Day Twenty One

Friday 18 February - Abergavenny to Ebbw Vale

The sensible thing would have been to head Northwest from Abergavenny, on to the green hills of the Brecon Beacons. But I had other ideas. I wanted to have a looks at The Valleys, that mythical region of South Wales associated with coal, iron and steel, and later with economic disaster. What was left? What legacy was visible in the landscape? I meant to find out, as far as possible on a linear excursion. So I flirted with the Brecon Beacons National Park while heading for an industrial (or post-industrial) landscape.

From the station at Abergavenny, I headed for Castle Meadows, the flood plain of the River Usk. Almost immediately I had to turn back, as a vital footbridge over a stream wasn’t there anymore; a brief diversion through the town took me back to the water meadows, a dog-walker’s paradise, even on this very grey day. Crossing the river on an old bridge, I took a lane and a track up my first mountain, The Blorenge.

I use the term “mountain”. The Welsh seem to classify mountains by shape rather than height: if it rears up steeply out of the lower ground, it’s a mountain. A farmer will talk about his sheep on the mountain, while in the Pennines or Scotland it would be a hill or a fell. It’s just a matter of terminology, and when in Rome…

The Blorenge is a bit over 1,800 feet high. It’s in the National Park and in also Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site. The mountain comes in layers of sandstone, mudstone and limestone, tilted towards the basin of the South Wales coalfield. A glaciated hollow on the eastern side of the mountain, The Punchbowl, is now a nature reserve owned by the Woodland Trust, which I support. Red Grouse breed on the mountain’s slopes.

Also the lower slopes is the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, contouring well above the level of the River Usk. A dank tunnel led me under the canal and on to the mountain proper, which was almost totally invisible. The fog, or low cloud, completely obscured the tops, and I soon found that the paths I intended to follow were ill-defined. But I knew the general direction I needed, So I set out through the wet grass. Below, I could hear but not see the road which runs beneath the mountain; above – nothing. I needed to climb diagonally, walk a quarter of the way round the mountain at about halfway up, then descend diagonally.

My judgement served me reasonably well – I reached the road and got a GPS fix. Below the road, I took a wrong turn. I soon realised it, and was about to whip out the phone for a GPS reading when I noticed a woman repairing a front wall, so I opted for the pathetic approach. She was very helpful, showing me on the map how to get back on course. This went well while I was on tarmac, but as soon as I was back in fields, the paths disappeared. Then I met Simon Cooley.

I didn’t know he was Simon Cooley, sculptor with an international reputation and some impressive samples in his back garden; I discovered this afterwards by Googling him. Immediately, he was a very friendly chap who described the best route, accompanied me part of the way to make sure, and mentioned that he was a sculptor who also kept some sheep which were peacefully grazing amongst the sculptures. His directions were spot-on, and soon I was walking around the lower reaches of Gilwern Hill (hill, note, not mountain).

When I reached a quiet road, my masterplan involved following it for a short while, then heading across high moorland on footpaths. Two factors changed my mind. The footpaths round here were difficult to follow, and the fog had closed in even further; navigation by sight was out of the question. So I stuck to the road. This would add a little bit to the day’s journey, which had started late anyway because I had come down from London by train.

I decided to phone the b&b I had booked to tell them that I might be a bit later than arranged. It was a good job I did. When I gaily said “I’m coming to stay with you tonight”, there was a long silence. “Oh, I think there might be a cross-booking,” the man said. He put the phone down. Pause. “The thing is, we had a ceiling come down in that room, so there’s nothing we can do.” I said that nobody had been in touch; he assured me that it only happened the day before. He gave me an alternative number, and that was it. No apology.

When I phoned the other number, a nice lady was very apologetic that their rooms were not ready yet after refurbishment. When I told her who had referred me to her, I really could hear her suck her teeth, as she told me I had had a lucky escape. She suggested somewhere else, which my phone couldn’t find. I had kept walking towards Ebbw Vale while all this was going on. I Googled “hotels Ebbw Vale” which found me a Comfort Inn. A quick call – rooms galore, just turn up.

Ebbw Vale is a long place, straggling down the valley, and the hotel was another 3 miles away. But I just trotted down the main road, ignoring the centre of the town, intent on reaching a coffee, a good meal, and a comfy bed, in that order. I got all three.

When I told the receptionist something of my ordeal, she had the same reaction as the previous lady – better to be turned away from the b&b than actually stay there. I hesitate to mention the name of this b&b here; I didn’t actually visit it, so its reputation might be entirely unjustified! But it felt like an escape to me.