Abeyst one

Verified Slow Way

Verified by 100.00% of reviewers

August 2023. Direction: Ystrad Mynach to Abercynon

Lovely walk, but not great for navigating after leaving Nelson and reaching the golf club perimeter. The first problem was finding the right path through the fields to the A472 main road, as there are no waymarkers. As mentioned elsewhere, there is no bridge over the Nant Mafon stream, so you have to jump it. After crossing the main A472 road the footpath is signposted to start with, but then nothing after that, except for a couple of waymarks at Whitehall Farm, so you need to follow the map carefully. After Whitehall Farm, the main problem for me was that there are farm gates everywhere, so it was easy to go wrong, which I did several times, but eventually found my way through the maze and out on to the lane. From the golf club perimeter it was straight forward. Some of the footpaths shown on the map going down through the lower section of the zig-zags to the A4054 were overgrown, so it was much easier to just follow the lane for the last bit. There wasn`t much traffic on the lane. These paths may be clearer earlier in the year.

This route was mostly easy to navigate despite a shortage of footpath markers. Walking from Abercynon, there were a few confusing moments but nothing major:
1) I couldn’t find the footpath leading uphill from the A4054 (just above Abercynon) so I stayed on the main road until the junction with the quiet road that twists up the hill.
2) Just after the bends, when the road straightens out, a footpath is marked but it twists uphill to the left, not the right (as shown on the OS map).
3) Downhill from Whitehall Farm when crossing the A472, on the OS map it looks like there are 2 adjacent routes leading off the road, but there’s only one: a gap in the hedge with a stile. Cross the stream and veer right.

Nice route that follows paved off road cycle path from Ystrad Mynach to Nelson. There is a rail crossing, but it's a very quiet freight only line with only 1/2 trains per day, so it's perfectly safe. The path out of Nelson is a mudbath through fields of horses with a river crossing at the end of it. With the rainfall recently this was a raging torrent which I had to leap over. You'd be better off following the road, so I will upload a new route.
The climb up to Whitehall farm is easy enough, look out for the yellow right of way signs on the gates. One gate needed climbing over.
The drop down through the common into Abercynon loses its way a bit, some of the paths on the OS map and completely overgrown, will update this on the new route.
Lovely views from the top though, all the way up the cynon and merthyr valleys to the beacons.

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