\n\tWe started at the Blue Anchor car park, Aberthaw, on a morning heavy with mist, turning to fog in places. We headed back up the road taking the first left and then turning towards the sea. The Aberthaw power station was on our right and lakes to our left, there was no visible flora in January but it was atmospheric in the mist. On the lakes we could clearly see ducks and<\/span><\/span><\/span> \n\tThe route was east along the coast, staying at sea level and then climbing to the top of the cliff. We soon saw a huge rock fall. Thank goodness at this point the footpath wasn’t near the edge of the cliff! Nearby was a sign ‘stay away from the edge of the cliff – rock falls possible’. (The South Wales Echo had an article later stating that the cliff had been inspected and the <\/span><\/span><\/span>footpath declared safe.)<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tSkirting Fontygary Bay we walked towards Rhoose point. The sculptures here are worth a visit despite erosion due to their exposed position. One, a compass took a little thought until we realised the directions were spelt out in Welsh. Rhoose point is the southernmost part of mainland Wales and is marked by a giant stone needle in the midst of a stone circle.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tWe continued to Dams Bay and then headed inland to Rhoose, walking around the perimeter of the airport. A new fence had been erected, making for rough ground in places and plenty of mud!<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe footpath was a little difficult to find on a new housing estate but was in excellent condition and led to muddy fields. Glad to reach the road at Nurston we headed north towards Fonmon castle. Soon arriving at the pond in Fonmon we wondered why we’d eaten our lunch before reaching the benches here.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tNow we followed the road back to Aberthaw and the Blue Anchor for refreshment. We had walked 7.5miles and climbed 600’. Map OS151<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aberthaw, Fontygary and Rhoose We started at the Blue Anchor car park, Aberthaw, on a morning heavy with mist, turning to fog in places. We headed back up the road taking the first left and then turning towards the sea. The Aberthaw power station was on our right and lakes to our left, there was no visible flora in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-IG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15142,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=15142","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":0},"title":"Cwm Gynfig and St Athan","author":"Alan Williams","date":"7th February 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Cwm Gynfig near Margam Park January produced some icy weather, causing anxiety about the forecast of snow flurries or freezing rain after 4pm. We parked on a road south of the route to avoid driving on icy\/narrow country lanes. Although cold (layers were the order of the day) it was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Picture11.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12644,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=12644","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":1},"title":"Place-Names Derivation – Fawr \/ Llantwit Major","author":"Alan Williams","date":"9th December 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"THE DERIVATION AND MEANING OF PLACE-NAMES LLANILLTUD FAWR \/ LLANTWIT MAJOR The name Llanilltud is made up of two elements - \u2018llan\u2019 and \u2018Illtud\u2019 (\u2018Illtyd\u2019). The first element is an old Celtic word, which I will discuss in detail at a later date. Suffice to say at this stage that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11243,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=11243","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":2},"title":"Port Road History","author":"Alan Williams","date":"7th March 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 PORT ROAD Named Port Road because it connected Cardiff to the port at Aberthaw which existed long before a port was constructed in Barry Port Road construction past the village \u00a9 1930 \u00a0 Port Road Nant Isaf junction \u00a9 1975 \u00a0 Port Road new junction to Wenvoe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Picture18a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12750,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=12750","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":3},"title":"Place-Names Derivation – Llwyneliddon \/ St Lythans","author":"Alan Williams","date":"5th January 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"THE DERIVATION AND MEANING OF PLACE-NAMES LLWYNELIDDON \/ ST LYTHANS The Welsh name is made up of two elements - \u2018llwyn\u2019 and \u2018Eliddon\u2019. \u2018Llwyn\u2019 is the Welsh word for \u2018grove\u2019 or \u2018copse\u2019 and the second element \u2018Eliddon\u2019\u2019 is the name of the saint to whom an earlier church was dedicated.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Readers Articles of Interest"","block_context":{"text":"Readers Articles of Interest","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=228"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5856,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=5856","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":4},"title":"Coed Morgannwg Way Above Hirwaun","author":"Alan Williams","date":"6th May 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Coed Morgannwg Way above Hirwaun It was a lovely morning but as we got out of the cars, at the Mynydd Beili-glas viewpoint, we did a group shiver \u2013 the wind chill factor really hit us and we quickly set out so that we could warm up. It had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/lake.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/lake.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/lake.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/lake.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10221,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=10221","url_meta":{"origin":2770,"position":5},"title":"Lessons From The Past And A Gathering Storm","author":"Alan Williams","date":"16th September 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"LESSONS FROM THE PAST AND A GATHERING STORM Extreme weather events seem to be on the increase as July brought us a mini heat wave followed by storms and heavy rain. On one recent occasion, 23 December 2020, the Vale experienced on average 33mm of rainfall over an 11 hour\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1607.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2770"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2770"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2773,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2770\/revisions\/2773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MarchWO-3-of-5.jpg?resize=500%2C431\")
egrets and a large bird in the dim distance. The lime kilns on the opposite bank were perfectly reflected in the still waters.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/bootPrintLine.jpg?resize=600%2C29\")
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