Sunday Walk.

Lots of sun today though the light wind had a distinctly chilly feel.

Today's walk was up in the hills just behind Aber. This was the first time I've come to a wilderness parking spot, and this was a large one, where it was hard to find a space. I guess being close to Aber and having a good mix of well maintained gravel tracks (for the forestry vehicles), tracks with puddles and muddy trails it attracts walkers, cyclists and trail bikers. Usually we hardly see anyone else on our walks but today our group of nineteen passed quite a few people.

Our walk first took us beside Llyn Syfydrin giving us a good view of the contrasting land usage, forestry to the left and millenia of sheep farming to the right. I like to think of the bare hills as being nature in her underwear after early man removed the woods that clothed the land. The lakes themselves or at least some of them are a product of man's hand too after streams were dammed to create hydroelectrics and a water supply for the town.

For a while we walked under blue skies but soon these turned to the more usual washed out wintry pale grey.

The highest roads were not so well maintained and we spent a lot of time zig-zagging from one side of the track to the other to avoid walking through the deep puddles.

This ruined farmhouse was our lunch stop. Under normal circumstances we would have sat inside the shell of the building but after somebody reported that there was a dead sheep inside we opted to sit on a low wall outside. 

The farmhouse itself must have been abandoned for many generations but one of the barns had a more recent tin roof and next to that a small yard had been fenced off with modern metal gates. That would have been for gathering sheep maybe for worming or sorting.

Soon after we headed off the road. Our group leader had already said he hadn't walked that route for 10 years so I might have been worried when he said that the next section was on an unmarked track but he knows these hills so well there was no chance of getting lost. We had a bit of fun when the track went across a stream which had suddenly widened. There were a few strategically placed rocks and people were gingerly making their way over those with some helping hands. Thinking that a slip might end up with a twisted ankle or at the least a boot full of water I made my way downstream to where the stream had narrowed enough for a careful jump or stride over. A misstep there would only result in muddy knees and hands, definitely a better option but in the end I, and the rest of the group made it over safely.

One oddity as we walked through this wilderness was coming across a couple of manhole covers seemingly set at random in the rough grass. A sign of the engineered purpose of Llyn Craigypistll (translates as the pistil rock not Craig's pistol) which was created by a dam across the head of the valley.

Below is the route we took, 5.6 miles according to somebody's phone. Who needs an app when you've got a snipping tool and Paint to use on Google Maps? This is my approach to modern technology.

As I drove home the sun was setting bathing the countryside in a golden light. I passed a buzzard  basking on top of a telegraph pole a sight which I often saw in Devon. Here I rarely see buzzards, I'm guessing because of the presence of the red kites which occupy the same ecological niche.

At home the reflection of the pink sunset had turned the sky to the east a vivid shade of red. Hopefully that means a nice day tomorrow.