Wales: more than pubs and poets, castles and celebrities

Sure, Wales has plenty of incredible pubs - there's at least a couple in every village (and many dotted around the countryside not even near what you could call a hamlet.) 

Of course, the country can certainly lay fair claim to its share of poets, too, the most famous being native son Dylan Thomas.

And don't forget all the castles. As for celebrities ... who hasn't heard of Catherine Zeta-Jones or Tom Jones?

But there's a wild side to Wales that is often overlooked.

It's not a place that comes up early on in most discussions about world-class ecotourism destinations. Yet it has quite a few wonderful wild places, full of wildlife.

Kenfig Pool, Glamorgan's largest lake.

Take for example Kenfig National Nature Reserve, within a stone's throw of the south Wales coast.

It's a sand dune reserve that extends right down to the seacoast.

When I visited there, I could only spend about an hour - but I would have loved to have spent the day. However, our schedule would not allow it.

We explored a few of the trails that criss-cross the 70-acre reserve, but the highlight was Kenfig Pool, the largest lake in Glamorgan County. While there, we were fortunate to see a pair of mute swans as well as some coots.

Avid bird-watchers may also see bitterns, scaups, goldeneyes and several duck species while visiting.

It's also a great place to visit if you're a wildflower enthusiast, boasting several species of orchids and helleborines.

A mute swan calmly grooms on Kenfig Pool.

For a very different type of environment, there's AfanForest Park, not far from Cardiff, Wales. Whereas Kenfig is open, Afan is very thickly forested - including some ancient oaks within its boundaries - with a large network of trails for hiking and mountain biking.

As you have probably guessed, it is much more developed than Kenfig. There are even 4X4 jeep safaris to help you explore the park (although that's not exactly an environmentally-friendly way to visit, no matter how it's spun) which, at 48 square miles in size (120 square kilometres or greater than 30,000 acres), dwarfs Kenfig.

Like Kenfig, it also offers some good bird-watching opportunities. Woodpeckers and nightjars are fairly common.                                                                                               

The gnarly trees of Afan.

In addition to birds, the very lucky may spot a fallow deer or brown hare - both of which call the park home.

Walking along the trails through the ancient trees, I could almost picture the druids of long ago, who held oaks to be sacred, walking its paths.

But if they were there, they were as invisible as the woodpecker I could hear drumming on a tree somewhere, but never could locate.

Some of the gnarly trees also brought to mind Mirkwood of Middle Earth fame. (And rather fittingly, nearby Lothlorien Cottage offers accommodations for visitors to the area. There's no word on whether or not you have to share rooms with a hobbit, though. But they can more than likely offer you a full pint.)

Again, the time we had to spend there was far too short. 

A few hours is nothing compared to a few days - the park actually has developed two-day itineraries for visitors, complete with guide maps, to help them explore the area.

Really, I've only scratched the surface when it comes to adventuring in wild Wales. If this has whet your appetite for more, Visit Wales can certainly help you plan your adventures or point you in the right direction, whether you want to hike, bike, paddle or bird/wildlife watch.

When you are out enjoying nature, remember to try to be as low-impact as possible, practise "no-trace" hiking or biking as much as you can, for as Dylan Thomas wrote:

"I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble;

It is so sad and beautiful,

So tremulously like a dream."

Everyone's idea of adventure differs

One of Helen Keller's most famous quotes states, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."

While I agree with that whole heartedly, it does have to be balanced with the knowledge that each one of us has a slightly different idea about what constitutes "adventure." And in this day and age of  "adventure travel" there are even different levels of adventure: soft adventure, hard adventure.

As a travel writer, I often have to categorize what I write for potential editors or tourism boards who may want to help me promote their destination/product. Sometimes I am just given the option of "adventure" as a category; other times, I have to select "soft adventure" and/or "hard adventure."

So just what is the difference?

It often depends on the individual.

Jungle camping: soft or hard adventure?

I "googled" the term "soft adventure" and one website came up with this description: "Soft adventure. The sort of experience that goes beyond the typical tourist itinerary. There is no great physical challenge involved here."

On the Fodor's site it was described thus: "Soft adventure means different things to different people. We define it as any activity that balances mild physical activity with a lot of down time."

As for "hard adventure" ...

The Association of Travel Marketing Executives define it as "including such things as backpacking across rugged terrain, whitewater rafting or kayaking,  hot air ballooning, rock climbing or mountain climbing, off-road biking or mountain biking, hang-gliding, para sailing or windsurfing, parachuting or sky diving, skateboarding or snowboarding, roller hockey, bungee jumping, spelunking or cave exploring, snorkeling or scuba diving and survival games (e.g. paint ball)."

Wow. I didn't realize I was so adventurous. I've done seven of those activities, and never really thought about them as being "hard adventure." I mean, I'm not Indiana Jones; hell, I'm not even the dog. ("You're named after the dog???")


While canoeing per se, was not on the "hard adventure" list,
if you're this close to wild gators, it might not be "soft."



I personally didn't realize I had a different perception than most when it came to soft vs. hard adventure until a few years ago. I was interviewing a resort executive while working on a story about resorts for Western Hotelier magazine. We discussed soft adventure, and I used the example of a five-day kayak trip I'd taken in the Ecuadorian Amazon as "soft adventure."


"Whoa!" he practically shouted. "That's not soft adventure!"

But that depends on what your background is.

From my perspective, it's "soft" because while we were in a remote area, camping in tents along a jungle river each night, we had guides; we did no cooking or meal planning, all our meals were prepared; we did no navigating. We just paddled and hiked through the jungle.



Whitewater rafting: on the "hard" list. I guess it is -
I certainly had a scare falling into a Class V rapid on this trip.



Keep in mind, I've been planning my own overnight canoe trips since 1974; to me, if I have to plan my meals, plan my route, do my own cooking, chop my own firewood, use a map to figure out where I'm going - all without guides - that starts to resemble hard adventure.

If I'm doing a first descent of a river or hiking through previously unexplored jungle or climbing a mountain like Everest or K2 or Kilimanjaro, even - that's what I call real hardcore adventure.

I should point out, I've never done either. But from my perspective, that's what I would need to do in order to really feel I was participating in hard adventure.

But that's just me. We all have our own world view.

So I guess this is as much about perspective as it is adventure. One man's hardcore is another man's soft adventure.

Or as Friedrich Nietzsche put it, "You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way and the only way, it does not exist."

So don't think about it or try to categorize it: just go have an adventure.