Photography,  Travel Blog,  Wales,  Walking

Nostalgia Trip #4: Elan Valley And On To Aberaeron

June 11, 2021 /

To complete our time in Rhayader we take a pleasant pre-breakfast stroll along the banks of the Wye where wildlife is in abundance and the morning sunlight dapples through the trees. Colourful damsel flies flit amongst the foliage and birdsong is everywhere. 

Wherever you stand in Rhayader you are overlooked by the mighty Cambrian Hills, green and rolling and giving the town a feeling of independence, maybe even isolation, despite the traffic rolling through and negotiating the clock tower awkwardly placed slightly off centre in the main crossroads. We are again struck by what a terrific base for a walking holiday this would be, and again find ourselves discussing a return.

And today is indeed a hiking day as we set out to explore the wonderful sights of the Elan Valley. Elan Valley hosts a series of lakes at different elevations, formed by a succession of dams built at the end of the 19th century with a further addition completed in 1952, all constructed with the main objective of supplying water to the city of Birmingham, a function it still fulfils today. The huge quantity of water needed for that job travels down a pipeway from here to the city, remarkably covering the 73 miles with gravity as its only force, Birmingham being 52 metres lower than the Valley. Using only gravity means slow progress, the water actually takes around 35 hours to reach its destination at Frankley Reservoir in Birmingham.

Some of the numbers are staggering: Claerwen Dam is 355 metres long and 56m high; Garreg Ddu Dam took 700,000 tons of material to build; the four lakes contain almost 100,000 megalitres of water (that’s 100,000,000,000 litres).

The whole effect makes for good viewing and great hiking – it’s not only the lakes and reservoirs which are spectacular, but also the giant sweeping dams themselves. We visit each of the dams in turn – there are seven, four main dams and three smaller – taking excellent hikes from several of them. Each dam has a series of well signposted circular trails, with accurate guides as to duration, making it easy to choose the length of hike for each one. 

Views across the lakes and surrounding mountains are spectacular, and most of the hiking trails are peaceful and private once away from the Visitor Centre and the most popular flat walkway. That flat walkway follows the line of a railway built solely for the purpose of transferring the materials for dam building during the main 19th century construction period.

The more rewarding walks though are on the circular trails, usually climbing steeply away from the side of the dam and up on to the adjacent hillsides. The several we take on are rewarding without exception, it’s a terrific day’s hiking.

And after the terrific hiking the day becomes a terrific drive; the mountain roads from Elan Valley over the top of the Cambrians and then down towards the coast are exciting and exhilarating, the sudden tight bends just as unexpected as the sheep around any corner. Beyond the spectacular green hills, simply over the top of one more hill, the Atlantic Ocean appears, stretching with impossibly endless colour for as far as the eye can see.

The coast road undulates southwards to Aberaeron, where we drop down into the harbour alongside the pastel coloured cottages which embrace the Atlantic as it is calmed by the river mouth. Aberaeron says hello and welcome, it says….sit down, relax, be calm…

Outside the window of our next home, the waters lap in the pretty harbour, the colourful houses watch yet another tide, gulls call and crows caw. In front of our hotel the evening sun burns warm on the impeccably positioned beer terrace, where we test a few Welsh beers with unpronounceable names and we warm our faces ahead of what turns out to be a sumptuous gourmet meal. Aberaeron might just be fabulous if first impressions are anything to go by….

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