Do Something Guide to the great outdoors Whether you’ve got an hour to spare or a weekend, it’s time to get outside and make the most of spring

ILLUSTRATIONS An hour A day A night A weekend Ben Lamb SET DESIGN & Cloud spotting, Mountain Moon walking, Island hopping, PHOTOGRAPHY foraging, - climbing, ‘Close bat watching, waterfalling, Kyle Bean and lighting and a eyes, point, go’ and and nature writing Aaron Tilley microadventure the end of the line seeing in the dark and knife carving An hour These mini adventures are perfect for busy lives – add a new experience to your daily routine

Cloud spotting Lunchtime microadventure How to Whether you’re in the office or your Rather than eating last night’s leftovers, use build a fire garden, learn to predict the weather your lunchbreak to set out into the unknown Cook your foraged lunch in A lunchbreak is the perfect time to do something the open air different, says the adventurer Alastair Humphreys. “Microadventures take away the usual obstacles, such as expense and time, and suggest a way of Cumulus enjoying the outside world within the limitations Detached clumps of cloud composed of water of our home and work life.” droplets that form low and indicate fair The key is to rethink how we view the seem­ weather. Have flat bases and heaped tops, and ingly ordinary world around us. We imagine a walk look a dazzling white in the sunshine or adventure has to happen in beautiful rolling countryside – and of course, it’s often hard to find the time to get out there. But even in the middle Find your wood of towns and cities there are canals, parks, historic Divide into three buildings, and plenty of wildlife. Rather than heaps: matchstick, wasting a precious hour eating a sandwich at your thick as a finger, Altocumulus desk, or sitting down in front of another episode of bigger than a wrist Appears as rolls of cloud, or layered patches Doctors, strike out into your local neighbourhood in the mid-level region. Commonly found and treat it like a wild landscape. Observe the between warm and cold fronts, so can precede bad weather seasons – are the plants and trees flowering or in leaf? Look up at the sky, and use our guide to identify the clouds. With a bit of practice you will be able to predict what the weather will do next. Or try a commuter microadventure by taking a Share your photos Find your different route to the station. Catch a bus instead Have you spotted Use natural: eg birch a cloud that looked Cirrus of a tube, walk down parallel streets. Look at your bark, dry grass; like something else? Detached, wispy, clouds, formed of ice routine, and force yourself to break it, even if it’s or man-made: cotton We’d love to see it crystals. Wavy appearance is caused by wind just once a week • wool or paper theguardian.com/ movement. Can indicate a change in the Alastair’s adventures are at alastairhumphreys.com witness weather. Also known as mares’ tails Becky Barnicoat

Prepare a fire space Cirrocumulus Clear a 2m spot, place High patches of cloudlets made up of ice a raft of dry sticks Win a cloud crystals which never cast self-shadows. The challenge as a barrier between Usually seen after rain, indicating ground and fire guide! improving weather Set out for the horizon We have 10 of the • Look out of an upstairs window and Cloud Appreciation KIT Society’s Cloud choose a point on the horizon - a church Selectors to give • Watch spire, a tree, a block of flats. away. Email • Camera • Attempt to reach your destination do.something@ • Sense of without using a map – don’t worry if you theguardian.com direction don’t reach it, that’s half the fun. Cumulonimbus Start your fire Known as thunderclouds, have low dark • Use your phone, or a camera, to take Light tinder, add wood bases and extend many miles up into the pictures every 10 minutes, to focus your slowly (thin first). Add atmosphere. Produce brief, heavy downpours, eye on unexpected detail. Vaseline to tinder to and sometimes lead to hail and lightning encourage the Five wild ingredients

What to forage Alexanders Fennel Elder Lime (linden) Wild plum for from now Hedges, waste ground Trading estates Neglected areas Avenues, parks Hedges, carparks until the end of All parts edible Leaves and seeds Heads, cooked berries Young leaves Ripe fruit the summer Harvest: March – May May – Nov June – July June – July August – October

Rich pickings The banks of canals are excellent Stinging foraging spots nettle pesto Jon’s simple recipe

