Glamorgan Ridgeway – Section 2

On friday we were back out to do section 2 of the Glamorgan ridgeway walk. Again we weren’t sure of how far we would get but the idea was to pick up at the exact point we stopped last time, leave the car and reach a suitable starting point for section 3. We succeeded – eventually!

Perhaps i’m paranoid but there seems to be a deliberate attempt to prevent walkers using this path, locked gates, extremely hard to climb stiles (for dogs), unfriendly signs. barbed wire where therre should be no barbed wire, missing signage. it’s as if landowners don’t want people using the rightful path through their land.

But maybe it’s just me – we knocked off another 4 or 5 miles (we have to retrace our steps each time to get back to the car so in effect we are doing it all twice) so around a 10 mile walk for all the dogs so they were happy! So next time we start from betws.

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  Lets go!

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  Hobbit house!

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  You shall be free! – Murph has a habit of trying to release Dug by biting through his lead

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  Dug finds a river

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  The view down towards Betws

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  Ummm yeah these are dog friendly

Extra milage where we took the wrong path down a super steep hill and ended up in Coytrahen by mistake. The small loop at the end is where we got lost in a field because the path was unclear and signs missing. The loop on the way back was to avoid the ladders again.

Glamorgan Ridgeway Walk

So for a change we did some walking. Well we walk a lot anyway but this was pre planned walking so its different. My friend heard of a long distance footpath called the Glamorgan Ridgeway which runs from Margam Park in the west to Caerphilly Castle in the east. There isn’t a huge amount of info about it online and from what i can make out parts of it are run down and wild.

The plan is to walk its length with the dogs over a period of time. So we will head off along the path until we find a suitable spot to begin the next section in a few weeks and then walk back to that sections start point where we left the car. This way we should actually manage to walk it both ways at the same time. Follow me? I wouldn’t we get lost a lot. Well on our initial recce visit we did get lost because we weren’t really trying and didn’t have great maps but on the inaugural first section last Sunday we made good progress and didn’t get lost at all.

So far we have around 5 or 6 miles done. We found a spot to pick up from last time and overall we were out for 4 hours and 20 mins which is probably enough for the dogs – well actually they were fine even the little one … see below

The Bro Stone in Margam Park – near the start of the whole route. As usual we were out early, avoid heat, avoid people

Nice views towards the Bristol Channel from the stone

Valley of the sheep – as you leave Margam Park itself you have to pass the gatekeepers

Happy Tilly – only small legs but the heart of a lion and never stops trotting

Traversing dangerous ground

There was a bit of road to do but it was peaceful enough

n the return journey we detoured through a forest whereupon Dug decided to play with tilly – who was having none of it

The view southeastwards towards Shwt

Nearly finished and Murph discovers he is attached to Dug as we test out the double lead that may be required while I run the South West Coastal path next week

We will keep you updated with progress, im also going to work on a route guide and publish it online for anyone who wants to follow in our footsteps/pawprints