Cardiff Bay and the Cambrian Way

Saturday 13th July 2024

A couple of years ago I started to plan a long distance walk across Wales, but at the time I thought this was too ambitious for me to accomplish, so instead I did the Offa’s Dyke Path which takes a much easier route across Wales beside the border with England. Now, after doing the Southern Upland Way last year, I feel more confident in my ability to do a long, challenging trail and rather than coming up with my own route I decided to do a long distance trail that already exists across Wales called the Cambrian Way. This runs across the backbone of Wales over the highest mountains and is almost three hundred miles long taking three weeks. Undeterred, I booked three weeks off work and made preparations to begin, but then I had to take two days holiday away for other purposes, so to accomplish the Cambrian Way without those two days I split three days off from the rest of the trail. Therefore, in the middle of July, I set off for South Wales, but instead of starting in Cardiff, where the Cambrian Way begins, I caught another train to Penarth, on the coast. I wanted to take this opportunity to explore the area around Cardiff Bay before starting the Cambrian Way and since I had plenty of time I lingered in Penarth first, where the Penarth Summer Festival was coincidentally just beginning.

I took a stroll along the promenade past various gazebos before slowly returning to the pier while enjoying the sunshine, which was a welcome change this year. Eventually I left Penarth and joined the route of the Wales Coast Path which climbs the hill above Penarth Head before descending to the Barrage on the edge of Cardiff Bay where I turned inland to walk away from the sunshine I had been enjoyed at the coast and towards the dark clouds that hung over the city. The Wales Coast Path took me around Cardiff Bay, past an exhibition to Scott of the Antarctic and later brought me to a memorial at the spot where Scott’s expedition ship, the SS Terra Nova, sailed from Cardiff. Later I passed the Senedd, home to the Welsh Parliament, and the iconic Millennium Centre where I lingered by looping around Roald Dahl Plass before finally continuing inland into the centre of Cardiff, which I didn’t like as it was very crowded with tall, intimidating buildings. At Cardiff Castle a noisy demonstration was passing outside the walls so I didn’t linger and with no sign to mark this momentous location, or moment for me, I started the Cambrian Way. The noise and crowds continued after I entered Bute Park so I was relieved when I left the main path and finally I was able to get away from the crowds and noise while walking beside the River Taff.

Delightful woodland walking took me past Blackweir and as far as the Gabalfa bridge where I crossed the River Taff to continue my walk on the other bank, except for an unnecessary diversion that took me within sight of Llandaff Cathedral. I could have stayed on the original bank of the river by following the route of the Taff Trail but I was not short of time and obstinately stuck to the exact route of the Cambrian Way despite there being little to interest me at this point with dull scenery across the river while walking largely on roads. Eventually I crossed the river beside a railway bridge and finally left the River Taff climbing up to reach the Glamorganshire Canal Nature Reserve, which is a delightful place, gloriously overgrown and full of wildlife, with waterlilies covering the surface of the water. This was a lovely place to walk where I took many photographs, but I was disappointed when it came to a sudden end with the intrusion of the M4 motorway. Finding my way past the motorway and its junction with the A470 road was potentially complicated, but fortunately the Cicerone guidebook for the Cambrian Way has a detailed map which guided me through a series of footbridges and underpasses until I reached the far side of the motorway junction where a road soon brought me into the village of Tongwynlais. There, a right turn took me onto a road that was my first sustained climb of the Cambrian Way and it really wore me out, especially as the sun chose that moment to finally come out for the first time since leaving the coast.

At the top of the road I reached Castell Coch where a path continued the climb steeply up a wooded hillside, but with the afternoon soon passing I was thinking this might be a good moment to end the walk for the day and find my booked accommodation. With hindsight, I could have stayed low passing through Tongwynlais on the Taff Trail, but instead when I reached the first junction in the wood I turned left off the Cambrian Way onto a track that slowly descended back down to the bottom of the Valley where I caught a train from Taff’s Well railway station. This was a very tiring walk because I was very tired when I started, so I had hoped this weekend would help refresh me. I had been looking forward to walking through Cardiff for several months but the reality was disappointing. This year, I have followed several city walks through London and Bristol and enjoyed all of them, though they were carefully guided walks, whereas this wasn’t, but I doubt that would have made much difference. My main problem with Cardiff was the noise, mainly from the demonstration by the castle and a pop concert in Bute Park, but once I was away from the noise the walk became the relaxing stroll that I wanted especially while passing through wild, disorganised, natural scenery.

