Martin McDowell's Blog

This is marked as the toughest walk in the Brecon Becons & South Wales book and it turned out to be living up to its name. The most difficult part was trying to not get lost on Bryn Rhudd at the same time as not loosing interest in the walk as well. The views on [...]

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Here are just some of the best photos from the trip. Wales (mid and north) 2010 Gigrin Farm red kite feeding centre in Rhayader Stunning view of the Elan valley Craig Goch Craig Goch Penygarreg reservoir Claerwen reservoir Claerwen reservoir View from the dam at Claerwen reservoir (a red kite nest is in the trees [...]

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Today I was here. Took me a while to get here and find it. Had to give up the whole trek round the mountain ridges as I was going to run out of daylight by the end of the hike. Llyn y Fan Fach  

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Had a big snowstorm last night that covered Pembrokeshire with a bit of snow. These photos taken from a hike up to the highest peak in the Preseli hills – Foel Cwmcerwyn. Very windy at the top! Pembrokeshire snow 2010 Near Foel Cwmcerwyn Near Foel Cwmcerwyn Near Foel Cwmcerwyn Foel Feddau, looking towards Newport (Carn [...]

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Ever since I moved to Wales 2 years ago I had a quiet wish to climb the highest peak in this country – Snowdon. Last weekend was showing to be a perfect opportunity to fulfil that wish. I was working only till 12 pm and the forecast was for sunshine and high temperatures stretching way [...]

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I am convinced you everyone will see the huge difference in the views you see on the north side of the peninsula, compared to the south – while on the north side you see the beautiful town of Angle, but then as you move further along you are met with the view of all the [...]

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This one the walk no 27 taken from the book and is a bit of a deviation from the books theme – it being that there are 41 circular walks in Pembrokeshire. Well this walk is still in Pembrokeshire but it is not at all circular. However the authors can be forgiven for this as [...]

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This was the longest of the walks in the book and a walk not to be reckoned with. It is long and by the end you just really want to see that lighthouse in the distance. The authors say in the beginning of the walk »Although the longest of the walks in this book, there [...]

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What a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a March Sunday. In fact it was so nice I wish the hike would have lasted a bit longer. Instead I took the opportunity to sit and enjoy the sunshine on the wooden bench by the Sychbant car park were this walk starts and ends. The walk (no. [...]

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As the book states this is a walk where you can see lots of nice views and hardly meet anyone. And it was true for me. Only people I met were some farmers on a field, however the fact that I did the walk on a Tuesday afternoon might have had something to do with [...]

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Nice contrast from the Rosebush walk I took yesterday. This walk is no 40 called Pentre Evan Nature Reserve and I just a great forest walk with some hill climbing thrown in as well. This was also the walk that was the most confusing as the instructions in the book did  not help in many [...]

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It actually called Foel Cwmcerwyn and is the walk no. 20 in the book. There hasn’t been any proper rain for a couple of weeks so it looked promising. I had to abandon this walk weeks ago due to the fact that one big part of the walk was transformed into quite a substantial stream. [...]

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This morning was going to be a another great day for hiking as the skies were clear and there was no rain forecast for the whole day. I was, again, following the great book Walking in Pembrokeshire – 41 circular walks in the National park. By the way, this was walk no 21: Carn Menyn [...]

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