Walk on the Wet Side

I haven’t been to Wales very much, at least socially.  In the late 1980s I worked there on and off, but bar that I visited a well known holiday camp when I was about four or five and then a couple of years ago I hiked up Snowdon. 

When it rained. 

And rained.

And rained!

Snowdon Pig Route September 2011

Not deterred,  this weekend I accepted an invitation to join a friend at South Wales Caving Club in the Brecon Beacons.  On the understanding that I would only have to go underground if it was truly torrential and there was little point in staying above ground.  As it happens I may as well have gone underground for the day, though it started with promise, began to sink into the kind of greyness which damps out all surrounding with no respite from the rain.

This is the route taken. (Start SN842 164) I believe there are some dramatic waterfalls and drops down to rivers over an escarpment, Fan Hir.   The edge was there. 

Fan Hir

But what lay beyond was left entirely to my imagination.   At ‘lovely lake’, Llyn Fan Fawr, water and sky were difficult to define as we walked an inch or two of the Beacons Way.

Llyn Fan Fawr

Positive points?  Well, no one else was there, bar a couple of Welsh ponies, and it was a great opportunity to practice navigating with a compass in ‘low vis’.

But don’t let my experience put you off totally.   It certainly was not bad enough to drive me underground.  Though the Caving Club was an extremely hospitable place to stay, videos, designed to encourage and were clearly an adrenalin buzz to some, felt like a horror film.  Squeezing through small holes with water gushing either side.  Just not for me. 

A better view

Fortunately for the Brecon Beacons I did arrive on the Friday evening when there was a beautiful sunset and the exposed rock which is responsible for the ‘magnificent’ caves in the area,

were bathed in soft pink, giving false hope of the day to follow.

Walk was 11.65k, when leaving a car at the end.  Brecon Beacons park is covered by OS Landranger 12 and 13. All sunny and dull pics taken with my fuji fx10