Glengaber Hill from Spango Bridge

Friday 7th June 2024

After almost two weeks in Scotland I was slowly making my way back home at the end of a holiday where the weather had been cold, wet and consistently very windy, but before I left Scotland I wanted to return to the Southern Uplands. I first walked through this area last year on the Southern Upland Way and I found a series of hills that although grassier and more rounded than those found in the Highlands, still has good scenery especially when it is sunny, which I had on this walk. At the start of the day I set off from Pitlochry, where I had spent the night, and drove south down the A9 eventually arriving at Spango Bridge, not far from the town of Sanquhar. There is a section of the Southern Upland Way that is an alternative to the main route and is used during the shooting season, which is later in the year so was not necessary when I was on the trail last year or on my return this year, but I had enjoyed the scenery in that area last year so I was keen to return and parked near Spango Bridge at the end of a particularly rutted farmer’s track. Also parked there were some minibuses waiting to collect teenagers undergoing the rigors of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and soon after I set off along the track I was passed by two groups of youths.

The rain that had accompanied me throughout my journey from Pitlochry seemed to have passed, so while plenty of clouds still lingered overhead I was hopeful that it would improve. Willowherb and thistle lined the track, though these are normally considered summer flowers, which indicated that spring was now passing and summer would soon begin. Eventually I reached a junction on the forestry track where the familiar thistle icon now appeared on top of wooden posts to mark the route of the Southern Upland Way on the Duntercleuch alternative. There was no change in the scenery, though blue sky now appeared overhead, until I emerged from the conifer plantation and began to descend into the valley of Wanlock Water. In the past this valley was a centre of lead mining and at the head of the valley is the village of Wanlockhead, the highest village in Scotland. Overlooking the village is Lowther Hill where a radar station dominates the scene and from four miles away I could see its huge golf ball like structure that prompted memories of my walk last year to come flooding back as the sun came out to illuminate the valley. After all the bad weather that I had suffered while in Scotland it felt wonderful to be walking in warm sunshine through a valley that had been a highlight of my walk last year on the Southern Upland Way.

A glorious walk through the valley of Wanlock Water brought me to the signpost that marks the main route of the Southern Upland Way as it comes down into the valley, so in amongst the remains of lead mining that used to be undertaken in this valley, I turned right to cross the river and retrace my steps up the side of the hill on a well-engineered path that slowly climbs Glengaber Hill. The grassy path took me over the hill and down into the valley of Cogs Burn passed the ruins of Cogshead, but of more interest to me was the word that appeared on the next signpost, ultreia, which indicates that ahead is the location of a kist, though not precisely where. There are many of these sculptured kists on the Southern Upland Way and inside is a hoard of hidden treasure, specially minted coins that you can collect if you can find the kist. When I passed through Cogshead last year I was unable to find the kist at Cogshead despite much searching so I was keen have another attempt now and walked up and down the track several times carefully hunting for it until eventually the location was given away by a plastic tub on the ground. The coins are often stored inside the kists in containers such as these and looking up I immediately saw the kist hidden away. Inside were some coins and the lid for the tub, however I didn’t take one as I already had a coin for Cogshead having found it at the next kist on the Eastern Lowthers. I returned the coins to the plastic tub and put that back into the kist before heading off along the Southern Upland Way happy to have found the kist.

I now resumed my walk by taking the alternative route of the Southern Upland Way, which branches off the main route at Cogshead, with lingering looks behind me of the isolated valley head as I followed the track slowly climbing out of the valley. In sunny, but windy, weather I had a relaxing walk along forestry tracks whose only obstacles were two locked gates that I had to climb over and eventually brought me back to my car. This was a lovely walk but a little too short, though that just meant I was able to spend time in Sanquhar looking around the Tolbooth Museum. The weather was good once the rain had cleared and I enjoyed the opportunity to revisit places that I had visited while on the Southern Upland Way last year, and especially finding the kist that I had failed to find before. The day after I started to do a walk up the Eastern Lowthers starting from the top of the Dalveen Pass, initially to look for the kist there as, although I found it last year, the coin I took away with me was actually the one for Cogshead. It was sunny when I started but dark clouds soon came over and by the time I reached the kist it was raining heavily. When I found kist was empty, no coins, my enthusiasm for a walk was ruined. The ever-present, strong winds were making walking very tiring despite hoping that I would be sheltered from the westerlies on the eastern slopes of the Lowther Hills, so I abandoned the walk just as I had done with many hill walks on this holiday and drove home.