Two weeks ago, with warm weather forecast across the country, we thought it might be nice to take the opportunity to find a last minute get away somewhere here in the UK. Long story short the former Miners cottage in mid Wales, that we stayed in last year, had a last minute cancellation and was being offered for a weeks rental with a good discount. So, on Sunday evening I booked the cottage and by 2.00pm the next day we were back in it.

Pontneddfechan lies in the heart of Brecon Beacons walking country. We had a few walks in mind but let the weather guide our choices as some of the routes had very little shade. With really hot weather forecast we had to be mindful of that for us and the dog.

We settled on a couple of ten mile routes over a mixture of terrain. We took on the usual waterfall walk from Pontneddfechan. The walk takes in eight waterfalls, following two rivers that run through woodland with the route back through pine forestry. Despite the recent dry conditions there was still plenty of water about and the falls were flowing well. We still both rate this as our favourite hike and its really nice to start and finish from where you’re staying.

For our next walk we decided on a circular route around a climb up Cribarth, a peak towards the east of the Brecons. It’s not the highest but still a good climb on open grassland with great views from the top. A lot of the route is through woodland which gave us plenty of welcome shade as the day warmed up.

I’ve covered both of these walks, in more depth, on a previous log from last year. This link will take you to that blog.

We were due to leave on Friday so we used our last full day to drive across to the town of Brecon for an amble around the town. Brecon is a great place to visit anyway but I especially enjoy a trip there as its full of outdoor walking shops. There seems to be a store around every corner and we visited quite a few of them. We finished off our day there with an ice cream from the Llanfaes Dairy. It had been recommended by the owner of our Air BnB and it didn’t disappoint.

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