Tale of Two Piers

Yesterday evening we made a short visit to Llandudno and walked out on the well preserved Victorian pier as the sun was going down giving great skies.

This morning we took a stroll through Colwyn Bay town down to the Pier - a sorry sight as it has been empty for many years now as the owner went bankrupt. Hopefully they will restore it before it completely collapses.

Two Images from Friday

A couple of images from Cardiff Bay area - the new bright Millennium Centre and the derelict dark Bay Railway Building

The Best of the Bunch

I have only just had time to sort through the Red Kite pictures and find the best of the many hundreds I took on the afternoon that we spent at Llandeusant. Mostly I have kept just the sharp images but there are some where the attitude of the bird is unusal and these have stayed (at the moment!)

Blaenavon

I was expecting the Welsh Valleys to be littered with remnants of the coal and steel industry. In fact, almost all traces of the former industries have been completely erased - the buildings demolished and the slag heaps landscaped into country parks for mountain biking and such like.

In December 2000 UNESCO named the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape as a World Heritage Site for the following reason:

"The area around Blaenavon bears eloquent and exceptional testimony to the pre-eminence of South Wales as the world's major producer of iron and coal in the 19th century. All the necessary elements can be seen, including coal and ore mines, quarries, a primitive railway system, furnaces, the homes of workers, and the social infrastructure of their community."

We visited both the Iron works and the Big Pit coal mine.

Unexpected birds

While visiting Treorchy to photograph the buildings and cemetery, we were amazed to see both a heron and a dipper in the stream alongside the busy main street. The heron took off almost immediately but the dipper continues to move along the bank dipping into the water at regular intervals. It then rested for a time on one leg giving us a chance to photograph it.

Kite in the Sunshine!!

After Monday's rain and poor light, yesterday was perfect for photographing the kites. They also obviously enjoyed the weather as, at one point, there were 20 of them circling overhead in the thermals. This one did an obliging quick fly past just at a distance to be correct in the frame (small crop behind the bird to decentralise it)

Red Kites

Unfortunately the light was very poor for our attempts at photographing the red kites up in the Brecon Beacons and it was raining!

These two were taken at ISO1000 and therefore have a fair amount of colour noise but they do show the wonderful colours and shapes of the birds.

Old and New

This huge oil refinery at Rhoscrowther has been built close to a small village - you can see the very tall church tower (marked with red arrow) completely dominated by the refinery chimneys.

We visited the churchyard - a very peaceful place in spite of the hum of the refinery close by.

Pembroke Dock

We spent Saturday walking around Pembroke Dock - a town waiting to be discovered by the tourists. They are hoping to get a Harry Potter museum set up there as parts of the films were shot in the area. This will certainly bring in the masses but I doubt they will appreciate the stylish Georgian architecture and Naval History from Nelson's time to the Sunderland Flying Boat station in the last war.

Upper picture is Shipwright Inn and Gun Tower Museum.


Lower picture one of the fine Georgian terraces in the Naval Dockyard

Ramsey Island

We visited Ramsey Island yesterday on a perfect sunny day. The island is off St David's Head, Pembrokeshire. It is owned by the RSPB and takes only 40 visitors a day, so we were pleased to be able to get on a landing trip.

We saw several of their 'special' birds including peregrines and choughs.

National Botanic Gardens of Wales

Today we visited the National Botanic Gardens of Wales built in 2000 with the main greenhouse designed by Norman Foster. It is the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring 110 m long by 60 m wide.

We then went to Pendine Sands, a 7 mile beach of firm sands used to set four world land speed records, including two by Malcolm Campbell.

Kittiwakes at Mumbles

From wet Wales

Summer ended again yesterday evening and Monday was back to cool wet conditions. We visited Penarth which has a splendid pier and Barry Island which was a bit bleak in the strong winds.

On Sunday, we visited the Newport Transporter Bridge only to find it has been closed for two years and isn't due to repopen till October 2010. It is one of only two such bridges in the UK - the other being in Middlesborough. You can just see the transporter platform going across - the workmen use it to get their supplies to the workshop on the other bank






We then went into Cardiff and walked round Cardiff Bay area - I greatly enjoyed the Senedd building - wonderful architecture and interesting heat and water conservation features in the design.

Rainy Wales

Bridge at Connays Quay on a very wet morning in Wales - also have some dawn shots that may be more pleasing though the sombre sky does seem to go with the structure