To accidentally find yourself on, or I would actually say in, an ancient holloway as I did today, is always a very happy occurence. They have a unique atmosphere and there’s a kind of magic about them. An historical conduit of conversations, daydreams and footsteps.
As always, a deep hollow curtained by coppice - ash and hazel here - this one started grassy before all that was left was a rough downhill path of tumbling sandstones, that looked as though it’s probably a river in winter.
As we descended, a small hawk dropped silently down from a tree above and flew through the tunnel of trees and off around the corner before we could ID it. Then we were down in a gorgeous wet meadow before arriving at a gate with a river that you need to ford. I ended up taking my boots off and paddled, but on the way back managed to find a drier route of stones and hopped across, sprite-like, until an uneven wobble underfoot nearly had me in.
Once on the other side, I was walking in wet alder woodland next to a jolly mountain stream the colour of iron bru. There were carmine pink bramble flowers, looking as though they’d been stained by the juices of the fruit still to come and an old rusty sawmill, ferns growing upsides it.
Every now and again the sweet, sleepy smell of valerian officialanus enveloped me. It’s a marmite scent and people love it or hate it. I love it and it’s also a superb remedy for calming the nervous system, a favourite to dose some of our more highly strung animals with at times!
There was tormentil, foxgloves and a mossy ancient wall stuffed with ferns and rotting tree stumps next to the path. The whole place felt untouched, although it obviously wasn’t, but it’s always good to walk through places that have been allowed to grow this spring and summer and are not overgrazed.
We followed the path upwards through some oak wood pasture and reached another gate that opened without falling off its hinges, which I at this point I made at least 4 in a row. The blessings of a national park, I suppose.
The path wound its way through the bottom of an acid grassland with steep sides covered in the yellows of tormentil, autumn hawkbit and the blues of sheep’s bit and tumps of self heal. We arrived at a heavily greased gate, that dropped off its hinges slightly and you had to give it a good heave ho to get it back up and in the slot, but the grease made it easier.
Here the path climbed high above the stream, so that you couldn’t see it, but by the rushing sound one knew it was energetically dropping down through a series of cascades. Here there were black stemmed larch – I wondered if it was lichen or a disease - and we caught the first glimpses of the mountain, Cefn y Cylchau, through the trees.
We headed onto a stony track that led onto the hill and stopped to admire a bog smothered in pink and white - marsh orchids, cotton grass, whorled carraway – the flower of Carmarthenshire – and pink bell heather. There was also an awful lot of a stone crop like flower growing through spagnhum moss.
Today we headed down to the stream and sat down on a tump of purple flowered wild thyme (recommended for the delicious scent this releases) and ate lunch watching some prehistoric dragonflies zip about above the stream, presumably looking for a good place to offload their larvae. They eat horseflies, the devil of July, and anything that tackles them gets extra kudos from me.
You can continue from here up along the valley to Foel Fraith, or do a small loop coming back down on the opposite side of the stream.
As we walked slowly back the way we had come, the sun came out and there were sun spots dappling the ground.
We didn’t see a soul.
