Elephant spotted in Dee Estuary

I used to live just near the Dee Marshes. I saw sheep, oystercatchers, herons and geese. I never saw this elephant though.

driving lessons in Wallasey? learn to drive in Wirral? driving instructor in Birkenhead?

The bigger picture

• The Great British Public get ready for the general election

For some reason, if I try to copy an image from google earth, and paste it into a photo editing program (I use a thing called GIMP, which is an open source photoshoppy thing) it says there is no image data in my paste buffer.

Trying for a workround, I found that I could email the image to myself, then copy the image and paste it.

What I'm trying to do is create an enormously wide picture by stitching several images together.

A bit time consuming but should be relatively straightforward.

You'll see the result at the bottom of this post, assuming I can work it out.

Today, we went for a walk along the Dee marshes. In a similar vein to the walk we did a few weeks ago in Mostyn in North Wales, but this time, I found that we could walk along the old road past the firing range. There's no vehicular access, but you are allowed to walk.

There was a big red flag flying, but that's always there. As I mentioned last time, the road has been closed to vehicles for getting on for 20 years, and I was interested to see how it had deteriorated. It was actually in fairly good nick, considering. I think perhaps the sheep help to keep the grass and weeds from taking hold. Or maybe the fact that it's nothing more than the occasional tractor driving along it has something to do with it.



The ravages of time do show up in some things though.



We went just a little bit past Burton Point, where there used to be an Iron Age settlement. There are spectacular views across the marsh to the Clywydian hills. Surely Moel Famau is a mother mountain if ever there was one. Today it was in silhouette, because we got there as the last dregs of daylight turned everything red and gold.



As to that big pic? Still trying to sort it out. It involves layers, and it's getting too complicated for my tired brain.

Anglesey

I've been to Newborough today. (well yesterday now really)

It's a small town in the South West corner of Anglesey. To get there, we went through Star and Llandaniel Fab. I think they must have been where Austin Powers went on holiday.

To the south of the town, just by a roundabout, there's a café that sells these brilliant all day vegetarian breakfasts. Mmmmm!

But what I really went for was Llanddwyn Island.

The car park we'd parked in (near the ace café) was miles away. We'd have had to have walked about 10 miles with all the camera gear to get there and back, but the maps showed a closer car park, which we found after a couple of wrong turns.





Llanddwyn is beautiful, windswept, almost deserted. Covered in paths, and lots of signs advising you to stick to them. Church ruins. Old lighthouse. But what really stood out for me were some beautiful rocks in the cove on the southern tip of the island.



The picture doesn't really do the colours justice because the light was very flat. The sun stayed behind a bar of cloud that hovered, almost without moving, just above the horizon. We'd hoped for some sunshine so that we could use the situation towards my wife's university work, and the light was OK, but not brilliant, until right at the end.

We left the island and walked back along the beach, when suddenly we started to cast shadows. The sun had finally fallen beneath the cloud bar, and we got some lovely sunset shots in.

On the beach were trillions of tiny teeny little insects hopping around on the seaweed. I think they get their sustenance from it. Amazing sight, but you might feel a bit itchy if you don't like crawly things.



Llanddywyn is here:

53° 8'19.05"N, 4°24'37.84"W

According to google earth, the entire island has an altitude of 0 metres above sea level. My legs tell a different story.