June 18, 2008: Bwlch-y-Sarnau To Llanidloes

As I parted the curtains on the fifth day of our expedition there was no way to escape the dispiriting sight of rain falling in the valley outside; indeed the half-forested slopes of the hill opposite were obscured by low cloud – not exactly the best prospect for a day which required twelve strenuous miles of walking. Nevertheless we persevered in our preparations and sat down to breakfast at 8:00. Packed lunches were provided and we were just about to head for the car when I realized that I was not wearing my compass and whistle on the string around my neck. I crawled all over my room and deconstructed my pack in search of the missing object but it remained hidden: I never found it – or came up with any plausible explanation for its disappearance.

I wasn’t too worried about its loss today but it was unsettling not to have it. Moreover the rain was pelting down in earnest as we finally settled into Mrs. Wozencraft’s car for our return trip to Bwlch-y-Sarnau. We were deposited in front of the church at 9:20, already garbed in our rain gear, and ready for a long day’s slog. At the last minute I started to worry that perhaps we wouldn’t find the continuation of the GW – since we had arrived in this village on an improvised route – but after passing the church, the graveyard, the community center and a telephone kiosk we picked up our first reassuring fingerpost. I announced that I intended to count the number of prompts in the text (since there were so many today) and, indeed I had gotten up to five already, but Tosh objected to such a litany and I soon lost count anyway.

We followed a sunken track in a northerly direction and continued forward toward more forestry. Perrott had warned that felling might change this landscape too and he was certainly right in his predictions. The trees hereabouts were quite immature and the territory far more open than I had expected from the green swatch on the OS map. The forest road that we reached with the aid of useful waymark posts failed utterly to resemble some sort of turnoff in coniferland and just here there was no post to confirm the desired direction. The road we took to the north passed through a Battle of the Somme scene of devastation, not a tree left standing, and it was with some relief that we at last reached a stretch of tarmac that I could see on my map. Here too waymarking resumed.

The junction, just north of a spot called Nanteos on the OS map, was another one of those places that I had once included in my own imaginary GW planner – for I had discovered the existence of a Mid-Wales Hotel two miles to the southwest and I had once thought that this might make a useful accommodation way-stage. That possibility was long past and now all we had to do was walk a few paces in a southwesterly direction and then take another tarmac road to the northwest, one that climbed up beneath cottages at Waun. We followed this road for some distance, gradually reaching woodland on our right and beginning to climb.

Tosh spent some time examining an abandoned quarry face and then we left tarmac to rise quite steeply on a solid forestry road, continuing our northerly plod. There were no signs of motorcyclists at play on this stretch (as Perrott had warned there might be) but it took a while for our route to level off and to leave the trees behind. We now had to negotiate routes that linked a number of hillside farmsteads, including Trinnant. I took a picture of a colt nursing in an adjacent field and we continued on, sometimes on track, sometimes on tarmac, past Esgairfedw and on to Grach. We had been making fairly rapid progress for us, in spite of the resumption of up and down – covering four miles in a little over two hours. But things were about to become far more difficult.

As we were attempting to clear the buildings at Grach there was a somewhat ambiguous finger post pointing forward; unfortunately forward here could also have meant a much more prominent track heading uphill, and Tosh took this. But the direction, I could see, was all wrong and I called her back (just voice, no whistle) and suggested that perhaps we were meant to use an uneven shelf that headed north with the assistance of old walls and fences above Rhiw-felin. Waymark posts soon confirmed that this was right, and I was very happy to escape the rough fields (which failed to provide adequate footing for my sore legs) and reach solid track again.

A descent began, the trackway soon receiving a coating of tarmac. An old mangle had been painted with the name of our next destination, the farmstead at Cloesffynnnon, and I paused to take a shot of Tosh sitting in front of this; I took as many pictures on this rainy day as on any of the others.

We now had to climb back much of the elevation we had earlier descended, a real pain. After we had cleared the farmstead, Tosh, who had been agitating for a lunch stop for some time, selected the protection of some overhanging trees atop a grassy bank next to the roadside and we huddled under these, somewhat protected from the moisture, in order to eat our noontime meal. Tosh, with her sweet tooth, objected to the “fun-sized” Kit-Kat in her packed lunch.

We did not linger for long and soon returned to our roadway. At the top we veered off on an unpaved track and continued north, rising and falling, crossing a ford, passing some cottages and walking beneath an outbreak of wind farm on the hills to our right. Eventually we began a very steep descent on a track that twisted and turned and proved as difficult on the legs and the toes as any uphill section. The others were waiting for me at the bottom where, surprisingly, we were required to turn left (south), that is away from Llanidloes, our ultimate destination, to follow the stream as far as a footbridge.

Having crossed this we continued on a rough track and hopped a stile that admitted us to the foot of a steep grassy hillside. There was no path at all and yet we were expected to surmount this obstacle – and each of us attempted to do so in a different manner. Tosh, five years our senior (though she had forbidden me to mention her age to anyone), simply charged straight up. Margie attempted a flanking manoeuver along the margins of the field. I tried to cut little switchbacks on the steep surface but my calf muscles were soon screaming and there was no place even to stand still for a brief rest since the surface was so steep. Once I just had to throw myself down on the grass.

