The Missed Dam

 

I visited the Elan Valley may years ago and love the place, I taken with all the dams holding back water in the reservoirs the whole place had a beauty of it's own. I wrote a blog The Elan Valley  which will show them all if you look. When I visited I did  not realise there was a dam I missed till I looked on the OS maps then checked on Google finding a photo. I swore I would come back and find a way to get there, early this year I found it and the other day went to see it.

 Collage to start with

 

 Carpark to start with 

 

Dolymynach reservoir from the road

You have to walk through the nature reserve to get there 

 You get to here

Then you see the dam, the tower on the left is the inlet for a pipe that takes water lower down the valley

Get closer and you see the back of the dam

That is what it looks like across the top

And that is the river that is now the end of the Caban-coch Reservoir as you can see it is low

One of the spillways with water flowing over it

This is from the river bed looking to the dam. It was not the easiest of places to get to

Looking down at the dam from the wall

River bed show with my phone, I did not give it a thought to turn roud and take on the other way

Phone shot of the dam

The big opening in the middle, water does not come out of here to my knowledge

Its big to look at but further up behind this dam is another which is even bigger

Going back down the valley to the Caban-coch Reservoir, you can see how low that is, the tower over on the right is the pick up point for the water to be taken to Birmingham, needless to say they are drinking it dry

And this is the other side, the lower dam is showing something I have never seen before. That is it I hope to return again to update the photos I have taken of the other dams but check the link and you will see how it looks when it is full.

Happy SkyWatch 

Take Care 

St James Winterbourn

 

St James Winterbourn was the last of the churches I visited in Berkshire and another which was locked, Nice enough church to look around just a shame I could not see inside

 

Grey Skys

 

Some photos from a walk earlier this month. 

 

We passed through a meadow with a herd of cows in

 

 

They were quite inquisitive 

 

 

Lucky an electric fence stopped them getting too close

 

 

Walked through this field which when there is a lot of rain tend to flood

 

 

You go through a  gap in the hedge

 

 

Past this electric pylon which the helicopter was flying around in the last weeks photos

 

 

The path runs this way though we went home another route.

 

 

Even later when I went to Wantage to visit a church, the Vale and Downland Museum had grey skys

 

 John Betjeman was keeping his hat on while he looked up

Happy SkyWatch 

 

The cigar tree

 

I posted the photo last week showing a cigar tree in the churchyard and I said then I would show more photos

 It looks quite big in this photo

From a different angle less so but there is a large shrub behind it

One of the flowers, I'll have to go back when it is in flower

 And the seed pods that are growing on the tree which is what caught my eye in the first place

Take care 

 

St Andrew Boxford

 

 

This week the Church Explorer visits St Andrew Boxford a rather nice church church with churchyard but sadly locked so no inside photos again

Helicopter sky

 

I'm catching up a bit with my photos I take for SkyWatch as I'm in August. This was early this month when we were taking the dog for her morning walk. While crossing a field we hear a helicopter hovering nearby, this is whet happened next and what it was doing

It flew past and turned

Coming nearly over us

Then turned again

Hovered a while

 

Tilted to get abetter look

It was the national grid surveying the electric pylons and lines.

Happy SkyWatch

 

World photography day

 

Turns out yesterday was world Photography day and you can post a photo you too on their facebook, twitter or Instagram page. I don't have any of those accounts so here is one I took yesterday 

 It's a cigar tree near St Mary's church in Cholsey. Strange thing is I only noticed it a few weeks ago & I have been going past it for years. I am going to do a post on it sometime. Take care

 

Show photos

 

After showing the photos I did not use I will show the ones I did use and how they got on 

The four photos on a theme managed to get highly commended, better than I did last year

The burned out car was in another class but did not get picked

Nor did  this one which I thought might

I must admit I did push it with this one but nowhere

This one I put in for fun and did not get mentioned either

 

This one I put in thinking a bit outside the box and go third

Win some loose some I'll just have to up my game and see what next year brings

Take Care
 

 

St John Stockcross

 

This week the Church Explorer visits St John Stockcross a Victorian church in a village outside Newbury. This one was outside only as the church was locked.I'm in two mind about returning but the photos I have seen of the inside make it look interesting