Ingredients 25g nettle tops 2 cloves garlic 25g grana padano 200 cheese (crumbled) species 25g ground of edible plants almonds growing wild in 8 tbsp olive oil major British cities Black pepper SOURCE: Forage London How to make it contamination by “dog truffles”, as you need and don’t uproot it – as well 1. Wash nettle Tyler puts it. I don’t let this put me as spoiling it for others, this is illegal. tops, remove any off as he grabs a handful of sea beet Nettles lose their sting when crushed, old or discoloured Forage for – a relative of beetroot – from a spot but wear gloves to pick them. leaves and shake a great dane could probably reach. As we stop for an al fresco lunch, off excess water. your lunch Before I know it I am munching away, it becomes clear that like any kind of without so much as a rinse. cooking, it’s not what you have but 2. In a food So long, supermarket bags of Tyler talks excitedly of fig trees and what you do with it. Luckily for me, processor, blend salad and over-priced herbs, wild strawberry bushes that people Tyler is a superb cook. Mary Poppins- together garlic, pass, oblivious. If someone’s fruit tree style, he pulls out a camping stove, almonds and 3 tbsp it’s easy to find and pick your is hanging over a public path he will pans and utensils, and the canalside of the oil to form a own, even in the city ask them if he can pick from it. Mostly wall is transformed into a kitchen. paste. Add cheese, they say yes. Using leaves from our walk nettle tops, the WORDS Sarah Phillips It turns out that seemingly everyday (nettles, cow parsley, fennel), plus a rest of the oil and Ipswich doesn’t seem the most likely weeds are actually quite flavoursome. few foraged goodies from his store combine to form location for a spot of urban foraging, “Someone told me it tastes like green,” cupboard, Tyler rustles up a spring the pesto. yet my prejudice proves how little I Tyler laughs as we munch on mallow, herb and jelly-ear fungus sesame know about the delicacies available and this is true of most of the delights pancake, fettuccine with nettle pesto 3. Transfer it into in public places for free. I’m here for we sample along the Alderman canal. (tangier than basil) and St George’s a bowl and season a lunchtime lesson from Jon Tyler, That blackthorn blossom looks so good mushroom, followed by blackberry with black pepper. who has been running edible tours for you could eat it – and we do. oaties. This is all washed down with Add more oil if the 20 years. Within minutes, he is on his When foraging, you need to some boozy beech-leaf noyau, a recipe mixture is too stiff. knees pulling at what look suspiciously proceed with caution. Tyler advises from Richard Mabey’s Food for Free. like weeds. In fact it is wild rocket. So that plants are safer to start with than As confused passersby head off for Your pesto will long, horrible plastic bags of the stuff – mushrooms, especially from March a substandard sandwich, I am suitably keep for up to a why not pick it yourself? onwards when their flowers give impressed and inspired • week in the fridge Walking along the River Orwell, crucial clues as to what they are. “If To go on one of Jon Tyler’s tours visit if covered with the first rule of foraging becomes you’re not sure about it you won’t wildforwoods.co.uk or look out for some extra oil.

Photograph: Graeme Robertson Graeme Photograph: apparent: don’t pick too low and risk enjoy it,” he says. Only pick as much as events at foodsafari.co.uk A day If you’ve only got 24 hours, try our alternative travel ideas and end up somewhere new and unexpected

Bottom’s up Rhik’s mission was ‘Close eyes, to find his way to Sound Bottom in point, go’ Wiltshire

There are so many places you could go to for the day, but how do you decide on your destination? Leave it up to fate

WORDS Rhik Samadder I’m standing in WHSmith at London Paddington holding an A-Z, with my eyes closed. I am about to stick my finger somewhere on a map at random and attempt to get there. The idea of “Close eyes, point, go” is that having an adventure doesn’t need to be expensive, or take months of planning. 11,073 It can start now. miles I open my eyes. My finger is pointing of coastline at a dry riverbed at the bottom of around the UK a copse in Wiltshire, called Sound (excluding islands) Bottom. It sounds like a place chosen SOURCE: Ordnance Survey for comic value, but the North Wessex Downs page of the A-Z doesn’t have a non-silly name on it. I could as easily been headed for Goosey, Hell Corner or Compton Beauchamp. Off we go. My best bet seems to be the 10.18am into Berkshire, which stops at a village called Kintbury near the Wiltshire looking for Sound Bottom,” I tell him, There are horticultural contraptions border. I board the train with Toby, my explaining the challenge. “Never heard lying around that look like miniature canine co-adventurer. I’m not someone of it,” he replies, which sounds about seesaws. I creep further into the wood. who likes surprises, so stepping into right. Still, he says he’ll try to get me a I find a sheet of metal and lift it to the unknown like this is pretty nerve- bit closer in his Morris Minor. uncover a well. It feels like stumbling wracking. Anxiously researching Driving through Ramsbury, a tiny into a fairytale or a secret garden. how to get closer to Sound Bottom, village, I squint at the blurry picture Is this Sound Copse on Sound I come across the Kennet Horse Boat of the A-Z on my phone. I don’t really Bottom? I don’t know for sure, but I Company, which runs horse-drawn know where we are, or where we’re don’t think it matters. I’ve jumped on barge tours up the Kennet and Avon going, and it’s sort of exciting. After a random train, hitched a ride with a canal. Maybe they’ll let me hitch a ride. 15 pleasant minutes of country roads, stranger, and wandered deep in to the At Kintbury, the river runs right I realise I can’t make a stranger drive countryside. Embracing spontaneity by the station, and I quickly spot the me around all day – it’s time to make feels exhilarating and rewarding, even Kennet Valley barge, and its owner my own way, even if I get lost. I thank more so for being out of my comfort Steve Butler. Unfortunately I’m just Steve profusely, as he lets me out and zone. This morning I was part of the too early: the boat doesn’t run until waves me off. commuter crush, now I’m standing in Easter. Steve invites me into the galley, I find myself on a road with fields a mysterious grove with no one around and makes me a cup of tea on the gently sloping away to either side. Is for miles. I do feel like an explorer • gas stove. He’s so friendly and easy- this the dry riverbed? Twenty minutes ‘Close eyes, point, go’ was inspired by going, I decide to seek his help. “I’m later, we enter a dense copse of trees. Alastair Humphreys What to take on your adventure

