11th – 13th November 2011 , Llanddeusant, Wales
Present:Keyna, Sue, Tom, Maggie, Paula, Andy, Debs, James, Steve, Jo, Martin, Alan & Claire
Location: Llanddeusant YHA, Wales
We stayed in the Llanddeusant YHA -we rented the whole complex out. There was a lovely open fire we had going each night.
Everyone arrived by 10pm Friday night and Alan was in charge of the music as usual – with his cassette tapes. No-one complained. He even played The Rose by Bett Midler to Keyna’s delight. Shows how old she is.
The walk on Saturday was long and a bit tussocky and we went high so it was cold. Up past Llyn y Fan fach, onto the ridge Bannau Sir Gaer to the roundhouse at Fan Brycheiniog, overlooking Llyn y Fan Fawr, down to the shake holes and back in a loop to the hostel. The weather was awesome though with blue skies so we navigated by sight. There were some dodgy river crossings. Sue managed most of them fine but fell in one – up to her breasts basically – not to put too fine a point on it. Anyway, she started shivering uncontrollably and we quickly stripped her off and redressed her in other people’s warm clothes and socks. After about 20 minutes we were on our way again and no-one else did anything dangerous that day.
That night Jo made a brilliant nosh up – good old bangers and mash with huge mounds of healthy vegetables. Thanks Jo !!! We love your dinners.
It was Sue’s 50th birthday so there was cake & more cake and merriment. Thanks for coming out with the club for your birthday Sue !! Made a party excuse for all of us.
Sunday saw us all do the famous Welsh waterfall walk, starting from Pontneddfechan. There were a good 5 large waterfalls, 3 or 4 brilliant cascades and one mother of a beast waterfall (Sgwd yr Eira) that we all walked underneath. We had to don all our wet weather gear (except Tom who stripped off) but it really was a unique opportunity for a great experience in south Wales. It was basically a big circuit – up one river valley, across the farmland and back down another river valley. Some really spectacular sights.
Thanks to Claire for leading both of these great walks !!
Author: Keyna
