The Green Man of the Woods

We've been here before  - Sugar Loaf  (Mynydd Pen-y-Fal) near Abergavenny that is.

The southernmost peak of the Black Mountains it's just shy of 2000 ft but we cheated by starting from the car park which is about half way up!







We chose a different way up from the last time though oak woodland and along the stream. It's been a bit wet over the last week or two and the watercourses and springs were busy relocating the water from the hill stops to the rivers in the valley bottoms.

The car park was busy but the woods were quiet - almost supernaturally so. There was no wind so other than the noises of the water rushing down the hill there was no sound - not even birds, and the stillness was absolute. It would be hard not to believe in the fairy folk in such a setting.

Close to the tree line the oaks were stunted and twisted into fabulous shapes. Many of the trees had faces  - here are just a few.

OK this one is lichen but the green man it definitely is!

More of a gargoyle than a green man perhaps  but the way he was waving his stick at us made us disinclined to linger too long.

Finally I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the purple alder catkins that lined the stream









And yes I did make it to the top - It was a hard slog but the views were worth it; even if the ravens at the peak were camera shy!

A Red Kite in the Morning

Another lovely day and I'm homesick so it is back to Wales - this time to Pen y Fal  or to give it its English name - the Sugar Loaf.

The name comes from the distinctive shape and it is very easy to recognise. It is officially a mountain at  1955ft so no doubt there then!






The lower slopes are wooded and there have been discoveries of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronzetools on a nearby site.

Now the lower slopes are colonised by acres of  wimberry plants ( bilberry). All in full bloom so  I think a return trip may well be on order to take advantage of the fruit. My grandmother used to make the most wonderful wimberry pies and it's been years since I had one.




It is a long but fairly gentle pull up. An excuse to stop and get the breath back was provided by the air show put on by three red kites. Such masters of flying they are, they make it look effortless. Periodically they would stoop down to the ground but we were unable to see if the plunge had been successful in catching some unfortunate small animal or bird.

We stopped for some lunch by the mouth of  a spring and enjoyed the sound of the running water and the company of a glorious black beetle. Quite magical and very welcome by then.Funny though how the only wasp on the entire mountain managed to find us....


The view from the top is breathtaking and made the effort of climbing well worthwhile. It was surprisingly busy up there- we were far from the only ones with the same idea today.

At one end of the sunnit is a outcrop of roacks - one local legend is that they represent  Cadair Arthur (Arthur's chair).  Rather oddly someone had seen fit to wedge a wooden cross into the rocks which seemed very out of place.





Coming down was a lot quicker than going up - even if we did take the scenic route up a couple more ridges and enjoyed several spectacular more views. The last mile or so was through some oak woodland before circling back to the car for a well earned rest.

When is a hill not a hill? That is the question....

Right after last week's wash out  Mynydd y Garth it was, come hell or high water!   Immortalised in the film  The Englishman who went up a Hill but came down a Mountain,  is it tall enough to be a mountain or is it a mere hill? 

This was our first view of it from the bridge in Taff Wells after having left the car near the railway station. I was now starting to have second thoughts about this as I'm not a great lover of climbing steep hills ( or mountains!) Still as it was my idea in the first place I wasn't getting out of it that easily.

Nearly 2 hours later and the top is in view. The actual trig point is on top of an early Bronze age burial mound  (estimated at 2000BCE) which is considered to be the source of the tale and is officially 1007ft so - yes a mountain!

The burial mound is getting badly damaged by the number of visitors it gets and there were 3 or 4 mountain bikers cycling over it when we arrived.  A deep gouge ( path)  worn into the side bears mute witness to the stream of visitors. There are a number of smaller circular mounds nearby but they are dwarfed by the main one.


The view from the top must be magnificent  on a clear day. We could just about make out the turrets of Castell Coch rising from the mist, along with the second Severn crossing and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

We took another route down - much steeper and very badly eroded in places  but the views were magnificent. The path took us down into that pine forest before we ended up back at the car in Taff Wells.

The total route was about 5 miles but it was heavy going in places. Welsh hillsides are often boggy and this one was no exception. It never fails to amaze me just how much water can accumulate on top of a hill when you would expect it to find its way down. Hopping from one tussock to another gets old very quickly and as for the stile in the middle of a stream....

The lower slopes on the steeper side were much better drained with this being one little rivulet that crossed our path.