A summary

Having completed a walk around the coast of Britain, which kept me out of mischief for 12 years’ holidays, I decided to set myself some more challenges, giving me an incentive to keep walking. I started a South-North walk, which is still in progress as I type this, and an East-West walk, which I have just completed.

But did I learn anything? Have I reached any earth-shattering conclusions about the nature of the landscape and the state of the nation? Not really. But this walk did throw up a few contrasts and similarities which I, at least, found interesting.

Strangely, in an area so bereft of water, walking in East Anglia is an activity bound up with watercourses. From Lowestoft, I wandered into Norfolk and back into Suffolk several times, often following ancient routes between bridging points over natural and artificial waterways. Because land reclamation started early, the tracks and drove roads have been established for centuries. As for hills, there aren’t any! You might see this or that hill on the map, but it will be no more than a slight bump in the flatness.

Cambridgeshire is slightly more rolling in parts, but it wasn’t until I reached the Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire area that I started to climb a few real hills. The Chilterns, basically a great fractured slab of ground, tilted and aligned from South West to North East (where I met them) provided some serious hills and the views to go with them. Then it was flat again, across Aylesbury Vale into Oxfordshire, to reach the Cotswolds North West of the City of Oxford. The Chilterns and, especially, the Cotswolds, are pretty, in contrast with the flatlands of the East which are magnificent but stark.

Once I descended from the Cotswolds near Cheltenham, I made my way across the Severn Valley in Gloucestershire, and then through the most interesting landscape I had so far encountered, the Forest of Dean. Thick forest hides pockets of former mining and industry, and also hid from this inattentive walker an awful lot of contour lines – this was tough walking, but fascinating.

Entering Wales at Monmouth, I walked through some pleasant countryside to Abergavenny, and there I had a choice to make. The pretty route would have taken me North West, into the Brecon Beacons. But I headed South West across the South Wales Valleys. I had read about the “re-greening” of these valleys following their industrialisation and post-industrial decline. I found ample evidence of the decline, but also of new-found confidence here, as slag heaps and open-cast mines have become country parks, with a few examples of the industrial past kept as tourist attractions. In terms of effort, walking across the Valleys, deliberately cutting across the grain of the land, brought hard work but also rewards, in the form of views and variety.

By the time I had clambered out of my last Valley, I was in Carmarthenshire, pleasant if unspectacular rolling countryside, let down by the (in my experience) unprecedentedly appalling state of the footpaths (see separate moans within this blog).

And then to Pemrokeshire, a lovely county altogether, but particularly beautiful on the coast. Finishing my journey by walking along the coast to St David’s Head brought a guaranteed burst of pure pleasure (and guaranteed hard work up and down the coast path). The contrast between the featureless land and wide horizons at the beginning of my adventure, and the rugged coastline at the end, was very great in terms of “feel”, although the height difference between one end of the walk and the other was just a few tens of feet. Below is a sketch map of my route, with the stopovers.
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Day Thirty

Thursday 24 March – Roch to St David's Head

Today turned out to be the last of this East West Walk. I had intended to walk to St David's today, and then walk the remaining few miles to St David's Head tomorrow. But the walk went so well, and the day was so fine, that I knocked off the remaing miles in one go.

From my b&b on the outskirts of Roch, the way down to the coast lay along the unpleasant main road for several minutes, until I was able to cut across a field (footpath on the map – no signs), reaching sea level at Newgale. The holiday aspect of Newgale is let down by the fact that the main road goes right through it, traffic thundering downhill, screaming round a few bends, and then grinding uphill again. Also, there is no beach, just a high shingle bank which cuts out sea views from the road, the pub and the café.

I was glad to leave the traffic behind as I took my first steps for several years on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. This is a 186-mile National Trail, sticking fairly rigidly to the coast, with spectacular results. Indeed, in answer to the question I have been asked so many times since I completed my journey around the British coast, which was the best bit, I always reply that Pembrokeshire is the best coastal footpath, even though parts of the Cornish and Northern Scottish coast rival it for scenery.

The path is also the j in the c of the Pemrokeshire Coast National Park. The clue's in the name: the National Park snakes around the coast , although it also takes in an Island (Ramsey), some inland woods, and a large part of the Cleddau Estuary.

At the point I joined it, the Coast Path turns from heading North up the Eastern edge of St Bride's Bay to head West around St David's Head. This turn is not smooth: the coastline here is broken up and ragged, and following the path is demanding. By the time I reached Solva, I had climbed and descended more than in the previous five days, so I was ready for coffee and something at a cafe by the river.

To reach this oasis, you have to walk nearly half a mile from the sea, above a deep, curved cleft in the cliffs. Solva was established just because its situation was so suitable for a harbour. Rocks at the mouth of the river provided ideal shelter. In mediaeval times, the village was an important trading centre, and also a centre for the burning of lime, which was spread on the land to improve its yield. Some of the limekilns have been preserved. More recent development has taken place on the cliff-top above the harbour.

In the 19^th Century, coastal trading gave way to tourism as an income-earner for Solva, with the harbour being given over to leisure craft, but the woollen mill has managed to combine manufacture, which still continues, with catering for tourists, who can watch the looms at work, admire the restored water-wheel, get a cup of tea and a bun, and buy the mill's products, including carpets and rugs. Other attractions apparently include a butterfly farm (Wales' first) and a Nectarium, neither of which I saw.

After Solva, the walking is more level and consequently rather quicker. It was back to shirtsleeves again, for the third day in a row. I passed some other walkers, mostly near points where a road drew near to the coast. At Caerfai car park, some serious picnicking was going on, along with some intense sun worship by a small crowd of yoof.

I had planned to turn off the coast path at St Non's chapel and well. These ruins marked the place where (allegedly) St Non gave birth to St David. It's a magical spot, despite the rather forbidding design of the retreat centre which dominates the scene. As I said, I decided not to head inland here, but to press on to Pen Dal-aderyn, the bit of St David's Head which is the actual Westermost point in Wales. This I reached quite quickly. When I finished my complete coastal walk, a stag was waiting to congratulate me. This time, just a few seabirds had bothered to turn up. I took a few photographs (there was no press), and started inland towards St David's.

