Jay and Nikki started Mudtrek a few years ago where you stay in converted barns with bed breakfast and evening meals and Jay guides for one of the days. Jay says he is living the dream.
We did not realise when we booked that this clashed with Steves French trip.
Duncan decided that it was a long way to go for 2 days so we bolted on a day.
He liked the look of the brecon beacons and found a route on the internet . I found a campsite that was right on the start of the route with 2 pubs within 200 metres.The route turned out to be a good one with a long steady climb until eventually we were on the top of the beacons . Its very exposed up there but we only had one shower of rain and light winds, the route dropped down again but then climbed back up to a path leading to “ the gap “ between Pen y fan (the highest hill in south Wales) and Cribben . The descent from here is very steep and rocky but then its mainly downhill on rocky paths down to the town of Brecon.
This route is 41K and we knew we only had 10K to go and we discovered that we could go along a canal tow path so time to sit in the sun at a pub by the river. We spun along the tow path in no time and would you believe it this took us straight to one of the pubs in talybont on usk the village of our campsite.
It turned out that Duncan had never been to the top of Pen y fan so after a couple of beers I suggested we walked it in the morning before going off to Brechfa. Our route was about 6 miles and I do not remember it as being a hard walk but the last mile is tough and I knew we were back on the bikes at 1pm. , the walk ended up taking 3 hours so we were running late and dashed down to brechfa to meet the group. Luckily most of them were also late having misjudged bank holiday traffic. This gave me a welcome chance to recover . We only then had time to do the 17K blue run which was not technical and I was feeling confident for the next day. The weather was still sunny..So the next day the big day our guided day it rained. I thought so what the trails are quite tame.
It was then Jay said I don't do many marked trails . Me & Duncan and one other were clipped in . Everyone else was on flats including Jay and his helper Tam. I soon discovered why when going into a bottomless puddle of water and could not unclip in time and so completely soaked. Duncan and the other clipin seemed to be fairing better. We were out for about 6 hours and in that time we had reached the trail centre and did a bit of the red trail and then a bit of the black. I was pleased to see the end after a fall right at the end of the black. Jay had arranged to leave his land rover at a car park and said you all go to the pub round the corner and I will load the bikes. After a couple of pints we all got into the land rover with the 10 bikes on a special roofrack like in in the tours and then back to base.Jay videos the whole day then edits it in the evening . He has got a projector screen in his man cave so we all had a laugh at those who got it wrong . Yes my second fall in the water is on the video clip
.
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment