During our walk through Cwm Nash woodland, I spotted what looked like the entrance to a tunnel. It clearly wasn’t, but the growth pattern and arrangement of the trees growing at the side of the footpath appeared shortly before an actual tree tunnel that would take us out of the woods and towards the sea.
The ruined stone wall hidden in amongst the trees of Cwm Nash Woods was a surprise find – for me at least. The wall belongs to an old mill beside the Ffynnon Marl river. The StillWalks production walk I did with Dr Cathy Treadaway as part of the “Walk and Draw for Health and Wellbeing” research project, was done without a recce walk beforehand.
I had been asked to go along with a completely fresh eye (and ear). I don’t normally do this because there are distinct production advantages to checking out the lie of the land beforehand. However, whether the walk is done as a recce or as a production, new surroundings are always exciting to explore and Cwm Nash absolutely “came up to the mark” for me as a new discovery.
These photos are from a woodland on Bristol Channel coast of South Wales. I know the area in the Vale of Glamorgan from working there on a project a few years ago, but I had not been to this particular spot before.
The images form part of a new StillWalks video I was asked to produce as part of a research project being run by Dr Cathy Treadaway for CARIAD at Cardiff Metropolitan University. The project – “Walk and Draw for Health and Wellbeing” – is very much in keeping with my StillWalks philosophy and the video will be available to view at the end of this week.
. . . you’ll find some strange wooden serpents slithering through the undergrowth. This Loch Ness monster like fallen branch is classic shape from the crooked oak trees of the woods in Coedbach Park.
It is not the first time I have photographed this particular piece of wood, but it is in a different position in the woods now, so it is obviously on the move!
My second surprise find in the old burnt out abandoned building I found while crossing a field on a recent evening walk were these old cars. I have some enquiries to make in order to find out what the car is. I thought about an MG Midget and a friend suggested a Sunbeam but if anyone out there recognises it as something else, please let me know in the comments.
It wasn’t just thistles in this field (see previous post). This abandoned and burnt out building held one or two surprises.
A tangled mass of rusty corrugated iron was the first.
Here is a view of a place I have not seen from this angle before – looking over Hendy from one of my evening walks. I have done the walk many times but never ventured quite so far into the field on the hill. The 11 arched railway bridge over the River Loughor can be seen from other vantage points but none of them have the same green landscape in the foreground – buildings and telegraph lines tend to get in the way.
Snapped on my iPhone, I made the mistake of zooming in – just slightly, but it was still a mistake. Always crop afterwards if need be, but don’t use the zoom function as it is digital, not optical and the effect is a blurred image. I’ve done my best with it.
I did not use the zoom function in the close up of a thistle in the field – I didn’t need to. There were loads of them, the tallest I have seen!
