Four Wilderness Days in the Brecon Beacons - Part 1/2

We made it back! Four days of walking and wild camping in the Brecon Beacons. We've walked over hills, through valleys, over moorland and through woods. We've seen playful red kites, sheep (lots and lots of sheep), ponies, a frog and birds of prey.
We had to find water and a good spot to pitch the tent for the night. We've trialled dried food for breakfast and dinner and new energy bars to supplement the day's food.
We had sun, rain, fog and icy wind. We walked a total of 77.7km (48.3mi) and climbed 3,337m (10,928ft).

Day 1: Brecon to Llyn Cwm Llwch

16.19km
1377m elevation gain

Route from Brecon (cut off at top) to Llyn Cwm Llwch

Elevation gain over the distance of the walk

Drove to Brecon and the beautiful camp site of Priory Mill Farm Tuesday night, pitched had our pre-cooked chilli for dinner and walked into town for a pre-wilderness pint.

Rich had been here ages ago, I had never been. Really beautiful little town with a few shops, felt like half of them outdoor shops, and tomorrow's hills looming in the distance. Had our pint to celebrate the start of our short holiday and went back to the tent.

The next morning started cold with a mix of sun and cloud. Great walking weather! We warmed up and finished off last night's chilli, packed our backpacks, found parking for the car in town and headed to the high street for coffee and cake at Coffee No. 1.
In good spirits we headed into the hills towards the foot of Fan y Big along quiet roads, rocky bridle ways and over green fields, Brecon getting ever smaller in the distance. Having been fairly sheltered from the wind, we soon stripped in the warm rays of the sun, only to put the layers back on when we hit the open ascent of Fan y Big with an icy wind from the West.

Priory Mill Farm camp site

Typical South Wales view

Fan y Big up ahead

That wind was only the messenger of dark low clouds and a new weather front moving in from the same direction. We made it to the top of Fan y Big and put on waterproofs as we skirted around Cribyn only to ascent Pen y Fan in low cloud, wind and a constant light rain. Walked straight over the top, same with Corn Du and descended as quickly as we could just to be out of the low cloud and the moisture they brought.

On Fan y Big looking at the weather ahead

Slogging up Pen y Fan

Pitched at the sheltered little lake of Llyn Cwm Llwch. I had been here before and loved it. We had our first dried adventure food pack and the "Meatball Hot Pot" was actually quite enjoyable. I jogged down afterwards to get some fresh water from a fast flowing river and almost jogged back up, being freed of the heavy pack for once.

Llyn Cwm Llwch - our wild camp spot

Love it here

Day 2: Llyn Cwm Llwch to Carnau Gwynion (Ystradfellte)

20.24km
729m elevation gain

Our Route

Elevation gain over the distance of the walk

A drizzling rain had been on and off during the night and peeking out the tent we saw the same cloud now hanging even lower. Boo. Had a nice hot tomato soup with some fried chorizo, which became our loved go-to breakfast for the remainder of the tour.

Unpitched the wet tent, then headed down to the A470 and the Storey Arms car park where we found Denise and her chuck waggon. Cuppa tea sounded good and we went for a killer breakfast roll with 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, cheese and mushrooms. We thought we'd need it and we even got a refill for our tea cups whilst Denise was chatting away happily. The fully loaded foot long roll was a lovely dripping mess and we enjoyed every bit of it.

Much improved views as we head West

Headed up Fan Fawr next, got rid of our waterproofs halfway up and enjoyed the solitude of just being on the other side of the road, whilst everyone else headed into the opposite direction towards Pen y Fan.

From the top we could see far and wide, took a photo for the man and his dog we found up there and went down towards the craggs of Craig Cerrig gleisiad. It stayed dry for the rest of the day whilst we walked a big loop on the Beacons Way via Fan Llia down into a nice forrestry. Had a quick break with food at the car park there, being eyed by a young couple sitting in their shiny, pimped Ford Fiesta ST, the only car around and parked right in the middle of the car park. I wondered if we'd disturbed something there. Ha.

View from Fan Fawr  back to Corn Du

Lunch break with a view

Walk, walk, walk

Headed down towards Ystradfellte and had been looking forward to a pint and a poop at the pub there only to find it "temporarily closed". Noooooooo!!! That also meant we'd lost our opportunity to fill up on water and potentially camp there (Chuck waggon Denise had mentioned something like this.)
Found out from a local resident, that the church had a tap with drinking water outside, so at least we had our water. With weary legs we headed back up the steeeeeep hill we had come down into Canrnau Gwynion and pitched on top of a big grassy and rocky hump.

Typical Welsh scenery once more

Another nice camping spot at Carnau Gwynion near Ystradfellte

Perched up there, we were out of sight from the path below and had amazing 360 views all around. Temperatures dropped as quickly as the sky cleared. The steady chilly wind did it's best to dry out the wet inner tent whilst we stood there freezing. That's when you learn to pack a dry inner tent separately from the wet outer tent. Duh!

Had another quite nice dried adventure food meal, some whiskey and brushed our teeth with clattering teeth in the freezing wind outside. No need for an electric toothbrush. Brrrrr.