Having ridden over the hills from Caersws station on Friday evening, I popped in to see Stu and Dee for a quick brew. It was nice to see them and the 'quick' brew lasted several hours so I didn’t get to The Wynnstay until 22.15, where Allen, Cath, Emma and Dave were already in residence, and I didn’t extract myself from there until just before midnight. Only a few minutes left to qualify for January’s BaM, arg! A high speed search in the freezing cold around the village turned up this sports equipment storage shed, and I was in the process of starting to make a bit of room when I noticed an interesting aroma and the, oh, hmmmm… droppings. Out we go again.
The next port of call was this rather more commodious establishment, no walls but a nice ‘warm’ wooden floor. In we go, mat down, bag out, and lulled to sleep by the nearby stream. A rather bracing -3degC overnight.
On waking next morning it was a short trip to the school and some nice tea and toast courtesy of Dee. Myself and Frog/Lu were going to ride together for the weekend, although NeilA had decided to make his own arrangements after initially thinking he might come along with us. This year’s “goodies” included an extremely useful bar of chocolate plus a very nice double-ended spork, both of which would see action over the next couple of days. Anyway, we managed to get away by 10am and took the lane north from Llanbrynmair to head for the northerly group of GR’s around the Corris area. A nice crisp day, frost everywhere but sunshine already cheering things up a bit.
Towards the top of the lane a number of fords crossed the stream next to us, and never turning down the opportunity to ride through a ford we selected one and ploughed through. Hmm, a bit deeper than it looked, so we already had wet feet only an hour into the trip. Before reaching the A458, a farm track turns off and leads west around the edge of Foel Mallwyd, which was a much more appealing prospect than the A458 itself. It turned out to be a lovely little trail through the woods, crossing a number of streams, until it dropped down to bring us out right next to the garage at Mallwyd.
The garage has a handy shop and also “Caffi Carys” where we indulged in well-timed elevenses. At this point I realised that I couldn’t find my credit card, the first of many forgetful moments for both of us this weekend
. In fact it wasn’t the first because I’d already lost some of my daily dose of dried frog pills the previous night, only recovering that situation by using my emergency stash from my first aid kit. At least Lu still had his full complement of equipment, including his notorious glasses and even his gloves. I managed to phone the card company and freeze it, although this meant that Lu now had to buy everything for me for the rest of the weekend…..
Suitably refreshed we headed off downstream along the Dyfi on the back lane to Aberangell where I’d already warned Lu that we would turn off for our first quarry exploration. The Hendre Ddu slate quarry was one of the more obscure ones in Wales, with a very stop/start history as the slate industry went through its frequent ups and downs. However they obviously made enough of a go of it to build a narrow-gauge railway from Aberangell station up the valley to the quarry, and we set off along the old trackbed which ran through an attractive slate-walled cutting.
Lu organised a small diversion along a very soggy bridleway through the trees next to the Aberangell river, and this popped out at a crossroads in the Dyfi Forest. At exactly the same moment that we arrived we saw another Boner appear down the lane crossing ours. I envisaged a sort of Keystone K⁹ops encounter - a slightly speeded up film of us crashing into each other then jumping up and down then trying to pull the bikes apart but getting into even more of a tangle. Anyway, obviously we stop and say hello and it turns out to be none other than….. NeilA! What a ridiculous coincidence. Neil was aiming for the pub in Corris via the desperately steep lane through the forest, but after a little persuasion he decided to join us after all – The Last Of The Summer Wine show was now primed and ready for action!
The track of the old tramway now turned north up the very remote Angell valley, passing isolated farmsteads and old slate-dressing sheds, eventually reaching Hendre Ddu cottages where we zigzagged up the mountain to arrive at the quarry itself. Unfortunately there’s not much left apart from the old manager’s house, and our attempts to find the adit into the mine proved fruitless. I’m sure it was near this point that Lu suffered his first loss, sitting on his glasses in an obligatory spectacles-based catastrophe.
Further zigzag climbing brought us to the quarry reservoir at 1200’ and the adventure centre log cabin as seen in one of Lu’s photos earlier. From here we intended to drop down through the forest to Aberllefenni although I remembered from years ago that the bridleway tends to get very carved up by motorbikes. Fortunately it seemed to have been refurbished and we swooped down a very fast surface to arrive at the Aberangell to Aberllefenni road, bumping into another Boner going the other direction (apologies for not getting your name), and our first cattle grid grid reference.
