We had a great day yesterday, although a very long day, as we visited the Brecon Beacons to walk to some of the waterfalls that can be found in a relatively small area.
Having studied Google images beforehand, we opted for Horseshoe Falls as our first intended port of call. We made a quick visit to the Cwm Porth visitor centre and were assisted in our directions and parking places by a very helpful gent.
A little way back down the road, we turned towards Pont Mellin Fach and parked when we arrived at the parking spot by that name about a mile down a side turn.
Having parked, we changed to suitable footwear and jackets and set off down the walk alongside the river. The Horseshoe Falls is the 3rd falls down the river from the car park and we thought we had reached it after a walk of approx 3/4 miles, but we later found out we had only got as far as Sgwd Ddwli Isaf - translates to The Lower Gushing Falls. The walk was a little muddy, from heavy rain over the past 24 hours, and there are plenty of small rocks and tree roots to potentially trip over, but it was an easy walk - something we would be glad of later in the day.
The Falls had also benefitted from the recent rainfall, with the river carrying a lot of water which was rushing down the course of the river at quite a rate.
After taking the photo above, I looked around for a few interesting angles and had to swap from my 16-70 lens to my 10-18 wide-angle. This enabled me to include more foreground interest, which I found added to the appeal of the image.
We had opted to walk past the other falls, with the plan of spending time at those on the way back to the car. This we duly did, with a few other photos being taken - some of which were pleasing and certainly showed the amount of water that was flowing.
After returning to our drove a short distance to park near the Bunkhouse B&B, where a signpost advised that Sgwd Cwm Glyn would be a 15mins walk.
We set off on that walk, as this is part of a walk called Four Falls Walk - the lower of which is Sgwd Yyr Eira and one which was particularly on our 'to do' list. A walk of about an hour saw us reach the top of a set of steps that lead down to Eira - 175 steps by our count and quite a steep walk back up afterwards ! One unique feature of Eira is that it possible to walk along a ledge that goes behind the curtain of water.
Having taken a few photos, we covered whatever we could and set off to walk behind the Falls along that ledge. We duly walked along and then, after a few mins watching others, we retraced our steps behind the Falls to the point we started from - very wet, but it was quite an experience being behind that curtain of water.
The walk back to our car was hard work, with ups and downs, plenty of small rocks and tree roots and certainly muddy in places and made us glad that the earlier walk had been easy. There ended our waterfall adventure- with just dinner and the drive home to complete to finish the day. An exhilarating day and thoroughly recommended - a photographers dream !!