Eventually we all reached the top and another track, one that continued to climb steeply. There now occurred an incident that literally added insult to injury – for just as we reached tarmac again my head (whose protective covering of cap and rain hood restricted visibility) somehow became entangled in an overhanging hawthorn bush. I was scratched along the left side of my face and Tosh noticed quite a bloody tear in my left earlobe – one she patched with an absorbent piece of tissue.

We continued north on tarmac now and then on track as well, reaching a stile at the top of an open field – which we were invited to descend. Here we turned sharply left (again heading away from Llanidloes) to begin a somewhat desperate progress along pathways that linked rural farmsteads – often encountering wet patches and do-it-yourself fencing that offered no stiles. (We had to step over these.) Once we sat down on a bench for a brief rest.

My nose was buried in my book and I was struggling on my sore legs and, truth to tell, I have no mental picture of this terrain at all today. Tosh and Margie would wait for me to read the next set of instructions, then march off to wait for me at the next stile. There were several abrupt changes of direction but later I could never recall their order.

Eventually we descended a field to turn right with a low bank and after another bit of field climbing we reached tarmac again, at a house called Ashfield – following its access lane up to a ridgetop road  ­– where we pressed on to the hamlet of Newchapel and its (no longer new) chapel at a road junction. Here we turned left and continued downhill, still on tarmac, toward what appeared to be a caravan encampment. A car was pulling out and we said hello to its occupants but I don’t think we would have been so congenial had we realized that these chaps were leaving behind two nasty dogs, sheepdogs (one with one brown and one blue eye) who objected mightily to our crossing their field and snarled at our heels until we had climbed an escape stile at the bottom.

Once again we used a footbridge to cross a stream and once again we climbed upwards, circling a grassy hill and continuing to ascend with the help of gates and stiles. At the top we reached roadway again and Tosh wanted to know if we couldn’t just use this to complete our journey to Llanidloes. “Of course not,” I replied, having had to deflect many such inquiries in the recent past, but, as I turned the page in my guidebook, I realized that this time she was right – we had reached a sliver of tarmac that could now be followed all the way to the end of the walk. What a relief!

As we plodded along our valley road the rain lifted a bit too and there was little in the way of uphill to impede progress, just our absolute weariness. A woman in wellies was walking in the opposite direction and once a cyclist overook us but there were no vehicles until a van stopped opposite a suburban estate on the outskirts of Llanidloes – its occupants wanting to know if we had seen some twenty souls on bikes. We had not.

The road layout had changed a bit and Tosh paused to ask directions; soon we had crossed a road, left suburbia, passed over a highway bypass on a footbridge, descended next to the pink many-chimneyed Victorian railway station (alas no railway anymore) and, dodging the efforts of gas workmen in the road, made our entry into Llanidloes itself.

It was 5:30 and I suggested we might like to visit a pub (in this case the nearby Angel Hotel) before reporting to our b&b. This suggestion was accepted and we had a nice drink in a welcoming atmosphere; indeed we might have returned here for dinner but it was Wednesday and food was off, dear.

I had a lot of trouble resuming a standing position but we were soon making our way along Great Oak Street, sizing up other opportunities for food and shopping and reaching the old market hall of what was clearly a very interesting and picturesque place. We turned left here and a few steps later reported ourselves to the Severn View Guest House, where Mrs. Morgan greeted us with an urgent question – “Did you have trouble with a dog a few miles back? Your tour company should have warned you.”

We were clearly in an establishment of some substance and charm and there were three rooms so no one would have to share this time – though I found that climbing the stairs to reach our accommodation was now very difficult. Margie had the only bathtub and she invited me to use it, which I did – forgetting to bring my own towel and locking myself out of my room at the same time. Both of these problems were dealt with quickly by the efficient Bostonian and I had a long soak in some sort of herbal bath foam. My problem was that my legs were no so weak and sore (the left knee popped painfully every time I straightened it) that it was only with great difficulty that I was finally able to get out of the water.

In my own room I Deep-Heated myself, dressed, and extracted from my pack something that I had hoped I would not have to use, the walking stick that I had bought for Dorothy during one of her chemo-therapy sessions the previous year. I also found that I had, at last, a signal on my mobile phone and I made calls to Rob Taggart and David the dog-sitter.

We were given a rundown on local eateries by Mr. and Mrs. Morgan and chose the closest, The Mount Inn at the end of our street. The food wasn’t bad (I had the scampi) but it took over an hour to arrive and we were comatose by the time it did come. This had been without a doubt one of the most strenuous days in my walking career and I was quite happy to pull myself up the stairwell and to climb into my bed at the end of such an ordeal.

We skipped the next part of the route because of my leg problems (walking it the following year) but if you want to continue with the next stage as we walked it in 2008 you need:

Day 6: Glaslyn to Talbontdrain

If you want to continue north from Llanidloes itself you need:

Day 7:  Llanidloes to Clywedog Sailing Club