In The Temperate Rainforest 2012

The southern Welsh coast and South Wales Valleys.

The rainfall in Wales is enough to classify most of the country as a rainforest, though the temperate climate may make it seem less like the typically imagined image of one. The result is a lush countryside, and waterwashed rock features, often with a little too much rain to enjoy them. So among other things, this gallery will contain a few pictures of rain and some pictures of forest, and occasionally both at once.

• Saundersfoot Bay, looking towards Monkstone Point.
• Rocks at Saundersfoot.
• Monkstone Point.
• Mine adit at Saundersfoot.
• Small waterfall near The Glen.
• Pendine Sands, only a short distance down the coast, is a beach so long and flat that is has been the traditional site for British land speed records.
• Between 500 metres and 3 km wide, and 7 km long, disappearing into a mirage. The next beach is nearly twice as long and wide, but has less favourable racing conditions.
• Pendine Burrows dunes, fenced off and part of a military range.
• Racing down Pendine Sands.
• Cliffs at Ogmore-by-Sea.
• Water-worn section through ancient calcite.
• Small bay at Bwlch y Ballring.
• Right beside Bwlch y Ballring is the remnant of a Triassic wadi - the seasonal valley supplied by a 200 million year old oasis known as El Deonabout. The river would have flowed underground and overground (without any wombling, however), with the main river bed being the rough surface on the right, and a large waterfall directly in front of the camera.
• Ancient waterfall plunge pool, now a tidal rock pool.
• Underground aquifer, now opened as a blowhole.
• Wadi outflow
• Wadi El Deonabout.
• Cave passage that once carried the underground flow.
• Side branch of the wadi aquifer.
• Wetlands at Marshfield near Newport, most of which is drained by a series of drainage canals.
• Flow controls. Even a black and white picture can't make this stuff look attractive.
• Control fencing.
• Light streamers on a misty morning in Cardiff's Glamorganshire Canal local nature reserve.
• Streamers in the rainforest.
• Ferns among the undergrowth.
• Common frog.
• Rabbit enjoying the sunshine.
• Startled by a crow.
• Cascade on the Garwnant Fawr near the Llwyn-on Reservoir, in the Taf valley.
• 3 metre cascade near the visitor centre.
• Shelf below it.
• A native sycamore among the pine plantation.
• Moss between the trees.
• Stream at Werm Farm.
• Rainfall over the Taf valley, looking into Nant Wern-ddu's Cwm Llysiog.
• The mouth of Cwm Llysiog.
• Forestry at the mouth of Nant Ddu.
• Moss at the Nant-ddu forest.
• Flowers of common wood-sorrel (shamrock).
• Tall pines.
• Water works at Nant-ddu.
• Cantref Reservoir, with Fan Fawr (734 metres) on the left and Cefn Crew on the right.
• Reservoir outflow.
• Nant y Geugarn, feeding the reservoir.
• Nant y Geugarn
• Cadair Fawr (485 metres).
• Cwm Taf, looking towards the mouth of the Afon Taf Fawr. On the left are Garn Ddu (462 metres) and Cefn Cil-Sanws (461 metres), on the right is Penmoelallt (about 420 metres), and in the distance is Mynydd Merthyr (493 metres).
• Golden-ringed dragonfly, and it's recently sloughed skin, showing its nymph size.
• Juvenile slow worm at Govilon, near Abergavenny. These are the only legless lizards (as opposed to snakes) native to the British Isles.
• Slow worm.

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