This afternoon Wild Wales Tours & Walkabouts boarded the Steamship S.S.Badger on our road trip to Rochester, New York to attend the North American Festival of Wales. Thousands of people from all over the world will gather in Rochester to sing, and compete in song and poetry. An annual event that takes place in a North American city. The S.S.Badger an iconic historical car ferry shuttles between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan. The very the last one operating in the Great Lakes constructed as a railway ferry in 1952. I often think i’m in a Humphrey Bogart movie standing on deck watching the clouds of black coal fired smoke spewing out of its funnel, its a spiritual experience for
The Other There are nights that are so still that I can hear the small owl calling far off and a fox barking miles away. It is then that I lie in the lean hours awake listening to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic rising and falling, rising and falling wave on wave on the long shore by the village that is without light and companionless. And the thought comes of that other being who is awake, too, letting our prayers break on him, not like this for a few hours, but for days, years, for eternity. R.S.Thomas. In September on our Walkabout we will visit Bardsey Island on the Lleyn Peninsular at the end of the world. Pics by Llen Natur.
The heather will be in bloom during our Wild Wales Walkabout this September in the Snowdonia National Park. We will pass by many an old homestead and ancient walls as we walk along the paths and lanes through the countryside. Images by Llen Natur.
On August 5,1063 A.D. 954 years ago to this very day Gruffydd ap Llewelyn the only Welsh King to rule over the entire territory of Wales was killed. In 1062 Harold Godwinson, Harold II, the last Anglo Saxon King of England attempted a surprise attack at Llewelyn’s castle at Rhuddlan. He was almost captured but was warned in time to escape out to sea in one of his ships.The following year he was forced to take shelter in the mountains of Snowdonia where he met his death at the age of 53 years. Raven image by Llen Natur.
In October on our Wild Wales bus Tour we will be given a presentation on the poet and vicar R.S.Thomas (1913-2000)at St Hywyns Church in the seacoast hamlet of Aberdaron. Here at the church is where he administered his last service. Image by Llen Natur. The Gap in the Hedge. That man. Prytherch, with the torn cap. I saw him often, framed in the gap Between two hazels with his sharp eyes. Bright as thorns, watching the sunrise Filling the valley with its pale yellow Light, where the sheep and the lambs were haloed With grey mist lifting from the dew. Or was it a likeness that the twigs drew With bold pencilling upon the bare Piece of the sky? For he is still there At early morning,
During our Wild Wales Walkabout in September this year there will be quite a few birds we will be on the look out for. During our time walking along the Welsh Coastal Path it will be the colorful Puffins, the playful and acrobatic Chough. (Black, red beaked), and the Curlews, (long billed). When hiking in the mountains of the Snowdonia National Park we will be watching out for the Short Eared Owl and Skylark. There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is rapture on the lonely shore, There is no society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more…. Lord Byron. Images by Llen Natur.
