Length: 22.4 km (13.4 mi)
Ascent/Descent: 545m
Net Walking Time: ca. 6 ½ hours
Toughness: 7 out of 10
Many other – longer or shorter – options , are possible. See the webpage or the pdf for details.
Meet at 09.30 next to the Market Tavern, where it borders the Morrison’s car park. Car drivers bring their cars into the car park. After allocating passengers to cars, drive to Pontneddfechan (post code SA11 5NR, a 37 km drive as per the AA Routeplanner). Passengers: please pay your driver a respectful sum for the journey. If the car parks near the start of the walk are full already, check the route map for alternatives along the route and pick up the walk from there.
Spare walkers will have to either take a taxi (online quotes for a 6 seater to Penderyn on the long walk are from £127 each way, and to Pontneddfechan from £140, on the spot quotes may be different) or go on an alternative walk (see below).
This route, entirely in the Fforest Fawr Geopark area of the Brecon Beacons National Park, is the ultimate waterfalls experience, and possibly not just in the UK, packed up in a moderately strenuous walk, with more strenuous options possible. It leads through the wooded gorges of the Upper River Nedd and its tributaries Pyrddin, Mellte, Hepste and Sychryd above Pontneddfechan, often referred to as the Celtic Rainforest, as they pass through a millstone grit and limestone plateau, and along Moel Penderyn (hill) to the east.
The rivers have eroded deep, narrow valleys in the plateau, which lies some 300m above sea level, with caves, wooded mossy gorges, river cliffs, block scree, rapids, cascades and waterfalls in what is the greatest concentration of them in the UK.
The route passes a total of 13 named falls or cascades (2 of those on extensions), including all 8 of the most famous ones in the area, plus countless other unnamed falls, cascades and rapids, as well as one of the largest cave entrances in the UK.
Some sections are easy to walk as you follow disused tramroads to former silica mines (some entrances can still be seen), others go over more demanding terrain, at times rough, rocky and slippery and/or exposed. En route to lunch, you rise out of the Nedd Fechan valley up to the limestone upland with fine views to the mountains in the Fforest Fawr, source of the rivers passed on the route, and across to the Central Beacons.
The return to Pontneddfechan is along a scenic and lofty route high above the wooded Mellte and Hepste gorges, topped near the end with another excursion to some more falls and stunning rock features.
A longer walk via Penderyn with surround views in all directions, loops around the slopes of Moel Penderyn.
Lunch: The New Inn in
Ystradfellte (10.0 km/6.2 mi, open from 13.00, food all day).
Tea: several options en route and at the end of the walk, check the webpage or pdf for details.
For
walk directions,
map,
height profile,
photos and
gpx/kml files click
here . T=swc.400
Alternative Walks for today:
Waterfalls and Bluebells -
SWC 280 Henrhyd Waterfall/Sgwd Henrhyd from Craig y Nos . Take the
10.10 Bus T6 from Brecon Interchange Stand 5, direction Ystradgynlais (for Abertawe/Swansea). Bus calls
Llanfaes, St David’s Church and arrives Glyntawe/
Craig y Nos - Adelina Patti Hospital at 10.46.
Return buses:
xx.20 to
17.20, then
18.23 and
19.23 from Craig y Nos Country Park, a few minutes later from Glyntawe.
Or , if that’s too tame:
SWC 278 –
Brecon Beacons Horseshoe ; walk any of the variants straight from Brecon to the ridge and back down a different route.