Outside
Stunning fifteen mile panorama from the doorstep, bike or walk in the quiet mountains with buzzards high above. Or pop down to the friendly village shop & pub.
There's much to see when you step out of the Bunkhouse. Firstly the stunning views all round - the twin Berwyn mountain peaks of Mynydd Mawr and Gyrn Moelfre framed between the rolling walls of the Nant y Brithyll valley, and behind you, Foel Knoll, down from whose summit, some 500 years ago, the granite and stone would have been sledged down to build the Farmhouse and Bunkhouse.
Leading from the Bunkhouse a concealed, winding staircase entices you up to The Follies, the much filmed, photographed and adored fantasy world of colour, shape and sound created over the last forty years by jazz trumpeter Eddie Matthews - surely the ultimate escape from all known stresses and strains.
What better place to ease the mind and body after a day of intrepid team building on some remote mountain top or of hurtling down precipitous forest tracks or scanning the wilderness all day in pursuit of that elusive Red Kite.
You may well meet a horse drawn carriage - Gil Buckle and 'Socks' teaching two visitors an alternative pace of life (1) and you'll get a wave from any car that passes you and maybe an offer of a lift. Happily, city ways have not yet reached these parts. The same friendliness is to be found in The Railway Inn where, over a pint of local ale or a local steak you soon lose any sense of time, urgency or stress.
Take a five minute drive west to Llangynog, noting on your right the ‘hanging valley' left perched above the retreating mass of a glacier during the last Ice Age.
Dwarfed by towering masses of granite and slate this village was, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Europe's largest lead mining area. The extension to Llangynog of the Tanat Valley Railway (2) in 1904 was unable to arrest its gradual decline.
High above the disused quarries there still remain many traces of Craig Rhiwarth, the large Celtic Hill Fort from which, until his eventual defeat by Scapula, Caratacus (Caradoc) King of the Ordovices launched successful resistance to Roman occupation.
A few miles to the west of Llangynog, hidden away at the head of a valley stands the Shrine Church of St. Melangell (3), a tranquil, spiritual place to which anyone seeking Peace of mind should pay a visit, as pilgrims have done for many hundreds of years.