At a farmyard, I stopped to check on my direction as a farmer sped up on a quad bike. “Where are you heading?”, he asked. I told him, and he said, “Straight on through the yard. Do you want a lift?” I did; I had finished my big walk, and I was thoroughly tired. “See that bloke by the white van; he's going to St David's” An exchange of shouts sealed the deal, and the farmer zipped off. The second man was standing in the doorway of a farm building. “You in a hurry?” I said I wasn't. “Right, I'm just having some tea. Want Some?” I gratefully accepted. “I haven't got any cups, but I use these.” He held up the cap of a spraycan. “It's clean”, and it was. There was a fresh supply on the ground, still on the cans. The tea was very sweet and very welcome.

The man told me that he had recently retired from farming, had last year lost his wife, and now worked part time to help his brother (the man on the quad bike), especially now during the lambing season. He reckoned that a couple of hundred more lambs would survive this year because of the warm weather. I told him about what I'd been up to, and he seemed interested.

Then we jumped into the white van, and soon he was dropping me in St David's. Actually he overshot the b&b by a few yards, and insisted on backing up to the door. It was a touching act of kindness to round off my adventure.

Day Twenty Nine

Wednesday 23 March – Robeston Wathen to Roch

Another long day to come, and another cloudless day with unseasonably high temperatures promised.

At the Western end of the new bit of the A40 which bypasses Robeston Wathen, lanscaping work was still going on. Trucks with flashing lights were scurrying around as the morning traffic thundered along the new tarmac and round the new roundabout. “They” had decided that pedestrians would only want to walk along a minor road heading North, so in order to head South I plodded along springy new verges.

After a short stretch of the A475, which joins the A40 at the new roundabout, I turned on to a minor road leading to Black Pool Mill. Soon I got a footpath bonus. A lovely woodland path has been established between the road and the Eastern Cleddau river. This is one of the prongs of a fork of water which penetrates South Pembrokeshire. I was about to cross this river over a bridge by Black Pool Mill.

The mill is clearly a tourist attraction, with a large car park and a café, but there was no sign of life this early in the morning. Beyond the bridge, I turned to walk parallel with the river again (roughly West), on a footpath which uses one of the Slebech Estate's farm tracks. The walking was good, and the day was getting rapidly warmer after an overnight frost, despite a bit of a breeze. Soon I would be down to shirtsleeves again, amazing for March.

Just short of Slebech Park's big house, the path turned away from the river and headed North. This house is promoted as a wedding venue and luxury retreat, and it's no doubt lovely inside. Outside, it's a bloated monstrosity, perfectly hideous. After a grassy stretch, the footpath picked up another estate road for a while, then took to fields to reach the A40 again.

As yesterday, the quickest way to get to my journey's end would have been to have trudged up the road, but I was having none of that. Not quite true – I was having about 100 yards of it before I turned off again to follow a bridleway which ran parallel with the road but mercifully out of hearing for most of its length.

The bridleway was strung together from farm tracks and roads, with a grassy interval in the middle. The area is shown as South Dairy Mountain on the map. Even by Welsh standards there was nothing mountainous about it; the peak was somewhat less than 200 feet.

The bridleway joined a lane which eventually looped back to the trunk road. This time about 50 yards was enough to get me on to another lane, to the South of the A40. Drawn on the map, my route was looking like a series of waves, as I crossed and recrossed the road in search of quiet ways. I certainly got them; after heading South for a short while, I picked up a lane which I was to follow for nearly three miles into Haverfordwest, and in that time I was passed by one car.

The lane went between fields; the country here is gently rolling, with hedgerows severely trimmed as they wait for the new season's growth (which will probably happen pretty soon if this weather holds up). The lane became a suburban road as it neared Haverfordwest, dipping down towards the Western Cleddau, on which the town is a bridging point.

The castle still dominates the town as you approach from the East, sticking up raggedly across the valley. Once you are in the town, however, the castle disappears; it skulks behind the shopping streets.

A riverside coffee bar had tables outside, crammed with sunseekers. As I had been in the sun for the whole morning, I was happy to lurk inside as I enjoyed a coffee and a sandwich.

Heading West out of town, I climbed gently back out of the river valley on another suburban road. I bought an ice cream, making the most of the weather in case this week turned out to be Summer. Turning off the road, I followed a private lane (but public footpath) past a farm called East Cuckoo, then past another called Cuckoo Grove. I didn't get to Cuckoo Mill, a bridleway carrying me West to join another lane North.

The map here says “Friends' Burial Ground”, a description echoed on a stone plaque also carrying the date 1661. A lovely path between two rows of trees, some now dead but most still flourishing, led to a walled area about the size, say, of a couple of tennis courts, a veritable secret garden. The dominant feature was the profusion of daffodils on a carpet of unkempt scrub, but a few gravestones were visible. It was very atmospheric.

From here, more bridleways took me over a mile Northwards, where I turned West on another traffic-free lane. It was reaching the stage where I had to remind myself what to do when a car did turn up.

The A40 had thundered off to Fishguard from Haverfordwest, so the main road I was dodging this afternoon was the A487, which finishes at St David's. Needless to say, I was having as little to do with it as possible. I crossed it from one sleepy lane to another, heading for a village called Keeston, or Keyston – local signs use both, as do those denizens who have incorporated the village lane in their house names.

As I walked out of Kee/yston, I fell in behind a woman. I continued to follow her, as she was walking just too fast for me comfortably to overtake her. Then she stopped, apparently to admire the view. She didn't acknowledge me as I passed her, but soon I realised that she was gaining on me again. I had no intention of trying to race her, so I maintained my usual measured trudge. As she drew alongside, the woman said something along the lines of being quicker again now that the road had levelled out. I said, “I'm glad you let me go in front for a while; I was beginning to feel that I was stalking you,” which was no more than the truth. She laughed this off, and we walked and talked for half a mile or so.

