Normal people on their birthday tend to go out partying... Nope, not me! I climb mountains!
So... Pen Y Fan... it started off with us going the wrong way, the plan was to follow the "family friendly" route which is a long paved incline but instead we went the strenuous rocky trail.
We got about 200m into the walk, looked at each other and took a deep breath like we were dying already! Not only were we out of breath already we were boiling hot, that's the thing with these types of walks, you get out of the car freezing cold, walk 5 minutes up hill and you're sweaty your tits off!
Only another 6.4km to go!
Thankfully my camera isn't that heavy and taking it along meant we had a reason to stop every now and then other than the pain in our legs!
The pain was real, I wanted to stop every 2 minutes but I didn't, I found the harder it is to get going again when you stop, kind of like when you go for a run.
We did have little checkpoints every now and then though, "stop at the tuft of grass" and "break at that boulder".
This point here in the picture above I remember just laughing, we had just climbed what already felt like a mountain, as we went the wrong way it probably was... But to get to the top and see you have to go down and then back up this huge path of sorrow was pretty daunting! It was an either laugh or cry moment!
But off we went, luckily it was quite a flat surface and not lumpy bumpy rocks.
You'd think the top of that path would be the top of Pen Y Fan right?... Nope... No it was not.
Eventually we did get to the top and to be honest it didn't take as long as I thought it would and I suppose time feels a lot faster when you're distracted by your surrounding and the feeling of your legs falling off.
Unfortunately it was so misty you couldn't really see a great deal from the top but I didn't mind, I think the mist looks cool and it did clear a little for about 20 seconds so we did catch a glimpse of the views.
When we were at the top we ate our lunch, pre-made wholemeal vegan cheese and salad wrap haha! Yummy yummy! It was actually pretty tasty and definitely needed even if I did end up eating mine with a mouthful of my own hair because of the wind.
We sat down to eat for like 10 mins and I was freezing by the time we'd finished eating so it was time for the great descend.
The way down was of course the way we should have came up.
Coming down wasn't much less painful than going up, could feel my legs shaking like jelly the whole way down...
I'm glad we went the way that we did though, much more of an achievement and also the main path was just really busy, the way we went we saw the odd couple and group on the way up and that's it.
The way down was full of people and to be honest I'm not a fan of people haha!
After our daily dose of mountain climbing we went to the B&B, dropped off our stuff and then went down to have a little look at Llangorse Lake, it was very pretty but my legs were killing and all I wanted to do at this point was lie down so I probably didn't appreciate it as much as I should have.
After this we went out for food, a little Chinese place in Brecon... Stuffed our faces like we deserved!
On the Sunday my legs were pretty achy so why not go for another walk with hills and rocks to climb?!
The Four Waterfalls Walk was another 5 miles of pain but it's all worth it, everything was so pretty and we made friends with frogs and a sheep the way down haha!
I had an amazing weekend and could easily do it all over again...