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Like everyone else, we made the most of the Bank Holiday weekend and headed out of London. We were really keen to re-visit Wales as we loved it so much last time.
The Brecon Beacons is a National Park packed with miles and miles of walking. The terrain varies from beautiful farmland, steep mountains, woods, open moors, rivers and waterfalls.

Our first stop was the quirky village of Hay-on-Wye. The ‘second hand book capital of the world’ - what a great place! A book lovers dream with about 40 bookshops. Even the green underneath the castle was covered in book shelves. We could have stayed all day but we would never got any walking done!

We stayed in an awesome little B&B near the old bridge in Crickhowell. After a snack we set off to do a 3 hour route around Table Top Mountain. Considering the gradient of some sections, we did the walk very quickly. The first ten minutes was the biggest killer as our bodies screamed out at being made to walk uphill at pace. The highlight was seeing a little herd of (Welsh Mountain?) ponies grazing near the track. There were a few foals that looked absolutely tiny. They stared at us for awhile before moving off to safety.

After a ridiculously big breakfast the next day, we set off to find the start of the waterfalls loop near Ystradfellte. We decided against the 6.4km loop of the falls and choose to add on a 15.3 km route that included a few more falls and an area of moor land. This was a fantastic walk that covered so many different types of terrain and had a pub conveniently located at the half way point!

Things were going well until we missed a vital fork on the track and headed off in the wrong direction uphill for a few kilometres! We ended up trying to cross a bramble filled gully but finally realised that we would get ripped to shreds by the thorns. After a few (slightly heated!) moments we decided we needed to back-track to get back on route. This detour added more than an hour onto our walk but taught us a lesson to pay more attention to our map!

The highlight of the walk had to be Sgwd yr Eira (Waterfall of the Snow) that is so undercut that you can walk behind it. Unfortunately we forgot our tripod so it was difficult balancing the camera to get the slow shutter speed shots. A few of them turned out okay though.

The next day we headed back to London feeling a bit sore but very energised!

The Brecon Beacons were everything we hoped they would be. Absolutely beautiful with an endless number of walks. We’ll certainly be back for more.

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