Gwayre Fawr - Bal Mawr Ridge

We met at the Blaen-y-cwm car park in the Mynydd Du Forest, which is in the Black Mountains. The ten walkers felt the cold of the wind as we got out of the cars, we were not used to it after the recent hot spell. Most immediately put on an extra layer, I didn't have an extra warm layer as I had left it out when I packed my rucksack in the morning as I dithered over whether to take it or not. I knew I would be all right once we got going.

The beginning of the walk followed the road alongside the Grwyne Fawr River to the dam wall of the reservoir. Along the way we spotted a dipper flying past us, and also disturbed a heron which flew upstream a couple of times - just keeping ahead of us - before flying higher up onto the steep sided hill to our right.

At the dam wall we walked up the zigzag path and had our morning break overlooking the reservoir. At this time the low clouds above us were increasingly getting darker and we were starting to think we might have some rain on this walk.

After we had finished our break we carried walking by the side of the reservoir on our way to Rhos Dirion the highest point of our walk today standing at 713m. Its just part of the general moor we were walking towards. As we approached Rhos Dirion you could clearly see how much damage motorbikes are have on this part of the Black Mountains. Luckily for us the dry summer meant that the normally boggy ground around us was dry. Overhead we could now hear and see the gliders from the nearby Gliding club soaring over us. From the trig point we turned south east to walk the long ridge to Bal-Mawr. Before that we stopped to admire the contrasting views to our north of field systems and rolling hills while in all other directions it was the mountains of the Brecon Beacons Nation Park that we could see.

There was a bit of disagreement within the group about when we should have lunch some were infavour of an early lunch while the majority wanted to carry on walking as it was a long walk and we hadn't reached the half way point yet.

As we walked the ridge towards Bal-Mawr we came upon Border Stones - looking for all the world very much like gravestones - laying flat on the ground. The views were great, you could see all the way down to the Severn Estuary.

We finally spotted the Blacksmith's Anvil stone in the ground, its very small, no wonder we have missed it previously. I was having problems with my camera, so not many pictures to choose from. The light seemed very indistinct and the camera was having problems focusing, damn auto-focus, must learn to shoot pictures without it.

The ridge leading up to the disused Chwarel y Fan Quarry looks higher than Rhos Dirion because it's a proper ridge not a broad track. On we trekked to Bal-Mawr with the wind at our back and sun on our faces enjoying the views. From Bal-Mawr we dropped down to the pile of stones where we would leave this path and make our way back to Mynydd Du forest. On the footpath running parallel with the forest we spotted tadpoles in a muddy pool.

We now had to go through some fields before entering the forestry, unfortunately they were full of very tall bracken with no discernable footpath to be seen. We kept to the footpath that was above the bracken and the path was clear till we came to a sheepfold and entered the field here. We made our way gingerly through the bracken as we ended up walking on what seemed like an old boundary wall before we found the stile to enter the forestry. From this path it was a short walk back to the cars.

We have walked this route before but in reverse to today's route and I must say that it is a much better walk the way it was done today.