Six walkers met up at Wick Village Hall. It had been thick fog as Helen and Andrew left Ogmore by Sea but as we got to Wick the weather turned clear and sunny and we felt optimistic for a good walk. We shared cars and drove to Cowbridge where we parked at the car park behind the Town Hall, the other car parked in the Cattle Market and walked down to meet us (avoiding car park charges).
From the car park we walked along the footpath by the river to the rear of Cowbridge secondary school and then on the boardwalk and paths to Newton House Farm. As predicted it was pretty muddy in places especially around the gates between fields and in the farm yard itself. Robbie explained that this area, and Cowbridge itself, used to flood very badly and that the work done on flood prevention had made a big difference. We had a short stop at Newton House Farm while Andrew demonstrated how to operate the automated fresh milk machine and, using a straw each, we all sampled the strawberry milkshake. Consensus was it was very good value at £1.30 for 500ml and was delicious.
After a short stretch on the road we got to a junction where when we had recce’d the walk the stile was broken and challenging. There was much debate on best route to avoid this before Helen noticed that the stile had been repaired (thank you Valeways) and we decided to continue on the off-road route heading uphill to Pen-y-lan and on to Llansannor. The views were lovely as we walked in bright sunshine with the rape fields making a very colourful splash of yellow.
We stopped at Llansannor and viewed the church and then had coffee and Andrew’s home-made choc chip cookies – but disappointingly we did not bump into JPR as we walked past his house as had been the case on a previous walk!. With no official photographer with us, we made do with taking a group selfie on Helen’s mobile phone. Hideous photo of me as I tried to concentrate on not dropping the phone and getting everyone in view – I considered editing me out before I sent it!!
After a very short section of road we pick up the Millennium Trail along the valley towards Penilyn, passing ‘Julie’s house’ and admiring the lovely gardens; and then to Forage, with Robbie bumping into friends en route. At Forage we stopped and sat outside for coffee or ice-cream or to discretely finish our packed lunches. From here we went down the steep steps to cross under the by-pass and then walked back to the cars though Cowbridge.
The trees are getting new leaves and there was an abundance of wild flowers including bluebells and anemone. I gathered some wild garlic leaves to go into supper as we went through the wooded area. My phone app said I had done 17,500 steps and a distance of just over 12km when we arrived back at the car.
Thank you all for the lovely company on a beautiful day for a walk.
Wick Wanderers 