Return to Merthyr Mawr and the Sirhowy Valley

One thing that has occasionally irked me these last two years was my failed attempt in 2024 to complete a triangular walk in the lanes and through the fields at the back of the pretty village of Merthyr Mawr in the far west of the Vale of Glamorgan, so when I noticed the same walk described in a different walk book I have, only in the reverse direction, I decided to have another go.

When Cwtch and I arrived at Candleston, it was to find a film shoot in progress somewhere near by, with a large section of the car park taped off, but there was no one about, so we slipped through and set off up the stony lane towards Candleston Farm.

Our route then took us along the edge of a wheatfield, following an old wall. So far, so good.

It was at this point that the path petered out and the directions in the book became very complicated. I felt, briefly, doomed to fail again.

We passed a fallen ash tree ...

... and some very curious young heifers, who were thankfully in an adjoining field.

hedge woundwort coming into bloom

Eventually we made our way to a tree-lined track, the trees being low and requiring me to duck under them. Past a farm and we were headed back down a long lane and along the road from Merthyr Mawr to the car park. We had completed the walk. The car park was still taped off, though, and there were more people about, so I decided not to hang about in the hope of re-visiting Candleston castle, but instead headed for nearby Traeth Yr Afon with Cwtch. This is one of the Porthcawl beaches and I was last there in  February 2019 with Son the Younger, although I've often seen it from the other side of the River Ogmore.

Sand Viper's Gloss

Small restharrow

It looks very pleasant in the photos, but actually the weather wasn't unlike something you might experience in February - at least, the wind was. I'd hoped to get to the end of the beach, where the River Ogmore meets the sea, but progress was slow and we had to turn back just before we reached it, staggering back to the car looking like extras from 'Lawrence of Arabia'.

A good day, apart from the £14 I had to pay in car parking charges, which is a scandal, frankly.

The following day, we went back to the Sirhowy valley, just outside Newport, where we did a short walk last year. I sort of had it in my head to do the longer route, but then I remembered how Son the Younger had tried walking it when he lived in Risca and the path petered out and he had to break his way back down the side of the valley, so settled for walking up and down the disused railway instead. 

honeysuckle and foxglove

foxgloves in every direction

hemlock water dropwort

Cwtch being very brave and paddling by herself

bluetit feather

Looking down on the River Sirhowy

Wall lettuce ... 

... and its wall

wood hawkweed

Down by the Sirhowy

And just like that, the two weeks of Severn tunnel maintenance were over, and hopefully - unless it floods or there are more strikes - my driving the Northerner to work is done for another year. Hwyl fawr, Cymru.

When we went to Gwent (and Cardiff)

Once again, it was the time of year when the Severn tunnel is closed for maintenance - very important - and whoever it is who runs the railways these days fails to put on an even half-decent replacement coach service between Cardiff and Bristol. Not wanting the Northerner to have to return home via Gloucester and, per chance, Swindon, I drove him to and from work on the days it was possible for me to do it - four in all.

Although eight hours is a long day out, I wanted to stay in Wales if I could, to reduce costs and my carbon footprint, but one day was forecast to be full of heavy rain and thunderstorms, and another over 30°C, so on those days I made the two round trips, regretting my decision the second day when it took me two and a half hours to cover the 36 miles from home to his workplace on Newport Road in extreme heat. 

The other two days were hot but not oppressively so, so Cwtch and I pored over walk books and websites and found two places in nearby Gwent for us to visit.

First stop, the Sirhowy valley, in the next valley from where Son the Younger used to live, so full of familiar skylines. The outward leg of our circular walk started just south-west of Crosskeys and took us along a disused railtrack, the former signal box now seeing service as a toilet. 

high above the River Sirhowy

sycamore and whitethorn

foxglove

It's an easy walk through the woods, though given the number of little streams crossing the path, I imagine it must be muddy in places when it's not summer.

There were some quite steep steps to climb at the point where our route turned back on itself, which caused my knees to grumble a bit, but we made it. 

Cwmfelinfach

Returning along a higher path, there were some lovely views along the valley to where the Sirhowy meets the River Ebbw. I was thrilled to hear both a cuckoo and a curlew.

non-native fiddleneck

enough hemlock water dropwort to poison the entire population of the British Isles

one of many self-seeded alders lining the path

broad-leaved marsh orchid

marsh valerian

The worst bit of the walk was right at the end when our route took us down an extremely steep, stony path to our starting point, but again I managed to negotiate it without doing myself any damage. I think I might try the longer walk through Sirhowy Country Park next time, as it's definitely worth a revisit.

Our second destination in Gwent was Wentwood , formerly ancient woodland that was part of Chepstow Castle's hunting grounds and is now mostly conifer plantation (though the long and laborious job of replanting native species has started). I was following a walk I'd found online that would take me to the Curley Oak, reputed to be between five hundred and a thousand years old.

                                                   

distant view of England adrift across the Severn

Our route took us past not one but two Bronze Age round barrows in a truly lovely spot.

Fallow deer slots

The track through the woods was still quite muddy in places, despite the warm and (mainly) dry summer weather we've been having.

heath-spotted orchid

honeysuckle

yellow pimpernel

Our route to the oak relied heavily on waymark posts, rather than giving estimated distances between instructions, which was a shame as many of them were no longer in place. Much of the time I had to guess whether a path was the right one, and we did get a bit lost, but not in that trackless-middle-of-the-wildwood way; it was more 'well, I'm pretty sure the car park is back in that direction so I'll take this path for now and head left when I get a chance'. I made a few of my own waymarks for the return leg. 

Eventually - having been distracted by its fence and missed it altogether - we looped back around and reached the Curley Oak. I have to say, it looks rather older than five hundred years to me.

As is the custom with ancient trees, people had left little gifts for it, the most striking of which were limpet shells. I'd picked up a bit of blue pottery earlier on our route, so I left that.

I felt a bit of a pang standing there, as Curly was my father's old nickname and the name his grandchildren called him. I'd have liked to have learnt about this tree thirty years ago, when he was still strong and I could have walked to see it with him. But in any event, it was a stunning high point for a walk.

Since I was in the area with time to spare, I did stop off in Cardiff to visit another memorable tree, this one a London Plane near Roath Park that's in the process of eating a Victorian pillar box. 

And I also got to while away a couple of hours in a favourite spot in Llandaff, namely the wild bit of the graveyard in the Cathedral precinct. Even under the trees it was hot, though, so Cwtch and I headed down to the River Taff where there was a bit of a breeze.

Cwtch is still too scared of water to chase the ducks, thankfully.

It must have been during the 1980s that I last stood in this spot. Much water over the weir since then.