Beacons Way, day 6: Craig y Nos to Llanddeusant

After a comfortable night in the Penycae Inn I opt for the full breakfast, on the theory that yesterday’s fatigue was caused by lack of calories, and make an early start in the spring sunshine.  Before the climbing starts there’s an hour-long ‘overture’ of flat walking.  I cross the Tawe and retrace my steps along last night’s path and minor road north.  Craig y Nos is invisible in the trees. 

My path rejoins the Way on the right bank of the river.  There are broadleaf trees on both sides, and loud early birdsong: I register a willow warbler, great tit, robin, wood pigeon, blackcap, song thrush, mistle thrush and even a greenshank.  It’s easy going underfoot.  Though officially a bridleway, the lack of shit on the route shows that few horses use it.  Across the valley I can see the much-quarried bulk of Cribarth.

The Way leaves this path, via a ‘heavy weight’ kissing gate, and crosses fields towards the hamlet of Callwen.  By the church it joins the main road, and there’s a short stretch of fast traffic to endure before arriving at Tafarn y Garreg, the starting point for this morning’s ascent.  To the north the sun strikes the sharp-angled hill of Cefn Cul, but I’m now heading north-west, straight up the slopes of the well-named Fan Hir.  (There’s an alternative, low-level version of the Way that skirts the bottom of the Fan, but no one on a fine day like this would be content with that.)

Once over the river and round the farmhouse called Tŷ Henry, I’m out on the open hill and start the hard climb.  A couple above of me are on the Cambrian Way, which always takes the severer option – they’re heading for the summit of the hill, Allt Fach – but my course is now more diagonal.  Fan Hir is the kingdom of the skylark, ‘scorner of the ground’.  Rarely have I come across so many in the same place, singing their endless arias high above, and scuttling up and away from the ground cover when disturbed.  They’re up here where almost all the lowland birds have dropped away, pouring their ‘strains of unpremeditated art’.

It’s a steady, long climb.  Crags start to appear to my right, and eventually I catch a glimpse, ahead and far below, of the corner of Llyn y Fan Fawr.  I remember bringing Jim Lloyd, my work exchange partner from Knoxville, along this route in the 1990s. He was astonished by this dramatic sight, so different from the landscape of his native Tennessee.

The top of Fan Hir, the only slightly chilly part of the day’s walk, announces the ‘bannau’, the summits of successive steep escarpments. The glory of the path is that it hugs the edges, giving you views of each scarp slope in turn falling rapidly away towards the north.  There are some strenuous ascents from summit to summit, including the first one, from Bwlch Giedd to Fan Brycheiniog, and I learn to take a pause before throwing myself at each in turn.  Fan Foel juts out from the line to the north, and having reached the end you have to double back and then descend to the pass of Bwlch Blaen-Twrch before tackling the next peak, Picws Du.  This col brings back another memory of more than 25 years ago – of reaching this point after an all-day traverse of the Black Mountain, starting from Cwmtwrch, across some of the wildest and boggiest parts of Bannau Brycheiniog.

On the top of Picws Du is a finely built circular stone shelter, complete with interior benches, as if set up for a philosophy seminar.  Not far away, the trig point has been decorated by the supporters of Yes Cymru, with the slogans ‘Yma o hyd’, ‘Cofiwch’ and ‘Cofiwch Eddie Butler’ (before his untimely death Eddie Butler was an eloquent advocate of independence for Wales).  A man greets me with ‘P’nhawn da!’, and we exchange words about our respective routes.  I’ve now crossed the invisible boundary into Carmarthenshire, and next comes the climax of the day’s walk, the ‘scooped out bowl’ of Llyn y Fan Fach. 

The path takes a grand circular tour of the lip of the bowl.  You can spend minutes staring at the slopes, with their horizontal rock ‘sandwiches’ at the top, and rows of grassier triangular splays below.  Today the lake’s dark and waveless.  At its far side is the small dam, built during the First World War, with labour provided by conscientious objectors, to create a reservoir.  This is a popular section of the Way, and several small groups and individuals are scattered along it.  Sound carries for long distances here, and you can hear conversations from a hundred metres away.

At the west end of the bowl I take a rest and have some lunch.  Two red kites dance in the air, right in front of me over the edge of the scarp, possibly in a mating display, their colours flashing bright in the sun.  Much further off, back in Breconshire, a paraglider shifts silently across the scarp.  I can see two groups of ‘DoEs’ coming up the path from the dam, tramping painfully slowly and toiling under heavy packs.  I restart, avoiding the path down to the dam to keep on a north course, a steady descent off the mountain for a couple of miles.  I meet yet another organised group of teenagers: one of them asks anxiously, ‘is there a lake near near here?’

It’s tempting to bounce and leap down the long grassy slope, though I’m aware that a careless miss-step could result in a sprained ankle.  At the bottom there’s a pastoral coda to the walk, a track through sunlit trees beside a stream falling into Afon Sawdde, and finally a gentle walk up along a lane, the river to my left, towards the hamlet of Llanddeusant.  I look inside the surprisingly large church there, with its barrel-vault ceiling, before settling myself on the grass outside the gate to wait for my lift home.  It’s not been a tiring day, despite the guidebook’s label ‘hard’.  Maybe the big breakfast was the key.