Where she peeled off to complete her circular walk, I pressed on to Cuffern, a hamlet, where (shock! horror!) the footpath I was looking for was not marked. And although it was easy enough to find the route on the ground, I had to negotiate a fence and a ragged hedgerow to get back on to the road to Roch. Honestly, it was just like being back in Carmarthenshire! It was Pembrokeshire's only lapse of the day.

Roch Castle was founded in the 13th century, and what is normally the most visible bit – the tower – was probably built by Adam de Rupe, whose family played a big part in the English “colonisation” of Pemrokeshire. The castle was part of the defensive chain of similar buildings which lined the border between the English and Welsh bits of Pembrokeshire, guarding “Little England beyond Wales”, aka “Landsker”. The de Rupe (later de Roche) family died out in the 15th Century, and the castle was eventually bought by the Walter family, which had mixed fortunes during and after the Civil War. The castle fell into disuse until the 20th Century, when it was greatly restored and altered, leaving the tower as the dominant feature. No shots are fired from the castles these days, but the English/Welsh divide still exists in the use of the respective languages and in placenames.

I said that the tower was normally the most visible feature advisably; currently the whole edifice is swathed in plastic sheeting, making it look like a giant parcel. A sign informed me that the castle was being converted into a resort. What this means in practical terms, I have no idea.

I walked through the village of Roch and a few yards beyond it to find my b&b. Distressingly, the only pub in the village was closed (until the weekend) and so was the chippy (until Easter). But the couple who run Ty Coed De, the b&B, were very welcoming, and I was offered a choice of a lift to and from Solva for supper, or pot luck from the fridge. I plumped for the second option, which I reckoned was less inconvenient (for them) than two round trips, and the chicken and chips went down a treat.

Day Twenty Eight

Tuesday 22 March – St Clear's to Robeston Wathen

After yesterday's short walk, today's was to be a longish one. So I breakfasted early and set off soon after 8 o'clock. The A40 goes all the way between St Clear's and Robeston Wathen, but my task was to dodge it as much as possible.

I started by walking alongside the trunk road, perverse I know, but five minutes along the verge enabled me to find a side road through the village of Pwll-trap. After a quiet wander along this road, just beyond a level crossing, I turned West on a footpath. Oh blimey, you are saying: he's going to drone on about it not being signed or looked after. Yes and no.

It wasn't signed, but there was a stile in good condition, followed by two more good ones and one which seemed to be rotting away as I watched it. The path, although not visible on the ground, was easy enough to follow, and it led me the start of a lane by Llangynin Church, its ivy-clad tower looking absolutely lovely in the sunshine which had broken through early cloud.

There was no traffic on this or the next lane, but a sense of foreboding took the edge off my enjoyment. My progress depended on finding a footpath, in fact my last footpath in Carmarthenshire. The map showed the path starting where the lane ended, in the middle of a farmyard. I duly walked into said farmyard, heard voices round a corner, and caught sight of a chap addressing someone invisible inside a cowshed.

The visible man turned and saw me, and we approached each other with appropriate greetings. I explained what I was about; by this time we had been joined by the third party. The first chap, quite young, was (I guess) the farmer; the older man (I guess) the farmhand. They agreed that there was no actual footpath on the ground, the fatal flaw in the route on the map being an un-bridged stream.

They had a five-minute discussion about whether fording the stream was possible, concluding that it probably wasn't. End of discussion? - not a bit of it. While the farmhand rather alarmingly waggled a syringe (he didn't actually try to inoculate me!), the farmer invited me to have a look at the stream for myself, and pointed out the most practical way of getting to it. So what might have been a source of conflict became a friendly encounter, and I left the two men with many thanks.

Their gloomy assessment – perfectly genuine, I'm sure – turned out to be wrong. There was a place where the stream flowed over stones and, because there had been no rain for several days, it was shallow enough for me to wade across without any water getting into my boots. A steep bank, some thorns and a little barbed wire later, I was trotting across a field on my way to another farmyard. Here the only man in sight studiously avoided any eye-contact as I walked through the yard and down the track to the main road.

Crossing the A40, I turned to walk roughly parallel with it, Westwards), on what was obviously a former incarnation of the trunk road and is now a traffic-free backwater. These superseded bits of road are curious to walk along. They still tend to have all the trappings of heavy traffic management – double white lines, large signs – but no traffic.

Where this stretch ended, a footway/cycleway alongside the A40 linked with the next bit of “orphan” road, which took me to a further road into Whitland. By now I was walking in shirtsleeves, The sun had burned off the remaining cloud, there was no wind, and it felt genuinely Springlike. My forearms (and, decently beneath my trousers, my thighs) were covered with scratches and prick-marks. Anyone would think I had been through a lot of hedges!

It was a bit early for lunch when I reached Whitland. I was going to buy some stuff for later and press on, but I was seduced by an authentic Italian café, serving authentic Italian coffee and run by an authentic Italian – you could tell that by the fact that as soon as he went out of the door to fetch something from his car, he chatted up a couple of passing girls (they enjoyed it).

So good coffee and a well-stuffed baked potato later, I did a bit of quick shopping and set off again. In order to keep on heading Westwards, and cross the River Taff, I had briefly to rejoin the A40. The upside was that as I crossed the youthful Taff I was leaving Carmarthenshire (hurray!) and entering Pembrokeshire, of which I had much higher hopes.

Leaving the verge of the A40 again, I turned on to the next stretch of ex-main road, and then on to a narrow length of never-main road. Coming up: the first footpath of the new county. Would it put the last one to shame? There wasn't a sign – oh dear! - but there was a nice pedestrian gate at the near end, and an unlocked farm gate at the other end. Promising.

Across a road, I was on to the next footpath. This one, a complex path crossing fields, woodland and water, was signed at the road, waymarked frequently, and often visible on the ground. It wasn't always simple to follow, but that was because it was such an up-and-down, in-and-out affair, a proper country footpath, not because nobody cared about it. There was even a short cut across a playing-field to get me on to the next lane without the 100 yards of A40 I had been expecting.

