A classic country walk in the South Wales Valleys. Beautiful views and country tracks and plenty of stone walls.
This walk is nice and easy to follow and you can make it longer or shorter as you see fit thanks to the large numbers of public footpaths and trails available. There is plenty of parking available and as you are parking high up it avoids too much ascent and descent, although the trail does drop down a fair bit so you have to go back up towards the end of the walk.
You can do this circular walk either way, I chose to do it this time in an anti-clockwise direction. That means after you park you head back towards the road, aiming to walk past the single communication tower – keeping it on your left. At the start of the walk you are going to see a fair bit of litter and fly-tipping, which is sadly pretty standard in the Welsh Valleys whenever you have vehicle access.
However, once you get past the comms tower you shouldn’t see anymore litter and you’ll enjoy plenty of peace and quiet as it is not generally well walked.
The trail is easy to follow and it winds its way down the hill in zig-zags through gnarled trees and often bordered by stone walls. The views are great, you’ll see the central Bannau Brycheiniog mountains North and you’ll see plenty of Welsh Valleys in every direction.
Once you’ve descended a fair bit you’ll be cutting South along the hill, following easy trails – which can be wet in places – and passing bluebell woodlands and the occasional stream.
Eventually you’ll drop again and then cross a very muddy bridge, after this you start some ascent which takes you to the edge of Mynydd Dimlaith, a 224m hill. You could ascend this if you wanted, but the top is overgrown and doesn’t offer many views.
This route cuts left at the hill and follows some wide tracks until you start the longest period of ascent, which zig-zags you back up the hill and onto some lovely soft grass tracks and more ancient trees.
The views open up once again and you eventually end up back at the main track – which is well used by off-road vehicles. Plenty of birds can be seen on the stone walls and the gorse bushes.
You can follow this track all the way back to the car. It’s a great walk and a great place to explore further.