Brecon Beacons

(November 05)

Due to doing a previous working holiday in the Brecons I thought I would brave a return...but this time as a leader!! It was, as it described for the week a week of variety...we did everything from clearing views over the river Usk by cutting small trees down to building a board walk over an area of wetlands and a lot more in between!!


             

    Painting fence posts and 2 of the boys doing their domestic duties!! (With no bickering at all!!)

The first day comprised of clearing views as mentioned above, then in the afternoon painting fence posts, being supervised by the decorator in the group...he was very quiet, so we were either doing a very good job...or a very bad one!! On the second day we were supposed to be clearing out culverts on the side of Pen Y Fan, however due to the heavy frosts we went to a iron age hill fort to clear logs to allow mechanical thrashing equipment in, as it was a shorter job we got the afternoon off and did a walk to the top of Pen Y Fan, the views above the clouds were stunning but due to me not having my camera with me I don't have any photo's!

        Welsh museum of life, queueing up to place bets on the cock fight, cock fight in action!!

On the day off the group split up, 3 went walking, 1 went book hunting in Hay and 5 of us went to the museum of life at St Fagans which was a really good days out...with plenty of story telling ;-) The museum has a collection of Welsh buildings taken from their original locations from all different periods, even shops you could buy stuff from...very nice gingerbread to be had...the bread might be as risen as it should have been...Many of the buildings had staff inside to tell you about the buildings...as we had a few giggling fits inside (don't worry my mouth is shut why) I think they thought we were a little odd..I don't know why!! ;-)

  
                      Being rescued, day one of the boardwalk, day two working together!

The last two days were spent working on putting in board walks over wetlands, there was a slight hitch on the first day as the trailer got stuck in a ditch but a local rescued us with his JCB! The ground was wet, and there were a few slips, slides, lost wellies and wet feet but the team work was great! It snowed over night and we woke to snow on our last working day, and despite the cold it made beutiful working conditions!

           Board walk covered in snow, final group photo, stunning snow scene over the Brecons

All in all a very good week was had, I don't think I could have asked for a better group of people for my first lead and we did so much both on the worksites and back at the basecamps in the evenings it's hard to remember it all!! A big thanks to all the vols and the wardens!!!