More commonly known as Caerphilly Mountain – as per road signs and the famous Caerphilly Mountain Snack Bar – Caerphilly Common is a 271m hill above Caerphilly and Cardiff. It is a very popular hill and the majority of people walking it are doing something like the above, a short loop from the nearby car park.
I did this walk the day after I was soaked to the skin on an 11 mile slog around 5 Blaenau Gwent hills – all of them over 500m – which was a generally unrewarding and miserable trudge through dense heather without a single trig point or any kind of summit mark. Caerphilly Common reminded me of what hills can be in South Wales: easy to access, offering great views in every direction and with a clearly marked summit point.
In short, it renewed my faith that ticking off hills was worth it. It helped that the sky was dramatic and full of rainclouds, but they were not, at the time I did the walk, overhead.
This walk is very short and easy, but you can extend it in most directions if you want, with other good hills nearby or you could walk up from Caerphilly itself if you wished. I once walked the Rhymney Valley Ridgeway walk from Pontllainfraith down to Caerphilly which was an enjoyable – albeit muddy – 16 miles.
This is one of the must-do hills in South Wales and is popular for a reason, so don’t be put off by that.
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