The day started well with a cup of tea thanks to the Elan Valley Trust and its provision of a well equipped bothy. Saying goodbye to the two cyclists who also camped with me on the grass beside the old building, I headed out over the moors. Once again paths came and went and I stumbled through wet tussocks of reeds, soggy moss and hidden holes full of muddy water. On the plus side there were views over remote lakes. My route took me over a dam holding back one of these pools, it was apparently constructed of earth held in place by dry stone walling and now covered by grass. I passed through a small village with a red telephone box with a defibrillator rather than a phone before climbing up to a forest. Many of the trees had been felled. A sign suggested that it was to stop the spread of a fungus attacking larch trees. I met a gentleman who lived nearby, walking with his wife and their dog, the first people walking on the trail I had seen since Llandovery. The area is very empty and remote with few visitors and he said that this was a good thing and was glad the roads were so poor as it discouraged people from driving into the area. He had a poor view of the area's forestry work describing how back in the 1950s the old oak trees were torn up and replaced with plantations of sika spruce. On reaching a car park at the forest edge, an isolated arch stood before me, apparently to celebrate George III's Jubilee.
Forest track.
Jubilee Arch.
Arriving at Pontarfynach, better known as Devil's Bridge, I repaired for lunch to the Hafod hotel, watching the steady stream of visitors, many of them bikers who appear to enjoy roaring around the area's winding roads on their Harley Davidsons and Triumphs. For four pounds I was able to walk down to see the eponymous bridge. Actually four bridges built on top of each other, the lowest built by the Devil himself. The fee included walking down rough, steep steps into a deep valley to see the waterfalls. Impressive, as the tea coloured water drops in several cascades down a considerable height. Although the Cambrian Way passes several waterfalls these are undoubtedly the best. The only downside is after walking down many steps to see them, you have to climb up many more steps to get back to the road, there are 675 steps in all!
Devil's bridge waterfalls.
Continuing on my walk, after a detour into a chocolate shop (lovely, if expensive, chocolate covered orange slices), I again descended into the valley a little further down, following the narrow gauge tourist railway for a while. A steep climb up the other side followed, not so easy after having a relatively large lunch (I was tempted by the spiced apple cake for dessert). I had been walking through old oak woodland. Much of this had been replaced with plantations but the Woodland trust was trying to reverse this, killing the "exotic", foreign species like sika spruce to encourage more native trees and the wildlife associated with them. I walked through an old lead mining area, passed an early Methodist chapel, old cottages used by the miners, a red telephone box with a real telephone (a rare sight) and then by some fenced off holes in the ground, which I assume were the mines. Earlier I had also seen the piles of reddish mine waste, still not reclaimed by vegetation.
Old mine workings.
Heather and ling in full bloom covered the higher slopes of the final section of moor on today's walk, the purple contrasting with rarer bursts of yellow gorse, although the lower ground was the same boggy reed beds. I reached the George Borrow hotel, named after a nineteen century writer who stayed here. Checking in I was asked to put on a mask and the tables in the dining room were separated by clear plastic sheets, they were evidently taking the Covid 19 precautions seriously.
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