Old favourites such as a circuit from Llanthony Abbey and the Llanbedr Horseshoe were joined this year by new routes in the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons as well as walks with specific topics, such as a guided walk around the Glanusk Estate. All tastes and abilities were catered for - so you could learn Welsh, write poetry, listen to a musical history of the canal or trek all day across the tops of this wonderful area enjoying the scenery and an explanation from your local guide.

The free event will be held at the St Michaels Centre, Abergavenny and aims to encourage new relationships between activity businesses and accommodation operators. Local businessmen and women will spend a few minutes with prospective clients trying to find their perfect business partnership. Many activity operators have already signed up to attend including Anna Hayward from Drover Holidays, Peter Joseph from Themed Guided Walks and Tom and Bryony Passmore from Llanthony Riding and Trekking Centre.

Stars, nebulae, galaxies, clusters, and even a few planets will be at your fingertips when the National Park Visitor Centre is briefly transformed into a mini-observatory on Saturday 20th March. The event will offer keen star gazers a wonderful opportunity to view the night sky, see demonstration models, actual telescopes plus learn about star gazing equipment and astronomy from the Cardiff Astronomical Society. The event runs from 7.00pm until 9.30pm - and due to overwhelming demand booking is essential.

Caught stealing geese from Llangynidr - and tried at Brecon Quarter
Sessions in 1853 - 42 year old David Lewis from Llangattock was sentenced
to 7 years transportation to Tasmania for his crime. Life was very hard in
Crickhowell at that time, and with families to feed David and others were
driven to theft in order to survive. Many found themselves jobless and
penniless and were forced to live in the local Llangattock workhouse, now Ty
Croeso Hotel. Others would bed down around the Llangattock lime kilns at
night to keep warm, and many died when they were affected by the toxic kiln
fumes during the night.

Now in its third year, the Festival has more than sixty guided walks over nine days of walking in the Brecon Beacons National Park from Saturday 27th February to Sunday 7th March 2010. The terrain varies from short and level walks in the beautiful Usk Valley to very tough exacting routes at high altitude.

More than 20 tourism operators turned up to the first ‘Diamonds in the Sky' workshop, jointly hosted by Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and the University of Glamorgan, providing an introduction to astronomy to help them engage with the night skies and market their business to other keen star gazers.

Wardens from Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and local Black Mountains' graziers are spending three days this week coordinating the airlift which will involved shifting 120 bales of heather onto the hillside at an altitude of 700 metres. Extreme weather conditions, the remote location and the altitude of the site meant that using a helicopter was the only option for access work, which will also include improvements on a 1km section of popular footpath on the twmpa, near Gospel Pass.

On Wednesday (13th January), Lord Puttnam, Chair of the judges, revealed The Green Valleys as one of three winning communities. The project fought off competition from over 350 community groups across the UK because of their achievements over the course of a year in four areas: CO2 reductions achieved; the innovative nature of their initiatives; the longevity and scalability of their project; and their level of community engagement. They will be awarded £300,000 from the prize fund.

At Brecon Magistrates' Court on Friday 11th December after pleading guilty to felling seven mature cherry trees in the Talgarth Conservation Area, Mr Arwyn Davies, Director of Wyro Developments was fined £2,600 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £15, with £664 costs awarded to Brecon Beacons National Park Authority.