My walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers had a high point above Port Eynon where, from the cliffs, we were able to see miles across the Bristol Channel and out to sea. It was a beautiful day and the sun glinted off the turquoise water while I took in the patterns of rock in the bay below.
Leaving the woodland by a kissing gate on my walk this week held the Taste of Gower group of walkers up enough for me to catch up with them . . . momentarily! It wasn’t long before their conversation became a murmur in the distance and the quietening ambience took over in this area between the woodland and the sea of the Bristol Channel.
Quietening Ambience
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As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.
England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.
The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.
These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.
Pen y Fan Voices
I have no idea what these objects in the sea are! I imagine the distant ones are buoys for shipping. I am pretty sure the larger structure also has something to do with shipping but as it is so close to the Cardiff Bay barrage, where we were walking, I am not sure what its purpose is. It has meteorological equipment on it and clearly it is a convenient pirch for birds – other than that all I can say is that I like the composition of uprights, horizontals and perspective in this shot.
This image can also be seen in black and white on Leanne Cole’s Photography blog post Monochrome Madness 2-29.
The second photo includes Flat Holm and Steep Holm islands in there Bristol Channel.
Here is that concertina effect again in the structure and pattern of stanchions underneath Penarth Pier (see Monday’s post). The pattern of uprights is in contrast to the seemingly higgledy piggledy pattern of the cross bars and linkages of the rest of the structure.
You can find these railings with their reflection of wave forms and froth in front of the Italian Gardens on Penarth Esplanade in South Wales – a pleasant place to sit with a good view of the Bristol Channel.
The early morning light on Penarth Pier is not so unusual but the mixture of colours in the sky looking out from Penarth seafront towards Flat Holm and Sleep Holm Islands in the Bristol Channel did strike me as quite weird.
The cliffs at Cwm Nash and further along the South Wales coast on the Bristol Channel display some great geological features. It is a popular place to enjoy the breakers as well as the rocks but you have to be cautious about the continually eroding cliffs.
The evidence for this is strewn along the foot of the precipice in various sizes, from small rocks which would still do you some damage, to huge chunks of cliff that must way several tons!
