Wednesday 28th MayWe left Kings fairly early, saying our farewells to Ellen, Ben and Steve, and made for Dolgellau. I wanted some mudguard stay bolts and bought some but surprisingly found that the stays were too thick to go through the holes. We bought petrol at 119.4p per litre and headed to Machynlleth via the Cross Foxes. There is a wonderful downhill section here which I would love to do on the tandem. It's almost straight, very long and nowhere too steep that you would lose control, but almost certainly good enough for 50+ mph.
We had elevenses in Machynlleth and found another bike shop but again had no luck with the mudguard bolts. It's beginning to look as though I will have to ask Thorn for some. We took the minor road from Machynlleth via Forge and Dylife to Llanidloes, and this has to be about the most monster climb I have driven up. If Gill & Toekneep were in the habit of cycling up this on a regular basis then they are elevated to the status of deities in my eyes. From there we took the B-road to Rhayader, one on which we cycled about a year ago. Clive Powell, we thought, would surely have some mudguard bolts, and there were plenty of places for lunch.
Clive Powell's bike shop was closed for lunch so, since we still had some food left over from the youth hostel, we sat in the car and ate ham sandwiches and flapjack. Clive returned from his lunch but was no more use than the other two shops had been.
It was soon time to go and we crossed the mountain road in the pouring rain. It hadn't abated since we left Dolgellau.
Blaen y Ddol is strange without Richard and Anne, whose brainchild it was and who ran it for 24 years. Brenda is very pleasant and cooks a superb meal, but the first thing that hit us when we walked through the door was the fag smoke. It turns out that Brenda doesn't go walking either, so one wonders how many "regulars" won't go back because she's a smoker and how she will keep interest in new clients. It is so far off the beaten track that she would never pick up any passing trade.
Thursday 29th May.I awoke very early again this morning to see the sun shining and a mist hanging over the river.
My second awakening was at about the right time so we dressed, went downstairs and tucked into breakfast.
Jan & I took the route for the Cors Caron walk, which is linear, starting at Blaen y Ddol, finishing in Tregaron and then you catch the bus back. We turned it into a very good bike ride. We left the house via the footbridge over the Ystwyth
and then headed west and south to Pontrhydfendigaid along the B4343. We ground our way up the steep hill to Tynycraig, and for lengthy spells the computer registered 1.8 mph! When we reached the top we heard a cuckoo across a very green meadow. I cuckooed back and he very obediently came to find me
and was being mobbed by four small birds which I think were greenfinches. He settled in the tree above us, and all that was visible was his tail.
.
Then we enjoyed a steepish descent but slightly overshot the turn-off onto the disused Manchester - Milford Haven railway line, but found it at the second attempt. It was pretty rough cycling to start with because the track had been relaid with a new batch of stones which had yet to bed in, but after a while we reached a more settled stretch and things became smoother.
Cors Caron is a wonderful place, an ancient lake formed when glacial deposits blocked the Teifi valley and which gradually silted up. We crossed the Teifi, still only a few miles old from its source above Strata Florida.
We stopped at a bird hide where we saw a swan, a buzzard, a few ducks and some reed warblers.
A little further along the track there was a thoroughly avant-garde public lavatory, beautifully built and appointed and with a solar panel on the roof for electricity.
It reminded me very strongly of
Southend's new radio station, being all hard wood and yellow paint, and we wondered if it was where our very own Simon L3 got the idea for his design.
After making good use of the facility, we carried on to Tregaron and found the Cambrian Café where we had tea and cake whilst trying to to follow the various conversations which were going on in Welsh. When we left we saw signs to a museum and red kite centre so we went and looked around that and sat in a Victorian schoolroom where we watched a video about kites and the Cambrian mountains generally.
From here we climbed a very narrow mountain road but didn't go too far along it: it would climb very high and was not really on our itinerary for the day, but we did find a suitable spot to eat lunch, overlooking a field containing three donkeys. Then we headed for Strata Florida, a ruined Cistercian abbey on the banks of the Teifi.
On the way up Abbey Road we saw a small black and white bird. My first thought was that it was a lesser spotted woodpecker but a closer inspection revealed it to be a pied flycatcher and we watched it for several minutes as it fed its fledged baby.
We looked around the abbey
and then it was time to return to Pontrhydfendigaid for some beer. Unfortunately both Lions, Red and Black, were closed. After that we ground our way up the steep hill to Ffair-rhos but even the Teifi Arms, which had a big OPEN sign in the window, let us down, so there was nothing left for it than to swoop down the steep, bendy and hair-raising descent back to Pontrhydygroes and dinner.
