Wills Walkers: Boughrood/Llyswen to Builth Wells

This stage of our walk can best be described as a collection of gradients, mainly 'up'! But we began today by walking beside the river. It was great to hear the river. The Wye is fairly shallow at the moment in this area so when the water is flowing over the rocks, white water rapids form.

This is The Wye at Llangoed.

and this is Llangoed Hall. Now a luxury hotel, it is believed a house or building has occupied this site since AD560.

A young herd of beautiful looking steers on Llangoed Estate.

We walked across this wooden suspension bridge which we had to share with the cars. Its the only wooden-decked vehicular suspension bridge left in Wales. Its called Llanstephan Bridge.

Then a long three and a half kilometre walk on the tarmac. It did help us to get eight and a half kilometres done before morning tea but it's not easy on the feet.

Erwood Station Craft Centre and Gallery was our anticipated morning tea stop. A cafe selling hot drinks and cake, what a treat. And a toilet! We did enjoy our stopover. And now to begin the steep climbing part of our day.

The view of the river from the Erwood Bridge just before the ascent.

As we were climbing we saw at lot of these containers beside the road. Does Grit mean Salt in Welsh or is the salt meant to give you some grit to help you endure as you climb? I looked inside one and the salt is like gravel. Perhaps to help driving up these hills in icy conditions..

We worked hard, with a sharp climb on tarmac to Twmpath, common land near the top of the hill.

But where to next? Graham put the sign, which he found lying at the base of the signpost, into its position so we could work out which direction to take.

Then a long downhill followed by another sharp climb, still on tarmac.

I'm not sure I believe this sign.

This cute little horse was just standing near a gate.

Up we go again

but I have to say, when you climb this high, you get superb views across the landscape. We could see the Erwood bridge and the path which we had traversed over the breathless miles.

Some of the hills now are covered with bracken, making them appear brown, such a contrast from the continuous green. This bracken is of great value for wildlife and is an important habitat for birds.

At last we stopped for lunch high in the hills

This was our view.

Back to work again. We had to walk over two small streams and then pass by a small pond. But where to next, should we take the right or left fork in the path?

After all that thin air up on top of the hills, we made it back down to flatter terrain. This little bridge over a stream was a lovely and peaceful spot. In fact all day has been peaceful, we haven't seen anyone else up on these high hills. We walked across lots of common land and hillsides, some farmland, steep in places and some road walking on quiet lanes. Our altitude gain today was 473 metres. But I think just as difficult today was the descent, down a sunken and rocky lane. We were really glad it wasn't raining.

Eventually we walked into Builth Wells; 20.29 really tough kilometres, arriving at Bronwye, our lovely bnb at 4pm. Sandra and Tony extended a warm welcome to us with a container of iced water - just lovely.

After refreshing showers we headed off for dinner at The Greyhound pub. We were disappointed that we missed the Welsh Men's Choir practice, held at the pub every Monday might. Allan and Graham felt that they could have made a great addition to the choir. On our way home, we crossed through the church grounds and came across four people standing outside the door of the church. They told us that they were there for bell-ringing practice and asked if we would like to come in and watch.