A Walk From Devil's Bridge.

Apparently the day was dry and mostly sunny here at the coast but it was a different matter in the hills above Devil's Bridge. It had begun raining as I left Aber, got much heavier for a while and then almost stopped by the time I got to the car park. We walked in and out of clouds/drizzle for most of the walk with the sun only coming out right at the end.

As usual I took lots of photos, keeping my camera tucked safely in a plastic bag when it rained and in my desire to share the walk I'll post the landscape photos today and keep the watery ones for tomorrow.

Those are low clouds not smoke.

After some fairly easy though wet underfoot walking through fields we then traversed the side of a very steep slope along a narrow (about 6 inches wide) and extremely slippery due to the deep clayey mud path. When the track through the gorse widened to include some wet grass on the upper side we stopped to have our lunch. There was much debate wondering if we would be able to get our less than youthful bodies back up off the ground without slipping forwards and down the slope but we resumed our walk without mishap. We had to climb over a number of stiles along our walk and care had to be taken with them too. All were very slippery and one was more like a see-saw needing somebody to hold one side of the step down for the person climbing over to do so safely.

From there we entered a forested area. Many of the pine trees were dying, a result of being planted on a too wet slope.

Through the trees we could see the Afon Mynach (The Monks' River) as it wound its way to the waterfalls at Devil's Bridge. Our way then swung right round as we came down into the valley, over the river again and back towards Devil's Bridge. 

It was only towards the end of our walk that the sun finally came out bringing some welcome warmth.

Some of us had to park at the Cwm Rheidol steam railway station as the small car park behind the chocolate shop was full. (The chocolate shop was open then but I resisted the temptation to go in and buy some of their handmade chocolates.) Although the steam railway won't be opening until Easter the station café was open and there were lots of people about. I asked somebody what the event was and he told me that an local band played there every Sunday hence the music we could hear. By the time we were back from our walk everyone had gone and all was quiet.