Wednesday 13th March 2019
Our plan was to tray and spend a day and a half on the Mach Loop. On Wednesday we left for Wales in the middle of the afternoon. The traffic was not great and we encountered quite a few traffic jams.
My trips to the Mach Loop seem to be fated to have bad weather and this was no exception as we ran into rain and high winds as we approached Dinas Mawddwy and the Red Lion.
We had dinner in the bar. The chicken tikka masala was excellent.
Chatting to everyone we learnt that RAF flying had not fully resumed through the Mach Loop. If we were lucky we might see some Hawks and that would be about it.
Thursday 14th March 2019
The weather didn’t look great when we woke up and we decided to have a late breakfast before setting off for the Bwlch. We were the only car parked there. The climb was harder than usual because of a combination of the rain, the mind and the mud underfoot. This was our view at 10.30 am.
Throughout the morning we did get patches of rain that was sometimes very heavy. Then we would see blue skies.
We had to shelter from the driving rain behind the rock outcrop. Looking out across the valley we could see bands of rain driving up the valley.
One Hawk
After the latest downpour we decided to leave and head back to the Red Lion to get dry. When we were over halfway down and the view up the valley was blocked by a ridge we heard a Hawk. We had only seconds to get our cameras out and this was the best shot that I managed as it flew away from us.
Rather than carry on walking down we waited on the ridge to see if there were any more passes. Once at the bottom, we walked along the fence line to see up the valley.
But again the wind and rain defeated us and we packed up for the day.