Rain……. and lots of it!

Sorry having techy difficulties, so lots of individual pictures…

Day forty six to forty eight (20-22 Sept) Walk Day 21

Day 46 Sept 20 Wet Day!

The weather forecast was awful and it lived up to the yellow weather warning! The winds of storm Ali were replaced by the torrential rain of storm Bronagh. It was a self-evident truth that walking was not a sensible plan. I went for a brief drive over to Fairbourne to enjoy a ride on the steam trains there.

The weather deteriorated whilst I was there, but it did enable me to reflect on how high my climb had been on Monday as the tree line at the top of this photo is where I ended up! The drive back was not very pleasant, so I decided to stay at base camp for the rest of the day.

I did some reading, walk planning and packing towards transit day. I moved the touching point back to the car – the end is in sight. I can see I will have to miss a couple of possible sections of the walk, so I can finish where I had hoped. On Saturday, weather permitting I will walk from Aberaeron to Llanrhystud in whichever direction best suits the wind! Ceredigion here I come!

Day 47 Transit day Sept 21

I was on the road by about 9:30, and then I realised just how wet it was. There was a lot of obvious flooding round the river Dovey! Then the bridge I wanted to use was shut (pont dyfi) – I followed some other cars down a road heading in approximately the right direction, which eventually came out on the road I needed. Satnav was most unimpressed. There were a couple of patches with water on the road, but it was passable with care. Fortunately once I got beyond Machynlleth, the road seemed to establish itself on slightly higher ground which was a relief. I had a break in a very nice café and then went into Aberystwyth to do some food shopping! I made gentle progress and had lunch looking at the beach from the car at Aberaeron. It was very windy still, cool and occasionally wet with heavy showers.

I arrived at my new base camp – which is attached to a farm house, about 40 minutes further on from Aberaeron. It is about 3 miles down some single-track roads with passing places (with mud and sometimes grass growing up the middle). It is in a fantastic position with sea views, near to a path to the coast path (about ½ a mile away). I am slightly concerned that the bed is rather high up, but it has proved to be very comfortable.

Day 48 Aberaeron to Llanrhystud Sept 22^nd Walk Day 21

Phone stats: 22023 steps, 9.3 miles, walking time 3hr 30 minutes

The weather forecast was not exactly good, but it wasn’t anything like as bad as Thursday. I drove to Aberaeron, and I decided to walk from there – I did get an early start, well wrapped up as it was cool, and encased in waterproofs. In the first couple of hours of the walk, there was occasional drizzle. After that the rain was more persistent. (At the start I established a new start touching post as I intend to walk from Aberaeron to New Quay on Monday). Interestingly there are 2 new symbols being used for this part of the walk (I think the Ceredigion coast path is older than the complete Welsh Coast path!)

From virtually the very start when I saw people acting as marshalls, I realised I was walking on part of the route of a bigger event. During the course of my walk, first runners and then a selection of walkers overtook me. After having hardly seen anyone on most of my walking endeavours last week, it was a bit of a surprise to see so many people (about 40 by the end of it!). I was very encouraging as they were doing an impressive challenge from Hydro Dragon Events from New Quay to Aberystwyth – which has to be at least 25 miles probably closer to 30! As I came into LLanrhystud, the race organisers assumed I was one of theirs and offered me refreshments, before the final 10 mile section to Aberystwyth.

The walk was mainly on low cliffs near the beach, I had to take a longish detour into a village, as there was no way to cross one of the gorged streams, this meant I got to visit Llansantffraed church, which had some interesting stained glass. The Abba fan in me – loved their external poster too.

There were 2 tricky sections, early on there was a higher path and the going got a bit slippery on the downward slopes, and then about ½ a mile on stones above a beach near the end – which again were slippery so I took it slowly.

I established a touching point for another time, when I left the coast path, and walked on to the bus stop. I was just getting organised, and hadn’t even got my poles secured to my rucksack when a bus arrived. It was my first transcymru bus, and it took the driver three goes to get me to understand that it was free, which was a surprise! (It was a combination of accents, and me not expecting that answer!). I walked back