THREE MORE WILD WELSH HAVENS

GLASLYN Powys

This peaceful lake near Dylife in Powys off the B4518 is managed by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust and lies in wild heather moorland at the edge of the Cambrian Mountains. The surrounding scenery is epic – it tops a plummeting ravine, with the purple summits of Pumlumon to the south and Snowdonia to the north. Look for red kites, golden plovers and hen harriers, and goldeneye ducks in winter. Explore the area with a seven-mile circular walk from Aberhosan.

DROSGOL HILL Ceredigion

Deliciously hard to get to, this hill rises in the Cambrian Mountains, an upland plateau of remote rolling moorland and lost blue lakes. Nant-y-Moch Reservoir, curving round the base of the hill, limits your ascent options, and the rare visitors to the region usually head for the summits of Pumlumon or to the reservoir to fish. Tussocky, boggy Drosgol overlooks the whole plateau, full of roaring quiet, apart from the cawing of ravens and very distant wind in the pines.

CRAIG Y PISTYLL Ceredigion

Take a seven-mile circular walk from Bontgoch village to Craig y Pistyll – a hidden cascade, dashing between exposed Ordovician rocks left unscoured by glaciers in otherwise open rolling hill country, where peregrines breed in rocky crags. So surprising and oasis-like is its existence in the remote golden moors, you don’t know it’s there till you’re right on it. Like a bridge, it connects the lower valley farmland, peppered with barns and derelict agricultural machinery, to the high Pumlumon grasslands.