At last a proper walk! - oh and another kingfisher painting!

It seems such a long time since I last went hill walking due to one thing and another - including the ridiculously wet and windy summer we're having - don't get me wrong I'll go walking in all weathers, rain, sleet, snow, howling gales, the lot but I have to admit I was getting a bit tired of getting an absolute soaking EVERY time I went out! ......  Saturday at last we got out for a proper mountain walk up on the Carneddau in Snowdonia,  a fantastic walk along the ridge from Pen yr Ole Wen to Pen yr Helgu Du, taking in Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewelyn en route.

I just love these Welsh mountain names and like to know their meanings.  Pen yr Ole Wen was always translated as Head of the White Light although it has more recently been translated as Head of the White Slope - which would make more sense - the Ole being derived from goledd meaning slope rather than golau meaning light.  Pen yr Helgi Du is a wonderful name for a mountain meaning Hill of the Black Hound and sits next to my favourite mountain name Pen Llithrig y Wrach - Slippery Hill of the Witch (though some translate it as Hill of the Slippery Witch - even better!!!)   Not sure where the black hound or the slippery witch come from originally but I don't care - just love those names and they just roll off the tongue in Welsh. Apologies to those of you out there who may use google translate to read my posts  - you won't have a clue what I'm talking about!!  

Anyway off we went on our walk, the weather looking good - for a change - although it wasn't to last, when we got onto the ridge proper the heavens opened and we had torrential rain together with bitingly cold winds - it's July for goodness sake!!!!! It was like this for well over an hour but when the rain finally stopped the wind soon blew us dry!! Despite the downpour and the fact that I had forgotten to pack my waterproofs we had a great day - it was just so good to be up in the mountains again!

Here is a selection of photographs from the walk - when it wasn't raining!

The beautiful Cwm Idwal seen from the climb up the front of Pen yr Ole Wen - the car park and buildings below give it some scale

looking down into the Nant Ffancon valley a typical flat bottomed valley

Everyone's favourite - the magnificent Tryfan

Looking towards Pen yr Helgi Du which we didn't climb as we were so cold and wet we decided to head back down to the valley

One of the Carneddau ponies which roam this area

Carneddau pony

for more photos from this walk see Gary Jones's blog here

and last of all for fellow art bloggers who want to see a painting here is another kingfisher I painted today using the inktense blocks I bought on Friday - I'm loving the vibrant colours they give!

Another go at painting the kingfisher in flight from Chrissy M's amazing photograph