We’re in the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales in this month’s episode at our Bwlch Nant yr Arian Visitor Centre. The centre has had a successful year in 2021 despite the difficulties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, the centre retained its TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award that it has won for a number of years consecutively, now. The award recognises destinations which earn consistently positive visitor reviews; it also means that the centre is in the top 10% of locations listed on TripAdvisor.
This year, the centre was also awarded the coveted Green Flag Award for the first time. The award – which is delivered in Wales by Keep Wales Tidy - is a sign that a park or green space boasts the highest possible environmental standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent visitor facilities. Bwlch Nant yr Arian is only the second NRW site to be awarded the Green Flag after our Garwnant Visitor Centre near Merthyr Tydfil was awarded the accolade in 2016.
So what does it take to earn these awards and to be popular with visitors and locals alike? That's what we wanted to find out.
We’re in the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales in this month’s episode at our Bwlch Nant yr Arian Visitor Centre. The centre has had a successful year in 2021 despite the difficulties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, the centre retained its TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award that it has won for a number of years consecutively, now. The award recognises destinations which earn consistently positive visitor reviews; it also means that the centre is in the top 10% of locations listed on TripAdvisor.
This year, the centre was also awarded the coveted Green Flag Award for the first time. The award – which is delivered in Wales by Keep Wales Tidy - is a sign that a park or green space boasts the highest possible environmental standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent visitor facilities. Bwlch Nant yr Arian is only the second NRW site to be awarded the Green Flag after our Garwnant Visitor Centre near Merthyr Tydfil was awarded the accolade in 2016.
So what does it take to earn these awards and to be popular with visitors and locals alike? That's what we wanted to find out.
Llion: Hi there, and welcome to Cyfoeth: The Natural Resources Wales Environment Podcast. My name is Llion Bevan and I’m a senior communications officer working for NRW.
We’re in the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales in this month’s episode at our Bwlch Nant yr Arian Visitor Centre. The centre has had a successful year in 2021 despite the difficulties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, the centre retained its TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award that it has won for a number of years consecutively, now. The award recognises destinations which earn consistently positive visitor reviews; it also means that the centre is in the top 10% of locations listed on TripAdvisor.
This year, the centre was also awarded the coveted Green Flag Award for the first time. The award – which is delivered in Wales by Keep Wales Tidy - is a sign that a park or green space boasts the highest possible environmental standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent visitor facilities. Bwlch Nant yr Arian is only the second NRW site to be awarded the Green Flag after our Garwnant Visitor Centre near Merthyr Tydfil was awarded the accolade in 2016.
So what does it take to earn these awards and to be popular with visitors and locals alike? That’s what I wanted to find out.
I started my visit with a chat with Sarah Parry, who is the Visitor Centre Officer responsible for the day to day operation of Bwlch Nant yr Arian.
Llion: So I'm joined here this morning by Sarah. Sarah, Thanks for joining me today.
Sarah: No worries.
Llion: And tell me a little bit about yourself and what's your job at NRW
Sarah: Hi, I'm Sarah Parry. I am the visitor centre officer based here at Bwlch Nant yr Arian. It's my responsibility to make sure that the visitor centre is running smoothly on a day to day basis.
Llion: And how did you get into this line of work?
Sarah: So, originally, I studied countryside management. I had various work placements and during that course I had a work placement with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. I originally got into environmental education and I worked as an education officer for many years for various different places, wildlife trusts, local councils. I had sort of contract jobs, so it was quite varied I got into Ranger type jobs very early on.
I had a bit of a break then to have children and raise a family. And then I got back into work: originally with the RSPB, and then working on site here and then I got a job with the Forestry Commission at the time and I've kind of been here ever since.
Llion: Great, and how long have you been at Bwlch Nant yr Arian? It obviously predates NRW.
Sarah: Yes, I started working here in 2010 with the RSPB on site. No, actually 2009 with the RSPB on site. In 2010 I joined the Forestry Commission.
