Tondu to Port Talbot

I returned to the Tondu railway station, travelling up the Maesteg line. Passenger services were closed on this line in 1970 as a result of the Beeching report which slashed railway lines across the UK, fortunately the line continued to be used for coal transport, which meant that Tondu and other stations could be re-opened in 1992. Re-opening of such lines is of great benefit to walkers allowing more interesting A to B walks in South Wales.

Today I followed Cycleway No 4 all the way from the station up to Blackmill, then climbed out of the valley eastwards along the Glamorgan ridgeway with a pleasant walk through bracken and trees along the side of the Ogmore valley, with more distant views of Bridgend. Farmland followed where I made some diversions to avoid disturbing sheep with newborn lambs. On crossing a road the waymarked path deviated from that marked on my map, diverting through fields to the south a little around Cefnmachen uchaf farm as the path dropped into the valley of Afon (i.e. river) Garw. A cycle path goes down the valley (again using the track bed of an old railway) which is an alternate route to Tondu station (e.g. if walking from Llantrisant).

Climbing again, this time out of the Garw valley, the path heads to the left rather than going through the village of Bettws. There are plenty of waymarks on the Glamorgan valley path with a mountain view logo, but sometimes, at crucial junctions like this one, they are absent. After crossing a road the path heads downhill again past a derelict building. For the second time today I met some unusual sheep, unusual in that instead of running away, they followed me like cows sometimes do. Do not know what they wanted. Some cows then joined the sheep in trailing behind me, I seemed to be popular!

The third climb of the day (out of the valley of the Llynfi River) went through trees, then fields, then an overgrown path through a few more trees before climbing across open fields leading to a brilliant view that became better the higher I climbed. I could see back to where I walked the previous day past the Taff-Ely wind farm, across the Vale of Glamorgan to the Aberthaw power station and across the Bristol Channel to Somerset and Devon.

The path continued a little behind the ridge, along a small road and then the wayleave of a gas pipeline. Although the map indicated lots of trees, many of these had been cut down. Eventually the route turns south. A quite different view of the coast now opens out as you reach the end of a ridge, the most obvious sight is the Port Talbot steelworks. I passed a family who commented that it spoiled the view, but for me it was the pride of Welsh industry, I like it especially at night when the lights and flames make it seem an exciting place. When I was young we had to drive through Port Talbot to reach the beaches of the Gower peninsula, visible in the distance to the west. It used to smell of vile sulphurous compounds, while we sat at railway crossings. Such odours are now no more, although the occasional wiff of something does reach you on the ridge, no doubt from some high chimney. Margam castle, a romantic, gothic, 19th century extravaganza is visible in the foreground.

I descended into Margam country park which marks the formal end of the Glamorgan ridgeway, and also two other long distance paths, St Illtyd's walk and Coed Morgannwg, the former is also the path taken by the Glamorgan ridgeway as it enters Margam Country Park. It is a fine park with a castle, a ruined abbey, an orangery, numerous children's activities, two lakes, a coffee shop (where I took some refreshment) and deer. My only difficulty was finding the way out! To avoid walking down the A48 main road, I had to return to the gate through which I entered and head around the hill behind the castle (Mynedd y Castel). I could then climb up to the ruined chapel and join the Wales Coast path (the "Red route", there is an alternative route for the coast path through housing). I followed this along the ridge down to Brombil, where I took a side path up the ridge for a final view across the Bristol Channel. To the east you could see the M4 motorway skirting the base of the ridge, and to the west, the Gower peninsula sticks out into the sea, while the ridge turns inland as the edge of the Carboniferous basin is reached. At this point the ridge is close to the sea and may have once been sea cliffs, with Port Talbot and its steel works on a beach revealed as sea level fell at the end of the ice age.

Sadly it was time to head for home. I walked down a slippery, grassy path to the base of the ridge, followed the Wales coast path by the noisy motorway and eventually went under it and through Port Talbot to reach the Parkway station. A kind lady in the ticket office saved me £5 by selling me two tickets rather than one, which made a happy end to a good day's walking.

Today I walked 34.6 km, with an accumulated ascent of 958 metres. By joining the Glamorgan ridgeway at later points, the route between stations can be reduced a lot. The gps trail can be obtained at wikiloc.com, using a gpx file on a gps is a lot easier than using maps as the route unhelpfully falls between Ordnance Survey Explorer maps 151, 165 and 166 (although you can buy custom made maps from the Ordnance survey at reasonable cost centred on a suitable part of the trail which would save a lot of messing around with maps flapping in the wind). You can also obtain the route for your smart phone from ViewRanger.