Peter's Mystery Tour.

I woke this morning to beautiful blue skies and it has remained sunny all day. However there was a touch of chill in the breeze and the dew glistening on the plants was a reminder that autumn approaches. The ornamental grasses in particular sparkled with all the colours of the rainbow as the sun refracted in the dew drops strung out along the stalks.

It was the perfect day to take Peter on his birthday 'Mystery Tour.'  As the first stop was to see the red kites being fed at Nant Yr Arian at 3.00 there was time in the morning for me to do some weeding in the back garden. 

We were able to find a space to park in the lay by by the kite centre which saved us the cost of the car park. I let Peter pick the route and set the pace for a walk before watching the kites being fed and he opted to go up on the start of the ridge walk. I'm not sure he was expecting the first bit to be so steep but the gravelled paths are fairly easy walking.

We got as far as the giant's chair where we could enjoy the view before heading back down to the lake.

We joined the crowd of people on one side of the lake as what seemed like hundreds of birds circled overhead. According to the website it's about 150 birds.

There were serious photographers there with telephoto lenses about 2ft long. I just took lots of photos and picked out the sections I liked when I got home.

Once we'd seen the kites being fed I drove us back down the main road and then turned onto the minor road that runs along the Rheidol valley. For most of the way the road is nice and wide but after you pass the hydro electric power station, the largest in the country, it becomes a narrow track just wide enough for one vehicle.  This made Peter very uneasy and he became more and more concerned as the track narrowed. Luckily I've driven down that road before and it didn't worry me even though we met two vehicles coming at us so that I had to reverse into gateways. Despite the remoteness when we got to the point past which cars were not allowed there were already quite a few cars there and it was hard to find somewhere to park. But I did and we walked over to the waterfalls which had been hidden behind the trees.

There was less water flowing in the river than the time before when I was there with the walking group but it was still something worth seeing.

Several groups of people had set up picnics on the banks of the river, some people were in the water and others just enjoying the sunshine. We stayed for a while and then headed home again. I think Peter enjoyed his trip to some of the places I've been to with the walking group.