Mill On The Taff

Well,  The Wales 'Mill'ennium Stadium (Cardiff) on The River Taff - and not some quaint Turner painting scene as the title would have you believe!

I've been itching to do some star shots for a couple of weeks but it's been far too cloudy. When I looked from my garden late last night it was cloudy with a few stars. As the old saying goes, you have to work with what you've got, so at midnight exactly I drove to Cardiff.

The place where I placed my tripod, in Coldstream Terrace opposite the stadium was quite poignant for me as it was outside my grandparents house where I grew up as a young kid, around 50 years ago, and played in the Taff. How that riverbank has changed - and indeed, it was Cardiff Arms Park then!

The clouds actually add to the effect of the picture, taken just before 1am. I waited but the sky didn't clear.  I drove through Cardiff Centre seeing the late night revellers, queuing, shouting (and swearing), staggering, and women walking bare feet carrying their shoes!At 2am I was back under my duvet. Warm. I'd enjoyed it and I'm pleased with The Mill image.

The Stadium opened on 26 June 1999 and has a capacity of 74,500. It is also the second-largest stadium in the world with a fully retractable roof and was the second stadium in Europe to have this feature. You can see my aerial image of it here.

The River Taff rises as two rivers in the Brecon Beacons — the Taf Fechan (Little Taff) and the Taf Fawr (Big Taff) — before joining to form the Taff north of Merthyr Tydfil. The river supports a number of migratory fish, including salmon, sea trout, and eel. 

What's interesting is In Cardiff, the natural course of the river was changed during the 19th century; from Cardiff castle. It now follows an artificial riverbed west of where it previously flowed, now following a path through Bute Park and next the Millennium Stadium, and into Cardiff Bay which has now become an artificial lake due to the construction of a barrage across the mouth of this river and the River Ely. It then flows out into the Severn Estuary.