River Wye and Wye Valley Walk: Plynlimon to Llangurig

Day 1: Plynlimon - Llangurig

We started our ten day walk on Friday the 24^th April, 1998 at about 11 o' clock, halfway up the slope of Plynlimon, to where Nick Frost had brought us in his van, together with the dogs and our backpacks. It started to rain as soon as we left the warm and cosy van, first a drizzling rain that was quickly to change into a real storm, and we were all completely soaked within ten minutes.

Finding our way to the source of the river by carefully following the River Wye up hill, we had to walk, climb and, at the end, struggle with the Plynlimon for more than two hours. This hill turned out for me to be the wettest part of the world I have ever seen. It appeared to me as a huge hill-sized sponge completely filled with water that - if necessary to discourage us - had the ability to run upwards up the hill.

Reaching the summit the sky opened up and gave us a bright sunlight and we could see magnificently the five heads of the Plynlimon and it's surroundings. We all had a drink of the primal drops from the source and all agreed that the river Wye tasted a bit 'sheepshitty' at his/her birth.

On our way down, somewhere close to the old lead mines, we were surprised by the view of a red kite that was hovering only about a hundred foot below us. After reaching the van again and a short stop for a drink and a bite to eat, Nick went home with the van while we took off for a five hour walk to a small nice rural campsite close to Llangurig.

Llangurig is a small village north of the river Wye. We were nicely welcomed and had a good dinner for a reasonable price in a pub called "The Blue Bells". There is a small rural campsite on your left about ¾ mile after you left Llangurig heading for Plynlimon.