Lead: Helen
Everyone was in high spirits as 10 of us met at Wick Village Hall at 10am. It was a lovely cold, crisp, blue sky and sunny day. What a pleasant change to the recent dreary weather! We had 2 new walkers joins us today – a warm welcome to both Sandra and Mags, we enjoyed your company and we hope you will join us again.
Car shares organised we set off for Aberdulais and after a short delay/detour caused by an accident on the A48 outside Bridgend we parked at the National Trust car park. A short stroll by the river took us to the Tennant Neath canal basin and on to the Neath Canal towpath. En route we all admired the layers of industrial heritage in the view of the river, the Tennant Canal aqueduct, the train viaduct and the busy A465 road in the background.
The light was beautiful as we walked along the towpath. The day was windless and the reflections in the canal were like mirror glass. Those of us who are also in the art group were taking photos for our future masterpieces. There were signs of Spring on the way – with catkins and some leaves budding on trees. In particular there was a tree of catkins glowing in the sunlight that everyone commented on. We also saw Dippers flying around close to the water. The towpath was a little muddy in places but generally it was easy walking. We walked to the Aqueduct at Clyne where the canal crosses the river and had our lunches here sitting in bright sunshine and chatting with enthusiastic members of the Ty Banc Canal Group who were doing an organised litter pick.
We learned lots about the canal and their activities from them, and they took our group photo for us.
For anyone interested in the canal group activities their Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/TyBanc and their website is https://yunyun3.wixsite.com/tbanccanalgroup.
They have a photo on their Facebook page of us having lunch.
On our return walk we were surprised to bump into a cyclist from Wick, and this gave us a chance to chat and have a short rest before we got back to Aberdulais where we had warming drinks and cakes in the National Trust Tea room.
A lovely 6 mile walk in great weather with lovely company.
Wick Wanderers 