A brief ramble

 Today we set off on a map reading exercise and fortunately enough the start was easy to identify, Pillith church the site of a battle where Owain Glyndower gave Mortimer a right kicking in 1402, taking him prisoner and killing lots of his men daft enough to follow him on an uphill charge in full armour into the waiting Welsh army.

 Unlike a lot of churches you are still able to wander around uninvited

 and look at the stuff

 and even go up the bell tower (we didn't)

 So on a glorious day we set out across vast tracts of Welshland with the idea of knocking off a quick 20 miles before tea an medals. This was going to be the proverbial stroll in the park.

 Someone forgot to tell the landscape this and pretty soon we were combatting mother nature along very overgrown trails

 but able at times to look back and see how far we had not come, this is in fact the battle field the clump of trees centre pic is the mass burial site and bones often surface when the farmer ploughs the field and scatters etc.

 Views from the top were splendid

 and Spotty dog the action Berner had to be shown where to resupply on drool fuel as he was not carrying a water bottle.

 Here he is cooling off while yours truly looks for the bridge somewhere close by

 eventually finding it thus establishing exactly where we were, far from where we should be

 which was over here across the hills and far away not locked in a miserable battle trying to navigate out of a forest that seemed endless.

 Out in the open things got better, if not then steeper and more problems arose like an uncanny ability to confuse ourselves

 aided by maps showing forest when in actual fact it had long been destroyed.

 This is a boundary line above Harleys dingle

 to stop us wandering into a live missile firing range. While we were passing someone was giving it heavy metal death with a large calibre machine gun.

 By 2 hours past lunch time we were almost half way and well behind schedule

 so a suitably picturesque spot was chosen

 and late lunch cooked

 while hungry dog plotted

 to share whatever was in the precious silver bags of MRE.

 By now we decided to head back a "faster" route where mother nature plied us with photo opportunity

 and mental sheep chased us across the fields.

 Finally the last hill which was the first one hove into view and we were almost back the car but a few minor errors in navigation meant we were delayed further

 but we still took time to photograph things of interest like this bus stop.

 Spotty was not so keen on the sight seeing, more keen on keeping cool and drinking from every puddle encountered.

Eventually the happy wanderers found sanctuary back at the church, 2.5 hours late and despite having cut half of the planned route off still managed with errors to walk the same distance. A great day out non the less.