Twyn Tyle

My Walk this Week 256 – Going Up the Uplands

My walk this week is up the uplands, or to give them their local name, The Mawr. I love The Mawr! It is an expansive area of moorland occupied by skylarks, pheasants and judging from this walk, badgers and / or foxes. I am sure there are many, many more creatures living there but one creature that is perhaps there in fewer numbers is human beings. That makes me sound anti-social I guess, but I’m not – perhaps I’m just greedy for space!

Twyn Tyle escarpment

For those locals that may be interested and are under the impression that the escarpment shown in the video above is part of Pontarddulais (or Bont) Mountain, I would like to correct the names being used for this element of our landscape. Thanks to a mistake by GoogleMaps, the names of this small mountain and the one next to it are incorrect. The mountain featured in the video is Twyn Tyle and the one becoming known as Bont Mountain is in fact named Cefn Drum. It seems that only the elders of our community know this but it is something GoogleMaps needs to fix – the names are correct on the Ordnance Survey maps. There now, that’s my short rant over.

I am sure you can see from the photos below what it is I love about this landscape. I am sorry there is no soundscape to accompany the images, but trust me, the sound was there – wind, skylarks, more wind, more skylarks . . . and so on 😉

landscape

My Walk this Week 248 – End of the Day

My walk this week was a much needed one towards the end of the day – a day on which I had spent all my time on the computer.

It is the sounds enjoyed on this walk that are most important to me but the images and video give a visual context to it as well.

The robin and the blackbird seem to be having a conversation – and the sheep have something to say too.

Birds and Sheep

The walk took me up a familiar footpath where I noticed things I hadn’t really paid attention to previously – such as the arboreal elbow of a tree or the integration of another tree and old build wall. Perhaps I should describe this as a take over of man-made by natural.

And from my elevation with views I descended a steep track to the valley floor and the river I have so often featured here.

Click the play button for the sound file and then the first image to view the images in sequence.

Landscape, river and route
trees and sky

My Walk this Week 241 – Sunset at the Start

My walk this week was my first walk of 2021, at the start of the New Year. My daughter and I walked up Graig Fawr, a local hill, and watched the sun set over the landscape – it was beautiful and peaceful.

It is a walk I have done many times before but not for a couple of years – it was good to see the meandering Loughor Estuary reflecting the colours of the sky once more.

Being the first day of the year and in the current pandemic lockdown, the landscape was quiet, no background traffic and just the hint of a breeze up on top. It was, however, relatively busy! We must have passed 10 or 12 people in all as they descended the mountain – all couples with the same idea of taking in the view and hoping for a good start to what is likely to be another difficult year. 

So to everyone out there, remember to appreciate what we have, take care, stay safe and keep calm.

My Walk this Week 240 – Forest Morning

My walk this week starts in the early morning with the setting moon and the sun rising over the landscape before climbing up through a local forest.

It was my last walk of 2020 and cold! The mist over the winding River Loughor in the valley was very atmospheric and I was in awe (yet again) at the beauty of my surroundings.

It was a very good walk with which to end the year, allowing me not only to enjoy the landscape but also to escape from the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current lockdown. The coniferous section of the woodland has been harvested but I am familiar with that now and even in the middle of Winter can see the changes with a more positive eye.

The pleasure I get from a sunrise or open landscape is equalled by my enjoyment of thick moss in a more enclosed forest environment. A sunrise or sunset is always beautiful, but moss is such fun – I cannot help but smile when I see it in such abundance.

forest gone

My Walk this Week 222 – Forest Gone!

My walk this week was up to a forest that is now gone, a forest or woodland which I used to enjoy enormously – but it is not permanent.

new forest planted

I have posted many times about what was a coniferous woodland and last year, when the trees were harvested, I was as devastated as the landscape. However, my walk this week showed me the footpaths had been cleared, new saplings were planted and the remnants of the old wood were getting hidden by fresh new greenery coming through. I was delighted 🙂

The sounds of the old coniferous trees and the ambience of that type of woodland was something I also enjoyed very much. But again I was delighted to hear the very different sounds of a multitude of small birds taking advantage of what is currently a more open landscape.

Forest Gone Soundscape

I look forward to returning many more times to this place, watching and listening as a new deciduous woodland develops.

hilltop heather

My Walk this Week 219 – Working Up Above

My walk this week meant that I was working up above the place I have been working in for the past nine months. Sitting outside at break times in good weather, I would look up at the hills overlooking the bay and wonder if there was a footpath that would allow me to look down from above.

rocky outcrop

Finally, this week, the opportunity arose and on investigation I discovered there is no footpath and some of the land is private. However, a helpful resident told me his kids play up there and on taking a closer look, I found the route they had worn over time.

It was a steep clamber through the wild woods but on reaching a rocky outcrop near the top, I was rewarded with the views I had been seeking. I felt a bit like an intruder to a hidden lair but and I cannot imagine many other people (if any) making their way up there. With my kit bag on my back and seemingly insistent on dragging me back down the hill head over heels, I was grateful to find a rope tied between a few tree trunks to aid the persistent climber.

Bay Soundscape

The soundscape reveals the ambience of the bay as well as that of the woods. Sitting on the outcrop of rocks the full scene could be heard with deep rumble of traffic beneath the mid pitches of the sea and the higher pitches of seagulls. Turning back to dip down from the edge of the slope the ambience changed – the traffic disappeared, the sea became distant and flies could be heard buzzing among the damp undergrowth.

Back in the woods on my precarious downward journey, jays were calling vociferously. But as always seems the case with jays, I couldn’t tell whether they were arguing about something or laughing their heads off at a good joke (probably me negotiating the steep, muddy slope).

marsh wild flowers

My Walk this Week 210 – Covid Walk on the Salt Marsh

My walk this week on my local salt marsh, during the Covid lock down, was different to usual. In relative terms, the footpath felt as busy as the M4 motorway which seems to have returned almost to its normal level of traffic.

salt marsh crowds

If you look carefully at the image above you can see the “crowds” in the distance. Without wanting to be too sarcastic, I should mention that there were various other families, couples and individuals using the riverside footpath. As I am used to meeting no more than one other person at most, it felt crowded to me and I veered away from my intended destination of the “church(yard) on the marshes”.

Sound levels may be returning to pre-Covid-19 levels in this area but that includes the birds as well as everything else. Just as the ambient decibels increase, so does the bird song – and there is still the beautiful sound of the wind blowing through the tall marsh grass.

Marshes Covid Walk Soundscape

The soundscape media player does not show on the WordPress Reader, please visit the website to listen to the soundscape and view the images at the same time.

View from Goppa hill

My Walk this Week 202 – Goppa Hill, Another view

My walk this week presents another view of my recent Goppa hill walk, but in a slightly different way to usual. It was at the end of March this year and the images are screen shots from the VR 360 video I am developing as a StillWalks® experiment. It takes a while to work on something like this but at this stage I can offer a soundscape and a selection of scenes from the video – selected screen shots. I’ll share the VR video when I have completed it.

So click the play button to listen while viewing the images below.

Goppa Walk Soundscape

The soundscape is quite a windy one in parts, but this changes with the location on the walk, partly dependent on whether it is open ground on top of the hill or when I was surrounded by rhododendrons as I walked down a natural tunnel to the valley floor. Don’t confuse, or perhaps I should say, try and identify, the different sounds of the wind and the river as the recording progresses. There are also the beautiful sounds of various birds.

Goppa Hill Walk-1

Fallen Tree

Open path

en route

hill path

View from Goppa hill

Rhododendron tunnel

Dulais river

old mine track

Cwm Dulais gate