"You may not believe us, but we've just seen a Red fox."
On the track to Brithdir Bach.
Beautiful flowering Gorse. Was this the best we were going to get?
Looking across the valley towards Cilcain from near our lunch spot.
Young lambs wanting a feed.
On the path (not a short cut as we thought) towards Cilcain.
Lambs in the right place, sheltering from the wind and the rain.
A few Bluebells, but the best were yet to come.
More Bluebells next to the path.
More Bluebells in the Nant Gain Valley.
A displaying Peacock in a garden in the Alyn valley.
Not easy to photograph through the trees.
Mal on the Leet.
Early purple orchids or Purple spotted orchids?
Looking South from the wood South of Cefn Mawr Quarry.
More Bluebells as we approached Cadole.
Walk stats: Distance: 8.9 miles. Climb: 1174'.
Time: 5 hours 40 minutes. On the move walking average: 2.1 m.p.h. Overall walk average: 1.6 m.p.h.
Group: Martyn, Sue and Michel, Jim, Mal and Wendy.
The forecast for today wasn't too good, it was back to Winter gear with rain and cold winds on the menu - they weren't wrong. We managed to set off in the dry, but within about ten minutes and it started to rain, thankfully only very light, but it persisted up to mid-day.
Almost as soon as it stopped we decided to take advantage and had lunch using a broken stone wall to sit on. We had views over the valley looking towards Cilcain.
Despite the rain we saw good numbers of House martins as we went past Cae Madog and everywhere we went we were accompanied by singing Willow warblers.
Despite what we thought, we din't take a short cut, the only deviation from the described route was near the end when we took the Cadole path from the Leet!
As we approached Cilcain, we saw several very young lambs that hadn't been born very long, and two we could have been only a few minutes from the actual birth. One of the twin lambs got separated from its mother and Michel (founder member of the Lamb Busters) had to help to get it reunited.
The next surprise of the day was the number of Bluebells, particularly on the South facing sided of the Nant Gain Valley, East of Pentre. Seeing our first orchids of the year was good too.
Although the signpost said Loggerheads was only 1.5 miles along the Leet, it seemed much longer and the climb past the Cefn Mawr Quarry to Cadole, just about finished us off! What joy it was to see the cars as we headed down the Cadole Road and we could see round the bend in the road.
Nevertheless it had been a good walk and it always makes you feel good when you finish a walk in warm Sunshine and dry waterproofs.
Birds seen or heard today included: Blue tit, Great tit, European robin, Blackcap, Common blackbird, House martin, Carrion crow, Rook, Goldfinch, Common pheasant, House sparrow, Common chaffinch, Common buzzard, Collared dove, Black-billed magpie, Eurasian jay and Woodpigeon.
We also saw a Peacock displaying in front of a Peahen in a garden.
After walk drinks were enjoyed by some of the group at the Glasfryn where Purple Moose's Snowdonia Ale went down well and we debated how the Purple Moose Brewery at Portmadog was described as being just over 44 miles away.
New to us all was a new wooden walkway leading from the main Loggerheads Country Park centre to a new car park above on the Cilcain Road (still Pay and Display).
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