Doldowlod Caravan Park

For more encounters with the area’s avian residents, head over to Rhayader (10 minutes’ drive), where flocks of hungry raptors descend daily upon the Red Kite Feeding Station. More wildlife can be spotted and walked among in the hills and woods, moors and bogs of the Elan valley (15 minutes' drive), an area often called the Welsh Lake District; trails for hiking and mountain biking and ample spots for angling on the waters are all around the valley too. A bitesize introduction to the Brecon Beacons can be had via the 40-minute trip to the Pwll y Wrach Nature Reserve, where wooded trails inhabited by badgers, otters and chiffchaffs finish up in a dark and roaring waterfall. If you’re serious about seeing as many high-up regions as you can in a single holiday, it’s a similar distance to Knighton, on the Offa’s Dyke Path and at the southern edge of the Shropshire Hills. You don’t have to walk it all of course: Three Cocks, half an hour away, is a handy spot to canoe down the River Wye, and at the Llangorse Activity Centre (50 minutes) you can zoom across the terrain on zipwires or trek it on the back of an obliging horse, as well as limbering up your limbs on the indoor climbing wall. For cosier indoor intervals, bury yourself among the many secondhand bookshops of Hay-on-Wye (45 minutes), an literary town containing almost as many pubs to peruse your paperbacks in, over a pint.