As I left the Dan-yr-Ogof campsite a light drizzle was falling. I was feeling somewhat guilty as no-one came around to collect payment for my night there, and there was no obvious place to pay. I had a vague feeling I should not have been there at all. My morning began with a short walk along the road passed a sign for another campsite and two pubs then through fields to a steep climb. The Beacons Way (which the Cambrian Way follows in places today) took a slanting, more gradual approach in climbing the ridge in front of me, but the Cambrian Way went straight up it, through the bracken, a rusty red at this time of year. Tired after a long day yesterday I stopped several times on this steep ascent. Perseverance paid off and I reached the cliff edge which the path follows for several kilometres. From the path there should have been good views across the surrounding countryside, views I had admired walking this route on a previous occasion, but today, beyond the rock outcrops marking the top of a steep drop it was just white cloud. I saw one walker packing up his tent, otherwise there were only sheep among the coarse grass, marked with various garish colours: red, blue and green.
Mist obscuring views from the top of the cliff I was walking along.
After a few more climbs I descended towards the village of Llandeusant, dropping below the mist. Close to the village the Cambrian Way went up a road marked "private", off which the trail went through a section overgrown with nettles. Apart from this the paths were pretty good today.
More gentle hills below cloud base after Llandeusant.
At Llandeusant the church was locked but I enjoyed my lunch sitting wedged in the porch. There were more hills to come although not as high as those I had already crossed, and the rain had stopped. My reward was coffee and a slice of (excellent) Victoria sponge in the visitors centre in Myddfai, a village famous for a medieval physician whose herbal remedies appeared in the Red Book of Hergest, apparently a famous ancient manuscript in Welsh. As I left the village I walked by a Non-Conformist chapel, its notices were in Welsh. It reminded me of the differences between the broad valley of Llandovery where I now was, with its farming background, and the English language area south of the Brecon Beacons with its coal and iron mining heritage. Until recent devolution of powers from the British parliament, it has been argued that Wales was never unified under a single leadership, the mountains, such as those I had just crossed, dividing communities.
Eventually mountains and moorland were replaced by hills of pastoral farmland and deciduous woods and ten hours after I started I walked into the market town of Llandovery and the Drovers Bed & Breakfast. With over 1300 metres of ascent (I normally consider 1000 metres a lot) and walking some 30 kilometres, I felt I deserved a shower, a rest and a meal of faggots and mash in the Castle Hotel.
Trail through woodland as I approached Llandovery.
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