Leaving Radyr, you are immediately plunged into a hidden treescape in the shadow of the motorway. From here, you’ll climb beside lush green fields until you reach the body of an ancient Hillfort, Llwynda-Ddu, but you will be unlikely to make out more than a smooth gradient in the ground, worked by human hands thousands of years ago. Indeed, the eastern end of the route follows the historic Pilgrim’s Way, and you’ll see the tell-tale waymarks along the route.

After that, you’ll slip into a dip where you will join a quiet lane between two hills. This second hill houses an entirely different hillfort of its own! However, it is a lot harder to track down, hidden in the woods behind Craig-Y-Parc School and on private land, yet it just goes to show the history of the area to find them packed so close together. You will skirt north of the school and along Heol Pant-y-Gored, a flat road into Creigiau, a handy stop off point for amenities.

The trail past Creigiau is a stretch of disused railway line. Shaded by trees on both sides, it crosses a rustic iron works railway bridge, continuing up to Ty’n-Y-Coed, where you can find a small car park. If you carry on from there, the path leaves the railways track and climbs the wooded hill of Craig Gwilym, a beautiful patch of rocky, wooded hillside which is very popular with mountain bikers and horse riders alike. This is not an easy ride, and the ground is rocky and loose underfoot, so proceed cautiously.