Llion: Excellent. Now, Bwlch Nant yr Arian is obviously very well established; can you tell me a little bit about the history of the place?
Sarah: Yeah, sure. So originally it was a Forestry Commission site. It was predominantly a Japanese larch plantation for timber production. At the time the Forestry Commission Wales decided it would make a nice site for visitors.
The shape of the land lends itself quite nicely to the features that we have here today. The lake that you can see on site sort of always naturally formed. So, they felled the trees in the bowl of the of the landscape and built a dam at one end and a lake formed.
Slowly over the years then, people came to look at the lake and have a walk around. The Forestry Commission then sort of turned it into more of a recreation site.
We had a very tiny visitor centre here originally which was probably in the late 1990s, although I can't be sure on that as I wasn't here then. Originally that was just an information hub and refreshments were served there.
As the site became more popular, the Forestry Commission at the time decided to feed the red kites that was in 1999. That really was just a conservation program, so it wasn't really designed for tourists or to bring tourism into the site. It was purely just to give the kites a bit of a helping hand at the time,
But it did subsequently attract a lot of people, so people came to watch that as a feature of its own. So in 2001 the visitor centre that we can see today was built up just to accommodate all the people that were that were coming to the site really. That included a cafe, a bit of shop area and toilet facilities.
We had an extension to the kitchen in about 2016. Again, just because the numbers of people kept rising and we were running out of space to be able to cater for all the visitors coming.
So, we've kind of reached our capacity really on building space, and we are hoping possibly to extend a little bit in the near future just for storage. But yeah, that's how we got to where we are today.
We've had lots of different features on site, added along the way. Various walks since the very beginning, orienteering routes, horse riding routes. We've had a corral built, a skills park most recently in the last five years and we've had a new addition to our mountain bike trails. We did originally have the four and now we've got five.
So, lots for visitors to come and see.
Llion: Absolutely! Excellent! And why do you think Bwlch Nant Yr Arian is so popular? What's the secret to keeping it working at such a high level?
Sarah: Oh…I think if you stumble across Bwlch Nant Yr Arian, it sort of speaks for itself as to why it's so popular because it's such a beautiful place to come and visit.
But I think it's because there's something for everyone - so the whole family can come. You can sit and have a cup of tea and look at the beautiful views. If you're a bit more adventurous, you can go on a mountain biking trail or go for a run or do some orienteering. We've got the play areas for children. So, there's lots to do and lots to do for everyone.
Um, I think as well, the position that we're in on the main A44 is a good one, because we get a lot of passing trade, so people sort of stumble upon us as I say. So that makes, that makes it quite a popular site.
And other than that, I think it's, you know our standards are high. We provide good food; we've got the beautiful views. And I think the secret to keeping it working at such a high level, really, the team that we've got based here.
So the team all work really well together. We've got a great team - they're all knowledgeable, and they're all really helpful and work really, really hard to keep it somewhere that people want to keep coming back to.
Llion: And what kind of impact did Covid have on the visitor centre? It must have, well, it, it would have, of course, would have closed it initially, but, how have things developed throughout the last year and a half or so now?
Sarah: Yeah, so initially when we first discovered COVID back in 2019 beginning of 2020, we did close originally for quite some length of time, so that had a huge impact. At the beginning we closed car parks, closed trails and we were in total lockdown really.
So obviously that had a huge impact - our visitors were not able to come to the site as they normally would have done.
We did then slowly start to open the site back up again when we could assess the severity of the pandemic.
So, we decided to reopen the car park, because it's important for local people - or it was important for local people to have somewhere that they could get out and be normal and do normal things and get out into the fresh air.
So Natural Resources Wales did open up several sites to allow people to do that. So,we kept the car park open, reopened our trails and eventually then opened the children play areas back up again. So people steadily came back to site.
There were a few travel restrictions in between where we saw less people. But local people have been able to use the site for most of the year really.
And then, as we've come out of lockdown and places have started opening back up again, we've just seen a huge increase in people.
