bewilderbrain

A landscape appearing through the sunlight, magical trees and misty sheep, autumn hillside vistas and newly discovered footpaths…

Wednesday October 22nd 2025
Walk start time: 8.58am
Walk finish time: 11.15am
Walk area: Gelliwion mountainside and Penycoedcae
Miles walked: 6.3

An accidentally magnificent walk into a quintessential British Autumn landscape.

On a thickly foggy October morning, the high mountaintops beckoned me. The low autumn sun shimmered through a veiled sky, gilding the russet leaves in gold, and forming magical landscapes that emerged and evolved from the mist.

Today was forecast to be a single dry day in a week of heavy and stormy rain, and given that the chaos of half-term begins on Friday, it feels important to fit in a fortifying walk.

As I head out of the door though, I have no idea of the thick fog that awaits me, coating the streets ahead with a dull but mystical light. The surrounding hills are completely blanketed, and buildings emerge abruptly from the mist as I walk, their lights refracting strangely in the drifting white air.

Visibility at this point is perhaps only around twenty metres, and as I head away from the houses to ascend Gelliwion road, I enjoy watching bright autumn trees appear suddenly from the moisture laden depths.

A rich crop of apples with a backdrop of misty woodland beyond is the first thing to say “Look at Me! Could I be any more autumny?”

Ascending through the mist into an otherworldly autumn landscape…

The ascent of the hill is thick with birdsong, and blue tits and robins can be seen emerging from nowhere and disappearing again into bronzed hedgerows.

As I approach the cattle grid that marks the beginning of the mountain path proper, the sun begins to make itself felt distantly, filtering faint rays above the mist, and sparkling off dewy fields that lie below a thin white film.

Either side of the road, sheep appear like woolly spectres, and the tumbledown shapes of the stone buildings on the upper hillside emerge like stalwart guardians of the mountain.

A small stream burbles happily to one side of the road, and peering through the tangle of branches in the hedge I can see a faint steam arising from it beguilingly into the mists beyond. Further on, the sun briefly breaks through the mist completely, illuminating the brilliant colours in the trees and shrubs with full force.

The quintessential autumn landscape appears from the mist…

I round the corner into the beloved and magical landscape of the dingle, a place that was made for sheep in low lying mist and hazy sunshine, and the landscape that stretches out before me quite simply epitomises a perfect autumn day.

One of the sheep is on the wrong side of the fence, and runs comically in front of me for a few metres, managing a genuinely surprising turn of speed. Another appears to be bathed in the light of a faint rainbow which is glittering through a thicker swathe of mist. The rest just look at me suspiciously, as is their wont, running off or turning their heads if ever they accidentally become central to my camera.

The light is spectacular, low clouds drifting majestically across sparkling dew laden farmland, with mountains beyond. If you had to invent a magical scene for a classic autumn painting you couldn’t have invented this. The last time I walked this way I was concentrating on the magical qualities of the light as the season began to change (see the magical light of equinox walking diary)

Ascending the path beyond the dingle, I start to rise beyond the field of mist, emerging into a sunnier landscape with seams of white strewn into the valleys and dells below.

The sharp bend in the road where we cross Nant Gelliwion is filled with the song of birds and the soothing but busy rush of the river below. The landscape slopes down sharply to the water, and the trees flanking the roadside here are a palette of warm and muted russet tones.

The continuing quest for new footpaths…

The road rises again to an intersection, at which, a woebegone footpath sign heralds the entrance to an overgrown footpath across fields above that I have not yet taken. I will be back for you footpath, rest assured, but not today.

For the first time here I turn left. It is a road we have driven across many times, but I have never walked in this direction. Apart from the spectacular beauty of the landscape up here, I have an ulterior motive today for choosing this direction.

Studying the definitive math of the footpaths and rights of way in Rhondda Cynon Taff has become something of an obsession of late, along with other maps of trails and byways.

For anyone who has read some of my previous walks, you will know that discovering new or lost footpaths is also something of an insatiable need of mine, and the road before me, according to the map, should yield the entrances to no less than three footpaths across farmland.

All three should eventually lead back to an area I visited once before in my Adventure Beyond the Fallen Oak walking diary, where I determinedly attempted a footpath that wasn’t so much untended as apparently completely lost to the mists of time.

If these paths lead back to this area, and perhaps dare I hope, a better managed path they form an invaluable circuit for walking and potential entryway back to the Maritime industrial estate.

I keep my eyes peeled as I trudge up the pretty lane, which is a riot of autumn colour, the leaves underfoot crunchily releasing their dry woody smell as I walk. I spot a couple of possible entrances, and screenshot where I am on the map. I can compare these to the definitive map later and see if I have any true leads.

