The largest country park in the Wrexham area of Wales; Alyn Waters is situated in the beautiful Alyn Valley and is a Green Flag Award accredited site. There are a variety of woodland, grassland and riverside walks throughout the park helping you to explore the whole site.

This POTA park was part of a plan to complete a four park rove back in February 2025. the other three were: GB-1014, GB-1194 and GB-1492. Setting off early on the morning of the 16th, Alyn Waters was my last park of the day. I achieved 33 qso’s including my longest DX was across the pond with K4CGY James in Charlottesville, Virginia (over 3,600 miles). Also a special Event Station from Turkey TC100IARU (celebrating the 100th IARU Anniversary )

Both of these stations were on 10 Meters as I had been operating on 3 bands today along with 17 meters and 20 meters. A total of 124 qso’s for the 4 park rove on the day, made the Journey from England to Wales worthwhile.

Alyn Waters has 2 sides to it with a car park on each, with the village of Gwersylt on one side and the village of Llay on the opposite side. I decided to activate just inside the Gates on the Llay side, the photo above shows the entrance my with vehicle just parked on the left a couple of hundred yards in.

The variety of grassland and woodland together with the river that separates the 2 sides, offer a range of habitats.

The rich meadow habitat, full of vetches, grasses, ox eye daisy and yellow rattle. In the summer, the common spotted orchid is an impressive sight as well as bee orchids and helleborines, some of which are quite rare.

Species recorded at Alyn Waters include kingfishers, buzzards, kestrels, foxes, otters, grass snakes, smooth newts and a variety of bats.

There are 6 distinct trails within the park, all are tagged with a colour and clearly signposted ( Yellow, Green, Orange, Blue, Red, Blue, Purple). During the summer dragonflies and damselflies flit through the surrounding grasses. In autumn, you will see a feast of hawthorn, blackthorn, elder and rowan berries as the trails take you across open meadow and tree lined paths.

Wrexham Borough Council bought much of the land in 1988 and designated the area as a country park in 1989. It has facilities including a children’s play area and a cafe open all year. The Friends of Alyn Waters community group work alongside the Park Rangers and development staff to improve and maintain the park for all its users. They raise money through grants and fundraising events to fund various improvements to Alyn Waters.

Car Parking is available with a £1 cost all day, as usual in a lot of places Blue Badge Holders like myself can park for free with no time limit, one of the very few positives of having a disability. The Wall sign below shows where you are and as you can see is in both Welsh and English as Wrexham the largest City is close to the Welsh/English Border.

I would recommend a visit to Alyn Waters for a number of reasons, it offers more than just a place to operate Radio from, but does also have Geocaches hidden, plus extensive land for hiking and enjoying the outdoor space as you see fit.

So once again dear reader , I thank you for staying to the end of my little review, I hope you found it useful and interesting? I also hope it makes you get out and about and soak up atmosphere and fresh air of the outdoors !!

I wish you all Great WX and even better DX, 73 Tony G1JPV