It was raining lightly as I drove along the winding roads of the Brecon Beacons, now known as Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. A soft mist hung over the lower-lying valleys as dozens of people set out on a morning hike, forming a small queue as they walked up the thin mountain paths. It was only 8am.
Bannau Brycheiniog is one of the UK’s tourist hotspots, attracting more than four million visitors each year. Hikers crowd mountains such as Pen y Fan (in the park’s mid-north, and its highest peak) and descend on Waterfall Country, an area with a series of waterfalls in the south-west of the park.
“One of the defining features of the National Park is the high number of day visitors (accounting for 87 per cent of annual visitors), many arriving from South Wales and the Midlands,” says Julie Bell from the park’s tourism board. Overnight visitors account for the remaining 13 per cent of arrivals, but generate 65 per cent of the economic benefit the park receives from tourism.
The national park covers 520 sq miles across South and mid-Wales, so there are quieter parts in which to enjoy a longer break. Bell suggested I head to the north-west of the park. After some research, I settled on a stay in a cottage overlooking Bannau Brycheiniog at the foot of the Cambrian mountains.
