Garnswllt near Pontardulais aka The Rainbow walk

Russ and the month of November seem to have some sort of affinity.He has led a walk at this time of year for quite a few years now and we have been blessed with very decent weather given what could be thrown  at us at this time of year.Apart from two quite sharp but short showers, which included a little bit of hail for good measure it was sunny but cold, ideal autumn walking weather.

On the drive to the start of the walk the rainbow colours were twinkling down at us from a bright blue sky and they continued on the walk and we were priveledged to glimpse 3 or 4 or more beautifully coloured rainbows high above.

A really good group of 15 turned out for this walk at Garnswllt, a little known area.

We started off through some fields and a very muddy patch onto the moorland which gave us great views in all directions, over to Port Talbot, the Loughor Estuary and down towards nearby Ammanford.

We were now on St Illtyd's Way and continued on the open moorland, trying hard to ignore the forementioned hail shower sweeping across,making our way towards Penlle'r Castell which was built as a fortress to control access to Gower through the mountain route which linked the Tywi and the Tawe valleys.

Disappearing down one of the deep depressions, tringy to shelter from the elements we were pleased to see the sun come out again.

We were soon off again, on the road this time threading our way through the wind turbines on Betws mountain. We came to another viewpoint and stopped to take in some more great views.

Down the road we continued until a sharp left hand turn onto a walking path caught some of our group out, that had walked ahead of the leader and had to be called back.

We shortly got to an area of land where the path had been rerouted around a large house and where the route was very indistinct.After a wander into a wrong field we got back on track by disturbing some horses in the next field and then we could see the path ahead.

Again there was a dodgy bit where the path disappears into trees but we eventually found the entrance and were surprised to find another property hiding away.Crossing a bridge we joined a minor lane and then headed for the dreaded 133 steps that had been highlighted in the walk description. Some of us huffed and puffed up to a stile and then uphill a few more times through some fileds, something that was not really needed at this latter stages of the walk.

Eventually we rejoined a path where we'd started the walk and found our ways back to the waiting cars.

I found this such an exhilerating walk and everyone else really enjoyed too.It is such a beautiful area and it was great to see such great support for this event at this time of year.

Russ is so enthusiastic abut the areas he chooses and this was a well planned area and route, so many thanks for all his hard work in putting this together, with a little help along the way.

Hopefully he's already booked some excellent weather for his walk on the wild side, next November!!

 

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