Paramo Fuera Ascent

I just acquired my ever bit of Paramo Kit. A Fuera Ascent  windproof jacket. It was free too! I resubscribed to Trail magazine and it came as a free gift. Now I would pretty much buy Trail magazine each month anyway, so this was a no brainer...I pay £49 for £51 worth of magazines, delivered to my door and I get a £65 jacket thrown in. Brilliant!

First impressions are good. It's light, has a decent hood and pockets and long pitzips. And it just has a quality feel to it. It will get a testing in Snowdonia in 3 weeks time. I might even report back about it. I think the offer might still be on if anyone reading this is interested.

A tale of two hills.

Today was spent on two different local hills. Firstly, a tough 11 mile trail run around the Cwmcarn Scenic Drive, taking in my favourite hill in the whole wide world, Twmbarlwm! It really did feel great to be out in the morning sun, listening to some inspiring, and some not so inspiring, tunes on the ipod whilst churning out the miles. My legs felt pretty tired as this was the 2nd 11 mile (and the 2nd visit to the top of Twmbarlwm) in 3 days.

Then, following a swift bite to eat (beans on toast, you cannot beat beans on toast for some post run protein and all round general, tasty, quick fix!) and 30 minutes of fence panel fixing fun in the garden, my son and I headed off to the east of Newport to Wentwood, to meet my Sis and Oliver, for a walk with the dogs.

The highest point in Wentwood is Grey Hill and it has tremendous views of the Bristol Channel. Devon, Somerset, Twmbarlwm (yes, you can see it clearly to the West) and the weather was nice and clear today.

The Second Severn Crossing to the East, where it costs at least £6 to get into our wonderful country.

The sky was really picturesque today

Some of our ensemble enjoyed the puddles. Note the rope connected to the go-kart, the other end of which is looped around my waist in an arctic explorer-pulling-a-sled type arrangement, that my 4 year old son thinks is great because pedalling is much easier!

Twmbarlwm, just visible, top centre.

After 16 miles of playing in the hills, my legs were shot, but my head was happy. Who needs mountains!?

Down Down, deeper and down.

200 feet down to be precise. Beneath the anicent woodland of the Forest of Dean, at Clearwell Caves. Not being a lover of confined spaces, I was apprehensive about joining a couple of my batrunning friends and their spouses on a 3 hour caving adventure on a cold saturday morning. But seeing as Jasper was bringing his 12 year old lad along, I reckoned that I should 'Man up' and tag along.

It costs £20 for a 'deep caving session' which lasts approximately 3 hours and is led by an experienced guide. The weather was absolutely brassic - minus 7 or so early morning, but the beauty of caving is that it's the same constant 10 degrees underground all year round.

They provide Guantanamo bay type caving overalls and helmets with headtorches, plus wellies are available if required. As this cave system is pretty dry until you get 600feet down (!!) most of us just wore walking boots.

Our guide was Mike, a really laid back and thoroughly nice guy, who really knew his subject.

The entrance is through a small hole beneath an old tree. One of those 'you'd never know it was there unless you knew it was there' type of cave entrances. This small gated entrance is no clue to the many miles of tunnels and caverns lurking below.

In the first small cave where the above ground temperature was able to penetrate, strange ice formations had risen from the rock surface, where water was dripping from above.

And there were big Cave Spiders!

As we descended a bit more, the temperature increased until it was no longer cold and a few layers had to come off. There was plenty of stooping and clambering and scrambling and kneeling and shuffling to be done. It's not just a stroll around some caverns, it's proper full on caving.

Clearwell is apparently the country's only working Ochre mine. Ochre is used mainly as a pigment for painters. Being the bunch of jovial pranksters that we are (rolls eyes) we decided to apply some of the ochre as Joe Montana eye make up.

Very fetching, eh?? The overalls do come in very handy, because the red dust from the rocks gets on everything. One of the highlights of the visit was the bats - Lesser Horseshoe Bats, smaller than mice,  were hibernating in the caves and they literally just hang off the rocks enclosing their whole bodies with their wings. You're not permitted to even take photos of them, because they are so protected, and the heat from a flashlight may disturb them if up close. But I snuck a quick photo in from a distance - hope the Bat Police don't come knocking...

After descending to nearly 200feet, we had to go through a couple of crawls - the first called the Rabbit Hole, the second called The Mousehole. The Rabbithole wasn't too bad, although it looked a tight squeeze from the start point. Here's Screech going in...

And here's me emerging with a look of terror/relief/concern/whythef***didIcome on my face.

The Mousehole was worse, or better if you're an avid caver. It was about 8" high and maybe 4 feet wide. It was only around 3 metres long (I know, I know, mixing metric and imperial measurements) and then turned a corner for another metre before emerging into a cavern. I got a minor feeling of panic as soon asI crawled in, but I managed to quickly drag myself through and wait for the others with camera poised.

After that we got to a large cavern with an old railway track, that apparently runs for a quarter of a mile! This was at 200feet below the surface and as deep as we would be going. Years ago, children woul d be sent to work down here for 10 hour days by light of candle for a pittence. Think of that when you're sat there on your PS3. The route back was a bit easier than the descent, avoiding the Mousehole! Some clambering and stooping was still essential.