Five kit-list Silicone teabag Metal cup Fire striker Vaseline Ball of jute heroes for every Make tea/medicines Brew tea and hot It’s light in weight, Great to protect skin For traps, fishing, explorer, picked by from foraged wild water on the fire won’t run out and and to add to your shelter building, Outback2basics plants directly works if wet wet fire-lighting kit endless possibilities

Endangered Go to the end of the line Climb a mountain songbirds You see the names every time you travel – The British Mountaineering Council’s Watch out for next time, miss your stop and keep on going favourites can all be climbed in a day these five before they vanish Bents Green, Cockfosters, Canklow, Droylsden, Hunter’s Tryst – the exotic names at the end of the line. For those of us who don’t live there, they sound both familiar and mysterious – spotted daily at the far reaches of our bus or train journeys, yet rarely visited. “The suburbs,” wrote JG Ballard, “are far more Starling sinister places than most city dwellers imagine. They whistle, Their very blandness forces the imagination into These mountains are all suitable for warble and mimic new areas.” Travel to the end of the line and you beginners, and are listed in order of might find somewhere unexpectedly inspiring. difficulty with the easiest first. As you move from the centre of town out into the suburbs, you move through history. The Conic Hill, Loch Lomond (350m) architecture changes from Victorian to pre-war, Enjoy great views of the island-studded loch to post-war, to modern day. The suburbs aren’t with Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps chaotic, like cities. They are carefully constructed beyond. The hill straddles the boundary fault Robin by town planners. But things don’t always go to between Scotland’s lowlands and highlands; Often sing at night plan, and so you find empty boulevards, disused the climb will take two to three hours. next to streetlamps buildings and communal gardens gone to seed. Nearest station: Balloch Take time to explore the rail or bus terminus, too. The photographer Craig Atkinson has just Mam Tor and the ‘Great Ridge’ (517m) published the third part of his visual investigation This is a classic route in the Peak District, tak- into Preston Bus Station, capturing its pie shop, ing in a long sweeping ridge and a climb of the barbers, and Brutalist late 60s architecture superb viewpoint that is Mam Tor. Completing (craigatkinson.co.uk). These functional places, the tour starting at Hope takes four hours. which aren’t meant to be looked at, are interesting • Nearest station: Hope or Edale House sparrow BB Listen out for a Pen y Fan, Brecon Beacons (886m) noisy chirrup This is the highest hill in southern Britain, and the altitude means the weather at the top can be severe. Watch out for two bronze age burial chambers. The four-mile trip takes 2.5 hours. Nearest station: Merthyr Tydfil

Ingleborough, Yorkshire Dales (723m) Chaffinch Share your tales The challenge Ingleborough is one of the Yorkshire Three Easy to spot, with Are you up for a Peaks, (with Pen y Ghent and Whernside). On an orange breast microadventure? A trip to the terminus a clear day, you can see the Pennines, the Lan- Try our challenges, • Get on your usual bus, tube or train, cashire coast and the Lake District. The route and let us know KIT but don’t get off where you normally do from Clapham will take four to five hours. how you get on do.something@ • Public – go to the last stop. Nearest station: Clapham theguardian.com transport • Look at the terminus: notice the • Return ticket architecture, and the people passing , (1,085m) • Eye for the in and out. The Miners’ Track is one of the most popular Blackbird mundane • Try to find a charity shop. Items are routes to the summit of Wales’ highest moun- Females are brown, usually better priced, and untapped tain. Beginning at Pen-y-Pass car park, the males are black by city-dwelling fashionistas. eight-mile route takes six hours.

Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris Kangaris Frantzesco Photograph: Nearest station: Bangor A night When the sun goes down, head outside and see the familiar world in a whole new light

Camp out during the week Bat crazy How to see in Instead of going home after work, spend a night under The Bat Conservation Trust on four the dark the stars – then resume normal life in the morning British bats to look out for Use your new fire-lighting Bats are active from April, and UK bat skills to get groups hold walks through the spring superpowered and summer – see bats.org.uk for info. night vision Or try a bat safari along the river Cam with scudamores.com.

We are defined by our 9 to 5, but what about the “5 to 9”? Rather than feeling inhibited by our work­ ing commitments, I suggest flipping it around, and celebrating the 16 hours each day when we are not Common pipistrelle 1. Find a strong desk-bound. (I know this is a simplification of “real Across the UK source of light, such life”, but humour me.) The most widespread of British species. as a – maybe So one weekday, why not head out into the Roosts in the crevices of buildings. Appears 20 one you’ve built wild? Nobody in the UK lives more than 15 miles minutes after sunset and stays up all night from somewhere green, pretty, and invigorating to spend a night. Even the Queen, in the very middle of our biggest city, is only a 15-mile walk away from a great camping site by the Great Pond on Epsom Common. Civilians, however, are better off asking the landowner’s permission before Brown long-eared 2. Cover one eye pitching up to camp for the night – and make with your hand for sure not to leave a trace of your visit. There are Across the UK 15 minutes while Curls its ears, which are as long as its body, also plenty of wild campsites around. Find looking directly into behind it in flight. Found in woodland, parks suitable places at www.nationalparks.gov.uk/ the fire and gardens. Roosts in barns and churches. visiting/camping • 30 Alastair Humphreys years is the average 3. Turn away lifespan of a Daubenton’s from the fire and brown Across the UK Flies low over water, searching for insects. remove your hand long-eared bat Red-brown fur and pink face. Roosts in from your eyes SOURCE: Bat The challenge Conservation Trust Have a wild night tunnels, bridges, or buildings. • After your normal working day, head KIT out into the country to your chosen spot. • Rucksack • Take minimal kit, and spend the night • Sleeping bag sleeping under the stars. • Bivvy bag • Wake up in time to watch the sun rise. • Extra layers • Grab breakfast in a local cafe, before Noctule 4. Vision in uncovered • Non-iron catching the train and heading back to England and Wales eye becomes shirt your normal life. Sometimes emerges before sunset. Flies high considerably • Enjoy the interruption to your routine. in the open, with repeated steep dives when stronger, helping you chasing insects, reaching speeds of 30 mph. to see in the dark 23 ‘seas’ on the moon From the largest, the Ocean of Storms, to the smallest, the Serpent Sea SOURCE: lunarpedia.org

Moon phases The eight stages of the 29.5-day lunar cycle

New New 1.

The shining Waning cresent Waning A spring moon is high Waxing cresent Waxing cresent enough to cast a full 2. glow – the perfect Waxing cresent time to venture out

under the light of a full moon. Check quater Last First quaterAs I turned for home, the valleys I the weather forecast, and the moon 3. walked through were filling with a thin

Full-moon phases, and make sure you plan a safe transparent mist as the temperature route for your night walk – one that’s gibbous Waning began to dip towards zero. Spring WaxingFirst gibbous quater walking familiar and which you have walked Waxingnights gibbous can be cold, so dress accordingly before in daylight. It’s important 4. when you venture out. Keep moving to

to walk on well-trodden ground so stay warm, although it’s good to pause Make a journey by moonlight, that you don’t trip over or end up Full for a few minutes while you listen and Full and listen to the landscape somewhere dangerous. Full watch for wildlife. Remember that in spring the full 5. WaxingAnd, gibbous of course, if you want to see come alive with the yelps and moon is still high enough to cast a full or hear anything at night don’t use a

glow, but by midsummer it rides much unless it is absolutely necessary. rustlings of nocturnal creatures gibbous Waxing Waning gibbous lower in the south, creating much WaningAfter gibbous 15 minutes in the dark, your WORDS Chris Yates larger shadows. 6. natural night vision will begin to