The next footpath also started brilliantly, with signs, waymarks and stiles. A not-very-well marked diversion rather let it down, but it was easy enough to find the route. A stream flowing through woodland is a recipe for mud, and particularly gloopy mud it was, too. Following a farm track, I returned to the main road, crossed it, and trotted down another deserted lane. Two bridleways provided an easy route to follow, along with loads more mud.

From the end of the second bridleway, the shortest route to my goal for the day, Robeston Wathen, would have been along the main road for a mile and a half, but I opted for a diversion via Narberth using minor roads.

As I joined the road, a couple of blokes were digging a hole in the road. One of them helpfully moved a barrier to let me pass more easily, which was nice of him. This pair proved to just the warm-up act for the great roadshow further on. In the middle of the road was a decrepit sign, a folding chair and a bag with a flask sticking out of it. The sign said “Road Closed”, but this was obviously just an invitation to talk. The owner of these props waited as a car stopped in the gap between the sign and the kerb, and the driver started chatting to the roadman. At the same time another car approached the gap from the opposite direction, its driver parping his horn urgently. This unseemly noise was completely ignored by the other driver and the roadman, who continued to chat.

Meanwhile, more cars and vans (and a couple of buses) built up in both directions. I was tempted to stay on and enjoy the show, But I had to make progress. There was more entertainment, though. Further on, a large piece of equipment was removing the surface of the road, while other vehicles threaded their way past it. A man guiding the heavy plant moved reluctantly aside to let this queue past. There was no “Road Closed” sign at the far end of the road, so chaos was predictable.

Reaching a crossroads in Narbeth, I turned on to a road back towards the A40. The trunk road has very recently been diverted, leaving the village of Robeston Wathen on yet another peaceful backwater. Good for me, as I sidled towards my b&b, and for the school children who were hanging around in the village centre in new-found safety. But how good it is for the garage, the pub and, indeed, for the b&b, I wasn't so sure.

Day Twenty Seven

Monday 21 March – Carmarthen to St Clears

This was to be a short day's walk. Taking the main road would have made it even shorter, but my objective was to keep to the back doubles and avoid the A40. Carmarthen's shopping streets were waking up to the new week. I bought a very posh-looking (and, as it later proved, delicious) baguette for my lunch, and set off. As it was in the town, I was expecting that the first footpath of the day would prove actually to exist, even in sight of County Hall, and so it did. Despite the sprouting of a huge new Tesco's, the path squeezed past it with an athletics ground on the other side.

I crossed some allotments, exchanging weather talk with an early attendee, who was smoking rather than actually digging. He said he didn't like to start any big jobs in case the weather changed. This was a bit strange, as the forecast was for settled conditions throughout the week. Perhaps he just needed an excuse.

Then it was roadside pavements for a while, traffic heading into town building up at every junction. I decided to follow signs for National Cycle Route 4, which was heading in my general direction. Once over the railway – the branch for West Wales – the NCR and I turned Westwards on to a road which started as suburban and then became a rural lane with very little traffic. The lane climbed steeply, then levelled out above a valley which looks on the map as though it ought to have a river in it, when all it actually has is a few streams, along with the railway and the main road.

There were decisions to be taken. NCR4 would obviously stick to tarmac, while I had envisaged wandering off on to footpaths for part of my journey. But after my less-than-happy experiences of Carmarthenshire footpaths so far, the temptation was to stick to the lanes. I decided to be influenced by the amount of road traffic and the existence, or not, of signs for the footpaths. As it turned out, there was almost none of either.

In about six miles, I saw fewer than six cars, and no trucks. A few tractors in the fields, but they don't count. Equally, wherever I might have been tempted to turn off on to a footpath, there was no trace of one. I lie – there was one, heading in the wrong direction. But after a while I stopped caring and stuck to the traffic-free lane.

After a grey start, the cloud was breaking up and, following a watery overture, the sun came out in full strength. Even this early in the year, it turns from cold to warm as soon as the sun appears. I unzipped layers. The countryside round here is workaday. The fields are green enough, but not specially interesting. The farms are businesslike rather than picturesque. The lane passed through a nature reserve which, while all it consisted of was a narrow strip of trees either side of the tarmac, nonetheless made a nice change from the uniform hedges and fences. The air here is clean, so lichens and mosses grow in profusion.

Then I snapped. Glancing at the map, I noticed a straightforward-looking footpath heading down the valley in the direction I was heading. Admittedly, the lane and NCR4 were heading in the same direction, but I'd had enough tarmac. Of course the path was unsigned. It started as a driveway to a farm. Indeed, it went right up to the door of a very impressive white farmhouse. There was no sign of life, and a dog somewhere indoors made only half-hearted attempts to do its duty and scare me away. I found the relevant track leading away from the farmyard into the field, and followed some tractor ruts along the top of several fields, counting as I went. Only to reach the last field did I need to clamber through a hedgerow, there being no gate or other gap. The hedge was puny, and I was quickly through it and across the field to pick up another track for a few yards back to a lane – actually the lane I had briefly diverted from.

After a bit more tarmac-walking, I stopped to eat my fancy baguette, and then I looked for another footpath. I was obviously getting cocky, having successfully followed one path. Amazingly, the next one was signed at the road, waymarked at frequent intervals, and came with a full complement of stiles in good condition. Admittedly, it didn't follow the line on the map – it was on the wrong side of the hedge for a start – but I wasn't about to quibble.

Where the lane would deliver NCR4 on to the main road for the last mile into St Clears, my path would take me across the River Dewi Fawr on a farm bridge, for a quieter walk into the village. I realised why the path was so well kept when I spotted some additional signs: this is part of the county's network of coastal trails (St Clears is the lowest bridging point over the River Taf), so as a promoted route it probably gets more attention than all the other footpath orphans.

The very fine Motte (grassy mound) of the former castle stood in my way; I respectfully found my way round it, and headed for the centre of the village. I had been through here before, when I was doing my coast walk; I might well have walked the footpath I had just left, but I remembered almost nothing about St Clears. The A40 rushes past in a cutting, leaving the main crossroads in the village peaceful. Temporary traffic lights for roadworks calmed the traffic even more, so I sauntered across to the shop for supplies, and then went off to find my overnight billet.

