A Wet and Windy Weekend in Wales

Just back from a wet and windy weekend in Wales, I thought I’d quickly share just ten photos from the trip (yes I know I’ve a huge backlog of Canada photos to share… all in good time!).  

I’ve been to south Wales a few times in autumn and winter but it’s the first time the weather has been quite so bad.  Rainstorms and gusty winds overnight meant some missed sleep, but luckily the worst of the daytime weather came when I was under cover.  

Saturday morning was rained out, and Plantasia in Swansea offered a watertight glass dome filled with plants and animals.  As the weather brightened up a lunchtime trip to Verdi’s Cafe in Mumbles gave the opportunity for views across Swansea Bay.  Being close to 5th November there were lots of fireworks to choose from in the area, and seeing a bonfire and fireworks in the shadow of Coity Castle was a treat.  

On Sunday a trip to the Cats Protection Bridgend Adoption Centre left me feeling a little sad that there were so many cats waiting to be adopted.  But I was perked up by a visit to St Fagans, and all the dark clouds didn’t lead to a drenching.  This was my second visit to the museum, which is a huge site with various buildings from all over Wales.  The buildings are dismantled brick-by-brick and rebuilt at St Fagans.  The St Teilo’s Church, for example, took twenty years to dismantle and move.  Autumn is a great time to visit and see all the buildings set amongst the colourful trees.

Westonbirt Arboretum in the Autumn

Now that autumn has arrived in the UK, it’s a great time to spend some time outdoors seeing how nature responds to the change of season.  An arboretum is a great place to see nature and, of course, take photos too!

So I recently went to Westonbirt Arboretum with fellow photo blogger Sheila Morris (you can see some of Sheila’s photo’s on her blog) to spend a few hours getting photos of the amazing colours and wildlife.  Westonbirt is a very large place, and even with all the crowds we saw at the cafe, once out in the woods there was plenty of peace and quiet to focus on getting the best photos.

For most photos I used the Olympus 60mm macro lens, which allowed me to get in really close for detail in some of the photos below.  It’s probably the first time I’ve used the 1:1 mode on this lens, which meant that I physically had to move towards the subject to get it in focus.  But when you get it right, the results are outstanding.