We always love hiking. Not professional though, just a seasonal and casual hiker, who sometimes craves soaking in nature – with birds flying in the blue sky, bugs digging in moist and muddy soil, and uniquely shaped plants growing on a hill.
Let me first fill you in with some backgrounds.
After we moved from Japan to Germany, we hadn’t had a serious hike for more than 2 years, as Germany has mostly non-dramatic landscape. We did some walking, with not much up and down, also no high and wide enough scenic view for hikers. So this time, after we settled down in Bristol (UK), it’s our first hike since Covid hit.
Our destination – Abergavenny, a market town located in the South of Wales.
Abergavenny ticked all the boxes: The mountain, named Sugar Loaf, height in 596m, is easily accessible from the town centre, Abergavenny can be reached in 1.5 hours with public transportation, and it has plenty choices of food and drink.
We arrived late in morning and headed straight to the town centre, to be more specific, Abergavenny Market. It’s an indoor market filled with small stores selling nostalgic toys, vintage clothes, street food, fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and pastries, art paintings, different sorts of stuff like a flea market. We tried the local traditional sweet bread, called Welsh cake, which was like a simple flat cake with some raisins and dusted with sugar. It’s especially good when freshly made.
Then we turned into Market Street and found a little gem – a cafe hidden in the basement of a chapel, called The Art Shop & Chapel.
I loved the warm ambience, with gentle sunbreams falling on the original wooden chapel’s furniture; with the art paintings hanging on the creamy wall and ceramic mugs in the showcase. I immediately said ‘2 people’ to the tall and lovely waitress, despite just eating a Welsh cake and a corned beef pasty. I told myself we needed a good start for the leisure hike. 🙂
A Lovely Church-Transformed Cafe in Abergavenny
A brunch menu was served by that time.
We carefully picked a sourdough toast packed with colourful heritage tomatoes and avocado spread, and a cannellini bean shakshuka. And the drinks; a cappuccino and hot apple juice with cinnamon, were delightful too.
After charging with enough energy, we started off our hike in 3 years.
Sugar Loaf, as its name suggested, is a trapezoidal shaped mountain. It reminded me of Mt. Fuji with a similar shape, but with a hiker-friendly height of just 596m (1956 ft.). I must admit that I underestimated its height and difficulties to climb, that I mistook it as 900+ ft., which equals 300+m and I thought it could be hiked without hesitation. Yet, I had my mountain gear ready, a set of colourful clothes which I hadn’t used for quite a few years. I wanted to add more colours to the beautiful blue sky and mountain greens.
By chance, we picked a shorter but difficult path to go to the top. It starts off with a gentle slope, from where you can have a wide farm view, followed by bald trees only wearing matcha coloured moss. The steepness was manageable, for a fit person, but if you lack hiking experience, then maybe it’s a little challenge to you.
After an hour listening to our breath slowly going in and out, we reached an open plateau with just white clouds floating in the sky, carpeted with green grass and us. At one moment, I had the illusion that we’d already climbed to the top. But obviously I was wrong, as Curry Boy pointed to a direction, with the real Sugar Loaf showing herself to us – that’s the summit. Then I saw fluffy white sheep and dark horses scattering on the hill, and hikers trudging slowly along the path from different directions, testing their fitness and endurance to climb up to the top.
This hike was harder than I thought. But I’m glad we did it at a steady pace, from time to time, short-rest and finally be able to take pictures with a big smile on our faces, while embracing the nearly perfect weather without a drop of rain, and a soft touch of breeze blowing off our sticky sweat.
Our bodies were tired and our legs were shaking, but we were happy with our first hike. While we were hiking back, my mind wandered off to the last London trip, where we walked through throngs of tourists, passed by so many fancy shops without actually buying a single thing and’s stuck in a big city’s classic type of busy traffic. It made me even more tired. My mind was tired.
Not long after I moved to Europe, I showed some natural scenic pictures to one of my friends. “Wow! Beautiful!” No, he didn’t say that, instead, “Looks so boring.” He sees nature as nothing to do. As I recently read the memoir books “The Salt Path” and “Wild”, both authors found the most valuable things in their lives through hiking a long, long distance. Nature can heal. I agree, and I see that too – an escape, meditation, and an offer to let you do what you want to do.
Hopefully, there will be more hiking posts on cocoroaji in the future.
Few Useful Tips in Wales Hiking(Abergavenny)
- We departed from North Bristol. 2 options for us – Patchway or Parkway station; both have trains to Abergavenny. If Patchway, you’ll go via Cardiff; Parkway, go via Newport. I found Parkway more convenient, in terms of whole journey time and connection time.
- There is no toilet on the way or on the top (as expected). It’s not a bad idea to have a brunch or early lunch in the town centre before starting off your hiking.
- On the mountains, the weather changes a lot. A wind parka (also waterproof or resistant) can be very useful.
- Bring a hat. Don’t underestimate the sun like we did. Even if it’s just 17ºC, with the sun up, it can be quite hot and you can get tanned.
- Bring enough water. (Do I need to mention this?)
