Day 3: To Merthyr Tydfil, Pontypridd and Cardiff

Breakfast with very good coffee at Tredegar Arms, and we're off to Cardiff. Our first stop is Merthyr Tydfil, where we're following the route 46.

Just as it reaches Merthyr Tydfil, the 46 takes a long detour around Merthyr, so since we didn't plan to spend a lot of time in this town, we decided to get off the route and instead make our own way into the city centre. Unfortunately, the 46 was so pleasant to ride on that we missed our turn. Fortunately, the detour we've taken wasn't bad at all and we enjoyed our ride towards Dowlais.

Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive:

The High Street in Merthyr Tydfil was so crowded we only had some coffee at Costa and left soon.

The rest of the trip was very easy and uneventful, but definitely not boring because of the stunning views.

We had a lunch break in Pontypridd, a place we both found very beautiful.

Radyr Weir — we're almost in Cardiff:

Day 2: Wormbridge to Abergavenny and Tredegar

Just before Llanvihangel Crucorney, the route 46 went up the hill, but we decided we've had enough of hills for the morning and instead went to the village directly and went on the main road.

Luckily, we didn't have to stay on the main road for very long as we were able to enter Abergavenny on some side road after a few kilometres. I must admit the lorry drivers did the right thing and waited until they could overtake us safely instead of squeezing us off the road.

We've spent about an hour or two in Abergavenny, eating some of our food reserves to make our way up easier. I enjoyed an exceptionally good double espresso at Beans & Bread at the corner of Market St and Lion St.

Leaving Abergavenny was a bit tricky. The path by the castle was unpaved and barely cyclable with panniers, so I walked it down instead, where a ‘kissing gate’ was waiting for us.

Then the path continued through the meadows, paved with unusually shaped grass pavers, ending as we reached an old bridge: another gate, and a rather narrow pavement shared with pedestrians.

The beginning of the separated part of the route 46 was very easy to miss, as it started at a car park, whereas a much better-looking path led back to the town.

The remainder of the route to Brynmawr was mostly on a converted railway embankment, so it was very easy to ride (just like cyclists, trains don't run very well up steep slopes). To our great surprise, what we expected to be one of the hardest parts of the whole journey wasn't hard at all. The only difficulties we experienced were a short Z-shaped uphill near Clydach, and a super steep climb on the approach to Brynmawr.

What remains of the Clydach station:

East portal of the tunnel:

The path had a few gates installed, some of them just gates with cattle grids, but a few were ‘kissing gates’ or wide gates with narrow cyclists-shaped passages — which obviously weren't wide enough to allow us to pass. Luckily, I was able to open the gates on quite a few occasions, but some of them were locked, requiring me to walk around through bushes.

In fact, some gates had passages so narrow, even my bicycle's handlebars wouldn't fit!

It was very easy to navigate the 46 in Brynmawr, it's quite well-signed except one stretch by the pond, where the route suddenly goes on the road.

Leaving Brynmawr, we've got off the 46 to make our way to Tredegar where we stayed at Tredegar Arms.

Day 1: Hereford to Wormbridge

For the first day, we decided just about 20 km is going to be enough, as otherwise we’d have to complete 50 km to Abergavenny in one day, which is a bit too much for the beginning of the journey. Theres not a lot of accommodation halfway between Hereford and Abergavenny, basically just one B&B in Wormbridge and another one in Kilpeck; the one in Kilpeck was cheaper, but unfortunately fully booked, so we booked the more expensive Trelough House at the outskirts of Wormbridge.

We started our day with a full English breakfast at the Holly Tree guest house in Hereford. I ordered the regular breakfast while Martina took a vegetarian version. The vegetarian full breakfast looked almost exactly the same as the non-veg one, but it had an extra hash brown instead of the bacon I had, and the sausages didn’t have any meat in them. Martina didn’t particularly like the sausages, but to my taste they were actually better than the regular ones which I found a bit too salty.

A short visit to the local Sainsbury’s for some fruit, veg and sandwiches, and we’re checking out. The Hereford cathedral seemed like a good place to start the trip; besides, there were a plenty of cafes nearby, and our B&B only had instant coffee (we opted for tea instead), so wanted to use the opportunity to taste real coffee before going to the country where this could not be guaranteed.

Having had some coffee we realised it’s only ten miles to Wormbridge, so we used the opportunity to walk around the city centre once again. Unlike yesterday in the evening, High Street and the nearby square were full of people, which made me think how the perception of  the city changes depending on the mere presence of people.

Soon we set course on Wormbridge and cycled through the city listening to very confusing directions from OsmAnd. Apparently it took every wiggle of the cyclepath as a turn, but not every actual turn was mapped properly.

At some point the road turned into gravel, which I found quite difficult to ride on.

The Kilpeck Inn: good beer, great food. They only serve food after six, so we only had some beer and left to check in to our B&B room.

It took us much longer than OsmAnd predicted to arrive at our accommodation, but we made a lot of stops along the way, so that's not unexpected.