by Another week, another special place succumbs to over-tourism.
Visitors to the Banau Brycheiniog National Park – also known as the Speckled Beacons – are being urged to go outside peak times and use buses to avoid footpaths, car parks, photogenic sites and local amenities.
The social media “influence” of posting images of Pen y Fan – the highest summit in Wales – and the Tir an Eas walking area in Ystradfellte, Powys, has increased the number of people, also creating crowds. with traffic and parking problems.
Around four million people visit the national park each year. The park authority says they are not trying to discourage tourists, but are encouraging them to visit outside of peak times.
Rangers also report that some visitors are arriving unprepared, with additional staff being hired to ensure that those taking walks within the park have adequate footwear and clothing. South East Wales is one of the wettest places in the UK and the weather in the highlands in particular is very unsettled.
But so are Instagrammers, and no amount of serious advice is likely to discourage box tickers, selfie addicts and cliché collectors.
An often-overlooked fact is that the eastern side of the Brychenyog Banns is the closest mountainous area to London – the epicenter of the e-generation youth.
If you want to avoid the tags and the hassle, why not consider these options?
Bray West Beacons: Carmarthen fans
It is only 20 miles and an hour’s drive from the man-made summits of Pen y Fan and Fan y Big and the solitude of the West Breochun. Viewed, like much of Carmarthenshire, they contain a few impressive peaks – Fan Brycheiniog and Picws Du are the two highest points in the Black Mountain area (not to be confused with the Black Mountain/Black Mountains on the border between England and Wales). .
Llyn y Fan Fach is a beautiful loch overlooked by Picws Du and other impressive mountains, and the walk from the car park at Llandeusant is popular but doesn’t appeal to kids without playing a video kite. Fforest Fawr is a 300 square mile Unesco Geopark, which encompasses much of this area. Some 480 million years of geological history are contained within its bedrock layer, and the area is also a bridge between rural mid Wales and the post-industrial Glens.
Llandovery, Llandeilo and Carmarthen – Roman Moridunum – are great bases to tour and explore Carmarthenshire.
Caithness and Sutherland: the UK’s newest Unesco site
Tír an Sreafa, the largest area of peat bog in the world, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July.
A smooth, sponge-like expanse may not seem easy to explore, but luckily the 168-mile Far North Line meanders through the heart of the area; the train runs along an embankment which opens up views of glorious pools, moors and spongy moorland made up of sphagnum moss, sedge heather, heather and hollyhock.
Established over 10,000 years, the peat is up to ten meters deep. Once a battleground between plantation developers and conservationists, the area has now been allowed to recover, which is good for the planet – peat is an excellent carbon store – and native fauna.
Buzzards, short-eared owls and golden eagles hunt over the moss and pools. Divers, sandpipers and greenlegs feed and nest in the wetlands. Microhabitats feed on insects, spiders, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals such as bats.
The Flowing Country covers approximately 1,500 square miles spread across Galway and Sutherland, two of the least visited counties in Britain; these are the Galway’s that most NC500 drivers are watching and the crowds that gather around big places and honeypots like Glencoe and Loch Ness.
The RSPB has a visitor center and lookout tower at Forneach Ard, and houses, lodges and hotels surround the peatlands. If you want entertainment and some action in the evening, Killy and Inverness are great welcoming coastal towns.
Cumbrian Coast: Littoral Wonderal Lake District
Cumbria! The Lakes!? Escape the tourists? It’s really quite easy. The solution is to start in the south – actually Lancashire but administered by Westmorland and Furness – a unitary authority created in April 2023.
There are two ways to get there. Our challenge is to walk from Arnside on one of the regular charity hikes across Morecambe Bay – which are offered every summer. The easy option is to take a trip on the Furness Line from Lancaster and see, and perhaps stop at, Grange-over-Sands, Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness.
The latter has a rich industrial history and presence (the Docks Museum is excellent), beautiful beaches on the Walney Islands, a very special pub (officially titled King Piel by the landlord) on Pearse Island, ruins the magnificent Abbey and , at Swarthmoor Hall between Barrow and Ulverston, cradle of Caradian history. South of Barrow rises Black Combe, a fell of 1,970 feet which rises almost straight from the sea.
