Starting grid reference: SN 740/770
Bothy grid reference: SN 773/790
11.3km total
575m ascent & descent
One of the best things about being involved in Milestone Activities is you get to share your favourite experiences with everyone!
A few weeks ago, my business partner, Simon and I had set off for Devil’s Bridge, Aberystwyth. We’d heard there was a great bothy nearby and wanted to see it for ourselves but finding it proved something of a challenge.
Devil’s Bridge is a gorgeous and much praised piece of landmark folklore, but a lot of the hills around there, which afford specular views down onto the waterfalls and out into the surrounding mountains, remain largely un-travelled so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to us to find that almost no one knew the secret of this well-kept, beautifully situated bothy, nestled in hillside.
A few weeks later we were back! The walk itself isn’t a particularly hard one. Although there are five small mountains to climb, the highest being 495 metres, the actual journey only took us only 3 hours on foot to arrive at the bothy. We wanted the walk to be fun, challenging and a positive experience for everybody who came along and as always; that’s what we got!
The whole group got stuck in with helping one another, and if one person was flagging somebody in the group would stay back with the person. That’s the thing with Milestone walks, we all try and stick together – some people walk faster, some people walk slower, but the enjoyment comes from camaraderie of the walk and the team you have by the end of it.
Once at the bothy everybody got stuck into their chores, finding wood for the fire was the first job, so that everyone could enjoy a well-earned cup of coffee and prepare for dinner. While five star restaurants may offer the best of all foods I can promise you, nothing tastes better than good food after a good walk.
The good food that night was in the form of our famous stew. We came across our stew recipe quite by accident and while I can’t divulge everything - you just can’t beat beef stew made with fish stock - you must try it, although it has to be made on an open fire, with a cast iron pot.....There is no other way to make a stew....and once you have eaten stew this way, you will always want to eat stew this way.
There’s no better way to meet and make friends, share experiences and stories and enjoy the wonders of the great outdoors than on a Milestone walk. And whether it’s a relatively easy one, as this was, or something a little more adventurous, these are the memories that last you a life time… and the friends as well.
After dinner, as the sun went down behind the hills where they say the Devil once
