GW/SW-040 Mynydd Dinas
Our last day in Wales... We left Porthcawl 8.15am to activate the summit nearest to the town. This was Mynydd Dinas which overlooks the M4 Motorway south of Baglan.
It took us 32 minutes to reach the summit trig point, mainly on a graded forestry track. It was fairly early and there were few stations listening, however we made contact with the necessary four stations before returning to the car (22 minutes).
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| On Mynydd Dinas GW/SW-040 |
We parked on a wide verge by the farm at SS 759926 where we walked to reach the summit on the Wales Coast Way upper link section.
GW/SW-032 Mynydd Allt-y-grug
Moving north we left the M4 motorway at junction 45 to bypass Pontardawe on the A4067. We turned off at the roundabout near Ynysmeudwy where the summit of interest could be clearly seen above the valley. A C Class road took us to a parking place at SN 742073.
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| Parking place for GW/SW-032 |
From here we walked back up to road to join a woodland footpath which led us to the moorland at a broken down fence at SN 745076:
We set up the station by some large stones just off the highest point of the moor - wild horses couldn't stop us...
Only six stations were worked and we packed up after ten minutes. As you can see from the map trace we strayed off course a little on our way down. The up route is the one I would recommend...
GW/SW-017 Hirfynydd
Our last summit of the tour was reached from the street village of Banwen, which lies close to opencast coal workings and a wind farm.
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| Parking in the village street in Banwen |
You don't see much of the open cast work going on as it is well screened off with pine woodland, however we could hear heavy machinery working as we walked the 2.3 miles to the summit. The Ordnance Survey map gave us no clue either that the area leading to and around the summit is a manufactured motorsport venue, predominantly I understand for rallying. This is definitely a summit we would not be revisiting, but a single unique visit was of course essential. 
We finished our activation in South Wales in the rain, we'd started in snow on day one but all in all we were delighted to complete 16 activations in the four days and we would be returning later in 2015 to do some more...
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| The contacts logged for SOTA on our final day in South Wales |
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