BENEATH DESERT SKIES
BY DEFINITION WILDERNESS hostels are far from the madding crowds and that can make them a tricky business. In the mid Noughties the Youth Hostel Association decided it had to sell some of its quietest, remotest buildings and all three in the Cambrian Mountains of Mid Wales went on the market – at Tregaron, Dolgoch and Ty’n Cornel. Luckily for those souls who crave quiet, a new charity called the Elenydd Wilderness Hostels was formed and two of the hostels were saved. A decade on and they are still beacons of budget warmth in these sparsely populated hills of Ceredigion, a region known as the ‘green desert of Wales’ for the resounding emptiness of its tussocky slopes. Ty’n Cornel is the remotest hostel in Wales, seven miles from the nearest village of Llandewi Brefi, although the best approach for walkers is nine miles along the deep cradle of the Doethie Valley as it twists north from Rhandirmwyn, each turn through the hills making the view anew. Nights here are defined by inky skies and diamond stars, by board games and reading on the Victorian settle beside the fire. Next day, you can head east to the lonely chapel of Soar y Mynydd, then curve south-west round the hill to return down the purling Doethie. Or you can take a tour of the Elenydd Hostels and keep east along a quiet lane, turning north beside the Afon Tywi to the white-washed, off-grid farmstead at Dolgoch, six miles from Ty’n Cornel.
STAY HERE: Beds from £14 a night ( www.elenydd-hostels.co.uk for both, 01440 730226 for Dolgoch and 01980 629259 for Ty’n Cornel.)
ALSO IN WALES… Stay at Pwll Deri ( www.yha.org.uk/ hostel/yha-pwll-deri) high on the lonely clifftops of Pembrokeshire’s Strumble Head; trek the little-visited northern slopes of Snowdonia’s Carneddau to Rowen ( www.yha.org.uk/ hostel/yha-rowen); or bed down at Brecon Beacons Danywenallt ( www.yha.org.uk/hostel/yha-breconbeacons-danywenallt) by Talybont Reservoir on the quiet eastern side of the Pen y Fan massif.