Explore with Amie

In the first week of May, we headed to the Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) with friends for a week of exploring. It was a fabulous week and I think we had the perfect balance of outdoor activities such as longer hikes, shorter walks and cycling, plus taking in the history and the local towns and villages. Here is everything we got up to:

Places to stay

There are lots of options of places to stay in the Brecon Beacons. However, we opted to rent a house in the area as there were six of us so this worked out as great value. If possible, I would also recommend going outside of school holidays as this will drive the prices down massively. Going in May also helped with this as the summer season is only just beginning. We scoured Airbnb for options but booked with a company called holidaycottages.co.uk in the end which was slightly cheaper for the same house we saw on Airbnb.

We stayed in Old Factory House located in Defynnog, just outside of Sennybridge. This was the perfect location as it was around 15 minutes away from the town of Brecon and had two pubs within a short walk away. It still had that middle of the countryside feel too, despite there being other properties nearby. The house had a hot tub which was a great bonus! It was well maintained, clean and just all around great value for money. I would highly recommend staying here if it suits your needs.

Day 1

We arrived in Defynnog after a long journey so, spent our first evening relaxing with a barbecue which was a fantastic way to start the trip. Because, we didn’t get up to much. I’m going to skip straight to our first full day in the Brecon Beacons to start off this itinerary.

Our first full day was spent at Big Pit which is the National Coal Mining Museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales. This wasn’t too far away from our accommodation and, we wanted to learn more about the mining history in Wales. The area is also a UNESCO World Heritage site too. The Museum has many different sections, including the Old Baths where the miners would change and displays of what life would have looked like in the miners’ homes during this period. It covered how the women in particular were impacted by their husband’s jobs, plus details of the incredible number of coal mines active around South Wales. There was also a very interesting interactive film about how mining technology evolved throughout history too.

However, the best part of the museum was the underground experience which allowed you to head down the mine shaft into the network of tunnels below the surface. This was a guided tour with hard-hat and lamp and it was great! You had to duck down quite a bit so perhaps not one for those that get claustrophobic but, you don’t need to crawl or get your hands dirty like the miners did. It was so interesting to get a glimpse of what life was like down the mines and hear from someone who had actually worked at Big Pit when it was operational. To get that perspective was really interesting and definitely made the whole experience. Despite the difficulties of life down the pit, our tour guide said that he would go back to work there in a heartbeat if he could because you couldn’t beat the camaraderie between the men. Mining was their entire lives.

For context, Big Pit was the deepest mine in South Wales – hence the name. It was operational as a coal mine from 1880 to 1980, then reopened in 1983 as an attraction for visitors in the area. It is still technically classed as a working mine and so no contraband (including anything with a battery) can be taken down and safety equipment worn.

The museum is free to enter and then you pay an additional £5 per person to go go underground into the mine which is a bargain. For the experience, they could charge a lot more than that. It is incredible value for money and an experience that shouldn’t be missed.

Day 2

On the second day of our trip, we ventured to the lovely town nearby, Brecon. This seems like a lovely town. Our experience was slightly hindered by a fair that was happening in the town centre. The streets were bustling with fairground rides and incredibly loud music. I imagine that the town is usually quite quaint and much quieter and this was probably for the bank holiday but, its nice to see events drawing people out.

After pottering around the bookshops and heading to a cafe, we began an afternoon walk to Pen y Crug, a hill fort that has panoramic views over Brecon and across to Pen y Fan. It is only a small hill at 331m but it has a great welsh themed trig point on the top. You can do this as a circular route which is around 11km and involves some creativity to cross a river (the bridge is long gone) and only a small section of road walking. If you were to walk there and straight back, the hill fort would be a short 6km ramble.

Day 3

Our third full day saw us back in Brecon. However, instead of spending any time in the town, we picked up mountain bikes that we had hired from Biped Cycles. We booked in advance and I think this was much easier than turning up on the day as the owner had the bikes all ready for us to collect first thing in the morning. We were planning to cycle on Taff Trail from Brecon to Merthyr Tydfil. It would have been handy if Brecon had a train station and we could have done the full route. However, it would have been too far. It was also much hillier than we had anticipated. This was my favourite day of the entire trip as we cycled from Brecon, along Talybont Reservoir, to The Old Barn Tea Room and then back. It was fabulous!

