Botanic Gardens of Wales

Neil kindly agreed to lead this mid-week walk, to take advantage of free entry to The Botanic Gardens during weekdays in January.

11 of us gathered in the car park, which was  a great turnout for a weekday, with some arriving very much earlier than others!!

Neil started us off in one direction and then had to quickly alter course as some work was being done and that particular area was closed.

We walked up the main path and stopped to admire the huge clump of snowdrops gleaming brightly in the sunshine.Carrying on we went passed the huge domed glasshouse, the world's largest single-span glasshous,  and some outbuildings and onto some lovely greenery and into Fairy Woo where there were toadstools and some music pipes for Colin to play a merry tune.

We skirted Middleton Hall glimpsing Paxtons Tower, a folly on top of a hill in the nearby village of Llanarthne. Now uphill and outside the immediate grounds of the Gardens we were in the countryside with some great views.It was quite muddy so some of us were slip sliding around.

Entering the Waun Las National Nature Reserve we found some very large specimens of Welsh Black cattle.

Continuing we re-entered the gardens to view the slate beds and all of us made our way to the café for a well earned lunch.

Afterwards we split up to look at some other individual favourites in the garden before homeward bound.

We couldn't have had a better day with bright sunshine. Someone remarked that it was nice to do something on a weekday and nice to do something different, this being more of a social event.

Thanks to Neil and Steve for sussing this lovely walk and for all the additional information on route about these beautiful gardens. At each visit there is always something new and different to see.

 

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