Monday 14 November 2016

Craig y Llyn to Margam Country Park

Day two of my walk started early, waking at 5:00 a.m. after my early night. I packed up and was on the trail by 6:00 a.m. by the light of my head torch. My campsite was located high up (for South Wales) near the 600 m contour and the mountain was in a thick mist that lasted much of the day. I look forward to such early starts as there is often a chance to see deer or other animals, but today all was quiet. The path was reasonably straightforward. There were many gravel roads for the wind turbines, on which an early morning tractor passed, with myriad lights ablaze, bringing a trailer full of gravel I guessed for more road building. Long lines of orange cones marked the edges of the gravel roads for any partially sighted drivers. Wind turbines may provide environmentally responsible power, but the landscape is left rather less green by their construction. A short section of a smaller but serviceable path, with some flags of rock, made a pleasant change for a while. Wind turbines appeared and disappeared in the mist and cloud. Trees, dripping water onto my head, alternated with moorland of long, unkempt grass that drenched my trousers. Promised views were obscured by mist.

Roads servicing the windfarm

Wind turbine appearing through the cloud
Soon, at a bleak junction in the clouds, I joined the St Illtyd's way, another long distance path, which follows the Coed Morgannwg Way as far as my destination at Margam Park. I celebrated with a breakfast of cheese and flapjacks. Then I missed a turning and had to retrace my steps again.

But the turning proved hard to find. Close examination indicated the distant remains of a path at about the right place, long since grown over with brambles, long grass and small fir trees . Battling through I discovered a stile with a rare Coed Morgannwg waymark. Further on it became impassable due to fallen trees and I crossed over a stream into woods where it was easy to push through, breaking off thin, brittle, dead branches that tried to stop me, eventually reaching a forest track. An easier way would be down a bike route called White's level (with the symbol of a coal wagon) which crosses the overgrown section of the Coed Morgannwg Way, but there is a risk of being injured by a fast moving mountain bike (signs warn you of this). The name White's level presumably refers to the coal mining industry, long gone, but apparent from an adit (a tunnel entrance) closed off with a Coal Authority sign.

Overgrown path
Farther on the route turns up a small path climbing out of the Cwm Cragen valley. Not everyone wants you to take it; the post marking the turning has been chopped down (I was wrong, on a subsequent visit I discovered it had been removed as the path had been diverted, see update below). This path ends at a forest track, then the route zig zags up a hillside of tree stumps. With the mist clearing the village of Cymmer was visible down the valley as I again entered trees following a track along the side of the ridge. Reaching a viewpoint I accidentally took a bike trail down to a lower parallel track, misreading a waymark, The ruins of a 17th century farm follows, where more recently they bred pit ponies who spent their lives in the dark, hauling coal through the mines. At Bryn Bettws Lodge I checked out the cafe, unfortunately closed. If you are walking the trail, it does offer camping and log cabins, although aimed at mountain bikers rather than walkers.

Looking down the valley towards Cymmer

Felled areas
I then crossed over the River Avan the long way. I should have crossed a footbridge close to the Afan Forest visitor centre, but instead I followed the footprint signs that normally waymark the Coed Morgannwg Way to a pedestrian bridge further west, built where a railway once ran, and then had a lengthy walk back to the visitors' centre. My problem was that footprint symbols, the same as those used to mark the Coed Morgannwg Way, are used to mark local, and quite different, walks in the Afan Forest Park. The visitor centre had a cafe (for a welcome coffee and carrot cake), a camp site for tents (hidden behind the centre) and a mining museum which I would have liked to visit. On this trip I lacked the time as I estimated I would reach Margam Park at around 6:00 pm; sunset was at 4:30 pm. The footprint waymarks around the visitor centre left me confused, so I headed uphill on a track alongside the steam as indicated on the map, steadily climbing up to the summit, where a path coming from the right had a St Illtyd waymark, suggesting I had come up the wrong path.

View of the Avan valley from the wrong footbridge
The route now takes a 2 km half circle around the end of the ridge. I was making good progress, almost around the loop when I was faced with a barbed wire fence and a danger sign due to quarrying. Ignoring the sign was tempting but years in industry having a safety message drummed into me, and me drumming it into others, made me retrace my steps. There were two possible alternative routes.  With the benefit of hindsight, the Cicerone guide describes one but I took another that I was more certain would avoid the quarry, taking a wide half circle to rejoin the Coed Morgannwg Way as it drops down to Bryn.



The Royal Oak at Bryn looked tempting but I still had a long way to go, and the weather was deteriorating. As the mist turned to rain I headed up over the next ridge, now estimating a 6:30 pm arrival at Margam. Thankfully the route now followed reasonably clear paths, but the poor light filtering through the clouds was rapidly turning to darkness. I reached a point where the St Illtyd's sign pointed one way but the GPS said another. I went with the GPS as the waymarking was too unreliable and too easy to miss in the dark. Checking later I found I had also missed a hill fort in the dark. Even large junctions in the track could be passed without me spotting them, causing me to retrace my steps at one point where the GPS indicated I had missed a turning. Then I came to a point at which the GPS suggested I had missed another turning, so I retraced my steps but could see no path. By now I was relying on my headtorch, which at best illuminates a small area, but the drizzly rain was reflecting much of the light back into my eyes, illuminating even less (like full headlights on a foggy night). In consequence I banged my head into a low, but solid, branch. I returned to the path I was following and the turning came somewhat later than the GPS track indicated.

Thankfully this was my last navigational difficulty; I just had to continue carefully along the path, as with the limited light from my head torch and the wet rocks on the uneven ground,  there was a high risk of tripping. The other risk was that the gates to Margam Country Park would be locked. Fortunately this was not the case and I could enter and leave the park through pedestrian gates (setting off a security light as I left but fortunately no alarms).

Now rather wet, I waited for my very kind wife to pick me up at the entrance to the park while eating some peanuts and raisins I had left and putting on extra clothes as I cooled down. My salvation arrived ahead of time and I was glad to jump in the car, to be welcomed not only by my wife but also by enthusiastic kisses from Lola (the dog).

Update: I returned to the area around the Afan Argoed Visitor centre to try and find where I should have gone. In the following I have assumed that the Coed Morgannwg Way is the same as St Illtyd's Walk in this area, They are indicated as following the same route on the map, but then again the waymarks for St Illtyd's Walk are not where my Ordnance Survey map says they should be. On the north side of the River Avan, based on fairly frequent waymarks, it seems that St Illtyds Walk has been diverted onto a low route along a north side of the river, following an old train line. The diversion starts where I saw the post chopped down at a turn off for the previous route. It is a pleasant track but without the views of the ridge path described above.

Diverted route on north side of River Avan, an old railway

On the south side of the river, the first waymark for St Illtyd's walk is craftily hidden behind the visitor centre. It takes you around to the east of the route on the map, onto high ground with pleasant views, but rather muddy in December. It then crosses the route on the map and heads south avoiding the warning signs for the quarry, which you eventually pass on your left. There are other routes you can follow, but this one largely avoids being hit by fast moving bikes. See the Overview post for a gpx file of the revised route.

2 comments:

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    1. My spelling was based on the Ordnance Survey Explorer map 166 dated 2012, which gives the English as River Avan and the Welsh as Afon Afan...

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