In any Welsh woodland you are unlikely to be far from the sound of running water – or any other part of Wales for that matter, woodland or not. Penllergare Valley Woods is no exception and on my walk this week, I could have recorded any number of water sounds.
The sound from the stretch of river seen below was quite gentle but it is by no means always like this.
River Sound
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My walk this week takes me back to Penllergare Valley Woods. I have produced StillWalks videos of all four seasons here but that is no reason not to take another look. In this walk the conditions are inevitably different and as well as that, further work has been done in the park by The Penllergare Trust volunteers.
I don’t remember this arbour and arch being here perviously and of course, the next time I visit, it will have grown more and changed again.
I wil be posting just one or two sound clips from the woods through this week, but I have a soundscape for the walk to post on Sunday with the walk review.
Penllergare Woodland Sounds
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It was a nice sunny day for my walk this week, though I still had my umbrella with me as an encumbrance. My final view of the walk was looking across Swansea Bay from the dunes to Mumbles and its lighthouse.
I have included a soundscape again this week to accompany my selection of images from the walk. Click the play button and then the first thumbnail to view the images in sequence.
Tawe Walk Soundscape
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This sign and its distorted reflection may say “No Fishing”, but the next photo below shows that there are fishing boats just round the corner from this entry point to the inner marina at Swansea.
The other vessels in Swansea’s Maritime Quarter range from small to large sailing and motor boats of all types. The modern catamaran and the older style of sailing vessel below suggest something of this range – and all of the owners rely on the security the marina offers to keep them safe. However, I was a little taken aback when I saw the razor wire!
Lapping Water
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It was a good day for my walk this week and the local rowing club obviously though it was good for them as well. They rowing up and down the river regularly – I don’t know how high up the river they go but in the past I have seen them up near the Liberty Stadium at Morfa where I enjoyed my walk last week.
I wasn’t able to capture the sounds of the rowers as well as take these photos but one of the sounds I did record at this stage of my walk can be heard below.
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It’s quite common these days to transform the local docks into a fancy marina or other such housing and / or business development. In the case of Swansea people were not being moved out to make way for the new build and the docks are in diminished use in comparison to Swansea’s industrial heyday.
The SA1 area, as it is known, is situated across the river from the marina but the two developments are linked by the well designed millennium footbridge and a more functional footbridge at the lock from the marina to the river mouth.
The old redbrick building above used to be one of the dock buildings of course and it along with the few other older dockside buildings in the area, sit well beside the wide range of modern architecture.
I have taken photographs of this architecture in the past but the images below function more as a contribution to my walk this week than a means of showing the architectural design of the area. If you do a search on the blog for SA1, you will be able to see some of those other images.
Swansea Millennium Footbridge
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My walk this week is another urban walk – in fact it is downstream of last weeks walk along the banks of the River Tawe. This time I am at the mouth of the river and looking around part of Swansea Maritime Quarter and SA1 area.
My starting point is the weir at the entrance to the marina. To its left (looking inland) there is one of two busy locks used by a wide range of vessels, but I was more interested in the patterns of water falling over the weir at different points.
In some places the water is very churned up following its descent over a structure of steps while further across the river the water is at first perfectly smooth as it falls over the curved surface of the weir. Further over again, where there appear to be rocks embedded in the curve of the weir, the water patterns begin to ripple and the froth on the lower surface of water appears to start climbing the back up the weir.
Weir Water
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I hope you enjoy my soundscape for this walk while viewing my selected image sequence for the walk by clicking on the first thumbnail below.
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Morfa Walk Soundscape
