By Lakshmi:

Last Saturday was a spectacularly beautiful day in South Wales – No rain!  No – let’s make it better – clear skies and lots of sunshine.  Since we have admired Sugarloaf Mountain for over a year from the windows of our home in Abergavenny, it was time to make the ascent.  Off we trotted to the local tourist office – the woman took one look at our sneakers and warned us about wet ground and the shoes not being right.  But we had hiked up a volcanic crater in Hawaii in flip-flops!  We set off along the main street in Abergavenny, towards the War Memorial and on to an uphill ascent that had us jumping over multiple stiles, walking on wet grassland being grazed by sheep, trying to ascertain the right path by identifying shrubbery and finally attempting unsuccessfully to dry off our wet shoes and dripping socks at rest points along the way.  The pictures below capture the beauty of this hike.  From the center of Abergavenny, it is a 5.5 hour round trip.  There are few souls along the way, so go when there is plenty of daylight and sunshine for company – oh and a bottle of water would be good as well!  This is one of many maps available to guide you.

http://rhedeg.co.uk/running_routes/abergavenny-sugar-loaf/

If you’ve done this straight through or parked at one of the car parks and done the ascent, we’d love to hear about your experience as well.

PS.  I did want to end this with a tale of our shoes.  We had a really smart idea to wash our well rinsed yet grimy shoes in the shoe cycle of our washing machine.  What emerged the next morning were multiple shoe remnants that could not be put back together.  So, egos aside, do wear the best walking boots you can when embarking on this hike on wet ground!