Photo Album
The Brecon Beacons
| Just about a half hours drive
north from Cardiff, and you're into the Brecon Beacons. The hills separate the
South Wales valleys from completely different scenery around Brecon and Builth
Wells in the Wye Valley.
They are not particularly high and certainly not
'pointy' as they had a good rounding off during the last Ice Age.
There are
popular walks up to Pen y Fan (886 metres above sea level and the highest point
in southern Britain) for
spectacular views. |
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This is one of my favourite pictures. Taken during
the very cold winter of 1997 on the south western slopes of the Brecon
Beacons. Every now and then, a bitterly cold blast of Arctic air would
force us to turn our backs to the wind.
As we did so, so did this couple
in front of us. Click! |
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More recently, we had a cold snap in
February 2004 with just enough snow to warrant a short foray to the Storey
Arms at the height of the pass of the A470 to Brecon. Here, a group of
children possibly having their first experience of snow man building. |
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I used to work on a TV programme called 'One
man and his Dog'.
But we never did record it in the snow. This
particular dog must feel a bit overwhelmed by the depth of it in relative
terms!
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Ed Cloutman, my photographic friend from
Rhoose came along too. We had an unspoken friendly competition with our twin
Canon 10D's. |
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Sun, snow, and a few tufts of
grass.... |
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....And some wind |
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Although we were there quite early, the
virgin snow wasn't! |
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Birds were there a plenty. This
was just below a well stocked bird table near the visitor centre. |
A couple of shots below of other man made
tracks which once again look so much better in snow than they would have
done in mud. |
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Trees take on their own special beauty
especially when their branches are lined with snow. |
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Pen y Fan and Corn Du, the 'Twin
Peaks' of South Wales. |
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Fan Fawr at 554 metres is the peak to the
south west of Pen y Fan. |
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Just nice shapes and colour in the driven
snow |
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This, I think, is my favourite
shot of the day. The Canon coped well with auto exposure, much better than I
remember with film. |
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Then it was back to the car for a slippery journey down
to the A470 and home. An excellent morning walking through crisp snow in
bright sunshine. A rare taste of 'proper' winter in our area. |
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panoramic snow scene
here |
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During July/August of 1949, I spent quite
a bit of time staying with the wardens at the Youth hostel, who were
personal friends of mine, in Crickhowell.
The lovely memories came back when I saw
the Brecon Beacons as we climbed them so many times, all the lovely
wild horses, and one day collected about 5 lbs. mushrooms up there.
The following day we climbed up the Sugar Loaf, and following that
Table mountain, up there the wild life was wonderful, and we collected
Hazel Nuts.
We have been living in Canada for almost
50 years, but did visit Crickhowell, and travelled the Breconshire
Beacons etc. during one of our visits to the UK. Time of course has
passed now for us to climb those lovely places.
|
Joan Cartwright |
Canada |
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