Rhondda Cynon Taf Mental Health Partnership is working together to raise awareness of mental illness in the County Borough by hosting a series of sponsored walks as part of world mental health week.

Choose the walk that suits you best, the walks start at 11am and are taking place in the following locations on the dates listed:

• Rhondda Mile at Gelligaled Park – 5th of October,

• Cynon Mile at Aberdare Park – 8th of October,

• Taff Mile at Ynysangharad Park – 10th of October.

The mile can be walked, run, cycled, skateboarded, whatever you fancy. Come along as a group, as a family, alone or in fancy dress and the best dressed will win a prize. The routes are wheelchair accessible and are suitable for pushchairs.

If you are unable to take part in the walk, why not come along and support the walkers or become an event volunteer.

Entrance Fee is £1.00 per walker payable on the day, for more information on the Rhondda Mile call Paul Bargewell on 01443 688770, for the Cynon Mile call Angela Evans on 01685 875481 or for the Taff Mile call Nannette King on 01443 486856.

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They looked so content.

They were lying partly in the shade and in the dry soil below a large conifer tree. Taking a dust bath one presumes.

An hour and a half later and there are twelve left. Perhaps this is really a Pigeon School ?

Aberdare Park in Wales is around 50 hectares. Aberdare National Park in Kenya is around 77,000 hectares. The mind boggles at this scale.

If our mathematics are correct, you could fit nearly 3790 Aberdare Parks into the Kenyan Aberdare National Park.

Why did the Kenyans name such a vast nature reserve Aberdare National Park ?

It appears that during the hey-day of colonial exploitation in Africa (in 1884 to be precise) the explorer Joseph Thompson gave the name ‘Aberdare’ to the Kenyan mountain range he discovered. He choose the name Aberdare as Lord Aberdare (Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare (1815 – 1895)) was then President of the Royal Geographic Society.

Of course, the Kenyans, who discovered the mountain range many years before Thompson, called it something else. They called it Nyandarura, a name for a traditional rack used for drying animals hides and skins. The Kenyans farm areas of the fertile Aberdare lands and according to local sources, drums would be used, especially at the edges of the Aberdare forest to scare away elephants and other wild beasts and prevent them straying onto farmland and taking precious crops.

Today a project is underway to erect an electric fence around much of the Aberdare forest. Newspaper reports from Kenya this week report that progress is underway and that they have already completed around 337 kilometres (or 210 miles) of electric fencing.

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