The weather turned a bit foul on me when I was up at the Cwmcarn forest drive taking pictures of the wood sculptures the other day, but I climbed up to the top of Twm Barlum to the old hill fort and snapped off a few images of the local area anyway.

For those who don't know it, Twm Barlum is a hill overlooking the Usk valley and Newport. If you imagine a woman laying on her back, Twm Barlum is rather like the shape of her breast; an ancient hill fort surrounds the woman's nipple.

This is a view from the top of the nipple looking down into the Usk Valley with the Severn Estury in the background. The city of Newport is in the mid-right of the image and the storm cloud is travelling down the valley from the Cwmbran/Pontypool area; a rather grey scene.

Usk Valley & Newport

Here we're looking down over the township of Risca; the city of Newport is just visible to the left of centre. I exposed for the clouds here, so no excuses for lack of foreground detail. I could have 'cooked' the image in Photoshop to bring up the foreground, but as it was the sky that interested me I thought I'd leave in its natural state so to speak.

Over Risca

With the Bank Holiday forecast being cold, wet and miserable I dare say we'll be seeing more skies like this one over the next few days. :-/