Around Cwm Ceirw 31st August 2008

One of the earlier views to the distant hills of Snowdonia.

The group at one the working wind turbines. Caer Carodog

Walk stats: Distance:9.7 miles; Climb:1398'.

Time:4 hours 38 minutes; Walking average:2.5 m.p.h.;Overall walk average:2.1 m.p.h.

Group:Martyn, Richard, Dave J., and Annie H.

This was a very pleasant walk in weather conditions that were a lot drier than we expected. Although it was quite humid it didn't rain until the last ten minutes of the of the walk and none of us put on waterproofs! This was a very varied walk giving some good distant views towards Snowdonia in particular. The main challenge of the day was avoiding bulls, one in particular started running across the field in a direction we thought was to head us off. Our escape was to cross a stream/boggy area in in her haste Annie dented her pride by falling over. In the event of it the bull was in fact running away from us, so our fears were unjustified. Every field we seemed to cross seemed to have its own bull, but thankfully the rest of them kept to themselves.

The route went close to some wind turbines, two of which working and two that weren't. Just around the corner from one that was working we saw a man come from the direction of one that wasn't working but suddenly just started. Jokingly I said to him "Have you started that one up?". To my surprise he replied "Yes". He spent the next ten minutes or so explaining why he had to manually start the wind turbines every so often. He also pointed out that they produce electricity about 87% of the time, a fact that most people are unaware of.

Further on in the walk I slipped off an old wooden bridge more a plank of wood over a stream and involuntarily sat down. Fortunately I didn't get wet, but like Annie only lost my dignity!

Near the end of the walk we went past a hill fort called Caer Caradog and decided to explore it next time as part of another walk.

Buzzards were the star birds today, we had very good close-up views of several birds.

Birds seen today included:Buzzard, Raven, Carrion crow, Jackdaw, Herring gull, Lesser Black-backed gull, Black-headed gull, Redstart, Grey Heron, Pied wagtail, Chaffinch, Meadow pipit, Goldfinch and Stonechat.

After walk drinks were at the Britannia Inn, Pentre Halkyn. The Lees bitter seemed to be in particulaly good nick!