Cambrian Dark Skies

Nothing in the Elan Valley is natural. The lakes are reservoirs, the shorelines are engineered, and the whole chain of water was built at the end of the nineteenth century to supply Birmingham, seventy odd miles away, entirely by gravity. What the Victorians did not intend, because nobody was thinking about it then, was to leave behind a valley with almost no permanent lighting in it, in a part of Wales with very few people, which is now one of the better places in Britain to stand outside after dark.

The season most people stop using

Here is the awkward arithmetic of dark sky travel at this latitude. In June the sky never gets properly dark at all. Whatever you came to see, you cannot see it, and the darkest certified site in the country is no better on a June night than a field in the Midlands.

Which means the season for this is the season most people are putting the van away. From late September the nights arrive early enough to be usable and stay dark long enough to be worth staying up for. October and November are better still.

That is a decent trade. The sites are quiet, the pitches are available, the lanes have nobody on them, and the thing you came for is only actually present at this time of year. The valley in autumn is not the summer trip with worse weather. It is the trip.

What the designation actually means

Elan Valley is an International Dark Sky Park, designated in 2015. That is a certification rather than a description, and it requires evidence: measured sky quality, a lighting management plan, ongoing outreach. It is not a phrase somebody in tourism decided to start using.

In practice it tells you two useful things. There is no glow on the horizon in any direction, which is rare in Wales and rarer in England. And the estate has committed to keeping it that way, so the trip you take next year is the same as the one you take this year.

The landscape is worth the drive independently of any of that. The dams are Victorian engineering at a scale that does not photograph well and has to be stood in front of. Garreg Ddu has a road submerged beneath it that reappears when the water drops. Above the reservoirs the Cambrians open out into bare upland, empty in a way the Welsh mountains further north are not, because nobody is driving through here on the way to anywhere else.

Three nights, and hardly any driving

The version this comes from is Elan Valley Reservoirs. Two hundred and seventy miles in total, two hundred and forty of which is getting there and getting home.

Day one comes in over the tops, stopping at Nant-y-moch, a reservoir sitting in bare hills above Ponterwyd, and at the remains of a nineteenth century lead mine at Bryntail. A first day that arrives inside the landscape rather than at the edge of it.

Day two is twenty miles: the reservoir chain and the visitor centre, which earns its hour because the engineering story explains the shape of everything else you are looking at.

Day three is ten miles. Garreg Ddu, walking, and an evening with nothing scheduled in it, which on this particular trip is the point rather than a gap in the plan.

Day four is the drive home with a stop at Gilfach on the way out, a nature reserve near Rhayader with a restored farmstead on it.

Thirty miles of driving across three days in the valley. This is a region you can sit still in.

The practical bits

Two nights at one small site and one at another in this plan, both around twenty five pounds. Book ahead even in autumn, because the choice is limited rather than because the places are full.

Take more warm clothing than the forecast suggests. Standing outside at eleven at night in October in mid Wales is a different proposition from walking in the afternoon, and the entire reason you are here involves being stationary outdoors after dark for an hour or more.

Check the moon before you fix the dates. A full moon in a Dark Sky Park gives you a beautifully lit landscape and no stars at all, and it is the one variable that no amount of driving will fix once you have arrived. The week either side of a new moon is what you want. It is the only genuinely time-critical thing about this trip.

Arrive stocked, too. This is not a part of Wales with a supermarket at the end of the lane.

Why here rather than the obvious alternative

The default Welsh dark sky trip is the Brecon Beacons, which is also certified, better known and considerably busier. Snowdonia takes the walkers.

Elan gets neither, for the same reason Galloway stays quiet: it is not on the way to anywhere. The road into the valley is a dead end, and dead ends filter out everybody who was not specifically coming. There is more of Wales worth this treatment.

For three nights in autumn, with a van, when what you want is a dark sky and very little driving, that is close to ideal.