Walking and wildlife in wet but warmish Wales

Bad alliteration alert, sorry, but in other news we had a lovely time in Mid Wales recently.

We hired a cottage with Sykes Cottages off the beaten track in a village called Abbey-Cwm-Hir, away from all the distractions of modern life and got back to nature.

Water-Break-Its-Neck Waterfall, a short drive from the cottage

The winding roads led to my favourite husband quote so far as a an anxious car passenger – ‘it’s not the speed on the speedometer you need to pay attention to, it’s how fast you feel you are going’. Think on that.

Apart from an incessant need to shout ‘goolies’ wherever we went, our toddler had a lovely time spotting wildlife.

A dead shrew was our first discovery but this led onto more living creatures including some impressive black slugs and a swallow’s nest in the rafters of our cottage.

Enjoying the view of one of the majestic Elan Dams

The Elan Valley was a beautiful place to walk in peaceful surroundings and Gigrin Farm was a great place to watch the red kite in the area being fed daily as well as enjoying a trail around the site.

Dots in the sky (aka red kites) at Gigrin Farm

Our two trips to the supermarket at Llandrindod Wells involved spending more money on toys than food but our toddler did come back with an insect pot that he could examine creatures through, although he only wanted pretend ones, not the scary real ones, so collected a plastic spider, three empty snails shells and a pine cone.