Llansteffan Castle

Reviewing the Walk and the Week

My walk this week has been taken in two ways – the exploration of Llansteffan Castle and the migration of the StillWalks blog and website. I hope that you have both enjoyed this walk and will continue to enjoy both the weekly walks and other developing aspects of StillWalks.

The sound clip below is a re-posting of the clip I included earlier in the week as I did not have the material to produce a soundscape for this walk. That will have to remain for a full production walk later in the year. In the meantime you can view the images in sequence and listen to the clip at the same time.

 

Llansteffan Castle Sound Clip

If you are viewing this in an email, you will need to click the post title to see the sound player on the post itself.

Llansteffan Beach and Boulders

Colour and Weight

These are the rocks on top of which stands Llansteffan Castle in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, where my walk this week has taken place.

The weight of the rock is the first thing that impressed me, and the way they appeared to tumble onto the beach in front of me. It may be obvious that rocks have huge weight, but I find there are times when looking at natural objects like this, that the full extent of their nature strikes me with awe and I wonder at the unbelievable depth of time that has gone into forming the environment around me.

The colours and patterns to be found in this rocky edge to the beach are also amazing. Fortunately my companions on this walk seemed happy enough for me to lag behind from time to time in order to take my photos.

 

colourful rock

Llansteffan lane

Returning Down Below

Returning, on my walk this week, from the heights of Llansteffan Castle’s battlements to the beach below led me through the woods and away from my companions on this visit to Carmarthenshire in South Wales. I was able to look down on them just as they reached the beach.

Before we left the castle itself, I stood in the entrance to the castle and although I didn’t have my field recorder with me, still managed to capture something of the aural atmosphere of this calm day.

Listen to the sound clip below and if you are viewing this in an email, you will need to click the post title to see the sound player on the post itself.

 

Llansteffan Castle Sound Clip

Constructing the Changes and Reviewing the Week

This may seem an odd image with which to end my walk this week but it is a fact that new building is constant. Fortunately I am still able to rise above it (literally) by walking higher up the hill from which the residents of these houses regularly get to enjoy beautiful sunsets.

My short soundscape this week reflects all aspects of the walk. Listen to it while viewing my selection of the images I’ve posted through the week.

Construction

Goppa Soundscape

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.

My Walk this Week – Winter Times Past

This week I am looking back at a production walk I have presented before, which means you may recognise the photos I post this week. I’m not simply reusing the posts I wrote back then, but using new words with the photos to describe my memories of the walk.

This Winter we have had no snow to speak of at all – the five minute dusting I ran into on top of Graig Fawr on last weeks walk was the sum total of the snow we have had in our immediate vicinity this year. So before we fully engage with Spring and while the temperatures are still low, I thought it would be timely to take a look at what I think of as a proper winter walk.

Lliw Lower Reservoir is a popular place for people visit for a few different walks, all of which, naturally, circumnavigate either the lower reservoir or extend to the upper reservoir. My walk this week took me round the lower one where the footpath is tarmac on the eastern side and then a muddy narrow track back down the western side. However, none of those surfaces can be seen on this walk as the snow and ice were lying thick from start to finish.

Lliw Lower Reservoir

Lliw Lower Reservoir

Closing the Gate and Reviewing the Week 60

My walk this week followed a track up a local hill, Graig Fawr. It is my intention to produce a StillWalks video from the photos and field recording I did on the walk. Below is a selection of images from this weeks posts about this walk as well as a short soundscape of some aural aspects of the walk.

To see all the photos and I have posted about this walk, you will need to look at the individual posts.

gate

Graig Fawr Soundscape

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.

Observations On My Descent

The sun is back but it is not the only weather that is reflected on the back of this pony which is still wet from the recent snowfall.

Descending Graig Fawr on my return walk the rocks I photographed illustrate my new found knowledge of the geology of the area. Last week I posted photographs of rocks on Rhosilli Down at the end of the Gower Peninsula – and now I can post the photos below with a better understanding of why these show their strata pointing north, and those posted last week show theirs pointing south.

It all goes back 300 million years when the continents were getting squeezed . . . but if you want to know more I can recommend (again) the leaflets produced by Geraint Owen which are mostly available from local libraries or by visiting here and asking for them.

And if you are interested in knowing more still, I can recommend Jessica’s Nature Blog where she presents some wonderful photos and detailed information on the geology of areas of the Gower and Dorset.

pony

Icons of the Hill and some Pronunciation

Graig Fawr (pronounced Grige (with both “g”s hard) and Vower (as in power) and translates from the Welsh, more or less, as “big rock”)) . . . and before I forget, Happy St David’s Day from Wales 🙂

My walk up Graig Fawr soon brought me to a few things that seem to me to typify this particular area of my local uplands, the western edge of The Mawr (remember the “Fawr” pronunciation), the upland area north of Swansea.

One is the solitary tree and another is the bracken. There are large areas of bracken on the side of Graig Fawr and its companion hill, Cefn Drum (pronounced with a hard “C” and the “f” as a “v” and Drum is pronounced Drim). The colours and textures of the bracken are always there and now and then you will spot a single small tree growing out of its midst.

I have taken a number of photographs of these “icons” in different conditions and certainly the light is always different, but today the bracken had a particularly strong red tinge to its brown in some areas where it lay with the morning frost gradually thawing.

bare Graig Fawr tree

bracken

And then there was this water system manhole! I am not sure what the underground workings of this system are, but this access point with the slab of concrete and a glass jar laying on top of it and the concrete signage made me think of a grave with its headstone and the last flowers that were left in a jar, now disappeared.

Graig Fawr manhole