Tag Archives: hill

Gate to the mountain

My Walk this Week 232 – Wandering the Hillside

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My walk this week is more of a wander on Cefn Drum, one of our local hills. Being a sunny Sunday afternoon, the hillside was busy with 4 or 5 other people gently strolling along the labyrinth of footpaths, so I didn’t hang around long and beat a retreat back down the hollow way seen in my last post.

The video includes flowing water again, but this is a sound it can be hard not to hear in Wales, especially at this time of year. And once again the video is also my soundscape for this week and indeed it includes separately recorded sound as well as that recorded as video.

My walk started well before the gate to the mountain (we say mountain but really it is a hill rising to about 750 feet), but a gate is a good starting point, a threshold, whatever rusty state it may be in.

My walk on the hillside ended with another battered aged gate, one with a different perspective, at least from the angle I photographed it.

rural landscape
rural landscape
Gate to the mountain
Gate to the mountain
hillside path
hillside path
white bark brown bracken
white bark brown bracken
lowering sun
lowering sun
branch of the labyrinth
branch of the labyrinth
hollow way leaves
hollow way leaves
old gate perspective
old gate perspective
fibre attachment
fibre attachment
holey rust
holey rust
evening field
evening field

 

sunrise

My Walk this Week 143 – Up Hill and Down Valley

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My walk this week is another early morning one – the moon was setting as I left the house and as I climbed up hill, the sun was just beginning to show its colours reflected on the clouds. I was on this hill, Cefn Drum, last week but on this occasion I was walking in the opposite direction and returned along its opposite side, looking down on Cwm Dulais.

early morning sky

The day promised to be brighter than last week but the clouds kept intervening and the light kept changing accordingly. It was still a beautiful walk and I had not covered part of the route before. Having always looked at the rocky ridge of Twyn Tyle from the far side of the valley,Continue reading→

lambs looking back

Looking Back Down the Hill

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Looking down isn’t always the best thing to do – certainly not if you want to see where you are going – but it is also necessary if you want to be able to see the details underfoot of where you are. In the case of the lambs in today’s featured image, looking back down the hill at me is a matter of curiosity, the curiosity of the young.

dewey web detail

Their mothers had led them up the hill away from me as I approached on the descending lane, but they halted half way up to check me out. I too halted many times on my walk, first to look andContinue reading→

Aberystwyth Framed

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Aberystwyth framed

I like this shot of Aberystwyth framed by one of the structures on the beach – not the pier but another walkway that extends out into the waves. The variation of scale or perception of it is one of the most interesting things to me, with the heavy concrete pillars in the foreground and the buildings appearing almost like toys or models in front of the massive scale of the hill directly behind.Continue reading→

Up On the Hill

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The sheep and their lambs (and a goat) have a good view over the landscape from their vantage point near the top of the hill I’ve been climbing in my walk this week.

Whether looking north with the scene framed by ruins or south across the Loughor Estuary towards the Gower Peninsula, the animals here probably don’t care a jot for any view other than that of the grass on the other side of the fence.

sheep and lambGoppa Lamb and Sheep

If viewing this in an email, to see the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.

Making Connections and Conversations

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It could be said that the subject matter of the first two shots below is 1. the whin bush and 2. the grasses in the foreground. This would be a reasonable assumption as these items are in focus whilst the rest of the photo is not.

While this may be true, I think I would argue that if I was interested in taking photos of whin or grass, I could do a much more interesting job, perhaps looking at the sharp thorniness of the whin or the colours and patterns in the grasses.

However, the true subject matter is the story of my walk this week and the purpose of images like these within a sequence is to connect one aspect or stage of a walk with another. Having descended from the higher part of Graig Fawr, I am now approaching civilisation again and this can be seen by the blurred pattern of buildings at the foot of the hill. However, in my mind I am still with the natural landscape, the whin and the grasses and I am not yet ready to dive back into the everyday world of people and work.

A single elderly dog walker provides a gentle re-introduction to society with a brief conversation near the end of my walk about the weather – what else? Listen below.

Graig Fawr Walk-25

grass and trees

A Brief Conversation 

If viewing this in an email, to see the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.

Graig Fawr Walk-27

 

My Walk this Week 22- Rhosilli Down

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My walk this week features a walk I did exactly a year ago to the week and took me up onto Rhosilli Down at the end of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. It was one of those increasingly rare days in February when the sun shines, albeit through a haze, the weight of which changed with the wind throughout the day.

The track leading up from the village of Rhosilli to the top of the ridge overlooking the bay is quite steep. Whilst ascending this was not a problem, descending it again at the end of the day was most definitely an issue – one which my knees complained about bitterly and had me inching down from the down at a snail’s pace.

The walk, however, was most enjoyable and although I did not find the time in 2015 to post produce this as a StillWalks video, I hope to do so this year and in the meantime bring  a sample of the place to my posts throughout this week.

Rhosilli Down