Between Swansea And Newport Is Wales' Scenic Escape With Craft Brews, Parks, And Gorgeous Valleys

There are two main ways to travel by road between the Welsh cities of Swansea and Newport. You can take the fast motorway — the M4 — to do the trip in just a touch over an hour. Or, you can take a bit more time, divert a little more to the north, delve into the hills, and discover the county of Rhondda Cynon Taf. Known as RCT for short, it encompasses not one, not two, but four whole valleys in the heart of South Wales, and there's plenty to see and do within.

Once dominated by a booming coal mining industry, Rhondda Cynon Taf is emerging as something of an adventure hub. For one, it's a gateway to the highest mountains in South Wales (Pen-y-Fan, the tallest peak for miles around, is just a 15-minute drive from the area's north side). For two, it has everything from pint-sized urban parks to reserves filled with roaring waterfalls. On top of that, RCT's old mining towns are now coming to life with locally run breweries and whisky distilleries that are perfect pit stops for post-hike tipples.

As well as being almost perfectly midway between Swansea in the west and Newport in the east, Rhondda Cynon Taf also sits alongside the scenic borough of Blaenau Gwent just north of the big city of Cardiff, the capital of the Celtic nation. It should take just an hour to get here from Cardiff Airport (CWL), the only international hub in Wales. Direct trains also run from Cardiff Central to the station in Ystrad, a village located in the very middle of the county.

The county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf extends across a big dash of the South Wales valleys. While the town of Pontyclun and the M4 motorway mark its southern border, the north is dominated by the ever-rising foothills of the remote and wild Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. That means, if you've come here for views of those green Welsh hills and valleys, you certainly won't be disappointed.

Before you even get into the higher mountains, there's plenty more local parks to get through tucked into the valleys of RCT. Take the Gwnyo Forest, a big spread of high uplands and thick conifer woods near Llanwonno, where loop hikes lead to cozy pubs and roaring waterfalls. Creep only a touch further north to reach Dare Valley Country Park, a former mining area that's now been revitalized into a land of fern thickets and aspen stands where it's possible to spot birds, from peregrine falcons to kingfishers.

The more hardcore adventures beckon once you hop over into the Bannau Brycheiniog reserve, a national park that encompasses a bout of mountains a bit less-visited than the ones in Eryri, Wales's largest national park. A part of that known as Waterfall Country buts right up to the northwestern edge of Rhondda Cynon Taf, and it really does live up to its name — the area has a walk that includes a fly-by of four different falls, including the incredible Sgwd yr Eira, where you can even venture behind the cataract itself (careful, though, because the path gets slippery!).

Once you're done dipping in ice-cold waterfalls and conquering South Wales's biggest peaks, there's plenty of local drinking to be done in the Rhondda Cynon Taf area. Yep, this clutch of valleys must have traded its coal mines for distilling tanks sometime in the last century, for there's now an abundance of hearty pubs and microbrew craft places, along with one particular, much-lauded, purveyor of Welsh whisky.

That whisky purveyor is worth a special mention. The name? Penderyn. They run the first distillery to have opened in the whole of Wales for more than a century out of a unique building on the edge of the mountains on the north side of RCT. It's all single malt, and many are decorated with international awards. Visitors who've been up for a tour (pictured above), which, naturally, includes a tasting session, report very good things. One past patron writing a review on Google Maps said, "This is a great distillery that takes you on a very good tour, explaining everything you need to know. After, you get to sample two of any of their whiskies!"

And there's beer. The former industrial town of Aberdare hosts the Grey Trees Independent Craft Brewery, which combines a takeaway beer shop and a bar area, offering drinkers a chance to sample pale ales and dark stouts straight from the source. Further south, Llantrisant has the Glamorgan Brewing Company, which brews batches of IPAs, golden ales, and amber ales inspired by the Welsh countryside and Welsh history.