A Few Days in the Desert

There are few things in life, I find, as restorative as time on two wheels in the company of friends; the simple act of riding a bicycle, shared adventure, laughter, opportunities for reminiscing about adventures past, and planning new ones. It is often hard to navigate the webs of commitments that comprise modern life to make such meet-ups happen, to which can be added the difficulties of widely-spaced geographical locations, and simply living where I do – had King Eurystheus found himself in west Cornwall in July then no doubt to the Labours of Hercules would he have added a thirteenth – that of navigating the A30 trunk road west or east in or out the county during school summer holidays….

The forecast for the weekend had been steadily deteriorating all week, and with high winds and somewhere around an inch of rain forecast for the Saturday a short planning session seemed like a good idea rather than simply riding off into the hills…

A while ago I’d arranged to meet Mike  (I know, the horror.. another one..) in mid-Wales for a few days of mostly off-road fun, coffee, camping and so on when purely by happy coincidence another one of those most excellent friends from past adventures happened to arrive back in the UK after a few years away. I was able to collect Cass on my way north, and a few days of at times soggy, bog-trotting adventure, ensued.

Now, the Cambrian mountains of mid-Wales are not exactly known for the aridity of climate, however the term ‘Desert of Wales’, long-used to describe the area, is appropriate. While it is an emphatically green part of the world, it is also remote, inaccessible, and an ecological desert. Historical overgrazing by sheep, and more recently the conifer mono-culture of modern-day forestry have left the area mostly devoid of diversity, and even today access is mostly via trail, bridlepath, dirt road or tiny b-road. That difficulty of access and absence of people however makes it a terrific destination for riding… a destination notable in particular for a certain ‘moistness’ of climate.

With the forecast, and notoriously boggy terrain, in mind I had left home with a pair of Goretex-lined boots for riding.. in the end though it made no difference

We were late breaking camp on the morning of day one and didn’t set off until around 10am. The forecast for the weekend had been steadily deteriorating all week, and with high winds and somewhere around an inch of rain forecast for the Saturday a short planning session seemed like a good idea rather than simply riding off into the hills: two long days to begin with ought to allow us to book-end the wettest, and third, day with a couple of bothies for the night. As it happened the plan worked perfectly and certainly having access to a handy bothy for the Saturday night probably saved the adventure. With the forecast, and notoriously boggy terrain, in mind I had left home with a pair of Goretex-lined boots for riding.. in the end though it made no difference and I didn’t have properly dry feet again until arriving home on Sunday night… cleverly I had neglected to leave some dry socks and shoes in the car :-)

I hadn’t really thought to bring a head net, this not being Scotland, but happily I had thrown in some bug repellent… more with ticks in mind than midges. Had I had a net of course we could probably have made some midge-cakes to go with dinner, but instead had to content ourselves with a little extra protein in just about everything, ears and noses included.

As usual I’ll try and tell the story in the form of pictures. Do also check out Cass’s blog post here, he tells a story brilliantly and his photos are superb – he always manages to remember to give the story depth with pictures of cakes and fried breakfasts and stuff.. I’m always three-quarters of the way through, stuffing my face, before I remember that such details might be useful for the story. Also published, near the end of the post, is a downloadable GPX of the route which was essentially the Bear Bones Bash route he wrote about for bikepacking.com a few years ago, albeit ridden in reverse and with a little bit trimmed off with the long trek home Sunday evening in mind. I had wanted to explore this part of Wales in greater depth since riding through a couple of years ago, and that route seemed an ideal way to do it.