Hay Walking Festival

At the Hay Together gathering the other week, I picked up a leaflet for the Hay Sustainable Tourism Action Plan.
The first of the events on the plan is coming up soon - it's the Hay Walking Festival from 10th to 14th October. This is the third walking festival and they have been designing their walks around some of the feedback they received from the first two.
48 walks are on offer around Hay and scattered through the Brecon Beacons. In fact, the very first walk starts from Erwood, up towards Builth Wells, and visits the cannon on the hilltop above the village, Twm Tobacco's grave, and Prince Llewelyn's cave (Llewelyn the Last was supposed to have hidden in the cave shortly before he was killed, though I suspect it is far more likely that he stayed in Aberedw Castle instead!).
Some of the walks concentrate on map reading skills, while others focus on the local archaeology - and in one case, beer! There are also walks to look at the local geology, learn Nordic Walking, and just to look at the views. One walk looks at positive responses to climate change (I think this one will be up Cusop Dingle, where there are some houses with interesting alternative energy sources), and another follows the drovers' road from Brilley. There's foraging, and geocaching, and a search for the Black Dog of Kington, and even some sketching tuition.
One walk that will not be taking place as advertised, though, is the walk around Hay-on-Wye, which was to have been led by Rob Soldat, who is now no longer with us. I presume they will have found someone else to lead the walk, though no-one could take his place.
The walks are graded from Easy (low level, gentle pace) to Very Strenuous (for experienced walkers over long distances) and they can all be booked online. The website is www.haywalking.org.