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Thread: Beautiful mystery

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    Master Wheeze's Avatar
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    Beautiful mystery

    Between the majestic summits of Snowdonia and the well trodden uplands of the Brecon beacons lies a huge tract of folded land, seldom visited and little raced upon apart from intrepid Dragons Backers. The Cambrian Mountains hide their glory from the casual passer by. They truly are a hinterland. And if you want to get a sense of what they feel like, watch the series of the same name. The programmes add up to a long form essay of love to this unique and mysterious environment. Deeply fabulous. How did I miss this first time around!

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    Don't tell too many people Wheeze.
    Visibility good except in Hill Fog

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    Hinterland is great, loads of farms and countryside we recognised and spent each show trying to remember where they were, not sure the show would do the tourist industry any great favours - was it ever not raining?

    A young lad has just arrived downstairs (soaked and bedraggled) for our B&B who is walking the Cambrian Way, chatting to him about the route he told me "It's all your fault I am doing this", he had read my report of it on the website and been inspired to do it himself.
    High praise and good luck to him, really great to see a youngster out taking on the best Welsh challenge .
    Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.

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    Great story Moley.
    Like you, I try to recognise the places on the show. I know most of the roads. Visited Aber the other day to pay homage....the prom is just as grim as on the programme!

    From our Dragons Back challenge, the flavour of that entire mid Wales section from Waen Oer to the Doethi valley was quite unique and memorable in a distinct way from the northern and southern sections. If you remember, I titled a photo of part of the route near Strata Florida as 'Deep in the Heart of Nowhere'!
    Simon Blease
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    Master molehill's Avatar
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    Happy days, mid Wales will always be special to some of us that know it.

    Our walking lad who is staying here tonight - we are currently drying all his clothes and putting some through the washing machine, my Missus has gone into "mothering mode" - is walking with a map and compass! Shock, horror, I didn't think youngsters even knew they existed anymore. Good on him.
    Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by molehill View Post
    Happy days, mid Wales will always be special to some of us that know it.

    Our walking lad who is staying here tonight - we are currently drying all his clothes and putting some through the washing machine, my Missus has gone into "mothering mode" - is walking with a map and compass! Shock, horror, I didn't think youngsters even knew they existed anymore. Good on him.
    Reminds me of one of my cycling holidays in my youth, when I never planned anything or booked accommodation in advance. I arrived in Newtown (Powys) on a day when the weather had been particularly Welsh, looking for a B&B. I saw one with a big "Vacancies" sign in the window, knocked on the door, but when the proprietor saw me standing there, dripping all over her doorstep, she insisted that she didn't have any vacancies.

    Fortunately I did find another B&B in the town with a more hospitable proprietor.
    In his lifetime he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen.
    Jorge Luis Borges

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    Marvelous deserted area. South of Pumlumon is great , East of Tregaron. On my quest to visit all the 2000ft hills of Wales I've visited the remote Drygarn Fawr with it's amazing cairns and then suffered on the struggle over to the obscure and very boggy Gorlwyn. Also visited Pen Y Garn (Bryn Garw) a very easy hill to climb.
    Off next week for a trip to visit the Black Mountains, hoping for good weather to visit 21 tops over 2000ft, based at a campsite near Abergavenny.

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    Yeah. That whole area around strata Florida is just...weird for want of a better adjective. Although the heights were not great, the land was just as exhausting to cross as Snowdonia or the beacons.

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    I love Wales and especially off the beaten track Wales but, Jesus, they do need to get their public footpaths updated on ordinance survey maps.

    Working out my own running routes on the hoof, I’ve recently experienced no end of completely overgrown bramble, gorse-tastic and boggy swamped footpaths (albeit totally understandable if nobody uses them), completely and utterly non-existent footpaths, footpaths blocked by barbed wire fences and/or locked gates and footpaths completely obliterated by forestry logging (with no signs to show alternative routes).

    To me that I guess all adds to the fun but, to a lot of people, it will lead to potentially quite a few scary moments and lost souls in the wilderness

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    Master molehill's Avatar
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    Unfortunately the big problem is lack of use, few people actually attempt to go off the beaten track in much of mid Wales and paths are overgrown and inpenetrable in a few weeks during summer. Also walkers who might be visiting an area will try a path once, find it overgrown and never try again. It is sad that most make no attempt to carry some clippers and keep them open.
    Missus her friend and I look after a few miles of paths around the village, quite a bit of work and I don't know another person in the village who does anything at all - they simply cannot be bothered to do anything for anyone else and walk on the road or forestry instead. It is a losing battle with many footpaths and few are prepared to put any effort locally into reversing the trend.

    Hate to sound so negative about it, but there are hundreds of miles of wonderfull routes in the countryside where only the brave venture and the rest avoid.
    Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.

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