Five dams.
Forty-five thousand
acres. One very
good drying room.
A small outdoor lodge on the edge of the Elan Valley reservoirs. Paddle the water, walk the moor above it, and come back to somewhere warm that doesn't mind the state of you.
Walking
Above the reservoirs the valley stops being pretty and starts being serious. Blanket bog, peat hags, cotton grass, and cairns older than anything written down about them. There are no waymarks up here and often no path at all — which is the reason to go.
We run guided days on the tops and hand out route cards for the rest. Either way, tell us where you're going and when you're back. We'll leave the kettle on and come looking if you don't.
Drygarn Fawr
The big one. Up onto the Cambrian watershed to the twin beehive cairns, then back down the Claerwen side. Bog to the knee in places. Guided, small groups.
The Monks' Trod
A medieval route between two abbeys, still visible as a scar across the moor. We drop you at one end and pick you up at the other.
Night navigation
Map, compass, no torch until you've earned it. Two evenings a month, October to March, finishing at the fire.
Exploring
The valley below the waterline is a Victorian engineering project that happens to be beautiful. Five dams in cut stone, a railway that only ever carried its own construction, and three drowned villages under the surface of Caban Coch. In a dry summer the walls of the old farms come back up.
Half a mile upstream sits Nant-y-Gro: a small dam that Barnes Wallis blew apart in 1942 to prove the bouncing bomb would work. It's still in pieces. You can walk to it in twenty minutes and nobody will be there.
Dams by bike
Nine miles of old railway line, traffic-free, past four dams and back. Hardtails and two e-bikes in the shed. Helmets included, arguments about gearing free.
Red kite hour
Late afternoon, up to the feeding station at Rhayader. Hundreds of birds, close enough to hear the wings. We drive, you watch.
The drowned villages
A slow walk along the shoreline with someone who knows which family lived where, and what happened to them in 1893.
On the water
Seventy thousand million litres of it, held between hills, flat as glass most mornings and unrecognisable by four in the afternoon. We paddle the permitted stretches under the estate's access agreement — which keeps the crowds off and the water clean.
It is cold. It stays cold in August. We'll put you in a wetsuit, teach you what to do when you come off, and go out with you until you'd rather we didn't.
Paddleboard
Two hours from the jetty, usually at first light because that's when the water is still. Boards, leashes, buoyancy aids and a full change of clothes waiting.
Open canoe
Sixteen-foot Canadians, two or three to a boat. The best way to reach the far shore, and the only way to carry a stove and a flask.
Cold water swim
Coached sessions with a safety kayak alongside. Short in winter, longer in summer, never unsupervised. Sauna afterwards, always.
What we hand you at the door
- 5/4 wetsuit & boots
- Buoyancy aid, fitted
- Dry bag, 20 litre
- Throw line
- Water temperature, today
- Wind forecast, hourly
- A hot shower on return
- Somewhere to put wet kit
The sky
The whole estate is an International Dark Sky Park, and the lodge has no outside lighting beyond a single shielded lamp on the boot room door. On a clear moonless night the Milky Way casts a shadow off the jetty rail. Most guests didn't believe that until they stood on it.
There's a 10-inch reflector in the shed, free to borrow, and a laminated card of what's overhead this month pinned inside the door.
Where you sleep
A stone farmhouse, a converted barn, and Y Caban itself — the timber lodge on the shore that people book a year out. Twenty-eight beds between them, run by four people who live here. Breakfast at seven. Soup and bread left out for anyone back late. No televisions, patchy signal, and a woodstove that does most of the work from October.
The drying room takes forty sets of kit and turns them around overnight. We are unreasonably proud of it.
Bunk room
- Six beds, shared
- Bedding included
- Shared bathrooms
- Breakfast included
Barn double
- Double, ensuite
- Window over the water
- Woodstove in the hall
- Breakfast included
Y Caban — shore cabin
- King bed over the water
- Woodstove & deep bath
- Private deck & firepit
- Telescope on the deck rail
Come and get wet
Beds and activities book together. Tell us who's coming, when, and what you want to get out of it — we'll build the days around the weather and send it back the same evening.