View from Table Mountain, Crickhowell

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This photograph shows the ESE view from Table Mountain (also known as Crug Hywel) above Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. It is a rather grand name for a fairly minor bump at 451m on the side of the higher summit of Pen Cerrig-calch (701m). However, the "bump" is not without interest. It is the site of an Iron Age hillfort built on a landslip that created an almost level site that was then fortified with ditches and stone walls. The remains of these workings can be seen in the foreground of the photograph. The highest distant summit is Sugar Loaf.

 photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Pen y Fan seen from the Blorenge

During a recent family walk on the Blorenge, a summit overlooking Abergavenny, we were favoured by warm, sunny weather with a light breeze. Visibility was quite good too and shortly after we set off on our walk through the heather and bilberry we stopped to look at the distant Pen y Fan (886 metres, 2907 feet), the high point of the Brecon Beacons. In the photograph it is the rightmost of the two sloping peaks on the central horizon, the lower summit being Corn Du (873m). In the foreground of the photograph is an old farm surrounded by small fields edged with tumbledown dry stone walls.

Gilwern Hill and industrial landscapes

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The views of Gilwern Hill from the Blorenge are dominated by a telecommunications mast of the twentieth century and limestone quarries of the early nineteenth century and later. Tracks with man-made gentle inclines tell of horse-drawn tramway systems that moved the quarried stone. Dilapidated drystone walls mark out, as they have done for decades (probably centuries) improved grassland claimed from the heather and bracken. Old and derelict buildings and grassed over undulations can be seen, the latter the only remains of the village of Pwll-du that was demolished in the 1960s after the quarries closed and its inhabitants relocated to nearby valley villages including Govilon and Llanffwyst.

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Today the area offers walks for hikers as well as holidays and courses built around outdoor pursuits. On the day of our visit the cloud was rising from the hills and mountain tops but still lingered on distant Pen y Fan, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons of south Wales.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

View of Pen y Gadair Fawr

When you walk along the ridge that includes the highest point in Herefordshire (and Southern England) you have good views to the west and east. In the easterly direction is a panorama across the county of Herefordshire. To the west are some of the higher peaks of the easternmost Welsh Brecon Beacons. The notable prominence on the skyline in the photograph is Pen y Gadair Fawr, a peak of 2,625 feet (800m). The name translates as "top of the large chair". During our walk we had intermittent low clouds that   looked threatening, but as the day progressed they all but disappeared.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Climbing Pen y Fan

Recently, with one of our sons and a grand-daughter, we walked to the top of Pen y Fan, a mountain in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Pen y Fan, at 886m (2,907 feet) is the highest mountain in the southern British Isles. It is a relatively accessible peak though the walk from the car park is pretty much "up" until the summit is reached. When we left the car the temperature was 22⁰ Celsius with a relatively gentle breeze. At the top we had to break out jackets and hats to counter the very strong wind and the temperature of 12⁰ Celsius (it felt much colder than that).

The late afternoon light benevolently hung around until we were well into our descent and we managed to capture a few reasonable photographs.

photo 1 © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

View of Sugar Loaf

Quite a few peaks across the world attract the name "Sugar Loaf". The best known is perhaps the one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its shape is a quite good approximation of the shape of an old loaf of sugar i.e. rather like an artillery shell. The Sugar Loaf on the edge of the Brecon Beacons above Abergavenny, Wales, is a less spectacular example and one that doesn't accord too well with the sugar loaf's shape, resembling (from some angles) the flattened cone of a volcano. In fact it is not made of igneous rock but is a ridge of sedimentary Old Red Sandstone. My view is taken from an adjacent, slightly lower peak, The Skirrid, made of the same rock.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100