My walk this week took me to the lower slopes of Cefn Drum where evidence of all the rain we have had recently was clearly to be seen with muddy ruts filled with flowing water.
Starting with a familiar gate and cattle grid, I followed some disgruntled sheep up the track and under the pylons to negotiate a route around deep wet ruts and puddles reflecting the cloud patterns of a clearing sky.Continue reading
Looking at more pics from my archive of a walk on Rhossili Down four years ago takes me to the top of the Down where I met some Gower ponies as well as other people. The ponies are wild and there are many of them all over the Gower Peninsula moors and marshes. Strictly speaking, they must be (legally) owned by somebody these day but I’m not sure that makes any difference to anyone.
I have left out many of the photographs I took that day only because the fifteen I have picked for my posts this week do a good job of feeding my memory and are sufficient to describe the place on a day like this one was – sun shining blindingly with a wind blowing up from the sea with the ridge of the Down providing an occasional and welcome respite from the bluster of it.Continue reading
The wildflowers I have been posting images about this week were all photographed within a half mile along this coastal track in south west Scotland.
It will be hard to pick out my favourites but this may be partly helped by selecting not only the flowers I particularly like (all of them!) but also the photographs that I think work well for one reason or another.Continue reading
On my walk this week I was again alone on the track – but that’s not me in the image, just a lonely tuft of grass. I wasn’t lonely on this walk near Skanda Vale in the countryside of Carmarthenshire, just alone – and for the purposes of StillWalks production, photography and field recording, being alone is generally preferable. My closest companion on this walk is in the first shot below in the form of a fascinating golden winged insect Continue reading
Rising higher on this, my second consecutive walk up the Cwm Dulais valley, I came into a heavy mist. The mist was not so heavy that I couldn’t see the friendly horse in the field at the top to whom I like to chat, but his own grey colour is not far off that of the mist – well camouflaged for weather like this!
Up above the valley on my walk this week I reached another familiar gate and enjoyed the views over the landscape below. I was disappointed on this occasion not to meet the horse which can just be seen on the other side of the fence in the image below. Normally I would stop and have a wee chat with him but he was hidden behind the bank as I passed and didn’t follow me along to the other end of the field.
Where this hill had been in the earlier stages of my walk when starting from the other end a couple of weeks ago, I am now approaching the end of my walk – it’s all downhill from here and through the crunching Autumn leaves 🙂
Yesterday I mentioned the difficulty for horses of a steep and slippery section of the footpath/bridle way that I have been following on my walk this week. Here is another challenge for the riders of those horses. While gates may not present much of a difficulty to a well practised rider, some of them have mechanisms that require some extra effort to operate. I can’t remember for sure but I think one of the riders of the pair below dismounted in order to open this one.
As well as the pleasure I get from gates and in particular their various sounds, I also get (as I am sure do many other people) enjoyment from the sound of horses hooves on the ground. Listen below.
Still climbing on my walk this week, I reached the first gate I needed to open. Loving the sound of gates, I just had to record it and of course that popular seasonal sound of dry Autumn leaves as the crunch underfoot.
Shadow of a Gate
Goppa Gate
