{"id":14846,"date":"2023-02-04T19:16:01","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T19:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=14846"},"modified":"2023-02-05T09:30:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-05T09:30:45","slug":"blogathon-04-23-going-underground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=14846","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 04\/23: Going underground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One way or another The Blorenge (rhymes with Orange, so there) mountain has been a monumental erm monument in my life for so many years. Actually for all of the years. It’s a distinctive mountain, which I’ll detail in a minute, but first I need to highlight my attachment to it. For the first eight years of my life I lived on top of The Blorenge, in a small mining town called Blaenavon\/Blaenafon. One branch of my family has lived in Blaenavon for many generations, but it looks as though my generation will be the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blorenge is part of the Brecon Beacons National Park, and is also part of a World Heritage Site and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The course of the old tramway from the Pwll Du side of the mountain through to the Llanfoist side is a terrific walk in dryer months, but the heather grows thick and makes for heavy going in places. The mountain is home to a number of disused quarries (limestone, sandstone and, of course, coal), as well as some Bronze Age burial cairns. Foxhunter’s grave is near the peak at Mynydd y Garn-fawr. I have walked just about every single square inch of that mountain, and walked up it from the Usk valley, far below, several times. It’s a steep climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we moved down off the mountain to the Usk valley below, we could still see The Blorenge through the kitchen window. At school(s) I could still see the mountain from almost every classroom; it towers over the local area and, though it isn’t quite as tall as the nearby Sugar Loaf mountain, I think The Blorenge cuts a more interesting geographical feature. But I think that might be something to do with my attachment to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At just 561m, The Blorenge is not a huge peak, but because of its placement across the valleys it can be seen from every approaching point of the compass. Tourists to the area usually stop for a brew at the Keeper’s Pond, then trundle up and around the corner to Foxhunter’s grave. They might drop down into Blaenavon, but the town has little to offer anyone these days, despite its heritage status. Or they might drive through town and up to Forge Side on the other side of the Coity, the peak of the Blorenge, and spend time at the Big Pit National Coal Museum<\/a>. But there is another feature to the Blorenge, one which isn’t accessible to most folk, that I’d like to highlight here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a boy I used to climb up the quarry face and down into the old mine workings at both Ginger’s Quarry and Jackdaw’s Quarry. My mother would have had fits if she’d known what I was up to. But a little further along the crest of the Blorenge, and quite a long way beneath it, is Ogof Draenen. At 66km, this is the longest cave system in Wales, and one of the many underground features that hides within the Blorenge. The names of the various passages and chambers in this system are well-chosen. There’s Rifleman’s Chamber (the Rifleman’s Arms is a local pub and was once run by my Grandfather), Raider’s Passage, Wonderbra Bypass and Gone With The Wind (which is one of several natural passages, not to mention the manmade ones) that run beneath Keeper’s Pond).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of all the (very many) photographs that exist of the Blorenge (and there are very many photographs), I have two favourites, one I took and one was taken by a brilliantly talented local photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Blorenge, my bike, my photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Blaenavon Photos photo, Foxhunter’s grave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One way or another The Blorenge (rhymes with Orange, so there) mountain has been a monumental erm monument in my life for so many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}