The Begwns, GW/MW-025 - 415m ASL - SO 155 443 - OS Explorer OL13 / 188 -
1 SOTA point
Sunday 29th May 2005 - We reversed our earlier driving route, as far as the village of Llowes, about
2
miles before Clyro. Here, we turned left and headed upwards, until the road
levelled out and we had a National Trust sign for The Begwns. I pulled the
car onto some grass by the road. It was all solid, nice and dry, something
that we noticed throughout the trip, and a welcome respite from the bogs
encountered in Northern Ireland and Yorkshire recently! The summit was
visible from the road, marked by a small wood. This is marked on the map as
"The Roundabout", and when we arrived, it was surrounded by a wide circular
wall. At the centre was a crescent of stone benches, and a most comfortable
operating position.
A lift was on, and 2m SSB was as overcrowded as Hay-on-Wye itself with
strong UK-wide and Spanish stations. I initially thought that therefore I
would get my contacts easily, but in fact I had little chance against the
swarms of QRO stations. Despite my concerns about this hill being possibly
screened in most directions by bigger stuff, I made four contacts easily
enough into the Midlands on 2m FM. It was approaching 8pm, so I packed up
and drove the lads back down to Talgarth, where we tried a pub called The Bell,
which turned out to be a real treasure. Home-cooked meals, big portions,
loads of extra chips (proper chips). Prices? Some meals at £3.00,
some at £3.50 and some at £4.00. All prepared by the 64 year old lady
proprietor of the establishment, and utterly delicious and filling. We
didn't return to Hay-on-Wye again.
Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts:
G0JKY |
Dudley |
Brian |
2E0LPA |
Stourbridge |
Andy |
M0ZCC |
Dudley |
Carlo |
M3NFL |
North Worcestershire |
Neil |
|