HHH CHAPTER 19: Forest bathing on the Teifi trail

I started early to get to my next town. The sun was almost painfully bright and there were flowers everywhere, birds singing loudly everywhere. This bank is called Clawydd. This is an ancient way of delimiting the field, using two dry stone walls to enclose a rammed earth embankment. Often trees or shrubs grow on top, creating excellent habitat for plants and insects.

Much of the route was through forests or wooded trails. It was exhilarating to be surrounded by trees that were beginning to grow leaves. The Japanese government encourages people to spend time in forests using the term Shrinrin-yoko or «forest bathing.» They have even incorporated it into their national health programs.

The developing ferns were so beautiful to see, some staffs had hairy scales. Looking at the plants, smelling the bells, listening to the birds, is a total experience that took me out of myself. The pace of the walk became automatic and I was in a state of flow for hours.

The river path

The river made great curves, with pebble banks that are so good for fish spawning. I have to do this sketch of Hazel’s grove near the water.

Past and future generations

The path descended from the hillside farms to follow an old railway line, the bed of which was filled with trees, bushes and old bridges and embankments that were crumbling.

There are many abandoned railway tracks in mid Wales; the lines were closed in the decades after the war. This disrupted connections between the North and South Wales communities. There are campaigns to try to reopen these railways, reduce carbon emissions from road traffic and improve connections. In Wales there is a law called the Future Generations Act, which requires major planning decisions to take into account the potential benefits and gains for future generations. The damage to future generations must also be taken into account. If that law had existed in the past, perhaps those railroads would never have been abandoned in the first place.

Finding Rebecca’s Well

I arrived at Dreyfach Felindre and went in search of Rebecca’s well. A nice local lady stopped her car to ask me where I was going and told me where the well was. He thought it owed its name to the “Rebecca riots” that took place in the 19th century, in protests over the costs of road tolls. There was no real person named Rebecca. When the protesters planned their actions they said, «Rebecca will meet in such a place» as a way of trying to keep their actions away from prying eyes. My directions took me down a hot and dusty road. I tentatively asked a man working as I entered his garden, thinking he might be angry that I had entered his domain. Instead, he knew the well and said he would show me around. I was excited by all this true local knowledge.

Unfortunately, there was no well there. Apparently, a few years ago, the local farmer took his bulldozer and relocated the creek bed to make it easier for his animals to access water. The well was simply washed away.

This shows the site of the well, now covered in debris washed down the stream in winter. My informant told me that the well was full of iron salts and that his family liked to drink it in the past. They carried a jug to the well and filled it with drinking water. I suppose everything changes, but I was sorry I didn’t see the old well. This was a sad end to a day of delight in the woods.

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