Today, me and Mike headed off to the Elan Valley to see the dams. Based just outside the town of Rhayader in Powys, the Elan Valley contains six dams which are used to hoard vast quantities of H2O for Welsh Water. They stockpile this water and sell it back to us common folk to use in our taps, even though they themselves pay nothing for it. Not for profit my arse.
Having visited the dams many times before, this trip was to one of the dams I had never seen before - indeed I didn't even know of its existence until recently. On route, we stopped off at some interesting looking rocks which formed part of a stream. We were greeted by a sign warning us of death, but we promptly ignored this and merrily skipped off onto the rocks. Some might call this utter stupidity. We called it bravery. Mike got a little upset when his pretty trainers got splashed by some bog water. However, the bog water was no threat to me in my flip flops (which are ideal rock climbing footwear).
Before continuing on our journey, Mike changed into his walking boots, lest his precious shoes got any more filthy (the poor man was close to tears). A fun fact about Mike: whenever we came across a rocky outcrop, he would gaily leap off to pose and put on his best blue steel. Here he is by a small waterfall. He's so dreamy...
When we finally located the secret dam (which isn't actually secret and is clearly signposted), we took ourselves off for a walk down a track which followed the shoreline. The views across the reservoir were spectacular and we stopped briefly so Mike could wang rocks into the water like an excited child. He continued to toss rocks throughout the duration of our walk. He just wouldn't stop tossing.
Despite wanting to walk the entire perimeter of the reservoir, we decided this would probably take a whole day, so instead we headed back to the motor so Mike could take his new toy off roading. Having desperately wanted to take the car off road since he got it, I reluctantly agreed to what turned out to be a spine shattering 20-minute drive. It was definitely worth it for the views, but I'm fairly sure my spleen ruptured about half way.
Once we returned to a real road, we completed our tour of the Valley and drove the length of all the dams (although I only counted five, which means there's another secret dam out there somewhere, or I can't count - which I'm not ruling out).
We ended our adventure back in Rhayader, where we stopped for a well deserved lunch at The Elan Hotel. They had a delightful beer garden and an extensive menu. Mike had Bob's Welsh lamb burger, as he'd seen so many sheep on our journey he felt he should sample one of them, and I had cauliflower macaroni cheese. Both were tasty yum. After filling our bellies we headed for home, both tired and weary.
And so ended our dam adventure. I will never get bored of visiting the Elan Valley, and we will definitely be heading back some time this year - next time we will continue past the valley and follow the mountain road to Aberwytswthyswysth (I think that's how it's spelt).
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