The sign seemed totally reasonable: please be considerate to our neighbours and don’t make a noise after 11pm. But it was impossible to obey — just you try whizzing down an indoors helter-skelter at midnight without a single squeal after more than your fair share of champagne.
Welcome to the Bunkhouse in Glasbury-on-Wye, slap bang in the middle of the Brecon Beacons. As we’ve established, it’s no ordinary bunkhouse, with its unique way of reaching the front door from the upstairs living area, although it does have a dorm, with 12 stylish bunks in small individual areas (there is also one double room).
It’s the perfect party pad, a huge refurbished chapel that has been done out beautifully in contemporary open-plan style, keeping the massive windows, and adding glass panels in the wooden floor, with a view of the canoe and mountain-bike hire shop below. If that is a little surreal when you are padding across the floor in your PJs (as well as a little noisy in the morning), it does mean that boat or bike hire to explore the stunning countryside beyond is only a helter-skelter ride away.
We took the boat option: the Bunkhouse is part of Wye Valley Canoes, and the River Wye is just outside the door, flowing down to the little border town of Hay-on-Wye, with its bookshops, castle and scenic position at the foot of the Black Mountains. This wasn’t, though, the watery adventure we experienced; high river levels and the fact that we had a couple of children in our group meant we were advised to go instead to the still waters of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, 25 minutes away.
It turned out to be a good decision, not because of the children, but because one member of our party had so little idea of how to canoe that she got in facing backwards (“I thought that was how you sat — so you could chat”). No surprise, then, that the normal two-hour gentle paddle through the picturesque Welsh scenery along a Charlie and the Chocolate Factoryhued waterway (coloured by the local sandstone) turned out to be a three-and-a- half hour marathon for us.
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Back at the Bunkhouse, it was tempting to snuggle in front of the efficient log-burner to recover from our arduous afternoon (we also had to carry the canoes round two locks). But we had a reservation at the River Café next door, also part of Wye Valley Canoes, which serves up great local flaked lamb shank with gnocchi and tasty local beef in an atmospheric place that is clearly popular with the locals.
This whole area is great for foodies, with some lovely pubs and cafés (I heartily recommend the café in the Hours bookshop at Brecon, which serves a cracking halloumi and roast vegetable sarnie). If you are near Blaenafon, don’t leave without popping into the family-run Cheddar Company on Broad Street, where you can buy Pwll Mawr cheese, matured 300ft below ground at the bottom of the mineshaft at the Big Pit mining museum, as well as several alcoholic cheeses, from taffy apple cider to Celtic Spirit whisky (believe me, it’s good).
And, while we are on the subject of tipples, there’s the lovely Penderyn Distillery, the only commercial whisky distillery in Wales, where an hour-long tour takes you to the mill and copper-pot stills, as well as to the tasting bar (we particularly liked the Merlyn Welsh Cream Liqueur).
Obviously, you will need to walk off some of the excess calories, and there’s plenty of choice in this lovely area. We eschewed the giggle-inducing Lord Hereford’s Knob, just a ten-minute drive away from the Bunkhouse, and drove instead to the village of Bwlch, home to the Welsh Venison Centre.
The car park here is also the start for a hike up Allt yr Esgair, a little mountain (OK, a hill) that packs a lot of punch. Following the old Roman road past rutting deer that sounded like strangled cows, we reached the ruins of an Iron Age fort. Sweeping views over the glacial valley of the River Usk took in the ominous slopes of the Brecon Beacons on one side — including Pen y Fan, the highest peak in southern Britain at 886m with its icing of cloud — and the Black Mountains on the other.
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It’s said that JRR Tolkien was inspired by this area and made numerous references to it in his work, including naming the hobbit settlement of Crickhollow after Crickhowell, and the Lonely Mountain after Sugar Loaf. Whether that’s true or not, you don’t need much imagination to see Middle Earth in the surrounding countryside.
It’s only a shame that the Bunkhouse wasn’t around when Tolkien stayed in the village of Talybont-on-Usk in the 1940s — I’m sure that Mr Bilbo Baggins would have rather enjoyed the helter-skelter.
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Jane Knight was a guest of Wye Valley Bunkhouse (01497 847213, wyevalleycanoes.co.uk), which sleeps up to 14 people and costs from £980 for a two-night midweek stay. Canoe hire costs from £25pp More information Brecon Beacons National Park (breconbeacons.org). Penderyn tours cost £8.50pp (penderyn.wales)