On the hill opposite my house is a dragon. It hides itself away in summer, but in autumn and winter,
when the larches have divested themselves of their greenery, the dragon, picked out in the darker
green of what may be Sitka Spruce, is clearly visible.
Ever since the beast on the hill was pointed out to me by a friend's young daughter I have been
meaning to walk its perimeter, possibly with the GPS; more probably, given the dense forestry, with
map and compass, to see if I could plot its shape. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time...
Throughout the morning the sun was appearing and disappearing like a yo-yo, and anyway I had a
book I wanted to finish, so it wasn't until about half past one that we (Charlie, Robert,
Nicky, Emily and
I) left the house to drive to the start of our proposed walk.
Starting off up Mynydd Eglwys we strolled gently up through the now grassed over and self seeded
woodland that used to be the local grammar school. Beautifully warm and sunny, the autumn colours
were probably at their best, and yours truly was content to stow my fleece rather than wear it.
Reaching the clearing I can see from my window I started to look for which trees constituted the
dragon - and of course couldn't see the wood for the... Ah. Minor snag. The dragon's obvious enough
from afar, but close up's a different matter, as you'd expect. I dare say I've got a brain in my
head somewhere, but just then I have to admit I couldn't find it. Oh well... There's a bridle path
going up the hill, so we followed that to see if we could locate a recognisable bit of dragon
further up. Once or twice we thought perhaps we could, but of course my plan of walking around the
exact contours of the thing was thwarted by the reality of a whole lot of trees hiding in a forest
of, um, trees. We managed to get pretty well to the top of Mynydd Eglwys without seeing any real
sign of the beastie, but at one point I decided that we might be standing at the top of its 'head'
so perhaps we could wander down its 'neck' and thence around the 'rump' and back to the car. We
started down the hill on what looked like a perfectly good ride or fire break, and after a bit we
found we'd left the trees behind us and were out on open hillside about to join a 'proper' track.
Since the track goes the long way round we struck off down the hill, but suddenly Charlie, who was
leading, called out that this might not be such a good idea after all. I was puzzled, but being a
bit behind couldn't see what he could see, which was that the fence that we were by now following
had stopped. It didn't turn a corner or anything like that; it just - stopped. Charlie went on to
see why, and soon found out. When a hill is as steep as all that, the concept of trespass becomes
somewhat irrelevant. I took a photo of the near-vertical 'path' from its base: I do hope it comes
out. We probably could have scrambled *up* it safely enough, but I'd not be wanting to descend via
the same route - even the sheep weren't quite that stupid. Charlie and I decided to take the
children haggis-like across, rather than down the hill, to join up with the track (it snakes its way
very slowly down nearly to the road at the bottom); however Robert was in a stubborn mood and
stalked off back up the hill to join the track at the top and we lost sight of him fairly quickly.
This didn't bother us too much, as he's perfectly capable of looking after himself and he knows
where the track is, but it would have been easier had he stayed with us because Emily decided that
she didn't like having to walk a la haggis and demanded to be carried, refusing to budge unless she
got her own way. Normally of course she'd be told in no uncertain terms to stop being silly, but
away from the shelter of the forest it was rather cold and very windy, and she was probably rather
frightened, so whilst I helped Nicholas find his footing Charlie ended up carrying Emily on one arm
and hoping he wouldn't need the other to break his fall. To cut a long story short (too late!) we
managed to join the track roughly at its half way point, and started to look for Robert. Seeing us
coming down, he however had started back *up* the track to meet us, missed us completely, and
carried on beyond the point where we joined it. Thus it was that although we kept on looking forward
and back we could see no sign of him at all... and Charlie started to get worried. It shows what a
caring mother I am that it didn't actually occur to me to get concerned about his welfare because I
just assumed he'd turn up as usual, which, after a while, he did. We were somewhat puzzled at seeing
him *above* us, when he should have been in front of us and therefore below; however once we
realised that he'd doubled back it became obvious what had happened. We carried on for a very short
while, until looking through some trees - we'd rejoined the bottom of the forest - I could see what
looked like a clearing ahead. Strolling towards this we discovered a 'proper' path leading to what
had once been a stile but which now was a mere hole in the fence. Once back in the clearing it was
but a short step down the drive of the old school back to where I'd left the car (I drove over
because I knew Emily wouldn't walk back home and I didn't fancy carrying her. In view of her
precocity on the hill I'm glad I did) and within another ten minutes or so we were back home.
I achieved, albeit not the way I'd planned, my walk around the 'Dragon of Pentre'. It was more
of a circle than dragon shaped though, so one of these days I shall have to try again to
navigate its precise outline. I took photos; some of these will make it to a website. Just don't
hold your breath.
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Fran If you need my email address please ask.