All in all, a really enjoyable and well priced mornings fun in the Forest of Dean. Highly recommended, providing you're not claustrophobic, or don't like spiders. Or bats. Or Ochre.

Facebook Page

Unashamed advertising...

Mark Everson Pencil Art

Another Outdoorsy Caricature

Just wanted to share this caricature I drew of a friend - he enjoys coming walking with us but lets us do all the planning and just tags along at the back, whinging! Don't you, Chopski?!

Anyway, he liked it. Excuse the poor quality phone pic. Email me for commissions (perfect unique pressie....)

Peeeee Beeeeeee!

One of my favourite races of the year today, the good old Lliswerry 8! 8 Miles of flat tarmac - always cold, always tough, always well organised. I did a personal best by over 2 minutes, - 52:58! Well chuffed with that, especially as I went off way too fast and was hanging on for dear life in the last mile. Well worth the £12 entry and things bode well for the years running ahead.

Bewildering artwork

As well as a love for the outdoors I have a liking for pencil art - I've shared a few of my own pieces earlier on this blog.

So I just had to post a link to an artist I found whilst browsing deviant art. A chap called Dirk Dzimirsky from Germany. His charcoal and graphite portraits are incredible. Photorealism is not for everyone, but I love it, perhaps because I'm fairly good at it. But this is another league. 


The work of Dirk Dzimirsky


I'm not sure if it's okay to link to my favourite piece of his work here, but hopefully it is as I'm only showcasing him. If not I will remove it if requested.

I cant quite fathom that this is done with charcoal! It's stunning. 

Twmbarlwm Trek

Twmbarlwm is a cracking little hill (my favourite in fact) that is right on my doorstep and offers easy access to some great walking and running. A friend of mine, Beggy, who works for Caerphilly council is organising a Twmbarlwm Trek on May 12th this year. Entry in advance is a paltry £4 and there are 3 routes of varying length to choose from. I hope to run the 23 miler as a training run with a few mates.

Grwyne Fawr..or is it Grywne Fawr?!

I love it when you plan a walk and the weather just happens to play ball on the day. Today was one of those occasions. Cold, crisp, clear. Perfect for a 9 mile loop around the Grwyne Fawr Valley, deep in the Black Mountains.

Jasper, Chopper and I did the usual early start (Chopper was even ready on time when I pulled up at his place?!) and we were parked in the layby in the Grwyne Fawr Valley by 8am. Easily confused, Jasper was dressed for ballet lessons and I had my concerns that he might be a bit cold in the conditions, but he assured me he would be fine. I gave him my spare insulated jacket as soon as we got out of the car!

First stop, the old Grwyne Fawr Reservoir dam. Years ago I'd abseiled from this dam a few times with a friend. He actually went down naked, but that's a different story. There were never any signs telling you it was prohibited back then - there are now. That's abseiling down the dam in general that's banned, and not specifically abseiling down naked! No ropes today so no abseiling.

The water was like a millpond and the sky was clear.



It was only 9am and felt great being out in the fresh air rather than being slouched on a sofa or still in bed.

Next destination was the Grywne Fawr Bothy at the Northern end of the reservoir. I wanted to see if it was in better shape inside than it was a few years back when it looked like some w*nkers had trashed the place.

As we approached we saw smoke coming from the chimney.

When I knocked the door it opened to reveal 3 lads from somewhere over the bridge (judging by the accents) cooking 8 rashers of bacon on a small gas stove. Jealousy overcame us! All we had were malt loaves and macaroons, plus a few cereal bars. The Bothy did look pretty tidy inside which is nice to see. I opted not to ask if I could take a picture of them cooking brekky!

We headed up to the top of the valley to pick up the path up and over Waun Fach and Pen Y Gadair Fawr. At the head of the valley we were greeted by a fairly impressive inversion hanging over Talgarth and the surrounding countryside! Although I managed to take some fairly unimpressive shots of it.

The wind picked up as we headed up onto Waun Fach past the Dragons Back. What an impressive looking ridge this is from certain angles, with an equally impressive name. I must remember to walk it sometime this year from Pengenfford.

The main advantage of the subzero temps up on Waun Fach's 800m summit plateau, is the frozen ground. It means that the usually boggy chocolate cake underfoot, is like a nice crispy cereal bar, and your feet don't get wet! It was cold though, and the wind had picked up a lot. Macaroon and Malt Loaf time (main reason for bringing Chopper on these walks). The Summit Team shot was a disaster! :( I checked the test shot I did from atop my rucksack, but it must have sagged slightly when I pushed the auto-timer button for the team shot. My ugly mug was then chopped off just like poor old Louis 14th, or one of those other handlebar moustached French monarchs. Not a bad thing I suppose. I guess it pays to be short at times, eh Chops?

A trundle over to Pen Y Gadair Fawr next. Blah  blah always looks higher than Waun Fach blah etc.

Then it was a mile or so downhill alongside the forestry back to the valley and the carpark. 9 miles in under 4 hours was satisfying, especially as Mr Japanese tourist (moi) slows us down by taking a photo, on average, every 8 metres.

Really enjoyable morning's walk, even if some of my friend's oudoor fashion sense leaves something to be desired.