From here, the Cumbrian coast line continues along a little-traveled stretch. The views on the right are classic Scandinavia: mountains, sheep, moody weather, frozen valleys.
On the left is the sea, sandy beaches and clear skies, and tiny settlements where tourists don’t come around too much. Holland and Braystones grew out of temporary camps built for military contractors and, later, for Sellafield contractors. Whitehaven is a lovely harbor town with cool cafes and restaurants, the Beacon Museum, and Moresby Hall Hotel – a Grade I listed 17th century country house and B&B.
Whitehaven residents call Workington residents “jam eaters”. Workington residents call Whitehaven residents… “jam eaters”.
The term goes back to the days of mining, when it is said that colliers who could not afford meat for the sandwiches in their tins had to make snap with lumps of jam. So lots of jam, but not much traffic.
Durham’s Heritage Coast: a post-industrial promenade
Tourist boards often divide walks up into categories such as nature, city, wildlife and history. The best thing about the Durham Heritage Coast Path – part of England’s Coastal Path which was never completed – linking Hartlepool in County Durham, and Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, is that it covers all bases.
Formerly a center of coal mining, the area has been beautified and landscaped, with monuments along the way as well as scars and geological reminders of a long history of exploitation and development.
Both towns are worth a look around, but the Durham Coastal Path proper is an 11 mile walk between Seaham and Crimdon. Blackhall Rock beach featured in the climactic and bloody final scenes of Michael Caine’s 1971 film Get Carter.
In the film, the beach is littered with sea coal; black staining is evident in some areas. At North Sands beach – which is easy to walk along at low tide – is the wooden Steetley Pier, a remnant of the magnesia industry.
A number of former shipping towns are located along the route, including Blackhall, Horden and Easington – the last hole to be closed in this area, and the location of the film. Billy Elliot. Where there were once slagheaps and head stocks are now meadows filled with orchids and poppies and, beyond that, fields of oilseed and wheat. On the shore there are protected nesting areas for small terns. Skylarks serenade walks along the path. It is enough for you to do a pirouette and stand in the point.
When you finally get to Sunderland, or Hartlepool – depending on which direction you prefer – you can’t help but marvel at how much England has changed in the last half century.
The loss of the industry is sad and the impact is devastating, but the inherent beauty of the region cannot be denied. Hartlepool-born author Compton Mackenzie once said: “Don’t stand when you can sit. Don’t sit when you can lie. Don’t walk when you can ride.” Ignore it when you come to the paradisiacal Northeast.
Shropshire Hills: Beautiful Border country
Every time the Olympics come around, there is a small boost in interest in the village of Much Wenlock, which is said to be the home of the modern Games. But then Shropshire slips back into contented oblivion again, ignored by the Snowdonia-bound, and the beach-loving crowds flock to Barmouth and Pembrokeshire. Landlocked has never been much loved in the UK.
Tony Wilson is quoted as saying: “Manchester is different.” Shropshire for sure. It has no cities, is one of the least populated counties in England (136 souls per square kilometer) and a quarter of its land is a protected National Landscape – which includes the Shropshire Hills, an ideal liminal zone between the Midlands Country and Wales.
For your first taste of this rugged ridge, test your grip on the Clee Hills, which rise just east of Ludlow. Brown Clee Hill is the highest point in Shropshire. It’s a steep walk or bike, but the view from the top is amazing.
The uncrowded Shropshire Way starts just behind Ludlow Castle; the Onny path follows for 11 miles to Craven Arms, passing Stokesay, where the 13th-century fortified manor of Lawrence of Ludlow rises from a bend in the river like a prop from The Lord of the Rings.
West of the Craven Arms the path leads through sheep-dotted farmland to the grassy meadows on the hill of the Iron Age fort at Bury Ditches and on to the village of Clon, where the 11th century moated and moated castle has been excavated. Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales.
The Long Mynd above Church Stretton can be a bit hectic, especially at weekends. Otherwise, Shropshire is untamed country and this National Landscape, although locally loved, is an unspoilt frontier.
