A road trip through the BRECON BEACONS

There's no better way to discover this wild corner of Wales, says Kerry Walker

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Morning light trickles through the branches of broadleaf trees as I tread softly through ancient woods up to the Skirrid, or Ysgyryd Fawr, as it’s known in Welsh. Formed by a landslide during the last Ice Age, the prominent ridge on the eastern fringes of the Brecon Beacons in south Wales delivers drama greater than its modest 486 metres height suggests.

I reach the summit in under two hours and am left breathless in every sense of the word. Alone with a sheep at the trig point, I watch as the sun illuminates a patchwork of gold-green fields. Looking west, I can pick out the heights of the Brecon Beacons, while to the south the Seven Estuary glimmers. It's early morning anda the only sound is the whistle of the wind and a red kite gliding overhead.

Romantic ruins

The walk is a fitting intro to a three-day road trip diving deep into the 520 square-mile Brecon Beacons National Park (officially known as Bannau Brycheiniog). Here, single-track lanes swing through heather-cloaked moors, forests and glacier-carved valleys, with brooding peaks on the horizon. Breaking up the journey are Georgian market towns, charismatic villages, Iron Age hill forts, ruined medieval castles and abbeys, and beamed coaching inns. You could dash through the hills in less time, but you would miss all the detail.

My walk works up a thirst for a drink at the Skirrid Mountain Inn in the nearby village of Llanvihangel Crucorney. This 900-year-old boozer is Wales' oldest and, apparently, most haunted, filled with smoke-blackened beams, cosy nooks and the ghosts of patrons past, including Shakespeare, who dreamt up the character of Puck for A Midsummer Night's Dream here.