Llyn Llech Owain

My Walk this Week 239 – Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my StillWalks® followers and visitors. My walk this week is a hopeful one that takes you out of the woods and into the open.

The sound track for this short video was not going to be as it is. When recording the short clip in the woods at Llyn Llech Owain a helicopter flew overhead (as you can hear) – this prompted me to record a separate sound clip after it had passed.

However, it occurred to me that the helicopter might be considered symbolic of the past year in that it was likely to be an emergency flight taking someone to hospital. I doubt very much that we are out of the woods yet with the coronavirus. Even with the vaccine it will take time to immunise the population and we need to keep our fingers crossed that the vaccine will do the trick.

So out of the woods and into the open . . . Llyn Llech Owain is a local country park on one of those currently rare bright cold days, we and other families carefully kept socially distanced as we enjoyed the sounds of the geese on the lake, the peace of no traffic in the background, and the moon rising as the sun set (at the end of the video in the top left corner). 

lake and trees

My Walk this Week 166 – Gnoll Country Park

My walk this week is through a woodland I have not walked in for a few years – Moss Wood in Gnoll Country Park. In truth I am not sure that this woodland is the one I walked in previously, as the StillWalks video I produced here was in a coniferous wood which has since been cut for lumber.

woods and field

The coniferous trees of the lumbered wood were adjacent to these deciduous trees – I think I simply walked a different route to last time. Either way the walk was beautiful and I will be doing it again without any concerns about coming across the multiple  stumps of felled trees.Continue reading

holey tree

My Walk this Week 126 – Woodland Wonders

The wonders of the woodland, the lakes, the colours and the soundscape . . . and the textures and the bird life and the patterns and the fact that the rain held off for me on my walk this week around Gnoll Estate Country Park in Neath, South Wales – these are some of the things that I enjoyed about this walk.

Early Autumn colour

One thing I did not remember from previous visits (going back a few years) was the oak tree with a huge hole through its trunk. Clearly the park authorities felt it was a wonder worth preserving and have reinforced the natural structure with metal rods.Continue reading

lower lake

My Walk this Week 126 – Gnoll Park

My walk this week is to a park I have not visited for a few years. Gnoll Country Park in Neath is a beautiful place with lakes, woodland, cascades, wildlife, wildflowers, history and a great community building.

shadow gate

Entering the park from the lower southern entrance was new for me and I got to see a part of the park I had not been round previously but no less enjoyable for that. I was taking the opportunity to walk here because I was in Neath anyway as I have lately been working on the website for a new gallery in the town – Queen Street Gallery. Continue reading

Figures in the Forest

Figure in the forest

Progressing with my walk this week at Llyn Llech Owain Country Park in Carmarthenshire, we moved away from the lakeside (llyn) and into the forest where we found a host of little figures like the one above. Continue reading

My Walk this Week – A Carmarthenshire Lake

blade of grass on dark water

I decided to give this walk the title of “A Carmarthenshire Lake” because apart from giving its rough location, I thought it would be easier for people to pronounce than the name of the lake and park itself – Llyn Llech Owain. No problem of course for those of us in Wales and it may be that the Welsh lingo is an attraction for outside visitors to the country, but that wouldn’t make the words any easier to pronounce.Continue reading