The elevation on the route was a great challenge, especially when heading back up the road from the tea room. In the end, our elevation gain was a very respectable 600m, with a total distance of 47km. The bikes we hired were of surprisingly good quality and had a decent number of gears which certainly helped. If you’re reluctant to cycle on main roads then, this would be a good route for you, too. There is only one short section on the main road which is over pretty quickly.

You could certainly do this on a hybrid bike as it didn’t have any technically challenging sections for a mountain bike. However, I would say that the track alongside the reservoir is too uneven, and the gravel has too large rocks in it to be suitable for a road bike. We had taken our road bikes down just in case however, we made the decision to rent the bikes the day before and I think that was the right one in the end. I want a mountain bike now!

Check out the full route on mappedometer. I’ll share a full blog post on this soon!

Day 4

After the tough cycle the day before, we wanted to rest our legs a little bit so opted for a short walk. The Four Waterfalls walk is an incredibly popular one in the Brecon Beacons. The route begins at Cwm Porth – Four Waterfalls Car Park and takes in four waterfalls including: Sgwd Clun-Gwyn, Sgwd Isaf Clun-Gwyn, Sgwd y Pannwr, and Sgwd yr Eira. Contrary to another article I have seen online, you can pay by card to park here. There is also a small shop selling refreshments like ice cream and a toilet block.

This walk takes around 4 hours to complete including extra time for wild swimming. We swam at the second waterfall Sgwd Isaf Clun-Gwyn which was brilliant. Admittedly, I am using the word swim quite loosely here as it was incredibly cold and I went for more of a dip. It would have been great to swim at Sgwd yr Eira as well as this is the iconic waterfall that heavily features on social media. You can walk underneath the waterfall which is pretty cool!

The full route is said to be 8km though, according to Strava, our walk was 10km in total. To be honest, this included a slight diversion when we went the wrong way after the last waterfall. This was a little silly really – make sure you go back underneath the last waterfall and follow the same path you walked down otherwise, you’ll be on the wrong side of the river…

Day 5

Today was the day for the classic Brecon Beacons hike: Pen y Fan. We headed to a car park near Ffrwdgrech which isn’t marked on Google Maps for some reason. You can find the exact pinpoint through this link. It is a pay and display car park however, the machine wasn’t working on this occasion which was quite lucky. This is approaching Pen y Fan from the opposite side to the tourist information centre and therefore is slightly less busy. Alex and I had walked up Pen y Fan from the classic steps route previously and so wanted to plan something slightly different. We headed up Pen y Fan and then onto Cribyn and Fan y Big.

After taking iconic pictures on the Fan y Big rock, we retraced our steps and then took the track on the right down into the valley. We then had to wiggle our way through some farmland and back up the hill to the car park. All in all, it was a 14.6km walk with 910m of elevation. It was a great day for it too with phenomenal views across the national park and we spotted the coastguard rescue doing some patrols too (no callouts were made from the mountain on this day).

Day 6

Our final full day of the trip was spent at Caerphilly Castle, the largest castle in Wales and the second-largest in the UK, after Windsor. It was built in the second half of the 13th century by Gilbert de Clare as part of the Anglo-Norman invasion. It is famous for having introduced the concentric castle style defences in the UK and its large gatehouses. Today, the castle has been rebuilt as it would have looked throughout history and is maintained by Cadw. For the entry price of £11.90 per adult, you receive a free guide to the castle which details its vast and complex history.

Information boards around the castle would be useful as, it was difficult to use the guidebook whilst walking around. I felt that I didn’t learn as much at the time as I could have because, I wasn’t reading the relevant guidebook sections. Having a friend who has a degree in Heritage studies was incredibly helpful on this occasion! It also raised lots of interesting discussion around whether we thought the castle should have been rebuilt to its previous state or left as a ruin. In some ways, I think it should have been left as you lose some of the medieval feel of the it. Then again, it wouldn’t be the second biggest castle in the UK then…

Day 7

And with that our trip to the Brecon Beacons was over. We had an absolutely fabulous week following this itinerary and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat! We’re already talking about doing a similar trip in a new location next year.

Do you think we missed anything?

Amie x