A little further on, I am overjoyed to see an actual stile with footpath sign, I have never seen this before, and it looks much more promising than the first two entryways, appearing to trace a course down a field edge. As I look at the possible path, a bird of prey lands elegantly on a telegraph pole away in front, silhouetted against the hillside.

I continue along Tonyrefail road, which is relentlessly ascending again. I have seen only a handful of well booted walkers today, putting my old running trainers, which are so comfortable to walk in but alas not equipped for field crossings, to shame.

The road is quiet, but birds are continuously flitting in and out of hedges before me, I think they are largely great tits, though the light makes it difficult to be certain, but I have also spotted a tiny wren and a nuthatch, which landed beside me in a tree.

Some kind of loud insect surprises me by thwacking itself into my ear, prompting me to do an amusing dance for the benefit of the birds. A lone horse neighs nearby, and the sound echoes weirdly across the hills.

I am not far now from the village of Penycoedcae, when another turn off to my left appears. Its just a big old clear easy walking farm track I think, not for the likes of me. Until I notice the footpath sign attached to the post on one side of the invitingly open gate.

Really? I can walk down this great big gravelly path to a farm and it’s a proper footpath? I wasn’t actually supposed to be diverting from the roads today. It was a walk for views and distance and footpath reconnoitre, but this is too inviting to ignore, and it isn’t obviously going to argue with my shoes.

Trek through the farm fields…and putting pieces of a footpath puzzle together…

The views from the track as I descend are breath-taking, orange bracken smothered hillsides, dotted with liberal sprinklings of sheep and lashings of autumn trees.

I keep my eyes peeled for every gate and side path, not wanting to accidentally trespass onto private land, but it seems that the footpath continues for a good way on what must be a main approach to a farm.

After a little way I notice a gate to my left which appears accessible, and the fieldside path beyond looks as though it wends across the land back to the first stile I saw. A-ha, a piece of puzzle slotted in.

Further on again, I begin to approach the actual farm, and as I get close to the buildings I can see a gate with a clear grass path beyond heading steeply down to the bank of trees that borders Nant Gelliwion.

Having a quick check beyond of what looks like it should just be entry to the farmhouse, I discover two further paths, one looking like it may join up with the first down to the river, and the other heading in the other direction, back up the side of the mountain toward Llantrisant road.

If either turn out to be passable, they will open exciting new routes across and beyond the town. I can’t wait to have a good study of the footpath map when I get home and work it all out.

Retracing the path back up to the main road, I find it suprisingly steep, and my legs are starting to complain a bit, having already walked 3 miles with a lot of hill climbing. The skies by now have changed to a brooding grey, but having seen the spectacle of the perfect sunny misty morning, I am now happy to welcome any iteration of the weather it cares to throw at me.

As I am so close when I exit the farm track, I walk the hundred metres or so into the edge of the village, checking my bearings, and looking around for other obvious footpath signs to investigate.

The landlord of the village pub is opening up, and asks if I’m lost, I explain where I’ve come from, and the paths I was looking at, and he tells me the big path I’ve just been on should lead to Maritime. I thank him, I hope he’s right.

An uphill slog home in jubilant spirits…

Turning around and heading back down Tonyrefail road, and seeing the mountain paths way ahead of me that I have yet to work my way back up to, I settle in for a bit of a slog.

I leave the handful of houses behind, and a sudden wave of some glorious floral fragrance engulfs me, I cannot identify its source in the gardens, but it enhances my senses and galvanises me nonetheless. A fluffy squirrel runs across the road ahead of me, running into the leaf carpeted wood to the right of the road, before I turn to re-cross the river.

I plough into the final ascent of my return route, and can feel that as well as my breathlessness my face has taken on a pleasing beetroot hue. Somewhat mortifyingly, it is at this moment that another walker appears from the other direction, looking tidy, well-equipped, suitably booted and with a totally non-vegetable coloured face.

I paste on a smile and acknowledgement, and the poor chap can’t help laughing a bit as he acknowledges me back. A pretty picture I make indeed. But I know it isn’t meant badly, walkers solidarity always holds fast.

Wending back through the dingle, the mist has disappeared, I feel lucky to have seen it at the peak of the mornings magic. The last stretch of downhill slope has my knees distinctly complaining, but as I descend towards the town I can see that there are only the faintest traces of the white remaining.

On the last stretch, bizarrely, distant church bells start to ring, as if heralding my return.

I allow myself a weary smugness for my unexpected discovery of a magical morning, and the perfect autumn walk. I will ache later, but I should certainly sleep well, and I may be seeing mystical stiles in my sleep tonight…

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