Sirhowy Skyline

The day after the Lib Con coalition was announced, a brief telephone call the night before confirmed that Mike had identified the route for the walk the following day in the Sirhowy Valley - perhaps this demonstration of decisive leadership can be an example to Nick Clegg and David Cameron! However, finding the start of the walk probably proved to be a little bit more tricky than any political alignment, however long it may last!

Deciding that we didn’t need to actually go into Cwm itself we ended up back-tracking our way from Llanhillith, when we realised that we had gone too far. A steep hill climb from the A4046 eventually led us to the entrance to Pen-Y-Fan Country Park. A big thumb’s down to Caerphilly Council for the extremely poor signage.

The walk started from an old canal feeder pond, (the best preserved and last complete example in Wales). Built between 1794 and 1796, the reservoir was initially tasked with feeding the Crumlin arm of the Monmouth and Brecon Canal.



Leaving the Country Park we traveled west through Ty’r Sais Farm before deviating from a country lane onto a way marked path (the actual sign was lying in the adjacent field hidden from view! Something for Caerphilly Council to rectify perhaps?) to enter an area of stunning woodland.



With a view of Markham nestling on the furthest western side of the valley and after a brief altercation over the correct route to take, we continued to Ton y Gross where there was evidence that nature was winning the battle of the scarred landscaped caused by the recent hill fires that hit most area's of South Wales. No sign of the volcanic ash from Iceland.



The main climb of the day saw us ascend from 200 metres at the foot of Twyn-gwyn up a very steep stony path to over 350 metres at Gelligoediog, which Mike's dodgy back negotiated without any problem, before a pleasant walk into the picturesque village of Manmoel (Inhabitants of 175 est).

Although only 2 miles from Ebbw Vale as the crow flies the industrial revolution must have by-passed almost unnoticed to the inhabitants. We decided to take a well earned tea break in a local park at this northernmost point of the walk. Leaving the peaceful sleepy hamlet of Manmoel was similar to walking out of a village like Llanfrynach, such was the impact of the glorious countryside that was totally unexpected on this particular walk!

The road then led us past Tir Y Pentre Farm to Twyn Y Bleiddiaid before we reached the highest point of our trek - the trig point at 409 metres at Mynydd Pen Y Fan, where we could see on the horizon in the far distance the distinctive outline of the large peaks of the Brecon Beacons range Corn Du, Pen-Y-Fan and Cribyn. In other words we could actually see Pen-Y-Fan (Brecon Beacons National Park) from Pen Y Fan (Sirhowy Ridge)!! See the evidence for yourself in the image below.



The downhill section returned us relatively quickly on the last part of the walk back to our starting point at the Country Park.

We ended the evening at a Wetherspoons in Tredegar (recommended from previous visits by Mike!) where the local Curry Night saw the hungry trekkers demolish a Jalfrezi, Bhuna and Madras washed down with an excellent pint of Rhymney Breweries ‘Hobby Horse’, while receiving abusive text messages from the vicinity of Llwydcoed in the Cynon Valley.

The walk was 7.5 kilometres and took just over 3 hours to complete (including a compulsory rest period).