Full-moon walking – walking at night Whenever you venture out at Fulldetect even quite small details in your by the light of the moon – is something night across heathland, downland quater First surroundings. I have enjoyed since I was a child. It or through woodland, you will soon Last quaterThe best walks are the ones that offers a new and strange perspective realise that what was a seemingly 7. end with the moon setting and the

on the familiar world, transforming an uninhabited landscape in daylight sun rising, which is much more ordinary landscape into a wilderness. has become alive with the mysterious cresent Waxing achievable as we head towards spring If you choose your landscape wisely, rustlings, patterings, squeaks and WaningWaningand cresent summer. gibbous That’s why this is the while you may often encounter birds yelps of wildlife. 8. ideal time of year to try your first moon

and animals, you will almost never On my last moon walk, just after walk. encounter another human being. midnight, close to my local badger sett, New 1. New moon The shorter nights of midsummer I live on the Wiltshire/Dorset I spotted the white stripes of a badger 2. Waxing crescent make it possible to watch the waning 3. Waxing quarter border, which is chalk downland and as it crossed a path only yards in front Lastmoon quater rise in the evening in the south- therefore ideal for moon walking of me. Later, when the moon had sunk (first quarter) east, and then, after a little night time – the gentle, grassy contours of towards the west, I saw two roe deer 4. Waxing gibbous ramble, the sun rise in the north-east 5. Full moon the hills make it so much easier to up on a ridge above me, and heard a just a few hours later • 6. Waning gibbous negotiate in the dark than, say, rocky flock of birds – hidden in the darkness – 7. Waning quarter or forested terrain. heading north. Migrant birds will often (last quarter) Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of The best walks happen when the travel at night, when the air is usually 8. Waning crescent WaningNature cresentby Chris Yates is published

Photograph: GettyPhotograph: night is clear and dry, and ideally calmer than in the day. by William Collins A weekend You get 52 a year – that’s 2,496 hours when you could be exploring the hidden corners of the British Isles

all be in Britain. I’ve spent the night in org, 08442 413 454) then the 11 bus the bailey of a castle (Piel Island, off operated by Blueworks Private Hire Explore Barrow-in-Furness); walked out to an (blueworksph.com; 01539 531 995) to island built of rocks from Asia, Africa Roa island. The last ferry to Piel sails at an island and the Americas, brought back as 6pm. Book through Steve Chattaway, ships’ ballast (Cei Balast, Porthmadog; 07516 453784. breathed in the scent of 110,000 From Worm’s Head to Eel Pie, gannets (Bass Rock, off North Berwick, Inchcailloch Loch Lomond, Stirling there are thousands of tiny Scotland); and seen the room from Book into the campsite (lochlomond- which Mary Queen of Scots made a trossachs.org, 01389 722600) get worlds to be discovered all daring escape (Lochleven Castle Island, to Balloch Central railway station around the country near Kinross). Who needs the Greek (scotrail.co.uk; 08457 550033), then islands when you’ve got all this? take the 309 bus operated by McGill’s WORDS Dixe Wills Daily summer sailings to Samson (and (mcgillsbuses.co.uk; 08000 515651) to 6,289 I’m looking out over an island of two many other islands) with St Mary’s Balmaha. A ferry sails from Balmaha islands hills, a scattering of romantically Boatmen’s Association, Isles of Scilly; boat yard (balmahaboatyard.co.uk) in and around ruined stone cottages, a tumbledown 01720 423 999; scillyboating.co.uk to Inchcailloch until 8pm in season Great Britain chapel, and a beach on which the (otherwise 5pm) • SOURCE: Ordnance Survey prime minister Harold Wilson gave Piel Island Cumbria Tiny Islands by Dixe Wills is published

an impromptu press conference in Take the train to Roose (northernrail. by the Automobile Association GettyPhotograph: his shorts. Black-backed gulls and common terns fly out over a sea sparkly enough to be the Aegean. Welcome to Samson in the Isles of Scilly, one of Britain’s 6,289 islands. That’s right – 6,289 islands, 803 of which are large enough an Ordnance Survey coastline. That’s 803 worlds to be explored, not just off the coast but on lakes, rivers and even in the city (such as Eel Pie, on the Thames). I’d arrived on Samson by leaping off a boat on to the dazzling sands of Bar Point. I’ve visited scores of tiny islands around Britain and this was the one that most felt like Treasure Island. Indeed, there is real treasure just offshore. In 1798, HMS Colossus sank here, taking Sir William Hamilton’s collection of vases, paintings and loot from Etruscan tombs to the sea bed. The sense of freedom is tangible – you can happily explore your new domain until the boat arrives to take you off. A boat isn’t necessary to get to Brit­ ain’s tidal islands – but don’t follow Dylan Thomas’s example. He fell asleep on Worm’s Head off the Gower penin­ sula and had to wait until midnight before “the tips of the reef began to poke out of the water and, perilously, I climbed along them to the shore”. The variety of adventures I’ve had has made me wonder how they could Appy camper