I was staying in the Travelodge, by a roundabout on the outskirts of the village. Having had a short walk, I arrived at twenty to three. I was greeted by a friendly young woman, who informed me that if I checked in immediately, it would cost me an extra ten pounds (check in at regular prices starts at three o'clock). As I had actually obtained the fabled £19 charge for my room, I wasn't about to add 50%, so I asked the woman if I could sit in the foyer until three, which she readily agreed to. We exchanged desultory conversation about the weather – the sun had gone behind cloud again, and it was feeling much cooler – and after a few minutes she weakened and let me check in. I notice that you can also check out late for another ten quid. I wasn't planning to take them up on that offer either.

Day Twenty Six

Sunday 20 March – Upper Tumble to Carmarthen

A pattern was emerging. I'm on about the footpaths of Carmarthenshire again. If a path is across fields, away from causing any inconvenience, it is often marked. But if is, say, near a farm, or in any other way inconvenient, a conspiracy of silence comes into play. The council don't mark it, there are no stiles or gates, and landowner simply deny it existence. I was to meet this technique in action many times in the next couple of days.

Today's first footpath was admittedly in place and signed, but since this led from the main road to a housing estate in Tumble, this is hardly surprising. Tumble grew to accommodate workers in the Great Mountain Colliery, and I suspect it is the former colliery workings which have become the Mynydd Mawr Woodland Park. This is evidently still being developed.There were more paths through it than are shown on the map, but I soon found the one I was looking for, hopped over my first barbed wire of the day, and reached a road.

Across this, a handy footpath consisted (on the map) of a two farm tracks joined up by a path across a couple of fields. The first bit was signed and easy to follow. The linking section was non-existent, so I found my own way. As I approached the second farm, I saw a young woman with her hand on a recumbent cow. Getting nearer, I could see a calf sticking about half way out of the cow. The woman was agitated, with good reason, and she asked me what I was doing. I said I was trying to follow a footpath. “There's no footpath, and you are on private land,” she said. “If my mother sees you, she'll go mad. She pointed the way to the drive, and I walked towards it.

Up drove an older woman on a quad bike. Same question, same answer from me. And she was indeed mad, but not with me.“Oh,” she said, “we've had the council up here, and even they can't find a footpath!” I said I would leave by the drive, and she continued to moan about the situation, until suddenly she stopped, looked at me hard, and asked, “Are you strong? Can you pull?” I said yes, and she said, “Come on,” driving off towards the maternity ward. But when we got nearer, we could see that the calf had completed its journey into the world, and as I left it seemed to me that mother and son (bovine) were doing well, with mother and daughter (human) in attendance. I confess I was a bit disappointed: I would quite like to have been able to write here that I helped deliver a calf.

The next two and a half miles was on quiet lanes, so at least I was able to make faster progress. The next footpath – gasp! - was well marked and a joy to walk. Even the bridges were in place and in good condition. Admittedly the last few hundred yards were unsigned, but by now I was near enough to my next burst of peaceful road. There were no signs of the next path, except for a stile in slightly the wrong position. I found my way using the map and my phone (for GPS and Google Maps), and a wood above a stream was a lovely lunch spot.

After more traffic-free lanes, I turned on to a route marked with green crosses on the map, indicating a “byway open to all traffic.” Well, all traffic could tackle the first 100 yards on tarmac; after that, a four-wheel drive vehicle could tackle the boggy fields between frequent gates. Once the gates finish, you'd probably be better off switching to a tank! As for me, I hopped, plodded and climbed until I joined a driveway serving a few cottages, which ended at a main road. This had a pavement, and soon I could turn on to a minor road for the walk into Carmarthen.

I crossed the River Towy in the shadow of Carmarthen Castle, in the ruins of which stands County Hall, where they plan all that sterling work on footpath maintenance!

Carmarthen is about 8 miles from the Towy's mouth at Carmarthen Bay. The Romans built a fort here, on the site of the local tribal HQ, including an amphitheatre which partially survives. Then the Normans built a castle, which was pretty soon destroyed. The town was then walled, sacked, rebuilt and brought low by the Black Death. Merlin, King Arthur’s mentor, might have been born in a cave just outside the town. Or possibly not. What is more certain is that Carmarthen was affected by the industrialisation of the 19th Century much less than the areas further South and East. The town’s hopes for future commercial success depend largely on a new shopping centre opened last year.

The centre of the town was very quiet indeed on this Sunday afternoon. With the aid of my phone, I quickly found my b&b, passing my supper choice (Wetherspoon's, of course) on the way.

Day Twenty Five

Saturday 19 March - Cwmgors to Upper Tumble

To give myself an early start walking, I took a cab from my overnight stop in Pontardawe. The driver asked me where I was walking, and helpfully offered to take me up the first steep hill. I naturally declined the offer, and asked to be dropped where I had finished last time. Making sure that the walk is continuous is important to me, but probably seems a tad fetishistic to anyone else!

A road West from the main Pontardawe to Cwmgors road was busier than its size seemed to justify, but this was because it leads to the council recycling centre (they don't call them dumps any more). Rising up the hill above the centre was a suspiciously round hillock with posts sticking out of it at regular intervals. This was a landfill site, grassed over but not quite returned to nature.

Above the landfill, the road zigzagged steeply uphill. I cut out a zig or a zag by following a track, found the road again, and left it once more to reach the trig point at the top of Bryn Mawr, at about 1150 feet. It was a lovely sunny day, the remnants of frost fast disappearing as I took advantage of the viewpoint. I had assumed that it was a solitary bit of cloud which I had noticed clinging to the top of the mountain to the North, but in fact it was smoke from heather-burning.

From the trig point I cut downhill to the West, into the next valley. After a few minutes of confusion between the single track road and a farm track, I was back on my planned route, following the road down to a bridge over a stream called Nant Melyn, then up again on to Betws Mountain. A viewpoint was marked on the map, and there was certainly a wide view of the Amman Valley, but the visibility was limited as the morning mist had not yet been completely burned off by the sun. Still, a very good information board identified the places dotted along the valley, and beyond, including my target for the day, Tumble. The Black Mountain was featured on the board, but was hidden by murk.

