We've recently bought a bit of lightweight gear: a new tent, sleeping bags and jackets, with the aim of doing some long distance walking, and camping along the way. So, in order to test it, we took to the Clwydian Hills for a weekend in June. The weather was pretty overcast the whole time, and I only had my compact camera with me (lightweight, I said!) so the photos aren't quite as good as they could be, but here's an overview of what we did.

The Clwydian Hills are a range of peaks in North-East Wales, generally only around 500m high, though rising up from the Vale of Clwyd, which sits virtually at sea level. The hills are largely common land (at least on top) and are covered in heather and gorse, which is really nice when in flower. The ridge walk forms part of the Offa's Dyke path, and most of the peaks are also quite visibly Iron Age hill-forts. Their location means that many walkers whizz past them on the way to Snowdonia, so they tend to be fairly quiet. Our route starts at Bodfari, the starting point for the second day's walk if doing the full Offa's Dyke route from North to South, and situated at the North end of the range.

As usual, the full set of photos is also on Flickr.

So, all loaded up with gear and ready to go! This photo is on one of the paths from around Bodfari which link up with the main Offa's Dyke path on the side of Moel-y-Parc.

The path quickly emerges from the woods and farmland to the bottom of the common land which covers most of Moel-y-Parc. We get a good view of the Vale of Clwyd and the mist across the valley sitting on Denbigh Moor.

We've been up Moel-y-Parc many times, so missed out the summit on this trip, in favour of getting some distance under our belts early on. As the Offa's Dyke path skirts around the mass of Moel-y-Parc, down past a sheepdog training farm and back up again, it reaches a low point on the ridge, between Moel-y-Parc and Penycloddiau. The acorn signs point the way.

There's a small car park here, which can be used for direct access to Moel-y-Parc and Penycloddiau. We then follow the ridge up to Penycloddiau - avoiding the more obvious path which skirts the hill.

The sun is shining down in the valley, but the hills are unfortunately subject to lingering cloud. It gets quite dark as we ascend.

The top is in fact in cloud as we make our way up.

We encounter a memorial to the rambler Arthur Roberts.

The final stretch to the summit of Penycloddiau is a more maintained path.

The summit is adorned with a large cairn. There's mist on the hills to come too. It was getting pretty windy by this point, so we didn't linger.

The path down the other side of Penycloddiau was a nice walk through thousands of flowering foxgloves and then a small pine forest. Our next hill, Moel Arthur, can be seen ahead, and it looks like its mist has cleared.

There's another car park between Penycloddiau and Moel Arthur, and the path briefly follows the road, before following the line of hills once more.

There's plenty more signage, and Denbighshire County Council maintain good stiles and gates all along the route.

And here we enter the Moel Famau Country Park.

After a steep initial ascent, the path skirts Moel Arthur, which is covered in thick heather.

A retrospective view shows Penycloddiay and Moel-y-Parc (with its television mast) behind us.

The summit of Moel Arthur is just off the main path, but it's only a short detour.

At the summit, there's another cairn. The lack of view is due to the cloud we're in. We stopped just off the summit for some lunch (there's a great little natural bothy just a few metres due South-East of the summit).

On the other side of Moel Arthur, the path continues steeply downwards and then back up onto the Moel Famau plateau. More work for the legs...

This retrospective of Moel Arthur shows its distinctive hill-fort shape. Penycloddiau and Moel-y-Parc stretch on behind to the horizon.

Up on the plateau, it's mainly heather everywhere and the landscape flattens out substantially.

The plateau stretches out for quite a way, and we get good views of Moel Famau itself, with the remains of its Jubilee Tower on top.

Though we first have to pass over the summit of Moel Dywyll, to the right in this picture.

The Jubilee Tower sits on top of Moel Famau, the highest point on the Clwydian range, and provides some welcome shelter from the wind.

The path down the other side of Moel Famau is a lot more maintained than the one used for our ascent, and offers us great views of the Clwyd Forest and the final hill in the range, Foel Fenlli.

Though Foel Fenlli is also quite high, we don't lose much altitude between Moel Famau and it, so are quickly at the summit.

There's not a lot of flat land available up on the hills, but eventually we settle for a campsite on the Eastern side of the hill, and hence sheltered from the wind, but also with great views of our day's walk.

The wind both picked up and changed direction somewhat in the night, but the tent stood up to it well. The early dawn didn't allow for too much sleep though.

And leaving nothing but footprints, we headed down off the exposed hill to find some shelter.

Ready for some breakfast out of the wind.

On the second day, we followed the same path in reverse, back to Bodfari. The route took us about six hours there and five back, including stops, and this was probably to do with the ascents being a lot steeper in the Southerly direction. We also varied the route slightly on the way back by skirting around Penycloddiau, though this actually probably added to the distance on the second day.