Friday, May 29, 2015

Melin Court Falls, Banwen


Above Melin Court Falls, my friend and I met up just after 12 noon, we had a meeting place planned, I couldn't find it, and after driving far to far on a wrong road, I stopped in a lay by, saw a text from her and she had actually changed our rendezvous place and time!!  So I had plenty of time to drive a good way back to near where I had actually started!!! lol...  Never mind!  We went to the falls above first, bit of a muddy pathway, but well worth the short trek and obligatory photo shoot!  These will be my last photos!!  No more, there are only so many angles I can actually take of these falls and where you stand is very limited!

We had our picnic at the tables near the parking area for Melin Court Falls, near the Marion Hall, incorrectly spelt! ha!!

Then we went onto Banwen, a small village, a huge nature reserve and a community area for courses, its called D.O.V.E. They do workshops on loads of various subjects....

Also, Banwen is where St Patrick was born!


We left the car parked there at D.O.V.E. after having a coffee in their lovely cafĂ©... and we walked! We walked, and walked!!  Took far too many photos... most of which are just the same, lots of green, lots of pine, and lots of nothing really!

Although I quite like the fir cones above, the old and the new....


And the pine trees old branches new cones or branches?


Strange neither of us had ever seen so many different pines in one place, or the way they are growing, so many different buds, green and red...

I got walloped by a huge dog... I was trying to ignore him, out of fear really!  My friend spoke to it/him, I turned and he lolloped over to me and jumped! Would have been okay but he was as tall as me and his face in mine, his paws nearly on my shoulders... and mud all over me! He's been in one of the many lakes!

We reached a certain point, where the wind turbines reached the tracks and we thought we better turn about, only we turned about a bit too far, more because we wanted a different route back to the car, it took us further up the mountain and deeper into the forest, which is so beautiful, almost mystical, we expected trolls or pixies and fairies...

This bower beneath not man made, the mosses and tendrils of ground plants pulling the branches down, I actually got in this and did a selfie!!!  Of course you can't actually see where I am, so pointless to post it!


This 'below' in the bower and all about the forest floor... We hadn't a clue as to what it is?  Its a type of fungus we thought, its hard'ish, sticky'ish... very strange, neither of us ever having seen it before... Any ideas amigos??


We walked a fair way up this forest path [mud road], and reached a junction of other forest paths [mud roads!], I turned on my GPS and we followed a road back down at an angle to that which we had come up!  Or we would have been going nowhere fast!  Except further up the mountain and of course we knew we had to go down and left... We criss-crossed a fire break, which helped us keep track of where we were, and I told my friend we had missed our last cup of coffee, seeing as it was well gone 4:30pm... although she didn't believe me, for some reason!  As if I would joke about the time!

Then she wanted to see a lake we could see from the road, we did, and we saw some strange fish in it!  Dark with red fins above and below?? We continued out the other side of that field, passing through sheep, not keen on us doing so, the little lambs looking very nervous, just of me though, friend is vegetarian, me most definitely not and talking about mint sauce probably not helping!!

We came out on a road, and then after five minutes found it to be the wrong one and had to do a reverse turn, quite a long way back, we did find the car again, 5:30pm and eight miles since we left it! Not bad going, considering Tuesday was the day I was going to rest after so much toing and froing! for the last couple of weeks and back to work on Wednesday.... still long time dead eh!

And after days work Wednesday, sore throat Thursday, now I seem to have a cold... good going really, I don't remember having had a cold this year... although I am not happy to have one now of course!

TTFN
Marian

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