Garth Hill

“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.”
Ellen DeGeneres
Inspired by my first outing with Marauders Men’s Health around Newport Wetlands last week I joined them again for a longer stretch today, an eight-mile hike up Garth Hill from Taff’s Well. A five-hour walk overall in lively company and birthday boy Billy. Fortunately school's out so the traffic to Cardiff at 8.30am was light, so I was at the start point early for 9.30am kick-off. About a dozen already there when I arrived, even so the final group size of twenty-five-ish was a surprise to me, so popular. Registration and briefing over we headed up, and up, and up onto Garth Hill. Great views even though the promised sunny spells didn’t materialise, made it more comfortable for the heavy hiking. About three miles uphill then a rest around the trig. point for lunch and group photos – followed by a first for me, singing happy birthday to Billy (a terrier I think) - a light moment to lift the spirits and inject a bit of fun.
Much easier going downhill through wooded valleys and through Coed-y-Bedw nature reserve then another steep uphill through the woodland to the rim overlooking Taff’s Well quarry, but well worth it for the views. By this point there were about a dozen of us, the others had broken off at a couple of points (for a five and seven mile walks) to return to base and get the drinks in at Gwaelod-y-Garth. I headed straight home for a doze, it had been the longest walk I’ve had for several years.