Root and branch
CWM GWAUN ISN’T the only beautiful woodland here: a short drive beyond the valley’s eastern tip will take you to Tycanol. Here oaks twist up from boulders furred with moss, their branches an intricate curlicue that’s a striking contrast to the smooth, upstanding towers of the beeches down in the valley. Walking into its shadowy depths is like stepping into an enchanted antique shop, with the leaves a fading copper, the afternoon sunlight honeyed with dust-motes, and the bark cobwebbed with lacy silver lichen – over 400 varieties of these fascinating fungi-alga symbiotics are found in this national nature reserve.
And like an antique store, it begs to be explored on a hunt for curios. Wander among the trunks and you might find a single gold leaf held on a layer of moss like a jewel in a velvet box. Or a fantastical fungus just waiting to digest the foliage as it patters – pause and you can hear the leaves fall – to the forest floor. Walk up among downy birch and ash trees as they clamber over outcrops of rock and you’ll get a view across the canopy to the Angel Mountain of Mynydd Carningli and the sea beyond, and north over Pentre Ifan Woods and Pengelli Forest, all part of the largest swathe of ancient woodland in west Wales.
And this is truly an old world. There’s a Stone Age burial chamber on the slopes below where a 16-tonne slab perches on a trio of upright boulders. The woodland close to this dolmen at Pentre Ifan is said to look just as it would have done 5500 years ago when our neolithic ancestors wrestled, somehow, that top stone into place. And for another how-everdid-they-shift-those-boulders mystery you only have to look to the high horizon to the south, and the curving moors of the Preseli Hills. WALK HERE: Download your free Ty Canol route at www.lfto.com/bonusroutes
Oaks twist up from boulders furred by moss... their curclicue branches a striking contrast to the beeches down in valley.” the