29-Dec-2003 -- Right then, only two more confluences to go in Wales and that is two out of the four countries in the UK personally completed.

I have a few days off work and fancied trying to bag them, only one problem though, I have promised to do some painting around the house. A quick bit of negotiation and I start making plans. It seemed like I could probably do both in one day, despite the shortness of daylight at this time of year.

The planning stage: I printed off the streetmap from the link provided, found the nearest village and simply entered that into the SatNav unit - 181 miles from home. So about 4 hours or so of driving across country.

Although the SatNav has taken a lot of the fun out of the planning stage, it does take you 'directly' to the CP. Rather than stick to the main roads as you tend to when manually planning the route, it takes shortcuts such that you see things you otherwise never would. Like the "Smallest Town in Britain" (Pic 6). Not so small that it doesn't have two rivers running through it though! A bit further on - and it was the route I was to follow - signs to "Gold in them thar hills" (Pic 7).

Just over four hours after leaving home I pulled off the road and parked near the entrance to the former quarry. I met a man and his grandson who were hunting for rabbits, but they weren't interested in visiting the CP.

Climb over the fence, past the sign "No entrance except to authorised personnel" and round the corner. Here I saw the old gatehouse (Pic 9) referred to by the previous visitor. Pushing the door open, I saw these safety notices (Pic 8) on the wall, behind the 30 ton (not 20 as previously stated) weighbridge scales.

I went into the main office, and the diary referred to previously is gone, in fact the office has been vandalised. The previous visitor opined that the quarry closed on 7th May 1989, this is not true, blasting was still being carried out in 1990 (Pic 10).

Normally I take nothing whatever away from a CP, this time though I rescued some of what was left of the old documentation. This will be passed to the local historical society.

The cliff face ahead of me reminded me of 53N 4W, luckily though the CP was round to the right, about 150 yards. The path takes you to within 5 yards of the point. A quick scramble up the slope and we are there (Pic 5). The views from the four cardinal points are in N (Pic 1) E (Pic 2) S (Pic 3) W (Pic 4) order.

Job complete and off to 52N 5W