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.
No comments:
Post a Comment