The Port Talbot Marilyns. There is space for a couple of cars to park at Blaen-Baglan Farm. From here up Mynydd Dinas is mostly on the well signposted Welch Coast Path. When this gets as high as it is going to two tracks lead of to the left a short way apart just before a gate into a field (which the WCP bypasses to the right). I mistakenly and carelessly went up the second of these from which the way to the summit is blocked by impenetrable trees to everyone except beetles. The first, as I then discovered, is the right way leading as it does to a path that branches off to the trig point. According to hillbagging.co.uk the summit is not the trig but rather "ground 2m NE of flat rock 65m E of trig point". So I wandered east for what felt like roughly 65m. I didn't spot a flat rock but reckon I was near enough for it to count. Back down the same way. the viewws of Port Talbot and the sea from the WCP near the top are impressive if not exactly beautiful in any convenytional sense.

A more virtuous person than me would have done the whole walk over both hills on foot. But instead I drove to the start of the track on the road west of Foel Fynyddau. There is space to park on the edge of the start of the track. It's an easy walk up a good path past some bedraggled looked horses in a field to the top with its big radio masts. There were lots of off road bike people around, ignoring the signs that were everywhere telling off road bikers to go away. The sensible way back is the same way. But just for fun in a spirit of exploration I kept going east on the track for a bit then turned off down a little path running due south into the woods in the spirit of, Let's see where this goes. Down was the answer. Then along, then down a bit more and all quite complicated. At times extremely steep, on the edge of what is safely walkable. . There were surprisingly many little paths crisscrossing down this steep woody slope. Eventually I reached the track at the bottom of the woods above Cwmavon and followed it home.

There is a car park on the A4061 as it begins it zigzag descent towards Hirwaun where people stop mostly to take pictures of the view north. Which today was a view across a sea of cloud almost level with the top of the plateau. It is a short walk west from here along the main road - there is a path off to the side so one can avoid walking on it - to where it bends south. Here a path continues west towards the hill. For about half a km. it is quite unpleasant thanks to the action of off road motorbikes: deep grooves separated by narrow ridges, either of which are uncomfortable underfoot. When it reaches the woods and starts to climb it gets much less unpleasant. The bikes come this  way too but the ground underfoot is rocky now and harder to damage. A track is followed west along the top ofthe woods until one seems just to have passed its highhest point at which point there is a branch track off left a short way along which is the easy to find trig point. As I walked back the highest of the Brecom Beacons were just sticking their tops out of the cloud base.

With Anna. We parked up at the Old Dungeon Ghyll with a little help from my National Trust life membership. (Thank you again, Mum, best present I ever had!). Over the fields to Stool End Farm and up the besautiful path that is the Band to Three Tarns and so up onto Bowfell. This was about the only point at which we deviated from the route the Nuttall's describe in their book which instead goes by the Climber's Traverse and Great Slab. The waethr was perfect and the views from Bowfell magnificent in all directions. Then on to the North Top and Esk Pike and down to the busy crossroad that is Esk Hause. Then the long trudge back to Langdale with a tony detour to grab Rossett Pike. I don't know if anyone still goes directly up or down Rossett Gill. Certainly 100% of the army of people making their way back off the hill today were following the now very wellegineered path that zigzags off to the right (looking down). So we did likewise. A really perfect beautiful day. Anna was in about a billion times better shape than me but way too nice to make me feel bad about it. We had a pint in the garden of the ODGH then off to the Drunken Duck where we ate things.

The plan for today was to do the day trip to Bardsey Island but the boatman decided it was too windy and that never happened. So instead I hoovered up a couple of Lleyn peninsula Marilyns. Fist off Garn Boduan. There is a forestry track off the B4354 to the south where there is space to park so I did. From here a path zigzags and contours gently up to the top. It is a lovely spot with very abundant traces of the hill fort that once stood here.

It didn’t take very long to walk up and down this so then I drove north for Gyrn Ddu. Here is a little yellow road to the east of the latter hill, very narrow, very quiet. From here the map shows a footpath heading onto the plateau halfway between a place called Hengwm and a mast a bit to the north. The road widens briefly just where the path joins it making it possible to park without creating an obstruction. So I did. It’s not a very pleasant path up onto the plateau but it improves when it gets there giving lovely walking in this beautiful, deserted place. The path leads to a short walled lane between fields after which I left the path marked on the map but a faint path not on the map took me up to the right and most of the way to the summit. The summit itself is a massive pile of boulders clambering up which was not very pleasant but did not take long.

I broke the drive from Sheffield to Snowdonia by gathering up another little Marilyn in the Clwydian Hills. I parked at the top of the Bwlch Pembarras (pay and display, cash only, £1.50, be sure you have change). There are paths everywhere on this little hill and you can choose whether to take it direct, which is short but unrelentingly very steep, or relieve the steepness by going in zigzags. I did the former going up, the latter going down..

There is a small layby thing acrtoss the road from Castle Nook Farm. I parked here and headed into the weeds where the Pennine Way is signposted. It emerges from the woods above the farm and heads over pasture. I deviated a bit to avoid some cattle  and found myself on strange terrain, the ground moulded into an array of small ridges. It soon dawned that this was manmade, the remnants of the old Roman fort of Epiacum. I kept on the Pennine WAy crossing the Gilderdale Burn. A little after this, just before it turns left towards Harbut Law, there is a track heads off southwest. This follows the valley along the line of a fence, getting a bit intermittent as it apprached the head. Finally the fence comes to a T-junction by some ruined sheepfolds. After this it is pathless to the top of Black Fell. From here over Tom Smith's Stone and onto Grey Nag is a long boggy fence following exercise with occasion signs of a vestigial path, utterly typical of the North Pennines. The energetic could lengthen this walk with a long detour out along a ridge to the west to collect the newly promoted Nuttall of Thack Moor. Not me, I'll come back fro it another time. Before Grey Nag the ridge passes Tom Smith's stone and the barely noticeably bump in the ridge that is the hill named after him. EVen with the mighty resources of Google I cannot find out who Tom Smith was. From the top of Grey Nag I headed off over more pathless ground down the ridge to the northeast labelled Great Heaplaw on the map. A long trudge over little visited hills meeting not a soul.