This is my most frequent hike, at 31 kilometres with a total ascent of 780 metres it is good training for my multi-day long distance walks, and during the current Coronavirus pandemic, where we must exercise only from home, training for when we are free to travel is about all I can do.
Today, taking the Llanishen railway station as a starting point, I walked up Everest Avenue and Everest Way to join the tarmac path through grass and small trees as it winds its way up between suburban housing to Excaliber Drive. In this area, town planners created these paths to avoid having to walk by and across busy roads, however on reaching Excaliber Drive a short walk beside a road is inevitable to reach Cefn Onn park.
Cefn Onn is a park I have always loved for its range of trees and flowering shrubs, with many rhododendrons and colourful autumn colours, a place for picnics in my youth with its own train station (which has since been moved nearer Cardiff). A little red metal bridge over a stream, hiding under the trees, makes me think of Japan. At the top end there are multiple, curious little paths I used to run around as a child and a still pond, but today, for this walk I turn off before I reach them to head up beside the golf course. A climb through woods, rich with bluebells in May, takes me up to the ridge behind Cardiff. Beneath the ground trains run through a tunnel, evident on the surface from large, grey brick towers, built for ventilation in the time of steam trains.
 |
| Autumn colours at Cefn Onn |
Cows and sheep are grazed at the top of the ridge where I turn east over fields, the ground soft and muddy from recent rains. At the single track road, a sign offers to sell me free range eggs, lamb and beef from the farm and stables opposite. I continue along the ridge, trying my best to avoid the deeper mud. A wire rope follows the path for a while as it plunges into woodland, I have often wondered what its purpose once was. The track becomes wider and there have been some recent forestry operations, but all was quiet today so I continued, turning sharp right after the electricity pylons. This took me gently down a steep slope, a metal railing providing support, remains of an old lime kiln or something similar on the right, maybe related to the lead mines marked on
old maps. Crossing a stream on a helpful bridge at the base of the valley, just beyond a deep puddle, I turned sharp left across fields, often grazed by horses, penned in by thin electric fences, before climbing up the other side of the valley in a wood, full of bluebells in May, to reach higher fields of sheep pasture.
After a brief walk on a single track road, hoping a fast car was not about to come around the corner, I continued along a rough road towards Ruperra. Deviating off the road and into the trees of Coed Ruperra, I climbed up to the "motte" at the top (Craig Ruperra). A mound of some vague but lengthy historical significance, there is an excellent view from the top, especially now in winter when there are fewer leaves on the trees to obscure the vista, in the far distance I could see the New Severn Bridge. From there it was down through the trees to the village of Draethen, my most easterly point today, its pub firmly closed under the Covid regulations. After a brief hop through more woods on a path frequently choked by brambles, but clear today, I was on the single track road heading towards Machen. As the official footpath passes through a massively, muddy, brown field of blanketed horses, the owners had taken it upon themselves to make a diversion a little down the road which at least avoided the worst of the clay and horse manure slurry. School playing fields followed, used only by dog walkers and mothers wheeling prams today. On the left under the trees the stream is coloured orange by, I assume, effluent from old coal mining operations nearby.
 |
| Path east from Craig Ruperra on a winter's day |
At the Cooperative shop in Machen, I first donned my face mask. I took advantage of the coffee machine and bought a latte and a luxury smoked salmon and egg sandwich, paying at the self service checkout by contactless card, avoiding all human contact, which should please the Coronavirus police, especially as I used the alcoholic hand gel on entering and leaving the store to avoid bringing any germs in and to protect me and any I touch from viruses picked up from surfaces in the store. After the village of Machen I followed a cycle track which was laid out on an abandoned railway line, part of the now abandoned coal industry that once dominated the area. At a sculpture made of railway signals, on which stationary birds sat, I turned off the cycle path to drop down to the riverside path beside the River Rhymney, flowing full and fast with recent rain. Another popular area for people walking children and dogs. After that it was a walk through the outer areas of the town of Caerphilly.
Apart from supermarkets and bakeries, shops were closed by government decree in the centre of Caerphilly, however the main attraction is the castle. Closed to visitors by the pandemic, it has seen many centuries of wars and plagues and will no doubt see many more. As the biggest castle in Wales (which has more than its quota of castles) it is an impressive display of mediaeval power. Surrounded by a classic moat, and a circle of grass, it dominates the town.
 |
| Canada Geese in front of Caerphilly Castle |
From the castle it was an uphill climb, passed a Wetherspoon's Pub, where posters in the window have suggested that the closing of pubs by the government was an unnecessarily severe restriction, as wells as praising the chancellor, Rishi Sunak for a VAT (Value Added Tax) reduction for beer. Not much good though if you are not allowed to sell any. After a steep climb by a church with its flower filled graveyard, and some houses, I took a footpath forking left around the golf course and on up onto Caerphilly Common. I pass a series of pits. They are not craters left by airborne bombing in the Second World War as I thought as a child, they are bell pits used to dig for shallow coal some time long ago.
Passing the Mountain Snack Bar, I resisted the temptation for another coffee and followed the main road south to the parallel ridge to the south. The track then leads east tunnelling through low trees, signs warn that you should keep you dog on a lead due to sheep in the adjacent fields. A grove of beech then adds an architectural splendour, in spring the ground is spread with wild garlic. On the right I passed a disused limestone quarry where in my youth I collected samples of calcite.
 |
| Path lined with beech trees and wild garlic |
Re-joining the outward leg of my circular walk I dropped down through trees back towards Cefn Onn park, but this time, instead of going through the path I turned off left and followed the other side of the railway, through trees, down to some tennis courts. Crossing into a road of new, tightly packed, red brick houses I walked to the top of the Coed y Felin woods, where a path took me down beside the stream. A fierce dragon, carved out of a fallen tree glared at me. Then it was a walk down via Millheath Drive and Mill Road to return to Llanishen Railway Station.
No comments:
Post a Comment