certainly quite a few of today’s golfers could fairly be called ‘hackers’.

I emerge on to a lane with houses, before turning on to a path north across fields towards the peak of Ysgyryd Fawr (Skirrid Fawr).  A passing postman warns me the path ahead is difficult, but it doesn’t hold any horrors, and soon I’m in the car park for hill visitors.  Now comes the first challenge, a steep climb up Skirrid through Caer Wood, owned by the National Trust.  A Beacons Way bench marks the start, and tells me how many miles there are to Bethlehem.  I’m not used to carrying a full rucksack – Celtic Trails take the heavy loads when C. and I do long walks together – and it takes a while to find a rhythm.  At last the woods cease and the final climb to the plateau is on open land.

Along the ridge, with long views to west and east and a Google Earth-like plan of Abergavenny below, I catch up with a man who turns out to be an ornithologist. He explains he’s trying to see exactly what kind of pipit is bouncing along ahead of us.  I don’t make his task any easier by walking in front of him and dislodging the mysterious brown bird from where it’s sitting.  Towards the northern summit a couple of youngish women arrive within a few minutes of each other.  They stride seriously along with their dogs, give the trig point a brief touch, and immediately turn round in the direction they’ve just come from.  Scaling Skirrid is their equivalent of a gym workout. A few taciturn men are scattered around the summit: the birdwatcher, a younger man earnestly map-reading, and two older, weather-beaten friends sitting in low canvas seats, silently scrutinising the landscape with binoculars.

After a snack I pitch my apple core into the bracken and take the diagonal path down the north-east side of the hill.  Failing for once to consult the OS app, I go astray and take the wrong path.  It doesn’t matter, and after a while I’m back on track, walking past a farm with the largest corrugated iron shed I’ve ever seen, a virtual painting of every possible shade of rust.  Then comes Llanfihangel Court, a magnificent, but largely invisible house dating to the sixteenth century: on the path you pass its huge wooden barn, its colossal buttressed brick retaining wall, and an elegant seventeenth century stable block.  Immense ancient trees stand in a line nearby, most skeletally white and long dead (are they chestnuts?).

A worse challenge than Skirrid now awaits: crossing the A465, the horrendous bypass skirting the village of Llanfihangel Crucorney.  Traffic comes towards you at motorway speed, there’s no pedestrian crossing, and it takes fine judgement to know when to cross without being scythed down.  I’d planned to have a bite to eat in Wales’s (allegedly) oldest pub, the Skirrid Inn, but it’s full of American tourists ordering maximum food in a complex way.  I abandon the Inn and go next door to the garage shop, buy some sandwiches and drink, and take them to a bench in the churchyard.  From here I can see the afternoon’s hill challenge.

I leave the village, descend to the river Honddu, past Millbrook, a handsome seventeenth century house, and cross the bridge.  From here I don’t meet another person until late in the afternoon.  After a spell on the Longtown road, the path leads through fields up the side of Mynydd y Gader (Hatterrall Hill).  It’s a long but not a very steep climb, and half-way up it merges with the route of the Offa’s Dyke Path: the two paths are one until the descent to Llanthony.  This is familiar territory from when C and I walked Offa’s Dyke five years ago.  At one point there’s a lane, where I experiment with walking backwards to vary the pressure on foot and leg muscles.  Now there’s a choice of lanes ahead.  I remember us taking the right-hand one five years ago, and dismaying ourselves by descending instead of climbing, so this time I choose the other.   On the upper slopes, past a prehistoric hillfort, a grassy strip winds through the bracken to the ridge, where gorse and heather dominate.  Sheep and the occasional pony graze on the pathside, and larks rise up when disturbed, but there are no humans are in sight over two or three miles of ridge walking.

The path dips, and at the bottom I reach a crossroads.  On the right is the path to Longtown, on the English side of the border, which we descended when walking Offa’s Dyke.  I stop for a rest here and admire the view, as we did then: the fields of Herefordshire rise and fall gently as far as the eye can see to the east.  Then I take the other, Welsh path, to the left.  It falls diagonally across the slope, towards the Priory and the upper part of the Vale of Ewyas.  It’s a long, hard tramp.  That’s because the path is overwhelmed by the rampant bracken that’s a feature of this abnormal summer.  Head-high, it brushes across the body and, more seriously, hides the stony path, increasing the chances of slipping and twisting ankles.  For some reason I’m suddenly back in human territory.  Some walkers meet me coming up, and I can see other descending ahead of me.  I stop from time to time, to admire the satisfyingly sculptured U-shape glaciated valley below.

It’s taken quite a lot of concentration, but by 4:30 I’m on firm, level ground, at the back of Llanthony Priory.  My home for the night, the Priory Hotel, was built from the Priory’s stones – from my bedroom window I’ve a view of the ruins below – and its’s designed for walkers, with a rack of baskets containing electric boot warmers, a facility I’ve never met before.  Llanthony’s a tranquil place, once the car-drivers have all left, and in the evening sunlight I wander round the stones, and the village below.  I meet a man who’s lived in Llanthony all his life.  His grandfather, he says, rented the house he still lives in.  He used to farm, but nowadays tending animals is too complicated.  The Vale’s economy survives today on active tourists, especially walkers, horse riders and mountain bikers.

Other walkers are staying overnight, and over dinner, and breakfast in the morning, we talk of many things, all of them connected with long-distance walking: types and makes of footwear, Alfred Wainwright, how best to dry wet boots, the Pennine Way, and pilgrim routes in Europe.  It’s taken me many years, but at last I feel I can claim to be part of this community of committed walkers.