The Latest Walk

A little further Up the Valley there is the tiny village of Ystradgynlais. It really is miniscule but it is also the proud possessor of a beautiful range of waterfalls. It was my ambition to reach the first of them today. Not easy with small ones as I am sure a lot of you know.

This is one of my favourite spots on the whole walk. A truly massive boulder juts out into the river and it is a great spot for photos.

The path that lies beside the river is an old tram road. Not trams as in San Francisco trams, the industrial trams that bore either anthracite coal or ironstone. I don't know which. Above is one of the several mine shafts that are scattered along the walk.
Rose was interested and listened attentively to my brief history of child labour in British mining. Lily was more concerned that any resident dragons were not woken up and got quite narked at V for whooping into the darkness.

Posing Rose

Further evidence of the industrial history of the area. Marks showing where the tramlines were held down. V thinks I am a bit nerdy for putting this in. But places like this just bring history boiling to life in me. My father was a miner, as was his father and all the way back. History is teeming all around us. It does not seem remote to me.

We did not reach the waterfalls. It was quite optimistic to think we would really. Instead we turned back at Eden's first demand to be carried and drove off to Rhigos. The van man was guaranteed to be there on half term holidays and we had hot dogs seasoned with fried onions, mustard and hunger and an ice creams with hundreds and thousands and fluorescent pink sauce. Yum.