Great apps for Map My Hike Knot Guide Met Office Weather OS Locate US Army Survival every explorer’s Track your route – With demonstrations Forecasts for more Use alongside an OS This app has more smartphone all the information of 100 different than 5,000 places map to pinpoint your than 1,400 pages is stored and it ways to tie a knot, in the UK, plus wind location using GPS. of information on builds a history of you’ll never come information and Doesn’t need survival in the wild, your hikes undone again sunrise/sunset times a phone signal military-style

Guardian Start a How to make A wet weekend Masterclass nature diary a knife in Wales Join the naturalist Keep a record of all your adventures, capturing Transform an The home of the UK’s best waterfalls Stephen Moss to ordinary rock your memories of the animals and plants you see is even better in the rain learn how to be a and make nature writer. 17-18 your neolithic May, London, £399 ancestors proud A rainy spring is the perfect time to theguardian. com/guardian- explore the hundreds of waterfalls masterclasses in Wales, many of which are found in the Brecon Beacons national park. Full rivers create the most powerful cascades, so pack your wellies and cagoule and a copy of our itinerary, Mine’s a bailey and pray for bad weather. You can spend the You don’t have to be an expert to write about 1 . Bang a rock night in the castle nature. You just need to be curious. Anyone can against a hard Day 1 on Piel Island, off the watch birds, plants or animals and spot something surface. The higher Start: Waterfalls Centre, Brecon Beacons Cumbrian coast extraordinary that might change the way we the pitch, the national park understand them. By writing things down, you sharper the blade Take the path to the river Hepste’s Sgwd Yr Eira (Snow Falls). You can step behind the can notice patterns and changes. The difference falls, and bathe here in summer. From Sgwd between writing about nature and nature writing is Yr Eira, head towards the Sychryd Cascades on that one is objective and the other personal. Rather the river Sychryd which is easily accessible, than writing about a blackbird, you write about even by wheelchair. Return to Snow Falls, your encounter with a blackbird. and take path to Sgwd Gwladus (Lady Falls), Note the time, date and place, and what you named after the mythical princess Gwladus, see. Later, add personal details. Crucially, avoid on the Elidir Trail along the river . 2. Thin, round too many adjectives and purple prose. Use a Return to carpark, and drive 45 minutes to rocks will give spend the night at The Felin Fach Griffin pub website such as iSpot (ispotnature.org) to upload you the photos for experts to identify. And start a blog. We (01874 620111, Felin Fach, Brecon, Powys, sharpest edge LD3 0UB). write because nature matters, and we want it to matter to others too • Day 2 Stephen Moss Start: Cwm Porth carpark, near . £4 charge Walk to Porth Yr Ogof, the largest cave mouth in Wales. The flows into it. Return to the carpark, cross the road and join the footpath on the right. You can hear the river 3. Find two other Mellte flowing beneath the ground before big rocks. Put the you see it emerge. Continue along the river, blade rock on one crossing two tributary streams, and then The challenge and hit with the heading uphill to the main viewpoint for Sgwd Document your world other, until it splits Clun-Gwyn, the “fall of the white meadow”. Return to the path and continue through • Choose an outside space to visit KIT woodland. Turn right at the sign to view the every weekend. Sgwd y Pannwr cascades. Continue upstream • Pen • Record observations about the on the rough path to Sgwd Isaf Clwn-gwyn. • Notebook plants, wildlife and weather, including It begins as a flight of three rapids, and • Camera how it feels to be there. becomes a staircase of waterfalls. Head back • Cliche radar • Pick out the most interesting incident to the carpark. Drive two hours north on the and use it as the starting point for 4. Use the edge of A470 to Waterfall. At 80m, it your first piece of nature writing. rock as a knife to is the highest single-drop waterfall in the UK - • Now post it on the blog you started. cut bark, skin a fish much higher than Niagara. or to cut brambles BB