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Garden Block 10 – Spring On – Fall Back

Following the launch of Pont Felin Gât as a feature at the National Botanic Garden of Wales I thought I would go and see for myself how it looks in the autumn.  I intended to go last week but it rained and then rained some more so I didn’t go.  This week I decided that I would go rain or shine!  Well I could have done with a bit more shine but I put on my boots, picked up my camera and set off.  It’s a very nice walk.  The way markers are easy to see (orange topped posts) and there are information boards along the way.  It was quite wet under foot but it had been raining so I was prepared for that and, to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I expected.  I took some photos along the way – let me just re-phrase that – I took a lot of photos along the way, the trees were so lovely in their autumn colours that I couldn’t resist.  That’s the beauty of digital cameras, isn’t it; you can take loads of photos even if you then discard all but the one or two that you really want.  Walking through the woods was very enjoyable and it was quite windy so the leaves were falling like big golden snowflakes.  The rain had made the water run quite rapidly so that was nice too.  I didn’t see a lot of wildlife but then I didn’t have binoculars and some of those trees are quite tall.  I did see a wren, which decided to fly just as I got it in my viewfinder but hey ho that’s life. 

 

I came out of the woods and onto the farm land just as it began to rain but it wasn’t enough to worry about and it wasn’t cold anyway.  The scenery all around from up there is lovely and there are also good views of the Great Glass House.  When I got down to the lower field at the end of the walk, Tim’s Welsh Blacks were there. They look intimidating but they just looked up to see who this intruder was and then went back to the green, green grass.  All in all it was a very enjoyable walk.

I first went to Pont Felin Gât at the end of April when there was a yellow and white carpet of wood anemones, golden saxifrage and celandine.  There were thousands upon thousands of flowers, it was stunningly beautiful and something that I will always remember.  I reckoned that I was probably about a week too early for the bluebells.  What a sight that would have been.  We went on holiday then and didn’t go back to Pont Felin Gât for a few weeks.  When we did, we took some friends with us and they loved it but commented that we were probably about a week too late for the bluebells.  Ah well, some you win, some you lose.

Pam Murden