A walk from Cwmynyscoy to Cwmlickey and back.
Some walks begin with a plan. Others simply unfold as you follow the landscape. My recent afternoon visit to Cwmynyscoy Local Nature Reserve near Pontypool turned into one of those steady explorations that carried me from wooded valley floor to the open mountain slopes of Mynydd Twyn Glas , clocking up well over 15,000 steps by the time I returned. The sky was a blanket of grey when I arrived, the kind of soft, overcast afternoon that flattens the light but somehow adds atmosphere to the hills. The valley felt quiet beneath the low cloud, with only the occasional call of woodland birds breaking the stillness. Cwmynyscoy is a place where nature has slowly reclaimed a landscape shaped by industry. Long before it became a local nature reserve, the site was home to Cwmynyscoy Limestone Quarry , which operated during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Limestone was an important resource for both agriculture and industry, used as building material and to produce lime to improve farmland so...
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