Bongo Fury

Had a wonderful time staying at Glyn-y-Mul Farm, Aberdulais, near Neath. http://www.glynymulfarm.co.uk/

For those that just want to skip to the photos, here you go. Click on the thumbnail. I took around 300 pics, these are just a selection:


After a delayed start because my trailer electrics, bongo electrics AND trailerboard were all playing up, eventually set off down the M4 to Neath. Got as far as seeing Port Talbot in the distance before the traffic slowed to a halt!

Got to Glyn-y-Mul Farm at around 6:00 pm. Ian very kindly let me stay on the hayfield, away from the zillions of noisy children I was expecting because it was BH weekend (weren't zillions but I appreciated where we were). Haydn joined me for Friday and Saturday, picking up his girls on the Saturday.

What a wonderful campsite! If you must have EHU, they do have it but this is a get back to nature place - and great. There was wild camping in the woods too. They have 2 showers and 4 toilets in the farmyard, a fully stocked kitchen (fridge, freezer, microwave and kettle) and a friendly outlook. Also, there was a portaloo in every camping field on the farm itself - very handy in the middle of the night.

Absolutely no light pollution meant that the Milky Way was clearly visible and Haydn and I stood outside until around 11:30 pm on the Friday night, just looking UP!

Chilled doing hardly anything at all until the Sunday, when Haydn packed up and oft he went to the Forest of Dean, and I hunted and hunted for the keys to Bertha. Couldn't remember where I'd put them.

Monday I found them in the bottom of my washbag!!??

Got in Tintin and went off to find Gwladus Country Park, above Aberdulais. You can see it from my pitch. Wonderful place to walk and ended up walking all around the outside, and then all around the inside too. Every single person I met was very friendly and I learnt much about the history of the place. It was mined until the mid-1800s and used Dram Road to haul the pickings by horse-drawn tram carts down to Neath Canal.

After 3 hours of walking, Cfor decided she'd had enough and so we got into Tintin and drove up towards Glyn-neath, intending to turn left and come back down to the campsite via Pontardawe but ended up in the middle of Brecon Beacons and hopelessly lost. My SatNav didn’t help because there was no signal (!) so I just headed south. Eventually I discovered I was near Cray. Lord knows how I got there, I’ve no idea. Joined the main road near Cray Reservoir and headed back towards Pontardawe. Was a busy day!

There were loads of swallows on the hayfield feasting on the bugs in the air. I managed to capture a few with my little camera. Hope I uploaded the right ones.

This would be a marvelous place for a bongo meet, and Ian the owner is open to the idea. He has Dorothys you can borrow and firewood you can buy off him. We could have the hayfield (where the top is flat) and anyone that MUST have EHU can use the regular campsite. I found the regular campsite rather muddy with all the rain, whereas the hayfield was great, albeit long grass. No mud at all. What does peops think then?

On Monday night Haydn rang to tell me about another place to visit on the way home – in the Forest of Dean, so on Tuesday morning we packed up and headed over the Heads of Valleys. Much nicer journey than the M4!

Had breakfast at Bracelands Adventure Centre (as recommended by Haydn) and then promptly got myself lost in the Forest. Only went for a little walk but ended up going about 3 miles! Eventually got back and thought we’d better set off for home.

Now looking forward to Brean, Tavistock, Looe and Magic Cove!

Thanks for taking time to write this up Jilly.

Bob wrote:Thanks for taking time to write this up Jilly.

I do tend to waffle a bit when I get going!

Great Pics Jilly, looks like a fab place, could be good for a meet, we could send Chris off to camp in the woods with his mate Jack D

We (sandra, my wife and me) went there for one night on Thursday last week. Really nice site and great to have a camp fire to sit by as you drink your wine. bit cloudy but did get to see stars later on. This was after the ten para gliders had packed up and gone home

thanks for sharing jilly, enjoyed your pictures,(muz has a rival ). no 94 has a face on it .
i have found that the best trips are when you do dont know where you are(never lost)

Northern Bongolow wrote:thanks for sharing jilly, enjoyed your pictures,(muz has a rival ). no 94 has a face on it

If that's the one of the tree, then yes it did.

(quote="Northern Bongolow"]i have found that the best trips are when you do dont know where you are(never lost) [/quote]

Absolutely correct, but it did get a bit scary when the SatNav wouldn't work and I couldn't find any of the place names on my car map! I kept driving until I did find something I recognised - well sort of.

The Forest of Dean thing was weird though, because I went straight, then left, then left, and I was contining to bear to the left - so I should have ended up where I started. Well that was the plan! But it didn't work. I've found the route I took on an OS Map now - I did SOME walking!

The only place I 'may' not now where I am over the next couple of weeks is Tavistock - which is rather near to Dartmoor. Ooooo errrrrrr!

a tip may be to take the best scale road map you can get your hands on, for the area you choose, then learn to navigate using rivers, lakes, and high ground areas, these ive found after years of farm deliveries are far more reliable than overgrown/ missed or no signs.

Northern Bongolow wrote:a tip may be to take the best scale road map you can get your hands on, for the area you choose, then learn to navigate using rivers, lakes, and high ground areas, these ive found after years of farm deliveries are far more reliable than overgrown/ missed or no signs.

The trouble with Forest of Dean though is that it is a load of trees with a multitude of tracks and there are more tracks on the ground than on the map! But my problem here was I had no map!

Take your point though Ady - I looked up where I had walked when I got home! I didn't even know which part of the Forest I was in at the time because I followed the SatNav to a postcode given to me by Haydn.

it can be confusing can't it.
i was once deep in the forest of dean when we heard this loud crashing and rustling just up ahead,we gathered the kids to the our side not knowing what was about to emerge from the undergrowth, out strode a magnificant stag,he just stood proud about 6 feet away from us on the track. i dont know who was more suprised him or us.
then out poped an orienteiring marshal who was trying to get in front of the game,legs ripped to shreads by brambles and full of sweat, then off they both ran into the undergrowth.
it looked really sureal,me and the family just looked at each other as if to say did that really just happen.
strange things happen when you go into the forest. .