Drams, Canals and Dogs

Another discovery walk today in my valley, the Neath Valley.  Mountains are great and I’m lucky living in Wales that I have the Brecon Beacons on my doorstep, and Snowdonia 3 hours up the road, but it doesn’t mean you always have to walk a mountain.  You can see and find so much on your doorstep, hopefully this walk will show you what you’re missing.

The walk started and finished at the Aberdulais Falls and Tin Works, it’s run by the National Trust so costs money to go in and walk around but it is well worth it.  Aberdulais may seem a sleepy little village now, but the history of the place is far more interesting than you will ever know, especially if you don’t visit it.

From the falls I made my way up and through Cilfrew Village, which brought back memories of my younger days when we regularly made our way to Penscynor Wildlife Park.  The wildlife park has been gone a long time now, replaced by housing but remnants of it can still be found if you look hard enough.

By now you’re walking through Craig Gwladys Country Park, a haven for wildlife such as buzzards, nuthatches, woodpeckers, bats, butterflies and dragonflies.  The park holds ancient woodland status, tree varieties include Beech, Oak, Birch and the introduced variants of Larch being Japanese and European.  We’ll touch on introducing foreign species later on in this walk.

The park is a very popular place for dog walkers, as I must have come across 5 or 6 people out walking their dogs.  One even started following me for awhile, and I had to start walking back to where I met their master so they could be reunited.  It was good to see they were responsible dog owners as well, because there was no mess in the park at all from what I could see.  I miss not having a dog, they’re special friends and ideal walking companions.  Anyone want to lend me a dog for my next walk?

The park being on the edge of the South Wales coalfield also contains old disused mine workings and old dram roads used to take the coal down to the canal or railway.  As you walk through the park towards Cadoxton you can see plenty of geology.

Having made my way out of the park, you now descend into the little village of Cadoxton, a little detour to the church of St.Catwg’s to view an interesting little gravestone.  You know it as soon as you see it, as at the top of the gravestone it says “To record MURDER.”  The grave is of Margaret Williams who was murdered within the parish, her murderer escaped justice.  It is said though that the position of gravestone faces the place was the suspect used to live, to be a constant reminder of their brutal .

I now made my way on to the Tennant Canal, built as far back as 1790 linking the Neath and Tawe rivers.  George Tennant, from whom the canal is named, came to Neath from London after seeing the potential of the industry now taking over the Neath valley, coal mines and tin works.

I mentioned earlier about foreign plant species, well whilst walking the canal you cannot fail to see the ugly Japanese Knotweed.  An invasive species that was introduced into ornamental gardens, but this thing just expands and destroys everything around it.  You’ll see it on canals or railways particularly, and it’s not easy to get rid of.  Hopefully one day a cure will be found of it, and we can eradicate it from the countryside.

It was at this point whilst walking back towards Aberdulais I met a lady walking a dog.  She stopped and looked at me, and then asked “excuse me are you Jamie Bowen?”  It was one of my followers from Twitter, and it was good to finally meet them.  The world in which we live is most definitely a small one through the power of social media.

I continued my walk to the Aberdulais Canal Basin, at this point you can see the magnificent ten-arch aqueduct which helped extend the canal over the river Neath.  You can also see the old railway bridge, and all this lives in conjunction with the relatively new A465 Heads of the Valley road.  You can now walk under the A465 road and return to the start.

As with most of the walks I now do, I try and learn something new from the land on which I walk.  Elements of nature were of interest to me today, and then you have all the history around you.  I think I’m beginning to enjoy my own company again, the journey back to me is under way, it may be slow but I can see small improvements.  I face a difficult week ahead, but I know the medicine I would like more than anything, and that is simply fresh air.