Pencelli Castle

I took advantage of the finest weekend of this miserable Welsh summer and took Aaron (6) for a quick Saturday night camp in the Brecon Beacons. It was really a reccy to check out a 'proper' campsite that we could use for family camping weekends.

Pencelli Castle is a family owned site at the foot of Pen-y-fan, on the road between Brecon and Talybont on Usk. It's the site of a real castle, built around 1080 A.D. although no evidence of remains apart from the moat.

The site has three areas - The 'Orchard' and the 'Oaks' are set up for caravans and those campers that need electricity and furthest from the facilities (more about those in a minute) is the magnificent 'Meadow'.

The Meadow is reserved solely for tents and is a very large gently sloping and perfectly manicured field surrounded by trees and broken up by conservation areas of un-mown grass, trees and shrubs. At the bottom of the field runs the Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal.

I'm not one to get excited by campsite facilities, I'm happy with a clean stream and a place to dig a cathole, but when you have a family in tow, good toilets and showers make for a much nicer experience. The accolades these guys have collected are pretty impressive, they are Visit Wales 5 Star rated, have won every 'Loo of the Year' award since the 12th century, have won several Campsite of the Year awards and a few Wales in Bloom awards for the attractive landscaping and floral touches (all the waste and water areas have a trellis surround with climbing roses hiding the plastic bins).

We set up camp in a quiet but very soggy area of the Meadow. Although the weekend was hot and sunny, the ground was very waterlogged and some areas of the closely cut lawns looked more like Ypres than South Wales. Quite a few people were getting stuck, making the ruts and mud even worse, but we had big tyres and 4WD and this combo didn't make the slightest impression on the ground.

At around lunchtime, Aaron said he couldn't eat his lunch because his loose front tooth had turned around and was facing the wrong way. After a few minutes, he plucked up the courage and let me pull it out - he must have been pretty hungry!

We cooked on the Grilliput and our Cadac Safari Chef combo and slept comfortably on a big fat airbed. As the meadow was 'the scene of many a bloody battle', we expected a disturbed night, but it was pretty uneventful apart from Aaron managing to wriggle out of his sleeping bag and waking in the early hours shivering.

Next morning, we checked out the facilities and showered to piped classical music. They also have family bathrooms, the usual washing up and food prep areas, laundry, drying room and an information room full of stuff to help you make the most of your time there. There is a funky little play area and a red deer enclosure for the kids. Everything is immaculate, even the bike and boot wash areas.

All of this loveliness comes at a price though - some quick mental arithmetic  - £35.00 a night for Sarah, myself and the three boys. That is pretty steep for a campsite IMHO (It looks like that is pretty average after all - see comments). But it can't be cheap maintaining Pencelli Castle to such high standards and I didn't see an Aston Martin parked in the owners driveway.

We packed up after lunch and went for a stroll along the canal to Talybont on Usk (good pubs and food) and then drove the long way home up through the mountains via Talybont Reservoir, Taf Fechan and Pontsticill. We stopped for a Miss Whippy (ice cream ;) and watched the Brecon Mountain Railway steam engine puff through the hills.

One last stop off to walk across the 92 foot high Pontsarn viaduct just north of Merthyr Tydfil and it was onto the Heads of the Valleys road and back to sunny Swansea to dry out the dew soaked tent.

Wonderful weekend :)