I turned off the road for my first prolonged experience – on this trip - of Carmarthenshire footpaths. I knew from what to expect. Ten years ago, it was in Carmarthenshire that I had been brought to a halt on my coast walk by the onset of Foot & Mouth Disease. The County Council led the way in closing all their footpaths, and limped along at the rear when it came to reopening them.

And when I did resume my walk, I quickly discovered that the state of the footpaths in this county was pretty ropey. They haven't improved. If you're lucky, you get a sign at the roadside, but after that you are pretty much on your own. Stiles are often rotten or broken, waymarks are almost non-existent, and conditions underfoot are frequently horrendous. To cross Carmarthenshire on foot, it helps to be willing and able to climb gates and fences, and where the footpath has disappeared altogether it's good to be handy with a map and willing to trespass.

This first path was fairly easy to walk by following the fences; there was one waymark and an occasional hint of a path on the ground. I reached a lane which I followed into Betws, from there crossing the River Amman into Ammanford's bustling shopping streets.

Today, Ammanford is the third largest town in Carmarthenshire, and serves as a shopping centre for the surrounding rural area. But as with so many places I had walked through East of here, the Industrial Revolution came to this valley in the form of coalmining, railways, and a massive influx of workers from around Britain. In 1925, the Ammanford Anthracite Strike led to a riot during which anthracite workers took over the town, and violence ensued. Later, while his father was working for the National Coal Board, Neil Hamilton – disgraced ex-MP and one half of the husband and wife media team – was raised here.

Of course, when coalmining stopped, a great many of the in-comers went away again. But before and after this exodus, Ammanford was an important centre of the campaign to revive the Welsh language. A measure of the local success of this is that more than 75% of people who filled in their census forms ten years ago claimed to be competent in Welsh, compared with just over 20% for Wales as a whole.

After buying my lunch and getting a quick coffee, I left Ammanford, heading West by road. I soon turned on to another splendid footpath, blocked by barbed wire in three places. I joined another road, which I expected to leave quickly. After passing the alleged starting-points of three footpaths, shown on the map but not signed and difficult to “improvise”, I kept on the road into the village of Saron.

A picnic site next to the village hall was a convenient lunch stop. A specially created “all abilities” path led from the picnic site through some lovely woodland. From this, another footpath should have followed, and indeed there was a kissing gate, but this had been deliberately blocked with thorn branches. Undaunted, I hopped over the fence and made up my own route until I picked up the footpath I had expected to use in the first place.

I emerged on to a road at Pen-y-groes, then followed some more unbusy roads through Morfa and across the A48 trunk road, Picking my way around some of the huge tin boxes which cling to these main roads like fleas on a dog, sometimes housing factories but usually warehouses.

I followed a couple more footpaths (quite good this time; only one bit of barbed wire) to Upper Tumble and my b&b (Beudy Bach – lovely people, great accommodation, highly recommended)

Day Twenty Four

Monday 21 February - Resolven to Cwmgors

Despite being near several industrial sites, Resolven has remained a relatively small village. One of the old factories now accommodates the busy Rheola Market on Saturdays. Peter Hain is the local MP, and apparently also lives in the area. There was no point in making a call: I had seen him the previous evening on the telly, addressing his party’s Welsh Spring Conference in Llandudno.

The village centre is unremarkable. I bought some lunch at a convenience store, then head Northwest across the Neath Valley. A footbridge took me across the not-specially-busy main road, then I crossed the River Neath and the Neath Valley, which has been restored and provides, I read, a four-mile walkable towpath from here to Glynneath. But I was heading at a right-angle to the canal, uphill.

Some steps by a pub led me up through trees on to a path which contoured for a while then climbed diagonally, joining and leaving some forestry roads. The path became increasingly rutted, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The damage had been done by motorbikes, their tyre-tracks clearly visible in the mud. These bikes had broken up the surface and then churned the mud until in places the ruts were deep enough to have axle-marks on their sides. I had passed the very occasional sign urging motor vehicles to keep off these upland tracks, but nothing is actually done to block them off.

At the crest of the hill, a trig point is marked on the map, hidden from sight in the trees. My path crossed the route of a Roman road, then plunged downhill. As forks and junctions confused the situation, I lost my intended route, but a GPS fix and some map-reading saw me into Crynant with a little bit of trespassing but no incident.

Crynant has followed the usual pattern: it was a tiny village known best to monks, who maintained a cell here for overnight stops on their travels. Then came coal and collieries, including the world’s deepest anthracite mine. One former mine has been maintained as a museum, the rest being largely swept away. It was now raining quite hard. This was to last for twenty minutes or so; I kept my head down and saw little of Crynant.

A residential road became a country lane which headed diagonally up the next hill. A hairpin turn to took me on to a stony track on the opposite diagonal which made it nearly to the top of the hill, by which time I was into another forestry plantation. Active forestry operations were going on; I could see large trucks on a higher roadway. At a fork, a sign forbade entry because of the tree felling. It was not clear which way was closed, so I decided it was the other way, and pressed on in the direction I wanted to take.

A track-laying vehicle trundled slowly towards me. I stepped respectfully aside and waited. About ten yards away, the vehicle stopped, and the driver signaled for me to pass. This happened again later. As long as you keep away from active felling and don’t get in the way of the vehicles, there is not a problem. If there were any danger, it would be obvious. So I exchanged waves with the workmen and pressed on.

Then St Illtyd dropped in on Ystalyfera, almost literally. His Way headed steeply downhill; the path itself was perfectly safe, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stray from it. Further down the hill, an alternative path headed in my desired direction, so I left St I. He and I would link up again later.

A new cycle bridge took me over the river into the centre of Ystalyfera, which consists of a few shops, a chippy, and two pubs called the Old Swan and – yes, you’ve guessed – the New Swan, about 50 yards apart.

Ystalyfera has travelled the familiar path from village to sprawling industrial area to economic disaster zone, now mitigated by its handy position for commuters working in Cardiff, Neath and Swansea.

