Margam Park 2007
A countryside estate.
The park is situated right next to Port Talbot in Wales - a huge industrial district that pollutes and stinks.
It's the perfect place for a countryside park, honest.
The park starts at the ruins of the 850 year old Margam Abbey.
The arches of the Chapter House.
The 200 year old orangery - the strangest looking greenhouse I have ever seen.
The greenhouse windows.
Detail of the etched stone window frames.
In Wales, we have so many castles, that the children get to have one of their own.
Courtyard.
Tudor house.
A deformed tree.
Apple blossom (I think).
Apple blossom.
A pacific rhododendron (I think).
A strange tree, whose branches extend, re-root, and make tree trunks of their own.
An industrial sculpture of ... well ... I will let you decide.
On-site transport.
The mis-named Margam Castle, actually a 200 year old Tudor Gothic mansion.
A carved dragon sculpture. Yeah, those are wings, not Jar Jar Binks' ears. But I am somewhat concerned by what the sculpture is doing with its hand. Perhaps it has a grass fetish, and it got a woody. More bad jokes.
The chimney status symbol that is inversely proportional to the size of the respective reproductory organ.
Gothic stairway.
Ducks sheltering under a picnic table. Immediately after taking this photo, a perfectly aimed football was used by a child as a weapon, to hit the ducks (trapping one of their feet against the table legs). Nice child honest. The child's mother decided that this was OK, and the child should not be stopped. Hey, if you're reading this, I hope you are suitably ashamed of yourself, and your appalling response to this. Just so you know, cruelty to animals is not only illegal, it is also an early sign of impending conditionally influenced psychopathy, and is most common in future serial killers. Good luck with your child's future.
A 300 million year old fossil tree trunk. That puts it in the carboniferous, predating dinosaurs, around the time that sharks first developed, and most of our limestone was created.
The textured surface of the fossil, showing the dimpled bark of the tree.
The park is also home to many deer, with the most common fallow deer being shown here. The deer are wild, and generations of them have lived here for around 1000 years.
Fallow deer herd with mothers and fawns. I apologise for the photo quality, but the deer were over half a mile away when I took the picture, and beggars can't be choosers.
Fallow deer herd.
A mother deer running to escape the cameras of the tourists.
Closely followed by a fawn.
A rhea in the farm part of the park.
A heeland cooh. The fringe is grown to ensure genetic diversity. Basically, they can't see what the females look like, so they just go for any of them, instead of always picking the pretty ones (the way that shallow humans do). This one demonstrates the effect of fringe blindness, by trying to chat up a fencepost.
The park is situated right next to Port Talbot in Wales - a huge industrial district that pollutes and stinks.
It's the perfect place for a countryside park, honest.
The park starts at the ruins of the 850 year old Margam Abbey.
The arches of the Chapter House.
The 200 year old orangery - the strangest looking greenhouse I have ever seen.
The greenhouse windows.
Detail of the etched stone window frames.
In Wales, we have so many castles, that the children get to have one of their own.
Courtyard.
Tudor house.
A deformed tree.
Apple blossom (I think).
Apple blossom.
A pacific rhododendron (I think).
A strange tree, whose branches extend, re-root, and make tree trunks of their own.
An industrial sculpture of ... well ... I will let you decide.
On-site transport.
The mis-named Margam Castle, actually a 200 year old Tudor Gothic mansion.
A carved dragon sculpture. Yeah, those are wings, not Jar Jar Binks' ears. But I am somewhat concerned by what the sculpture is doing with its hand. Perhaps it has a grass fetish, and it got a woody. More bad jokes.
The chimney status symbol that is inversely proportional to the size of the respective reproductory organ.
Gothic stairway.
Ducks sheltering under a picnic table. Immediately after taking this photo, a perfectly aimed football was used by a child as a weapon, to hit the ducks (trapping one of their feet against the table legs). Nice child honest. The child's mother decided that this was OK, and the child should not be stopped. Hey, if you're reading this, I hope you are suitably ashamed of yourself, and your appalling response to this. Just so you know, cruelty to animals is not only illegal, it is also an early sign of impending conditionally influenced psychopathy, and is most common in future serial killers. Good luck with your child's future.
A 300 million year old fossil tree trunk. That puts it in the carboniferous, predating dinosaurs, around the time that sharks first developed, and most of our limestone was created.
The textured surface of the fossil, showing the dimpled bark of the tree.
The park is also home to many deer, with the most common fallow deer being shown here. The deer are wild, and generations of them have lived here for around 1000 years.
Fallow deer herd with mothers and fawns. I apologise for the photo quality, but the deer were over half a mile away when I took the picture, and beggars can't be choosers.
Fallow deer herd.
A mother deer running to escape the cameras of the tourists.
Closely followed by a fawn.
A rhea in the farm part of the park.
A heeland cooh. The fringe is grown to ensure genetic diversity. Basically, they can't see what the females look like, so they just go for any of them, instead of always picking the pretty ones (the way that shallow humans do). This one demonstrates the effect of fringe blindness, by trying to chat up a fencepost.