So obviously, people were staying local. When the travel restrictions were lifted, we had a lot of people coming from other parts of the UK. So numbers have risen quite dramatically really over the back end of this year.
And yeah, it's been a bit of a shock to the system!
We've had to adapt to the visitor centre to allow for COVID restrictions. We've had to change our café menu and the way that we serve food to customers to make it safe and within regulations.
But on the whole, I think people were really ready to come back out. And we've really seen quite a dramatic rise over the last part of 2021.
Llion: Excellent. And I think we had a conversation a while back now where you were saying that you know the summer rush, as you would always expect to come here, it was sort of eking beyond summer a bit. So, you know despite coming into the autumn now that's still been maybe larger than expected turn out of visitors coming here.
Sarah: Yes, definitely towards the end of the summer holidays we were experiencing higher than average footfall, higher than average cars in the car park.
The overflow car park was open continuously and it was full continuously. Cars were also making use of the layby on the A4, parking places where we've never seen cars parked before, so it was a bit chaotic. Definitely bigger numbers. We found this last October holiday again the numbers have been really high, so people obviously making the most of staycations and coming to local sites. Even not local sites, you know we've had visitors over from England and Scotland. I think people are just wanting to stay within the UK at the moment until things settle down a bit further and vaccination passes and etc become a little bit more popular.
Llion: OK, well thanks a lot for speaking to me today Sarah and I'll let you get back to work.
Sarah: Thank you very much.
Llion: Now as you’d imagine, there are a number of daily tasks which get done to keep the centre looking its best, and ready for visitors. The centre has a host of staff who carry out these daily tasks and help visitors with any questions that they may have.
Andre Marsh is one of those members of staff, and that’s who I had a chat with next.
Llion: So I'm here with Andre this morning. Andre, thank you very much for joining me morning.
Andre: Morning
Llion: How's it going?
Andre: It's going really well, thanks, yeah good, good.
Llion: So first of all, tell me a bit about yourself, what's your job within NRW?
Andre: So I work here as a Technical Support for the visitor centre. I've been here 10 years and so the general duties we do is first, we open up, we check this site, check the building makes safe all the carpark, the decking, the play areas, check the skills, pay and display machine. All the basics or stuff that we need to do just to make sure that we're ready for opening.
Llion: Excellent. And how did you get into this line of work?
Andre: So it was actually through Sarah Parry. We were friends before we were working together. We lived in the same village and she just happened to mention there was an opening, just temporary for a start and I came along and enjoyed it straight away. So I've actually worked here three times over the ten years. The first two times were just temporary and then I came back permanent and that was when NRW had been set up then as well.
Llion: Excellent. So you mentioned a bit at the start, but what does a standard workday look like for you?
Andre: Right, so we come in, we open up the shutters, we'll check the inside of the building, make sure no fire doors are covered and all those sorts of things. Check the toilets are ready. We come out, we will check all the bins, we do the recycling, the refuse. Just make sure that the place is safe, the drains are working, the water is coming into the building and the boilers are working so we've got hot water and heating. Obviously, it's so important or else we've had breakdowns before with the boiler and we just can't open without hot water at all.
Llion: No, of course you can't operate in that way..
Andre: So just basic checks. Probably about 25 on a checklist. Then we get the shop ready, that's where we are sort of based in there. We do help the CAFE staff; we also help with some events. We are basically a point of contact for most visitors to come in who have never been to the site, and we can explain where the mountain bike trail starts, where to enjoy the kids puzzle trail around the lake. The kite feeding is a big thing here as well so. Just pointing people in the right direction really and but we offer more sort of tourist information about where places to go and eat other places to go and enjoy, to stay. So it's a bit of everything as we also do the first aid as well. So we have mountain biking and running activities. We do get the odd accidents have to be covering all of those of aspects of the job too.
Llion: Excellent, a very varied job then. So, you've already mentioned it a bit, but I understand that a big part of your work is in the shop. Do tell me a bit more about the shop and what you stock there?
