Black Mountains Pt 1 Red Daren and The Cat’s Back (I didn’t know he’d been away)

Me and Mrs Pieman and LTD have just had a fortnight in a cottage just about a mile inside Wales and it’s time to report fings wot appened on the Pieblog. But rather than just drone on interminably (with no end in sight) about wot-I-did-on-my-holidays by Michael A Knipe Class 3, I thought, that, instead, I’d just write up some useful information about three of the walks so that if anybody else just happens to have a spare day or two in the area they could follow one of these routes safely and with confidence, armed, perhaps,with a nice meat pie, some pickled onions in a little snack bag and a large banana for their lunch part way round.
This is the first one.
The idea was to bag an unbagged Nutall labelled (probably in error) Black Mountain South Top – clearly not a local name. I’d already bagged the other Nutalls/Hewitts on the ridge, but LTD hadn’t, so…..

There’s a car park on an excitingly steep and narrow back road just a bit to the left of Longtown, which is in England and, indeed, the walk starts and ends in England and hardly ventures into Wales at all, so there’s little need for the phrasebook or the passport. The grid reference of the car park at the start is SO298299 and from there a path heads off on a muddy/slippery zig-zag route up to the Welsh border where it joins Offa’s Dyke long distance footpath. The mud is red and isn’t properly fastened down to the World. Offa’s Dyke, though is paved or surfaced all the way to Hay Bluff and, in combination with the gentle contours, provides outrageously fast and easy walking for miles and miles and miles. Step off the path and you’re in heathery tussock land, so you might not want to do this. It occurs to me that a walk from Pandy to Hay-on-Wye using the Offa’s Dyke path would be a really fine expedition and not too taxing providing the wind is in the right direction. But we didn’t do this.

Progress, is remarkably straightforward and it’s unlikely that much in the way of navigation will be required. You may wish to pass the time creating little brain stories, or singing one of your favourite albums with all the tracks in the correct order and the guitar riffs at exactly the right pace. My choice on this occasion was the Beatles For Sale album, followed by Revolver and then most of the White Album, missing out the surreal stuff on side four, though I did do “Goodnight” as sung by Ringo.  LTD entertained himself by weeing on things and having several poos, barking at a pony and otherwise being in dateless-doggy-happy-brain-land. I wouldn’t want you to get the impression that this was a boring walk, though. Marching off over this fine Pennine  Welsh border landscape with nothing much to bother the intellect was fine stuff and just the thing to forget and worries about blood sugar, dicky tickers, gout and whether or not Mrs May will try to get the Irish to pay for their own wall.

So, we marched and sang and pooed and wee’d and ate a turkey and tomato butty and a large banana inside the Big Orange Group Shelter (it rained a bit) and we passed over Red Daren, Black Mountain (South Top) and Black Mountain itself and on to Hay Bluff where there was a very fine view indeed and where my camera batteries gave up and refused to allow any pictures.
We returned whence we came for a short bit and then turned off on a muddy path on the edge of the very green and beautiful Herefordshire’s version of Bocage, leading on to a very fine, narrow and long ridge known as The Cat’s Back. There’s a few rocks on here, but there’s no actual scramble. It was on here that I replaced the camera batteries with those in my GPS (I should have done this earlier). The Cat’s Back is quite wonderful and easy in descent.
The last few miles were through pastures via Blackhill Farm and on the back lane leading back to the start. Only one vehicle passed me on this bit.
The route is 13 miles with 2000 feet of ascent and is mainly very easy walking.