Monday 03 July 2023 - Elan Valley, Rhayader, Wales.
I'm incredibly lucky to have been so readily accepted into Eleanor's friendship group, they're a great bunch of people and most of the group have been friends since they met when their first child started in nursery close to thirty years ago. I must admit I keep forgetting that I've been on scene for 10 years so I've known them all for quite some time as well. They are very definitely my friendship group too.
Rather than a massive boozy party, one of our friends took a group of us away for a long weekend to an outdoor activity centre in the Elan Valley in mid Wales to celebrate a 60 birthday. The weekend was full of activities such as archery, kayaking, high wire (I avoided this) and the highlight for me, a raft build and race on the lake nearby. There was also some walking and a small amount of wine and beer drinking, a surprisingly small amount to be honest. It was a fabulous weekend away in a very beautiful part of the country.
We stayed at the Elan Valley Lodge, a Victorian era school converted into an education activity 30 or so years ago. The school was built to educate the children of the workers who moved to the area in the late nineteenth century when the Birmingham Corporation Water Department started construction of a series of four dams in the Elan and Claerwen valleys to provide water to the city of Birmingham 73 miles away. It is a marvel of engineering and the dams themselves are beautiful pieces of massive scale Victorian designed architecture built over the first few decades of the twentieth century. I'm really glad that as the time went on the original features were not removed to leave a bare and functional construction.
As we no longer own a car some other friends drove us to Wales on Friday and we arrived late afternoon in a mild drizzle, surprising no-one got lost on the way. After dinner in the lodge and a quiet drink once everyone had arrived we went for an evening walk to the nearby Caban Coch Dam. It was the least interesting of the dams we would visit over the weekend.
The area is quite remote, there are about ten houses and only 35 permanent residents; there are no shops, pups or anything at all. It is quiet, though the heavy grey sky over the grey and partially barren hills didn't feel overly oppressive, but it did feel a little eerie. I couldn't live there and I'm not sure I could stay for long either.
I was very glad I brought my camera, though wished I had the tripod with me too as the light was so good, it would have been a great evening for some slowmo water images. One of the negatives about living in the south east of England is the almost complete lack of fast running streams, I didn't realise how much I'd missed them until I spent some time in the company of this lovely stretch of the Elan River.
Saturday was a busy day spent doing group activities further up the valley on one of the lakes. I went out on the water in one of the kayaks and wished I'd a dry bag so I could've taken the camera, there was some lovely angles out on the water. It was a good day though I was suffering from a head cold so took the evening easy, I don't think anyone stayed up much past 11:00 though.
Sunday I was feeling perkier and the group was back lakeside with a raft building competition and race; I really enjoyed both parts of this, sadly we came third in a three raft race; it was the participation that counted.
After lunch we drove further up the valley to the car park at Pen y Garreg Dam and went for a walk alongside the lake to the Craig Goch Dam; which is one of the finest dams I've ever seen. I took a few pictures on the way...
Pen y Garreg Dam
In places, particularly under the trees, the countryside reminded me of bits of New Zealand, particularly the beech forest bits of the South Island. It was very beautiful and quite tranquil, other than the motorcycle group we met at Craig Goch we hardly saw any other people.
Craig Goch Dam was just fabulous, I loved the beautiful design of all the dams we've seen this weekend, the details put into the design and the careful construction. These are not mere functional lumps of concrete and stone but works of engineering art. The water flowed of Craig Goch so artfully as well, it was obviously designed to look stunning.
Sadly with the afternoon drawing to a close and dinner to get back to the lodge for; we turned round and walked back the way we had come.
It was a fabulous weekend away to a beautiful part of the country and somewhere I wouldn't have gotten to myself. Thanks friend xx
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