Wild Wales

Just spent the Easter break in South Wales caving, mountainbiking and birdwatching.

We stayed at Caerllwyn, the headquarters of the Westminster Speleological Group at Rhigos.

The building is over 200 years old and, although now converted into a bunkhouse, its sparse features give some insight into what life must have been like for Welsh farmers. However the superb Red Lion pub 20 minutes walk up the road at Penderyn must have taken some of the edge off things! Thanks to WSG for the picture.

Sandwiched between the South Wales "Valleys" coalfield to the south and the Brecon Beacons National Park to the north, the contrast between rural beauty and the social and physical landscapes of defunct heavy industry is especially apparent in this area.

We visited Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, one of the longest cave systems in the UK at around 50km of passage. You can take a virtual tour here and enjoy some of the experience we had. We also visited Porth Yr Ogof a popular system with around 15 entrances concentrated in a wooded river valley where we enjoyed disappearing underground to follow refreshing streams and periodically emerging into spring sunshine. We followed the river upsteam a little way from where it sank underground and found toads mating in the shallows.

On Saturday we enjoyed a day's mountainbiking at the Afan Forest Park centre near Neath. All the trails here are tough but excellent fun. We completed The Wall trail.

To round off our visit to the land of song we called in at Ynys-hir RSPB Reserve near Machynlleth, where the highlight was Little Egret. I also took these photos.