A little pavement-pounding took me to a side road which headed uphill for a mile and a half to a village called Pen-Rhiw Fawr where, as in so many places, a vigorous poster campaign is being fought to save the local school. Just beyond the village, I reached the top of the hill, leaving the road on a track.

This was suddenly a different order of walking. Instead of a sharply-crested hill between narrow valleys, which is what I had become used to in the last four days, I was on grassy moorland on what I’m sure is an ancient track, dressed with crumbling tarmac to start with, becoming gravelly and then just earthy-muddy. Even under the grey pall of cloud it was glorious. I was put in mind of the track I had taken fairly recently across Rannoch Moor, so a big compliment is intended to today’s walk.

Short grass became tufty as I penetrated the moorland, passing some old workings and an abandoned house. I could see farming land further down the hill, but up here it was untended. The usual problem – a sudden multiplicity of tracks – led me slightly off course, but this was soon rectified. I joined an unfenced road which headed downhill towards the main road near Cwmgors, where I need to catch a bus to Pontardawe.

I missed the damned thing by about five minutes. I couldn’t have walked any faster, and running was out of the question. So it was an hour’s wait for the next bus, and risk missing my train, or adopt Plan B. Out went the thumb, and a few minutes later a nice chap in a white van stopped. He took me to Pontardawe, and dropped me right at the stop where I could get a bus to Neath, which I did within another ten minutes. There was just time for an early supper in the Neath Wetherspoons before I caught the train back to London.

Day Twenty Three

Sunday 20 February - Aberdare to Resolven

Ty-Andrew is a b&b in Aberdare which usually caters for people working in the area, rather than for tourists. Lucky workpeople! A warm welcome, immaculate room, good breakfast – highly recommended.

The centre of Aberdare, a ring of shopping streets which has inevitably become a one-way system, was considerably quieter on Sunday morning than it had been on Saturday night. And from the very centre a path follows an old railway alongside the Dare River to the Dare Valley Country Park, a lovely start to a day’s walk.

Near the visitor centre I spotted a waymark for the Coed Morgannweg Way, which I hoped would take me more than half way to Resolven. As this is a much-walked park, tracks abounded, and I was soon struggling to find the one I wanted. A GPS fix confirmed that I was a bit higher up the hill than I needed to be – always annoying. I crossed a couple of open fields and picked up the right route.

This area is mostly forestry plantation, clear areas alternating with densely-wooded stretches. Low cloud and fog meant that visibility was not more than 100 yards, sometimes less. Ironically, the wooded areas provided the best visibility, the trees holding off the fog which was blowing in the wind. For a few miles I should, intermittently, have had splendid views to my right, across the Dare Valley. Viewpoints were signposted, and barriers prevented me from falling down the scarp slope while I was dreamily admiring these views. There were, of course, no views, just fog.

The Way joined a cycle track, both being accommodated on a high-quality forestry road. I passed several cyclists, each of whom exchanged a cheery greeting. Later, the Way left this and plunged into the trees on a downhill course to the South. I could have stuck to the wider track, but it was being raked by a chilly wind, and I wanted shelter for lunch, so I followed the CM Way.

A good path became an indifferent path became a muddy, rutted path. Cyclists who were spurning the “official” track for this alternative were advised a couple of times to dismount because of obstructions ahead. A sharp step down where the path had collapsed, rocks dumped to arrest the erosion, and axle-deep puddles – these, I think, were the sort of obstruction the sign-erectors had in mind.

Having climbed to about 2,000 feet, the path started a long downhill stretch into the Neath Valley. There were large areas where trees had been felled. I wanted to cut a corner, away from the CM Way. To save an unnecessary loop into Resolven, but the tree-clearance had obliterated the alternative path, so I stuck to the CM Way, until it joined St Illtyd’s Way.

St Illtyd’s Way is a long-distance route starting at Margam, near Port Talbot, looping inland round Swansea, finishing on the sands at Pembrey, near Llanelli. There is astonishingly little information about it on the Web, but it is marked on the OS map, and for a while it was going my way. St Illtyd, by the way, is said to have “flourished”(good word) at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th century, and was “held in high veneration in Wales”. He established the famous monastery and learning centre at Llantwit Major, sometimes referred to as the “oldest university in the world”.

I then passed a wind farm with, I think, about 16 windmills, all turning as fast as they ever do in the freshening Southeast wind. The noise, not objectionable, was like a posse of heavy aircraft in the distance, with an overlay of dentist’s drill.

An obvious short-cut presented itself, a farm track contouring round a hill above the Neath Valley, which proved to be the treat of the day. The wind had now blown away the fog, and here was even some occasional sunshine to illuminate the grassy slopes. I left the track and crossed fields to fall in alongside a stream, emerging on to a quiet road, just opposite the moderately-spectacular Melin Court Waterfall. A path across fields and through a small wood took me to Resolven, where my b&b perched above the town.

Day Twenty Two

Saturday 19 February - Ebbw Vale to Aberdare

Because of yesterday’s alarums and excursions, Ebbw Vale was in darkness while I walked by it, and today I was leaving by climbing straight out of the valley, so no potted description here. The most punishing climb of the day was the first one. A footpath sign pointed into a field, but there was no sign of a path. No matter; I scuffed up and along a bit, before finding a decent path heading straight uphill through trees.

The path petered out again at the top of the hill, but the day was much brighter than yesterday, so I could see some features to navigate by, with a forestry plantation as the most obvious. I found a wide track through the forest and down into the town of Tredegar.

The history of Tredegar in key words: rural backwater; iron, steel and coal; huge growth; vile working conditions; cholera; better working conditions; prosperity; decline. A glib summary, perhaps, but pretty accurate. Nye Bevan and Neil Kinnock were born here. The centre of the town is rather sombre, with an impressive clocktower dominating the scene.

The main shopping street is a sad sight: there are more shops closed than open. If the open ones could be hutched up against each other, they would make a respectable shopping centre, with a preponderance of butchers.

