Due to the lack of a bypass (which they just couldn’t be f**ked to build past Pontygwaith), you’ve probably never visited or even driven through the upper Rhondda Fach. Of this fact, you should be grateful. This area comprises of a number of **** invested, impoverished sh**holes built around the coal mines (of course nowadays, cannabis production is the area’s only industry, occupying 90% of the many abandoned buildings in this valley- If you think you can smell cannabis, you can).
People still come here though, to see the sites where they film Stella. But the chances are, the only Stella you’ll see are empty cans of Stella Artois, either left on walls full of p**s or littering popular beauty spots. (Although in Spring, said popular beauty spots are usually charred and burnt because Penrhys has discovered fire again).
The Rhondda Fach boasts about stunning natural beauty (when it’s not on fire), so, just to make use of these beauty spots and footpaths through old industrial sites (now reclaimed by nature), the local people have to, every once in a while, dump whatever rubbish they can find there, even if it requires more effort to do so than to dispose of their rubbish properly. Another popular past time is leaving a car in said beauty spots and lighting it on fire… for some reason…
In terms of agriculture, it occurs mainly in people’s attics, abandoned buildings and takeaways, however, there is also stunning the dog sh*t tree, native to these parts.
One of the settlements in this hellish area is Blaenllechau (you’re not pronouncing it correctly if you don’t spit whilst doing so). Blaen (which it is known as locally) boasts some of the Fach’s best attractions; A roundabout and a shop (yes one shop)… that is it…
