STAGE 3 - Day 15 Crucorney to Crickhowell
Today began the third stage of my adventure, following the Beacons Way through the Brecon Beacons National Park, joined by my good pal Rory.
I’d originally planned to walk straight from Llanthony but Rory needed to drop his car somewhere he could retrieve it at the end, and as Llanthony has neither a bus or a train that go anywhere near it, we drove to Abergavenny and left the car in the bus station car park, stopping for a quick coffee before catching the bus a couple of miles to Crucorney, to begin the walk there. The less said about Abergavenny the better. It seemed a tired, run-down and depressing place, with little of the charm of other little Welsh towns I’d seen.
We alighted the bus by The Skirrid Inn, Wales’ oldest pub with a wonderful sign.
Then off we set down lanes and footpaths, a grey sky not enough to offset the green and lush scenery.
At the peculiarly farm of Forest Coal Pit, we saw this sign, and then a field of black sheep.
Shortly afterwards we passed through the village of Partrishow, where we found a sadly no-longer-functioning little holy well with a money-tree with hundreds of coins hammered into its bark. I'm not sure how lucky the poor tree felt but it felt like a special little place.
Just up the lane was an ancient little church tucked into a remote corner of the hillside. It was simple but struck me for both its setting and understated charm. A lady was putting fresh flowers on the grave of a man who’d died in 1979 but had clearly not been forgotten.
Inside, the church was deceptively ornate with a beautiful wooden carved screen between the chancel and nave. I knew it was old but learned it was over 1000 years old and dedicated to Saint Issui. On the back wall is the picture of a skeleton holding an hourglass, a sobering reminder of our impending doom. It’s one of the most curious and enchanting places I've ever set foot in.
Leaving the church we finally joined the Beacons Way, which we intended to follow for the next 4 days. But after only a few minutes we got lost in a large field of sheep and ended up following a path that whilst being large and well-established, didn't exist on the OS map, the other way round to many of the apparent paths I’d tried to follow.
It led up a valley with a thick forest plantation on one side, and was a steep climb towards the top.
Atop a ridge, we cut back and rejoined the Beacons Way. The weather had been progressively deteriorating and I decided to join Rory in taking off my shoes, for the same rain that he had - a preference for going barefoot to splashing about in soaking, waterlogged shoes. This worked okay for a while but the party became too stony and jagged to continue.
The rain eased up and we descended into a valley near Llanbedr (not the one I’ll be staying in near Snowdon however). Up the other side we climbed Table Mountain, a small, flat-topped peak jutting out from the larger mass of the Black Mountains, on which sits the ruins of an ancient fort. Along the way we passed a guy sitting nonchalantly smoking a cigarette whom we assumed was a local farm worker stopped for a fag break but who turned out to be an American hiker who’d been spending weeks walking and camping in the wilderness. That night he planned to camp atop Table Mountain.
At the summit we got some good views despite the encroaching mists. Yet another old hill fort that must have been a hard life to survive in.
The way down to Crickhowell went through lovely old woodlands, one of the nicest parts of the day.
In the town we found our accommodation, a little cottage in a terraced side street, got ourselves ready and went to explore.
Crickhowell is a welcoming, clean and attractive little town. We went for a drink at The Brittania Inn where the lovely Nicola poured our pints and chatted for a while. Then we went to eat at the best place in town, the second branch of Red Indigo, the Indian restaurant I’d eaten at in Hay. We had a sumptous feast and returned home merry indeed!
