Detour Pit Stop #52: The Tallest Waterfall in Wales
Photo Charlotte Vowden
The world both falls away and opens up at the top of Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall, the highest in Wales and considered one of the country’s seven wonders. It’s even taller than Niagara Falls.
After carving its path from the Berwyn Mountains through heather and bog moors, the Afon Disgynfa river pauses for a moment of calm in a shallow pool on the edge of the waterfall’s 240ft drop before hurling itself over.
It’s here that you too should rest after making your own journey along wonderful Welsh roads to this natural lookout point. Giving you a sense of how far you’ve travelled, the spindly track that connects Pistyll Rhaeadr to the outside world (via the town of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and the aptly named waterfall street) threads through the valley below. Terminating at a car park, where it costs 40p to have a wee in the public toilets, it’s then a steady thirty-minute climb, on foot, to the head of the falls.
At its atmospheric best first thing in the morning, when the fresh air feels even fresher and the mosses and ferns are damp with dew, it’s important to approach your visit with a touch of caution – at any time of the day. The rocks tend to be slippery and this haven up in the heavens is unfenced, so tread carefully otherwise you’ll be following the flow of water rather than the footpath to make your descent. In total, it’s a three mile circuit.
Freshen up with a full dip, or even a toe-dip, in the plunge pool at Pistyll Rhaeadr’s base and watch the water rush its way around and across the boulders as it passes beneath an iron footbridge and out into the hills.
Sadly, the enchantment fizzles out at Tan-y-Pistyll Café, or ‘little house under the waterfall’. With promises of breakfast and a friendly welcome from 9.30am every day (except in extreme weather) the website isn’t to be trusted, but, if you can stomach an extortionately priced cup of disgusting coffee, which I suspect was instant, and a tuna sandwich made begrudgingly, for your first meal of the day, the payoff is one incredible view. The outdoor seating is set up to appreciate Pistyll Rhaeadr’s majesty.
In the summer, Tan-y-Pistyll Café serves ice cream out of a takeaway hatch, but for the snoops among us, the eccentric decor (including a frog playing a leaf like a fiddle) warrants a trip across the threshold.
Words Charlotte Vowden Twitter | Instagram
Photography Charlotte Vowden