Three Hours in the Car, for an Hour of Nature.

‘It’s easy to feel like the day just melts away during winter, and before you realise your alive and present the day is all but over. It’s amazing what just an hour of walking in natural beauty can do for you.’

Often on a lazy Sunday with the Welsh winter weather reinforcing my reluctance, I regularly have this mental tussle ‘should I head out or not?’. I checked the weather and despite Cardiff’s skies being filled with blankets of driving rain, the weather front was passing over from the west quite quickly leaving a short window of clear skies for the last 2 hrs of the day. However, sunset was only a few hours away and by the time I’d have jumped in the car, got some petrol, left the city and drove out to the west. With only 1hr to explore and take some photographs once I arrived. I’d be arriving just as ‘Magic Hour’ starts. Was it worth the effort? Driving a total of 3 hrs to walk around for 1 hr? 

I took the gamble and setting off 100 miles to the Gower Peninsular to a hill I’d oddly never really thought of climbing. The big hill rising up from the beach at Llangennith is around 400m tall and reminds me of one of my favourite spots near St Davids Head in Pembrokeshire, Carn Llidi. Both of these coast hugging hills have ancient Neolithic burial mounds, and have the most amazing views in all directions facing the setting sun. I arrived as expected with an hour of light left. It was stunning. The visibility was perfect and the crisp clean salty air was filled with orange light. 

As brief as this walk was and despite how much I hate to rush and feel like I’m against the clock, I’d made the right decision. It’s easy to feel like the day just melts away during winter and before you realise your alive and present the day is all but over. It’s amazing what just an hour of walking in natural beauty can do for you. From now on I’m committing to heading out at least once a week and posting more like this, but next time I’ll definitely be leaving earlier…

Climbing the 'Dragon's Back'

This rugged, less crowded and maybe less dramatic area of the national park has a wilder underrated charm.’ 

This Winter I’ve made a commitment to myself to get out into nature at least once a week and blog about the trip, the photography and what I’ve encountered. Mostly as an exercise for myself, but I’m hoping that there are at least a few people that can take something from it. Nevertheless, I researched a tonne of walks and areas to visit that I had never visited before and compiled a pretty strong list, and The ‘Dragon’s Back’ was my first stop. 

 The ‘Dragon’s Back’ is pretty popular in Wales, it’s a series of hills leading up to the moors which resemble the humps of a dragons back, hence the name. Located in the heart of the Black Mountains at the eastern end of the Brecon Beacons national park, it features commanding views over the local valleys and mountains with the remains of an Iron Age fort, which tells you everything you need to know about how significance this mountain pass had in ancient times. With a fort here on the lower slopes of the ‘Dragon’s Back’, at the entrance of the pass it could control all the movement through the valley from mid Wales coming and going South. The Brecon Beacons northern edge marks and provides a natural barrier between Mid and South Wales, and the ancient Celtic tribes utilised this while fighting amongst themselves, and eventually the invading Romans. 

 The walk starts from a honesty box car park and follows a horse track on the side of the road, until turning right up a country lane. From here you can’t really get lost, unless you unfortunately wander into the farmhouse at the end of the lane before the path continues slightly right. The weather changed from sunny and warm to howling wind and snow showers in the space of a few hours. Once you reach the top of the ‘Dragon’s Back’ you have the option to continue onto the path to the top of the second highest mountain in southern Britain, Waun Fach. Up here the terrain flattens out onto a welsh upland moor, which has an eerily silent but beautiful atmosphere to it.  As the light was fading quickly and the snow started to fall, I decided not to wander to far up here, I turned back hoping to reach the car before I lost the light completely.

 The thing which struck me the most about this area of the national park was that I hadn’t previously considered coming here, and after this initial visit I definitely felt I’d been missing out. It’s a quieter, less crowded and maybe less dramatic area than the peaks and spines of the central Beacons, but it has its own underrated charm. The Black Mountains provide stunning views of the more popular mountains of the national park, The from here looks directly west following straight across the northern edge of the mountains. I was more than happy to have a peaceful and undisturbed view of Pen Y Fan and its sister peaks, rather than join the selfie queue at its summit. 

On a serious note it’s worth mentioning that Pen y Fan has become so popular these days, that cars line all sides of the road for hundreds of meters on the weekends, as even the new car parks simply cannot take the volume of people wanting to climb this iconic mountain. It’s hard to feel the same magic climbing Pen y Fan these days, although I think people wanting to connect with nature is great, there are still wilder places not too far away, in the national parks hidden valleys and far flung corners.

Storm Ciara

‘From a photography point of view, the most interesting thing to photograph here was the buoy. Having taken the full brunt of the storm for the last few days, it was now washed in a golden glow of light beneath a peaceful pale blue sky, with the sound of its now muted bell ringing steadily on a calm wind.’

I drove about an hour or so west from Cardiff to a popular cliff top Cafe near Nash Point lighthouse along the Glamorganshire coast. I hoped to see the tail end of what’s been a pretty savage storm, Ciara. Away from the coast you would’ve thought that the storm had completely past, the wind had died down and the sky had patches of blue with bursts of sunlight throughout most of the day. That was until I drove up a small hill and onto the cliff top at Nash Point and first saw the size and ferocity of the waves that were pounding the limestone cliffs below me. Water was being blown up and sideways across the road at a frightening speed as I parked facing south, out to sea. I had around an hour or so of light left,and I was hoping that as the tail end of the storm was passing there would be a chance for some sun to break through to illuminate the tumultuous Severn. As it turned out the storm worsened a few minutes after I left the car. After walking about 50 meters, I decided to turn back towards a small cafe building, using it as a shelter from the insanely powerful and erratic gusts of wind blowing in from the sea. 

As I peered cautiously around the corner of the cafe towards the sea, I noticed a buoy just off shore being thrown around with the sound of its bell frantically swinging, filling the cold air. It came in and out of sight as it dipped and rose with the peaks and troughs of the huge heavy Atlantic waves. There’s something amazing about seeing such raw power, it’s scary, and it definitely puts things into perspective. I absolutely love watching pockets of rain and hail sweep in towards you from the sea. I eventually retreated back to the relative safety of my car, and poured myself a green tea. Thankfully after a few more minutes the storm started to calm, and the skies cleared and filled with an amazing orange pastel light just as I had hoped. From a photography point of view, the most interesting thing to photograph here was the buoy. Having taken the full brunt of the storm for the last few days, it was now washed in a golden glow of light beneath a peaceful pale blue sky, with the sound of its now muted bell ringing steadily on a calm wind.  

As it happened, the light lasted only for a few minutes, as it often does if you are lucky this winter. The sun dipped below a distant wall of cloud just above the horizon, and I headed home.

35mm: Dec / Jan 2020

Canon EOS 100

Canon 50mm f1.8 + Sigma 35mm Art f1.4

Kodak Gold 400