Forty Seven - West Midlands - Turner's Hill (271m)

We have driven up the hill to Dudley Golf Club. Non members are welcome but we don't park in the carpark which would be cheeky. We walk up a scruffy bit of tarmac lane, past a police sign telling us that we're in an "antisocial behaviour hotspot", and up to a metal gate which is as close as we can get.

Friendly horse "guarding" the transmission tower.

Gate open - however operatives are just 

inside - and "no we can't have a quick peek"

 due to "sensitive equipment"!

As close as we can get. 

Brutalist Brummie architecture!

Turner's Hill

On the way back down there's another footpath into a field where we do get a slightly better view of the transmitter and say hello to a gently friendly horse. Unfortunately, even though it is clearly an elevated spot above the city of Birmingham (where our namesakes "The Peaky Blinders" originate), there is no view of the city skyline to be had due to the scrub and bushes.

Forty Six - Gwynedd - Snowdon (1085m)

Our second-to-last Welsh peak, and only one day available to climb it and company, our eldest daughter, (Welsh born and bred), who was desperate to reach the top. And the forecast was for fog and cloud until lunchtime. Classic bad news, and we did consider waiting til midday to go up but we do like an early start and we wanted a spot in the carpark. Fingers crossed that the mist would lift as we climbed, we set off up the Pyg track in heavy cloud cover and a smattering of drizzle. At least the weather put paid to any ambitions to climb Crib Goch as not everyone was keen on that idea, even on a clear dry day. We made good progress, prepared to turn back if things took a turn for the worse, but as the path levelled out we began to see Llyn Llydaw glinting below us to our left.

Low cloud starting to clear with views opening up

Carrying on up we made a note of the tall stone post marking the beginning of the Miners Track and our route down past Glaslyn later, and then continued to climb, using hands on occasion to help us. We could hear the train whistle going up the Llanberis pass before we reached it, and eventually we joined the path running parallel with the track to the top. and with it a lot more people.

Snowdon Mountain Railway

The easy way up!

First glimpse of the summit through 

more drifting fog and cloud

But there was plenty of room at the summit to have a look around and take pictures. Not the very best views from the top, but still great to be up there, and of course you have to visit the cafe for a cuppa- because it's there.... They also sell beer and pasties as big as your head, which we didn't need as we had brought a picnic to eat overlooking the lakes below.

View from the top

Brass plaque and trig point at the summit

Brunch bars all round!

"Here you are nearer to heaven", reads 

the inscription on the side of the café

Jess - highest person in the whole

 of England & Wales

Jess, the previous day - Graduation from 

Manchester Uni - a bit of a difference!

Lunch spot on the way back down

Back at Pen y Pass, we were thirsty, so we called in at the legendary Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel for three well deserved pints of beer and a gawp at the climbing memorabilia.

Three pints of "Purple Moose" ale

Excellent walk, and only one more Welsh "County Top" now to go, Carnedd Llewelyn, which despite a summit 21 metres lower than Snowdon, is regarded as a harder climb.

Forty Five - Anglesey - Holyhead Mountain (220m)

South Stack lighthouse - start and 

finish of the walk

It's very busy up here on a Sunday afternoon.  The RSPB have a carpark but it's full, as is the overflow carpark, but we manage to find a space a bit further up the road and admire the lighthouse at South Stack before setting off.

Multiple paths across the mountain,

 but well signposted

There seem to be a lot of options, pathwise, but it's pretty obvious where we're going and as we get closer the way  to the rocky quartzite top is well signposted. There are plenty of climbers as well as walkers making their way up too.

Quite an impressive sheer-sided hill, 

for such a relatively low altitude summit

We reach the summit quickly and admire views of the ferry coming in to Holyhead below us, though it's not clear enough to see the Wicklow mountains this afternoon. The town's harbour wall is impressive from here ; it's 1.7 miles long and was built using rock from the mountain.

Trig point at top, with harbour breakwater

and Irish ferry in background

The route down again is quick and easy, leaving us plenty of time to get to our holiday cottage in Menai Bridge.

Forty Three & Forty Four - Denbighshire - Cadair Berwyn (832m) & Wrexham - Cadair Bronwen (784m)

Pistyll Rhaeder waterfall at start of walk

This is a pretty remote spot, and again a place we wouldn't have visited unless we'd been off finding county peaks. We stayed a couple of nights in a cosy cottage a few doors up from Tafarn Llaw in Llanrhaeder yn Morchant, and the road heading west out of the village eventually peters out at Pistyll Rhaeder where our walk began.  The waterfall  here is  impressive, plummeting down the cliff face so you can feel the force of the air pushed out at you. We parked on the road as it was a quiet Monday ; we were grateful later because the tearoom carpark is not only £4 but also closes at 6 pm and we would have spent the afternoon rushing to get down off the mountain in time to retrieve the car.

