Exploring the dark heart of WALES

The Cambrian Mountains has some of the world's darkest skies. Jamie Carter takes its Astro Trail to see why Wales is a stargazer's dream come true

- Jamie Carter

Stargazing in solitude isn't always easy in the Cambrian Mountains. "A few friends and I went up to the local Dark Sky Discovery Site to lie on blankets and watch a meteor shower, but there were so many sheep that we had to lie on the cosy bonnet of the car instead!" says Linda Reid, who runs Glangwili Mansion (glangwilimansion.co.uk), a small luxury country house hotel in Llanllawddog in Carmarthenshire. “They must have thought we were the farmer coming to feed them." Back at Glangwili Mansion there's a feast, both gastronomical and astronomical, in the shape of the Stargazer Cabin in the lush hotel grounds. “We wanted to do something special so we created this wilderness place with evening dining and spectacular skies," says Linda.

Welcome to the Cambrian Mountains Astro Trail, a newly developed 80km-route around an undesignated rural landscape in Wales that covers Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Powys. Most stargazers visiting Wales will have heard about the International Dark Sky Reserves at Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons. "In Wales we've got the three designated dark-sky areas, but the Cambrian Mountains trumps them all," says Allan Trow at Dark Sky Wales (darkskywalestrainingservices.co.uk), who runs stargazing and astrophotography events. "Its length and breadth is dark and it covers a massive swathe of our country." In the northeast of the Cambrian region is the Elan Valley International Dark Sky Park, one of the three areas in Wales accredited by the International Dark-Sky Association.

Getting away from the lights