Elan Valley

The working week in summary

• I could handle a four day week all the time
• Mammia Mia was a bit of fun
• The harbour festival with 2 tall ships, music, markets (they were french ones and had lots of lovely breads, cheeses, olives, oils and stir frys cooked in huge woks) was fun on Friday night - but just as the mayor was opening the festival and the music was about to begin the heavens opened up. Sitting under umbrellas wasn't much fun, and neither was riding home through rain and puddles. But as we stood in the hallway, saturated and dripping, we did see the funny side. (I promise that is the only time that I will mention the weather this blog).
• There is a little ghost in the house, it moves soap from the shower to the bath and eats all my icecream but leaves Harry's chocolate icecream (the ghost and Harry could be in collusion).
• They are painting the stairwells at work, the same colour as our lounge in Wellington - and even the smell of paint was a pleasant one as I was reminded of home
• Harry was given a really good book from a workmate with lots of walks in it (ringbinder so you can take the page with you) and so we ...
  

...took off for the weekend for a walk described in this new addition to our library in the Welsh countryside Elan Valley. There are four reservoirs in quite close proximity originally built to supply water to Birmingham about 118 kilometres away. The first one we visited was Caban Coch Dam and we walked for a couple of hours around the reservoir and then through farm land back to the visitors centre. There were a couple of quite steep paths along the way, so we stopped to take photos of the scenery of the fields, dry stone walls and particularly of an old dam which was used to test the explosives used by the Dambusters in World War 2. When Caban Coch dam was being built a smaller one to the side served the local community with water (Nant y Gro Dam). As the larger one was completed the smaller dam was used for a trial of the explosives for the 'bouncing bomb' used in the Dambuster raid on the Mohne and Sorpe dams used to supply the Ruhr Valley in Germany. The Nant y Gro Dam was one fifth the size of the Mohne dam (a co-incidence). The tests were completed in 1 May 1942 with the first attempt unsuccessful as it planted the bomb behind the dam wall but the second attempt was successful and set the charge in contact with the dam wall. Barnes Wallis (known as an explosive expert) then went to develop the bouncing bomb trialled at Orford Ness which we visited earlier this year. The demolished dam is left as it was bombed all those years ago.

During our walk we were surprised that there were few birds and wildlife (except for sheep and we continue to be amazed at how tame they are - these ones must have had a shearer with either a creative side as many of them had clumps of wool still attached and I am convinced one had a mohawk - none of them were docked). When we thought about it we wondered if the shortage of birdlife was because most of the vegetation had been cleared except for a row of conifers and a pine tree plantation. Apparently nesting boxes had been placed for tawny owls, bats and small woodland birds but they were either not using them or had finished nesting, or perhaps were fast asleep if they were nocturnal. We were told that we could see pied flycatchers, redstarts and wood warblers but if we had seen any I know that we would have said 'wonder what that bird is'. We did notice a farmer cutting bracken at the roots presumably to let the grass grow for the sheep. The trail followed the trackbed of the former Birmingham corporation Railway, built to transport the workers and the materials used for building the dams. At one stage we wandered through the little village of Elan just a few houses clumped together beside the sparkling river. Gardens pretty, but even with so much space some of the houses were semi detached and some did not have garages or drive on access - but in a valley like that I hoped they had decent insulation during the winter.



After our walk we decided to drive around to the other dams and enjoyed seeing the uniqueness of them all. There are five dams in all Caban Coch, Claerwell, Carrug ddu, Penyyarreg, Craig Goch and each was loaded with statistics on their size, width and capacity (the largest approximately 10 billion gallons - those Birmingham people sure do use a lot). Water was low, I guess summer could be the reason, so we didn't see the rather pretty pictures in the postcards, but instead could study the design of the dam right down to the base (each one had a small hydro electricity generator as well). We have taken some photographs of the postcards so we can enjoy looking at the dams in different seasons. I was pleased to see that as we watched water spilled over the side of one of the dams. I won't go into too much detail about the dams because I must admit even trying to sort out the photos I don't think I have got it all right - they all were similar, but unique in their own way. Some didn't have much scenery around them but others looked down to the valley with the river running through it - one was at the end of a dead end road and the others met the road at various places enticing the tourist to stand and look over the concrete walls. We got into conversation with a man from Hereford who gave us a little bit of history of the area but mainly talked about rugby and his visit to Wellington.

























We drove home through Rhaedyr (pronounced Radar) the little village at the top of the reservoirs and stopped at a little pub for dinner - window boxes galore in this little town of Crickhowell. The management was new and although very nice we decided quite quickly they could have been new to the hotel industry as well as the hotel. They said there was a 30 minute wait as they were really busy (three tables had customers), one customer complained they didn't get half of what they ordered, and we didn't get our garlic bread (but we didn't need it so didn't complain except to make sure it was deducted from our bill) and chips instead of new potatoes. I watched the scene with the customers, slightly amused at the antics (could have almost been a Fawlty Towers except nothing was spilt and there was no rudeness on behalf of the manager) and we enjoyed sitting reading the local newspapers and putting our feet up as it got dark outside. In the end they didn't have their card machine working so we had to hunt around for cash - it could easily have been dishes for us and a very late night!!
So Sunday, I had been waiting for for simply ages. We were off to see the Severn Bore - which since it involved the River Severn thought I would quote from Harold Blaisdell (no idea who he is) 'All the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is no way shared by the fish'. The Bore is one of Britains natural phenomena. It is a large surge wave that occurs at different times of the year depending on the seasons and the tide. Apparently, nearly 60 bores occur throughout the world but the largest is a 7.5 metre one in China on the Hang-chou-fe. The shape of the estuary funnels the water into a narrow channel as the tide rises and it forms a large wave (known as a bore). People can even surf it. So, we did our research and got up early around 7.00 and by 8.15 were carting our chairs, blanket, sausage sandwiches (kiwi ingenjuity came to the fore when we realised that we had no tin foil to wrap our sausages to keep them warm - so we put them in a thermos and had great fun coaching them out of the small neck at the other end - also forgot to mention that in Krakow we used our toothbrush handles to stir our coffee and our keys to cut our fruit - we'll have sausage flavoured coffee for a while I suspect) through wet grass and cow pats to the Severn River. We sat for a while before realising we were just a tad early (it takes longer to get upriver obviously!!!) and people wandered past walking their dogs (one couple had spent 7 hours in Auckland airport while waiting for a flight to the Cook Islands - their only experience of our country - and then continued on to tell us how the cows in the next paddock had butted him in the air and broken his back -he thought they were spooked by their dog. The story gets worse as the hospital didn't xray him, but after a month of pain he returned to discovered broken bones which they needed to operate - I suggested he was lucky he could walk, which he agreed, but also I think we all have the right to question decisions when it comes to our health). I did hope he would walk as far as the gate to close it but he didn't and when the harmless looking dairy cows decided to walk through the open gate I wasn't too keen to hang around. Harry stood his ground but I walked down the river in the hope of not missing the bore and they followed me!! They did eventually find some apple trees to keep them amused for a while so I could watch the bore while they eat and watched me. Hate to say it but the bore lived up to its name and it was nothing much more than a wake from a small jet boat. We then drove around a bit looking for a mansion I was keen to see (but gave up because the print out from the internet missed out the directions) and went grocery shopping (what a waste of a Sunday afternoon) and prepared some pizzas for friends coming around for dinner (that was a lot of fun).