Climbing across moorland towards Moel Sych 

We were surprised to get a bit lost trying to find our route upwards at the beginning of the walk. The footpath is geared towards visitors making their way to the top of the falls and this, combined with the fact that our track  didn't quite fit the GPS confused us slightly. Still, after a stiff pull up to the top of the valley the contour lines spread out a bit and the climb got steadier as we ascended to Trum Felin. This is a ridge walk, but the ridge is intersected by a succession of valleys and passes, which makes for a fascinating landscape. It also means that you spend a lot of time losing the height you have gained before hoofing it up the next peak. 

Cairn on top of Moel Sych with 

Cadair Berwyn in background

After Trum Felin our next climb was up to Moel Sych, which was originally claimed as the highest point in Denbighshire. It is clearly not the highest point, so we were puzzled as to how this confusion arose but once up there you can see Llyn Lluncaws (happily translates as The Lake that Looks Like a Cheese) below and the landscape starts to open out in all its wild glory. We were trying to spot the alternative return route that we later intended to take, and although we could see a path on the other side of the lake we couldn't fathom how we would get down there without wingsuits.
We pressed on to Cadair Berwen, our Denbighshire peak and the highest point of our walk, and stopped to look at the fantastic panoramic views.

Cadair Berwyn summit

View from Cadair Berwyn with 

Llyn Lluncaws below

Panorama from Cadair Berwyn summit

Trig point at Cadair Berwyn (North Top)
with actual summit in distance

It was still a decent undulating hike across extensive peat bogs (Denbighshire Council had kindly built some raised wooden pathways across the worst of it) to claim Cadair Bronwen as the highest point over in Wrexham.

Cairn on top of Cadair Bronwen

Return path via Llyn Lluncaws - looking 

back at Cadair Berwyn summit in the distance

From here we made quick time retracing our steps southwards (including claiming the summit at Cadair Berwyn for a second time) until we suddenly found ourselves teetering down a narrow path to the left, off the edge of the ridge, almost without noticing. We had accidentally found our return route back via the lake, and with some care (not one for fog or ice, this) we made our way down. 

Surprised to see a lizard at such 

a wet exposed high spot

GPS plot of our route

This was a fairly vigorous hike, with considerable height having to be lost and then gained again in order to grab both county tops on the same walk. Cadair Berwyn is actually the 5th highest "county top" in the whole of England and Wales, and Cadair Bronwen the 7th - even though both are pretty much unheard of and unwalked. Other than a few people at the tearoom and waterfall when we started the walk, we didn't meet another person for the rest of the day.

Profile of walk - with Cadair Berwyn being 

climbed  twice, & with the lower Cadair 

Bronwen - in the centre of the chart

A short drive back to the cottage, and a couple of well earned pints beckoned in the Tafern Llaw.

Forty Two - Shropshire - Brown Clee Hill (540m)

Walk to highest point takes 

us along the Shropshire Way

After a bit of a break, our first "County Top" for a few months, and the first of 2019. At 540 metres, Brown Clee Hill is the highest of the Shropshire Clee Hills. We were staying in Ludlow, and having taken advantage of all the lovely food on offer (esp. the French Pantry the night before) we needed some exercise.

Misty start to the walk. Unable to see 

the tops of the Clee Hills ahead.

We set off from Abdon  village and eventually made it onto Clee Liberty Common despite taking a slightly wrong turn and getting chased down the road by some truly vicious farm dogs.  We followed the old quarry road up to Nordy Bank, the only one of three iron age  hill  forts which remains. The fort has ramparts up to 3 m high and you can still climb up them and pretend to be an iron age guardsman. At this point the mist was beginning to burn off and we could see the horseshoe of our walk open up before us.

Inquisitive lambs

Further up are several  telecommunications masts due to the hills' height relative to the rest of the area. The Clee Hills are reportedly the highest land mass going east until the Urals, and during World War II twenty three German and Allied airmen were killed in numerous separate incidents when their planes crashed into it, and we walked past a memorial to the dead on our way to the summit.

Transmitter above the old quarry workings. 

Highest point now just visible in the distance

Brown Clee Hill was the site of more WW2 

aircraft crashes than any other hill in the UK

A topograph has been erected at the top engraved with a  few lines of poetry by AE Housman. I think they're probably from A Shropshire Lad. This seemed like an excellent spot for lunch, after which we began our descent round and down back to Abdon.

Close-up of topograph confirming the height

 at 540m, the highest point in Shropshire

Dual transmitters and topograph pillar on 

top of Brown Clee Hill

Looking west - the mist starts to clear, but the 

Stiperstones and Long Myndd still not visible

As we'd made good time there was still enough daylight for a drive across to the very welcoming Stiperstones Inn and a quick circuit of the Stones themselves and the Devil's Chair.