Border country

From Garn lakes Local Nature Reserve follow the boarded cycleway northwards towards the border between the county boroughs of Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent. The habitat here is much the same as that of the rest of the Blaenavon World Heritage Site, post industrial but with impressive views of Waunavon Bog.

If you want to see nature, sticking to the well worn pathways and tracks has its limitations. My modus operandi is to drift into habitats and features that others may resist. A depression in the ground, a pond, a groups of trees are all far game. On this visit my rambles and scrambles through rank vegetation got me to a marshy depression in the ground. Along with an extensive stand of marsh horsetail I stumbled over one hundred adder's tongue fern. Having only found a few individual plants in this landscape before, this is by far the largest population. Further on, the creeping willow I found last year is still thriving.

At the top of the cycleway is an area of re-profiled coal spoil that was once a fly tipping hotspot. It was no surprise therefoe to find some well established garden plant refugees, including lady's mantle and trailing bellflower. Off the cycleway again to explore a bank of re-vegetating spoil and I a few plants of the hare's foot clover. This plant is on the rare plant register for the vice county of Monmouthshire,