I climbed the next hill in company with houses, terraced lower down and semis as I got higher. Passing a vast pile of old cars and vans, I was on top of Rhymney Hill (not mountain again – was my generalisation justified?). It was now a pleasant day, with occasional sunshine.

To my right (North) I could see the corridor of the A465, generally known as the Heads of the Valleys Road. As long as all the tin sheds which litter the area around the road are mostly occupied, the economy must be in better shape than Tredegar town centre indicated.

“If I should die before I'm old,

Before I'm old and grey,

Bury my heart on Rhymney Hill

That I loved in childhood's day.”

These words come from a poem by Idris Davies. Davies, born in 1905 in Rhymney, originally wrote in Welsh, but later exclusively in English. He chronicled the highs and lows of the first half of the 20^th Century in these Valleys, including the General Strike and the Great Depression. He died in 1953. His poem, Bells of Rhymney, has been performed as a song by artistes from John Denver to Bob Dylan, while another has been adapted and sung by the Bard of South Wales, Max Boyce.

Rhymney’s story of growth and decline follows the usual South Wales pattern, nuanced by the fact that iron declined before the end of the 19^th Century, leaving the town almost entirely dependent on coal. I found my way down into the town, streets of houses running in straight lines along the valley sides.

When I reached the River Rhymney, I turned up the valley for a short distance to find a bridge. Beyond this, a road into an industrial estate led to what was supposed to be a path over the next hill. Again there was a footpath sign, with not much evidence of a footpath. There was a farm track, which I followed not quite in the direction I needed. Then my next helper arrived in the shape of the farmer, guiding his tractor down a very muddy and rutted track.

He stopped and gave me minute instructions on which route to take, with every regard for my enjoyment and no regard to the rights of way. I think this is the key to the area: these hills, which are sometimes “original” and sometimes reclaimed spoil tip, are walked more or less at will, so the footpaths are not beaten tracks. I thanked the farmer, and tried – pretty successfully – to remember his words.

After crossing a road, I was expecting to wander freely into Merthyr Tydfil, as the fields were marked as Access Land (”right to roam”) on the OS map, but it didn’t quite work out like that. Firstly I skirted a gigantic hole which I suppose was an opencast mine and is now a landfill site. The evidence of this is all around – every dip in the ground is littered with rubbish which has blown from the site, and scruffy bits of plastic hang from the fences. A small taskforce from the company doing the dumping could clear most of it up in a determined effort. But maybe they do, and it just keeps blowing back again.

Leaving this dispiriting scene, I could see the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil, and aimed directly for them. But someone had dug a new, very big hole, right in my way. Trucks were trundling, lights were flashing, sirens were sounding, and clearly my presence was unwelcome. So I turned off and headed for Dowlais.

Dowlais is really part of Merthyr these days, with its own centre connected to the larger town’s by housing estates. Large Victorian buildings are either being restored, demolished or left to rot. In the last camp was a fine old theatre just on the outskirts of Merthyr, which seemed to be crumbling before my eyes.

Industrial history of Merthyr Tydfil – see other towns, above. There were slight variations: iron smelting was attempted in the early 17^th Century, but then ceased, leaving the valley to sheep until the late 18^th Century, when iron took off in earnest. Cannon were produced in large quantities for the Royal Navy; Nelson came to inspect. In the mid 19^th Century, Merthyr was the biggest town in Wales, the population boosted by immigrants from England, Ireland and further afield. Some prospered, many were worked to death for little money. As the extraction industries were declining, new job opportunities came and went. Hoover made washing machines, another factory made aircraft control gear, and Sir Clive Sinclair made the ill-starred Sinclair C5. Viagra was accidentally pioneered by researchers who were trying to treat angina.

The top end of Merthyr’s High Street is like Tredegar’s, a collection of eyesores, but things perked up considerably as I walked further down. A lively street market contributed to the effect of relative prosperity on this Saturday afternoon. And a nice café, where I enjoyed coffee and something, raised the spirits no end.

I followed a cycle track alongside the River Taff, branching off on to a footpath which crossed two main roads on a brace of new footbridges, the effect of being cosseted somewhat spoilt by the 6-inch deep puddle between them. I headed uphill on a track which had clearly served old workings in the past: signs warned me not to stray from the path. Then for the first time I joined the Coed Morgannwg Way.

This is 36 miles long and links several ancient Celtic tracks through Margam, Cymmer and Rheola forests. It was to prove to be fairly well signed in some places, but not reliably so. It took me a while to realise that the chosen logo, a footprint, was also a direction indicator: follow the way the foot is pointing, and you are on course. It didn’t always work out, but it was often helpful.

As I climbed not steeply but relentlessly, on a forestry road running parallel with power lines, I passed a board advertising the remains (just the floor, apparently) of the Blaencanaid Ironworks. This provided a connection with my latest walk, from Kent to Cornwall, since the ironworks were started in the 16^th Century by Sussex men, forbidden to cut trees in the Weald for the necessary charcoal.

The way down was on an equally well defined track, but much muddier, and rutted by vehicle wheels. Luckily it had not rained for a couple of days, and the mud had been hardened by wind and sunshine. The map showed the Coed Morgannwg Way departing from the track, but I couldn’t find a path. Choosing a likely-looking gap between the trees, I plunged precipitously but perfectly safely downhill. Arriving at another good track, I took a GPS fix, but I still wasn’t entirely sure of which direction to take.

Right on cue, along came my next direction-fairy (no offence), a cheery dog-walker who set me right and walked with me until his dog led him off on to a side path. This track was an old railway, and I walked past the platform from one of the former stations as I entered Abernant, a suburb of Aberdare.

I walked downhill into the centre of the town and soon found a warm welcome at my b&b.

Later, I emerged to find some supper, heading by instinct for the local Wetherspoons. This is evidently the epicentre of Aberdare’s Saturday nightlife. Taxi-loads of scantily-clad girls were arriving every minute – the boys seemed to walk. The place was crammed; so many people, so few clothes, and it was not a warm night. Regardless of the crush, my steak was delivered with Wetherspoons’ customary efficiency, and was delicious. Soon after finishing it, I retreated to the b&b, felling rather old.