Andre: We try to keep it as local as we can, and we do. Thankfully, we've got a really lovely mix of local artists, local ceramic artists. People who supply honey locally. We just keep it a really unique shopping experience and we get a lot of really positive comments from visitors who really enjoy the shop.
It’s only a small shop and we could probably do with it being a little bit bigger, but people go round and we’ve got so much crammed in there and it's all good quality stuff. We're really proud of what we've got here, so it's going well.
Llion: Excellent, so obviously NRW has done quite well recently with the awards and so forth. What to you personally is so special about this place?
Andre: I think it's a blend of everything. It's got the great outdoors where people can come here and enjoy it for free, other than a car parking charge which isn't so much. We just got a bit of everything – people can just come and take it as it is, enjoy the immediate area around the visitor centre and the lake setting or then go off and within a few 100 meters you can be just be completely on your own with nature. You can be walking or running or orienteering – we have so many options here.
And we’ve great food in the cafe and our lovely little shop and all the staff are great! It's just a great experience for people to come and enjoy.
Llion: OK, great thanks a lot for speaking with me, Andre. I'll let you get back to work.
Andre: Great. Thank you.
Llion: Now, as Sarah and Andre have already said, there’s something for everyone in at Bwlch Nant yr Arian, and whether you’ve had a gentle stroll around the lake, or you’ve been ‘daredeviling’ down the mountain bike trails, the café and its staff are there to welcome you and restore you!
I spoke with Paul Thomas, the Catering Supervisor at the centre about what they have to offer.
Llion: Paul, how are you doing?
Paul: I'm very good. Thank you.
Llion: Thank you for joining me.
Paul: You're welcome.
Llion: Tell me a bit about yourself, Paul.
Paul: Well, I'm a local lad. I’ve been working at Bwlch Nant yr Arian for nine years in December. I started in during what was the final year of the Forestry Commission. But I have been a in the catering business for 40 years.
I left school in Aberystwyth and went to work in a local restaurant. From there, I went to Cardigan Catering College for a year and then joined the Royal Navy for 22 years as a chef. I had various roles – from mass catering on aircraft carriers to being the personal chef for Admirals, which I did for about 10 years.
And I spent my final four years in the Royal Navy based in Naples in Italy, so that was really enjoyable.
Llion: Wow, excellent, so you're bringing an awful lot of experience into this.
Paul: Yes, I have a lot of experience. I've run my own cafe in Aberystwyth as well when I left the Navy. We were featured for Best Breakfast in Wales in the Observer Food magazine for three years on the trot. We were on the Chris Moyle Radio 1 morning show one morning with ‘Welsh Menu Roulette’. Where one of his team read the menu out in Welsh over the phone and they had to select from the menu what they wanted. I think Chris Miles got ‘Special K’ with bacon. It is an interesting mix! Yeah, so ‘Welsh Menu Roulette’ was quite funny.
Llion: So, what is your job in Bwlch Nant yr Arian, and what does a normal day look like?
Paul: I'm the catering supervisor so I run the catering operation in the visitor centre. My normal day starts as I open up and make sure the till is correct, that the staff get in on time and they are fit and healthy to come to do the job.
We get everything ready for the customers when we open up at 10:00 o'clock. Depending on the time of year can be really busy. But this time of the year it will start to slow down. Everything is not such a rush in the morning, but in the summer there's barely enough time to get ready for 10:00 o'clock opening.
Llion: And what kind of food do you do in the cafe?
Paul: Our menu has changed considerably in the past year due to the covid restrictions. We've had to reduce the menu somewhat because of a shortage of staff who were self-isolating and we've had to produce a menu which can be adapted - at a moment's notice, really.
Yeah, we do things like we've got soup, we've got some traditional beef cawl on. We do things like pulled pork in a roll, filled baguettes – bacon baguettes, sausage baguettes, that kind of thing.
And depending on how much time we've got, I've been doing a lot of pasties recently, which are extremely popular. In fact, I don't have enough time to keep up with demand at the moment.
