Distance - 11 Miles
Geocaches - 1Six months have passed since the last stage on the Heart of Wales Line Trail. What has stopped me this time? Just the usual.... named Storms... rail replacement buses.
An unexpectedly free weekend (of good weather) and a check to see if everything is running ok is confirmed. And the single carriage train trundles into Llandrindod Wells 5 minutes early. The other passengers on the platform - a man with a wizard length beard and a 4 pack of Cornettos - the first of which he is busily slurping on. I'm sure the other three are going to melt before he gets to the train's ultimate destination - Swansea.
I'm off well before there - my £2.90 ticket getting me 15 minutes down the track to the request stop of Cilmeri. I've told the guard, the guard has told the driver but there was no need to fear. Someone is waving the train to a stop from the platform. A technique I am no doubt going to have to perfect on the next stage.
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| Loneliness of a Request Stop in Mid Wales |
Cilmeri does have a pub - The Prince Llewelyn will be utilised next time. A short walk across fields and woodland to pick up the main companion for today's walk... the River Wye, followed for four miles.
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| Easy route finding along the River Wye |
Newbridge on Wye is both the mid point of the ramble and where we leave the river behind. It's an odd place showing little sign of life. There are two pubs - both of which have Facebook Pages showing their campaigning for Ukraine. Yet 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, both front doors are firmly shut. Not even any people to ask.
Lunch? Sandwiches on a bench. Undisturbed.
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| The New Inn, Newbridge on Wye |
Agricultural fields for the remainder of the walk. Sheep for company, including the heart warming sights of this year's new editions.
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| Spring Sprung - with a Mother's watchful eye |
Into Llandrindod Wells - slightly more people than Newbridge on Wye but still an air of quiet desperation. The pubs and hotels that line the route in are closed or down at heel nursing homes hinting at the their former opulence.
Changes in the Good Beer Guide between 2021 and 2022. Both entries were closed during the last walk in Sept 2021 - bizarrely, the Middleton Arms is in the 2022 guide, despite remaining permanently closed.
This leaves the Arvon Ales to carry the torch for Good Beer, even when rather cruelly excluded from the bible.
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| Now re-opened |
The first micro-pub in Powys handles its shop conversion well. Pubby bench seating around the exterior walls, some partitioning, a ceiling full of pump clips.
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| Real Ales, Ciders and Gins |
There's four other punters - on a train journey from Swansea - which means with me - we can each have a dedicated beer each. Five casks, surely too many for the footfall. Especially when Wye Valley Bitter, Hopfather and Purple Moose Snowdonia are not wildly different in style.
Not that there was anything wrong with my Hopfather... a tasty, lacing heavy hoppy bonanza of beer.
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| Walk the Wye Valley, Drink the Wye Valley |
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