River Daze

Although the clear blue sky gave the impression that spring is on the way the temperature was only nudging 1 degree Celsius. This particular walk is a regular of Butterballs and the last time I accompanied him on New Years Day 2010, the battery on the camera was flat (this had absolutely nothing to do with the celebrations the previous night!).



Perhaps it was a little optimistic to expect to catch a glimpse of the heron's that frequent this section of the river, and although there were lots of dippers, blue tits, coal tits and ducks the elusive heron's failed to put in an appearance.



The start of the path passes in the front of 'Bridge House' at Pont-Y-Cefn, you are then only ever a few feet away from the river itself on both sides of the bank. Deciding to ignore the signs and risk the wrath of anyone felling trees, although it must have been their day off because there was no sign of any arboricultural activity whatsoever, the route takes you under a bridge which is part of the extremely busy Heads of the Valley road (A465) and runs almost parallel to the Taff Trail, only at a much lower level.



I assume that this must be the feeder to the lake that requires the tree maintenance. This is one of 44 regional projects sponsored by the Valleys Regional Park and funded through ERDF, to restore the historically important Cyfarthfa Lake Feeder and enhancement of the adjacent equally important old tramway to provide 1 kilometre of new pedestrian access between Cyfarthfa Park and Taf Fechan Nature Reserve. The feeder was used as a leat to top up the lake in Cyfarthfa Park to power the Crawshay iron works between 1786 and 1910.



There was a large group of elderly walkers on the entry to Rees's Wood also enjoying the route today. After crossing Pontsarn bridge the path takes you underneath the seven arch span of the Pontsarn Viaduct (which was walked across in November).



Crossing a footbridge at the furthest part of the walk you return south past the famous Blue Pool, a popular spot for swimmers during the summer months. Passing below Trefechan you once again enter the woodland section at Coed Llaindir which is part of the Cwm Taf Fechan Nature Reserve, eventually crossing a bridge over the weir before returning to the start.





There are extremely dramatic sections of the river where it has cut through the rocky strata to create narrow fast flowing waterfalls, while in significant contrast other sections are wider, flat and calmer.





The walk was 6 miles and took about 2 hours.