gray expectations

These days we can't just drop everything and jaunt up Pen Y Fan at the drop of a hat, as parental responsibilities tend to intervene. So when offered the opportunity of going for a walk up a hill on my birthday I had to temper my natural urge to plan some 20-mile yomp and think up something a bit more tailored to include the bairn without prompting a repeat of the Brown Willy incident.

So we ended up doing a quick trip up Gray Hill, which is over to the east of Newport just south of the Wentwood Forest and next to the Wentwood Reservoir. It's only a smidgen under 900 feet high, and I suspect it's only three miles or so for the round trip, but we didn't want to push our luck with Nia in the papoose and we wanted to be able to get back down in time to go to the pub for lunch. It's a nice walk if you only want a short one, though, although I saw no signs of either the standing stone or the stone circle that are marked on the map.

The nearest pub would probably be the Woodlands Tavern at Llanfair Discoed, and very nice it is too (good Felinfoel Double Dragon as I recall), but as we've been there a couple of times before we decided to go to the Groes Wen in Penhow, on the A48 back towards Newport instead. I had a perfectly decent pint of something I can't remember, and a very nice pie and chips.

A very small selection of photos, including the obligatory summit shot (no trig point, sadly) is here.