Shame week-ends are so short - stroppycow

Shame week-ends are so short

We made it at last. Our first week-end away camping and walking this year and it’s already well into June. It was worth the wait though. Thoroughly enjoyed it despite the aches and pains this morning.

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The destination was ffice:smarttags" />South Wales – the Brecon Beacons to be more precise. It’s an area I fell in love with when I went away for a Bank Holiday week-end with a friend nearly 15 years ago, when we were really made to feel welcome and had a great time. It has a lot going for it. It is close enough to London to make it a great week-end destination and it is so different to England that you know you have been away. Him Indoors prefers the Lake District but since he is the Master in his house, what I say goes and Brecon it was.

On a more personal note since the signposting is often at best inexistent and at worst misleading it gives me an opportunity to prove that I may be female but I can certainly read a map (anything less precise than the OS Explorer OL12 and you’d better stick to the A40). What more could a woman want ?

We left Friday afternoon. As usual we had forgotten a few essentials while packing . We thought we had reduced the chances of that happening by putting me in charge of packing the food and planning the lunches for the walks and putting Him Indoors in charge of packing… well everything else. Somewhere near Slough we realised we had forgotten the chairs and decided against turning back (the floor would be good enough for a couple of days). Around the junction to the A34 I realised Him Indoors had not mentioned once the amount of space wasted by taking my pillow (he believes in roughing it, I believe in the power of the good night sleep). I checked if he had indeed taken it, he hadn’t, he had in fact done away with bedding altogether. Funny how he remembered to take a battery charger for his GPS but not what was meant to keep us warm overnight. A case of male sense of priorities maybe? Anyway after what must be the shortest shopping trip in Swindon we were equipped with sleeping bags and pillows.

Saturday we set of for the walk which we had attempted last year when the weather (hail, wind and poor visibility) made us turn back. This time the weather was nice. Warm enough to keep the fleeces in the rucksacks until lunch at the summit with enough of a breeze to not feel like a waterfall in forming on your back. For those of you who have an idea of the area the walk went as follows: start at Blaenau, up Waun Lwyd, up Fan Foel, then nearly flat to Fan Brycheiniog from which we could not see Lyn y Fan Fawr but would have if a cloud had not decided to rest on the summit for a while, back track a bit to Fa Brycheiniog, follow the ridge to Bannau Sir Gaer and Waun Lefrith then descend back to the car while admiring the views of Lyn y Fan Fach. For those of you into numbers that’s just over 7 miles or 11 km with about 500m ascent and including lunch and multiple stops to catch my breath it took us 5 hours.

Saturday evening The Boy managed to make some friends in the campsite, a first for my little loner. I burnt the sausages perfectly and warmed a tin of green beans and a pack of ready rice on a disposable barbecue. We even stretched to bananas grilled in their skins on the last embers. A true camping feast. Him Indoors kept me supplied with tea made using his trustee Trangia (trying to prove we don’t need anything mor sophisticated than a meth burner).

More tomorrow and a pic to show why I let my outdoorsy manfolk drag me up hills huffing and puffing like an old seal.

7.6.04 22:06

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