After hiking for several hours in blistering heat we reached the high point of our first encounter with Fan Brycheiniog.  It was a great moment but slightly strange.  I could only remember this place as being so utterly full of menace.  The intense savagery of our two previous trips had been replaced with a picturesque view of the Brecon Beacons.  Pen y Fan and Corn Du looked impressive in the distance.  I was glad to be in the Black Mountain.  It was quite busy but not overwhelmed, the summit was just minutes away.

We had taken another new route on this trip.  We parked near the tafarn-y-garreg pub and walked back down the road about 1km to take a bridleway heading roughly north-west.  Crossing a small river we headed up the side of the valley through gorse and stinging nettles.  The route looked like the longest and hardest on the map and required us to go off-piste to reach the summit.  It was a good chance to practice some navigation.

We were heading initially to the site of a wellington bomber that crashed in this remote place during WW2.  There were no paths so I took a bearing to a prominent rocky feature in the distance.  We passed dozens of shake holes and stopped to throw in stones.  In heavy snow you would want to be very careful around here!

We found the wreckage of the plane.  It was poignant moment.  We took off our caps and held a minute silence after I read aloud the names of the men who had perished in this wilderness.

We left the crash site heading north; crossed the path we had started on and then up into a re-entrant on the western side of the escarpment.  This was hard work.  We sunk into boggy ground, got swarmed by midges (which were slightly less bad than the horse flies) and stumbled through thigh deep grass.  Our strength and morale waned in the heat and humidity but there was no option other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  We could see our target but no matter how far we walked it never seemed to get any closer!  Eventually we reached our previous high point.  We pushed on to the summit.  We took some photos and lazed around in the shade of the summit shelter.  We ate chocolate (which i had packed in the middle of my pack to stop it from melting) and drunk Lucozade. Until this point we had only seen a few people and we had gone for a period of 5 hours without passing anyone else!

We had all the kit to camp for the night.  But the pub was calling.  One long, straight slog back to the car and we would be at the pub.  We had one bottle of water left which we would share one sip at a time.

Arthur chose the route out.  We’d keep the height gained and go via Fan Hir.  It was a good choice.  There was a nice breeze and the views were amazing.

We made good progress out.  I could almost taste the extra cold Heineken.  Ten and a half hours after were set off we were back.  We had covered over 17km.  I thought Arthur would be tired (I was), but he kept getting me to play football in the pub garden.  We slept in the car for a second night, glad that we had finally bagged Fan Brycheiniog.