Sep 8 - 11
How green was my valley
Wednesday, the day to move sites. We had heard or read somewhere that there was a good farm shop quite close to the site, so we headed there for some provisions (and coffee/hot chocolate of course!). A red teapot was also purchased and John almost bought a cap, right size, wrong colour. We stopped off at Eardisley, village number four, to have a wander along the main street and to poke our nose inside the church to see its 12th century font.
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| Eardisley |
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| Eardisley Church... |
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| ...and font |
More local friendliness
came our way – a gentleman asked if we realised the road was being closed
imminently for resurfacing – and so we beat a hasty retreat to the van. And as we drove away, we did indeed see many
contractor’s vehicles heading into the village.
Lucky escape!
Kington should have been our final port (village) of call,
but we didn’t find anywhere to park so continued on our way. In our path was a single decker bus with
hazards flashing, which we assumed had broken down, but a policeman appeared
out of nowhere to explain that a wide load (turbines) was travelling in the
opposite direction and we needed to wait until it had pulled into a field up
ahead. His five minute estimate was rather
optimistic but then we were on our way again, looking for somewhere to stop for
lunch. We found a picnic spot off the
A44 just beyond New Radnor and then drove on to the Wyeside site at Rhayader.
First impressions of this site were good; open, level,
well-maintained, good facilities, with red kites flying overhead. Just a shame the good weather was about to come
to an end. The site is just a six minute
walk from the town so we paid a quick visit to get our bearings
As forecast, there was some heavy rain on Wednesday evening
and first thing on Thursday, but then it dried up so we spent a couple of hours
on the riverside walks by the Wye. We
had lunch at the van, while the heavens opened, then pottered about during the
brighter afternoon. That is unfair to
John who, as well as doing the usual “blue” jobs, spent a bit of time with a
couple on the pitch next door but one.
They were in a hired a van conversion and were having trouble with their
gas supply and TV aerial. A bit of
research on my part found a nice pub just outside the town centre, The Triangle
Inn, where we were able to book a table for an early dinner. It was a temporary menu due to staff
shortages, but we both found something to our liking and enjoyed our
meals. There was quite a bit of
distraction from two little boys aged about four and two who were with their
Mum, two other young ladies (aunties?) and Grandma. John commented that “at least they’re not
wasps!” but my response was that at least you can swat wasps! It was dry on the way to the pub, but oh boy,
did we get wet on the way back!
Inevitably the rain stopped almost as soon as we got inside the
van. Grrrrr…..
Friday’s forecast was a bit mixed, but we headed off in the
van to Gilfach Nature Reserve, just two miles up the A470. There was time for a short walk before lunch
part way up Wyloer Hill, from which we had some lovely views across the Marteg
Valley. After lunch we were just about
to set off on one of the suggested walks when a couple stopped by to say
hello. They also had an Autotrail V-Line
like ours and wondered if we were part of the V-Line Facebook Group. Apparently it is a great source of
information. The male half of the couple
has made countless modifications to their van, some of which sounded worth implementing. Over to you, John!
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| The Marteg Valley |
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| Falls on the Afon Marteg |
We opted to walk the Marteg Valley Nature Trail, half of which follows the River Marteg. Sadly we didn’t see any Dippers from the hide, but John stopped to photograph a small waterfall and at the mid point there is an ancient farmhouse. The byre has been turned into a display area, which was quite interesting. The walk then took us back along the other side of the river, higher up, through woodland, finally following the track bed of the old Cambrian Railways Mid Wales Line. All very pleasant, and nothing more than a few spots of rain.
The purpose of the stay at Rhayader was to cycle along the reservoirs of the Elan Valley and Saturday’s forecast had always looked best for that. We drove to the visitor centre, where there is plenty of parking even for motorhomes (£2.50 all day) and then watched an informative film and had a look around the display panels in the shop area, before completing a 30 minute circular walk including a strenuous climb to the top of the first of the four dams.
While I prepared lunch, John got the cycles
off the back of the van and ready to go.
From the car park there is a steady incline towards the second dam. This part of the trail is tarmacked. After that it becomes ground chippings, which
was a bit more taxing. The trail runs to
the east of the reservoirs all the way to the fourth dam, a total of 8
miles. However, we could only get as far
as the third dam (about 5 miles), as there had been a landslide so you had to
divert onto the road. Anyway that was as far as our time would allow. We were surprised by how low the water level
was in the second reservoir and disappointed not to see water cascading over
any of the dams, as depicted in the film we had seen.
John and I agreed that it would be good to come back to
this area. We could have explored the
Elan Valley a bit more, paid a visit to the red kite feeding station at Gigrin
Farm and our neighbours at Wyeside said they had had an interesting visit to
the Bryntail Lead Mine near Llanidloes, to the north of Rhayader. They also sang the praises of its café! And there are walks galore. A little bit further away is the Vale of
Rheidol Railway from Aberystwyth to Devils Bridge which could be a second
stopover. We bought a book of walks at
the visitor centre shop so let’s hope we do come back to use it.
