Beacons Way, Day 1

The Grand Hotel, Swansea.

A rather more serious adventure this week.  Taking advantage of the two bank holidays, I've come to Wales to spend the week hiking the Brecon Beacons.  The Beacons Way itself is a 100 mile route through the national park, I've added a bit extra so I start in Swansea and finish in Newport, plus a detour or two to pubs, for a total of 170 miles or so.  Hopefully I can manage it in 9 days...

Last night went well enough, though the train out of London was horribly crowded.  I got to the Grand Hotel in time to catch the last hour of a live band - seems there was a wedding reception.  Lots of drunken grannies are dancing with surprising energy... and why not.

A well-used footpath... not.

Morning arrives, and after a fine Welsh breakfast (lava bread!) I head out, first hike with full pack this year.  And for the first time ever, I have poles, which seem pretty useful, especially on the hills.  But to begin with the way is flat as I follow the river out of town, and keep by it for some miles.  It is rather scenic, particularly when I reach the Clydach Gorge.  It's time to climb now, steeply out of the gorge, and I'm on moorland, following roads Northeast.  Probably a fair bit more of this to come, with more gradient and fewer roads...
Some time after lunch I reach Ammanford, and grab a brief pint, mustn't tarry though as I have a few miles left, mostly off road.  This turns out to be bad, these paths show no sign of use, a lot of tramping through heavy growth and climbing fences follows.  And when I finally reach the Stag and Pheasant in Carmel, it is of course shut.  At least the B&B is open, but there's no food now... I, however, am prepared.  Bring on the sausage casserole!

Full of calorific goodness.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.