Llion: Oh really, well done! Very popular indeed, of course. So who do you think appreciates the cafe more? A child who's got a giant sweet tooth and wants a big piece of cake or a mountain biker who is soaking and exhausted after a long day on the trails?
Paul: You just mentioned two groups of people. We we have a lot of walkers. We have people who just come here to look at the birds. And I think, people who have been out on the hillsides, and they're cold and wet, it doesn't matter what their age, they all appreciate coming back in for some hot food or a piece of cake, or just a drink, you know.
We have a lot of repeat customers, some local, some who come from far away, and they they've been stopping here on their way to somewhere else for years and years.
So I think everybody appreciates this cafe, certainly.
Llion: Absolutely, yeah. And, obviously, recently Bwlch Nant yr Arian has done very well and has won some awards. What, in your opinion is the pull of Bwlch Nant yr Arian and what makes it so special?
Paul: Well, just look around you. It's a beautiful setting, it's really peaceful, and people can just come and relax and we do have a wide range of visitors from all ethnicities and religions. We quite often have people asking for prayer rooms here.
So the attraction is just the scenery and, you know, the welcome I think they get from the staff here at Bwlch Nant yr Arian.
Llion: Absolutely. Well, thanks a lot for speaking with me today, Paul. I'll let you get back to your work.
Paul: Thank you very much. Nice to see you.
Llion: You too.
Llion: I hope that by this point in the podcast, you’ve had a flavour of everything that Bwlch Nant yr Arian has to offer. There is one thing left however that we’ve not spoken about too much, something that many people will argue that no visit to Bwlch Nant yr Arian is complete without!
The daily feeding of the red kites is a sight to behold and is a highlight of any visit. I caught up with Sarah once again to learn more about the kites.
Llion: So, Sarah, thanks for joining me again. We've just been and we’ve seen the kites being fed, and it was a very popular with visitors as ever. And I was just wondering, could you tell me a little bit about the kite feeding and when did it start?
Sarah: Yeah sure. Well we started the red kite feeding in 1999, originally just part of a local conservation effort really to help the species. They were in decline. Probably by the 1930s we only had a handful of red kites here in Wales. And we've helped various other organisations in re-establishing that population.
So, we set up the Feeding Station just to provide them with that little extra support really, especially over the winter months when the ground is frozen and their natural diet isn't quite so abundant. And we've always got a little source of food for them.
Llion: Yeah, excellent. So when during the day do you feed them and what do you feed them?
Sarah: So we feed every day of the year, including Christmas Day. We feed three o'clock in the summer, two o'clock in the winter months. We tend to see more birds coming to feed in the winter months, obviously, because their natural diet is less abundant.
And we feed meat that we get from a local butcher’s. So, 10 kilograms of meat, which is just butchers off-cuts of beef, pork, lamb. And we put that out every day for them.
Llion: Excellent. I'm sure they appreciate it. And what kind of feedback do you get from the visitors?
Sarah: Well, we only ever get positive feedback really. We do get some questions about why we feed the kites still. We do get some people who aren't sure where the red kites fit in in the food chain, but the good thing is we're a source of information here so we can let people know exactly why we feed and why it's still important to feed. So, on the whole the customers really love to come and see the kites. It's a big draw. People come from all over, all over the world. We have people from Germany, loads of different places to come and to come and watch the red kite feeding, and we've only ever had positive feedback on the whole,
Llion: Excellent. Great, well, thanks a lot for catching up with me again, Sarah, I'll let you get back to work.
Sarah: Thank you.
Llion: Thank you.
Llion: And that’s it for this episode. Thanks for coming along with us on our visit to the Bwlch Nant yr Arian Visitor Centre.
If you haven’t visited before, I hope that this podcast has piqued your interest and that you’ll make a visit to experience the place for yourself.
If you want to learn more, you can go to the Bwlch Nant yr Arian webpage via: www.naturalresources.wales/bwlchnantyrarian. While you’re on the website, remember to go to the ‘Days Out’ section to check out all the other wonderful places we manage that you can visit.
Thanks for listening.