Old Incline Top

“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”
Edgar Allan Poe
Weather forecast was reasonably promising so I headed off to meet A for a morning of dragonfly hunting and exploring on the hillside above Garn-yr-Erw. I’d walked part of this area before, a couple of years ago when I rented the cottage in Blaenafon when ‘homeless’. We walked up past the ‘chimney’ (old air vent), with it’s beautiful dressed stone and capping. Ground was wet and the planned route looked decidedly dodgy so we  backtracked a little and followed a sheep track on raised ground. We soon reached the pond A was keen to explore, marked as a reservoir on old O.S. maps. Not much sign of the sunny spells promised, so no dragonflies either.
Onwards and upwards, we soon reached the ‘crossroads’ at the top of the incline, where the Dyne Steel Incline (from New Pit to Pwyll Du) meets other tracks across the hillside, near the boundary marker between old Brecon and Monmouthshire. This is at the edge of Canada Tips and the building looked to be more recent than the engine housing which would have been there in the 19th/20th century. I’m guessing it was built as part of the wartime opencast operation in the area. The weather took a turn for decidedly cool and wet, fortunately not for long, but the valleys around filled with a thick grey veil of rain. Time to head back, via the pond dipping platform at Garn Lakes, for late lunch and lemon drizzle cake courtesy of M, brilliant way to end a walk.