Pistyll Rhaeadr

This is my last set of pictures from my trip to Wales at Easter. We went to visit this waterfall on the Monday morning after Easter Sunday. It was lovely and I only wish these pictures did the place justice, because they really don't. We took a nice drive through the mountains to get here and it would have been nice to have hiked around since there was a trail that went up to the top of the falls. But, we weren't able to do that given the time constraints.
Pistyll Rhaeadr is located in the Berwyn Mountains, just inside Wales, west of Oswestry and Shrewsbury. It is 240ft (80m) high and is the UK's tallest single drop waterfall. It appears that the word pistyll means 'waterfall' in Welsh, though I couldn't find out what Rhaeadr means. I did discover that the Berwyn Mountains have connections to the legendary King Arthur. The gateway to Arthur's ancient lands and the kingdom of the Celtic Otherworld was represented by Pistyll Rhaeadr. Apparently, walking up the south face of the Berwyns and traversing east along the ridge as far as possible leads to a place called Bwrrd Arthur (Arthur's Table). There, Arthur could have stood and proudly viewed his lands stretching all the way to the sea.

There is also another great story connected with the falls. It is about a dragon, the Gwybr of Llanrhaeadr. The story goes that above the waterfall is a lake called Llyn Luncaws. In the lake lived a serpent with wings who, once every few days, would fly down the valley to the village and there seize children, women or animals, taking them back to the lake to devour them. The village people eventually sought the aid of the wise woman of the hills who instructed them how to kill the dragon (the details are too long to tell you here, so sorry). The villagers obey her instructions and are successful in killing the marauding beast much to their happiness. Sound a bit like the hobbit in some ways? I thought so. Below is a clip of the falls so you can get a feel for them. I'd like to go back to this place and explore a lot more some day!