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01/04/2011 - Hannah and I planned a short break to South-West Wales for a few reasons. The main one being to train for our upcoming Charity Challenge trip to Machu Picchu in Peru. However Hannah had won 2 nights’ accommodation at any Village hotel in the country so we decided to use it in Swansea and have a day hiking in nearby Brecon Beacons National Park. We drove what normally would be a stress free 3 hour drive to Swansea, but as a result of constant roadwork’s and accidents on the dreaded M4 it took us almost 6 hours to reach our hotel. When we arrived it wasn’t long before we fell asleep, the long drive alone was exhausting.
02/04/2011 – We were in no real rush this morning to get hiking but after getting ourselves ready and having breakfast downstairs in the hotel we set off towards the Brecon Beacons National Park. It took us over an hour to drive there and when we finally got there we spent quite a while driving around searching for a challenging walk to do. After driving through miles of stunning landscapes we parked the car at the trail head of one of
Brecon Beacons
The trail towards the Brecon Beacons the most popular walks over the 4 Beacons. It was a loop climbing and descending each Beacon, approximately 9 miles altogether. So we got our gear ready to test out and setoff, but it wasn’t long before we had lost the trail. It was our own fault we didn’t have a map or anything to go by, just a crummy drawn map on Hannah’s phone which she found on the internet. After walking in the wrong direction for 15 minutes we decided we were lost, turned around and found the trail again, we were on the right track.
The beginning of the walk was relatively easy, despite walking on rocks, we were both happy with the hiking gear we had chosen. When we reached the Beacons we had spectacular views across the Welsh country side, I didn’t realise we were so high above sea level. After a brief stop to take in the views we started on the steep uphill descent of the first Beacon, by now we had already been walking for a few hours. We eventually reached the top of one Beacon called Cribyn where the views just got better, truly stunning, it was a relatively clear
Brecon Beacons
Stunning views across the Welsh countrysude day and we could see for miles. As we sat at the top we looked over to the next Beacon, the highest Beacon called Pen y Fan, it was huge and we had to go down to go back up. We decided against it and instead make our way back to the car, that alone was going to take us a good few hours.
We finally made it back to the car after walking for a good 4 hours, not really much compared to what we would be doing in Peru in a couple weeks’ time. Before we made our way back to our hotel in Swansea we drove around to see a little more of the Brecon Beacons National Park. We stopped at a few interesting lookout points to take some photos, in particular of a massive old Roman aqueduct, something I really didn’t expect to see here. We arrived back at the hotel in the early evening and found a lovely little restaurant in town. It was tiring and hungry work walking through National Parks, we were starving. After a delicious meal we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep shortly after.
03/04/2011 - This
Brecon Beacons
More fantastic views of the Welsh countryside morning once we were ready we headed downstairs for some breakfast, then shortly after checked out of our hotel. We were heading back home today but beforehand decided to take a drive around Swansea to see if there was anything worth visiting. Unfortunately there really wasn’t anything particularly interesting, so by mid-morning we were on our way back home. Thankfully the drive was much smoother this time around, 3 hours later we were home.
Accommodation: Village Hotel - Swansea
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