If you look closely you can see a mad cow attempting to cross the grid. We’d been given her by Dee and thought it would be fun to make sure she appeared in plenty of photographs as she toured round with us. See if you can spot her in some of Lu’s earlier as well.
There was still plenty of time before the pub opened in Corris so the lads got “treated” to yet another Reg quarry inspection, this time being the spectacular Aberllefenni quarry. This has a long history and was in fact the last underground slate quarry to operate in Britain, only closing in 2003. I recently bought a 300-page history of the quarry, which details its operation and the living conditions of the workers. By the end in 2003 some of the underground chambers had grown into enormous chasms, some of them 600 feet deep from top to bottom. It’s impossible to get a feel for the scale but this photo gives an idea – note the miner lower middle, with daylight at the top and the chamber going down the same distance again.
Another chamber but from the outside... the top being the huge hole in the mountain and the bottom being at the level of the rails in the road where we’re standing.
Anyway, industrial archaeology lesson now over
. We retraced our steps to Aberllefenni village where we admired the various features from the quarrying days, including this superb flight of slate steps.
Down to the pub in Corris where we partook of a nice dinner and chit-chat.
At this point we had to make a decision about a bivvy spot. We’d already inspected a picnic site and a football pitch which were perfectly satisfactory, but I was keen to return to a spot near Machynlleth I’ve used many times before which also conveniently has my favourite pub nearby as well. Would be rude not to pop in, so we did. Lu and Neil relaxing after a hard day’s slate quarry touring.
Even the mad cow had a drink bought for her….
Weird things always happen in this pub. The first was that Lu suddenly realised he no longer had his bumbag. Not a major problem in itself, but what
was a major problem was that it contained his heart meds. We all thought back to where Lu might have last had it, even using our photographs to try and spot it. The consensus was that it was probably back at the Corris pub and we didn’t fancy going back there in the dark. Four phone calls later and they couldn’t find it, so things were looking a bit serious. Eventually I think Lu went outside to check his bike, and lo! There it was
. I eagerly awaited the missing gloves too, and I was well overdue for losing my phone as well, but so far they all seemed to be present and correct.
Shortly afterwards I made friends with a dog slumped on the floor…
… and struck up a conversation with a lady and gent sitting at the next table, who seemed to be the dog’s owners (or vice versa). She asked what we were up to, and of course I explained a bit about Bear Bones and the Winter Event. We had a fair old chat about bikes and bike adventures, and eventually I asked her if she was a bit of a cyclist herself. She said she had been in her younger days but now she mainly enjoyed watching her kids do the same instead. What sort of biking did they enjoy I queried. Well, they are world champion downhill mountain bikers she replied, I’m their mother… Mrs Atherton. Ah. By supreme self-control I managed not to sit mouth embarrassingly agape, but continued chatting about their achievements and the cycling world in general. Eventually I left her in peace and she asked us where we were kipping, obviously receiving the usual reply after which she said “well, you must come for breakfast tomorrow morning we’re only just down the road”! Okkaaaaayyyyy………
We managed to stagger out of the pub towards midnight, and wandered around the old corrugated iron huts nearby that had once been offices of various kinds but were now derelict and mainly all locked up. However, each time that I have visited one of the huts has been unlocked, allowing an excellent night’s indoor kip. Strangely, it’s always a different hut each time I’ve been. Unfortunately this time they were
all locked and we resigned ourselves to extracting our shelters and sleeping on the grass instead. I made a last-ditch look around just to make sure, and suddenly noticed that one hut had a hole in the wall which a body could just about squeeze through. I duly tested it and came back out to tell the lads. Here’s Lu doing a bit of “entering” without the “breaking” bit of the transgression. As mentioned before, I reckon gaining entrance to somewhere which involves no damage or breakage is fair game…..
Impressively, Neil opted for the hardcore kip-outside-on-the-frozen-grass ploy so that he could keep an eye in his bike. However Lu discovered a back door that opened from the inside, meaning Neil could park his bike inside so he joined us in our hotel after all.
Having gained entry, we discovered a labyrinth of rooms, meaning we could each have our own private bedrooms – complete with carpet, wallpaper, and curtains! Lu discovered that even the doorbell still worked, which seemed rather superfluous but quite amusing. Oh, and when I extracted my sleeping bag from its seat drybag out popped.... a credit card. I wonder whose that is?
[to be continued…..]
And it wouldn't be a ride with Reg if there hadn't been a tramway...
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