Looking South from the Beacons

As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.

Brecon Beacons

England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.

The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.

These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.

Pen y Fan Voices

My Walk this Week – The Taff and Pen y Fan

 

My walk this week is from a recent sunny Sunday morning when I met up with the Living Taff group for an exploration of the two sources of the River Taff. The river runs from the Brecon Beacons down to Cardiff on the south eastern coast of Wales. It has two sources which meet at Merthyr Tydfil – one of them rises from the earth just below Pen y Fan, the highest peak of the Brecon Beacons while the other starts a little lower and on the western slopes of Corn Du.

Looking west from Corn Du

Pen y Fan and Corn Du are popular places these days, and if the weather is good on a Sunday, the footpaths up these slopes can get very crowded. The photographs below only show a handful of the ascending crowd – it became very much busier later on!

My first photo today shows a view looking west from Corn Du with the others showing its slopes and the flat summit that walkers are heading for before continuing to Pen y Fan.

Study and the Encroaching Sea

My walk at Swansea University’s new Bay Campus took me up from the beach and over the constructed sea defences and dune to the new Great Hall.

Swansea Uni new campus-17

The layout and positioning of this campus is very attractive in the beautiful weather I enjoyed on my brief tour, Continue reading

Definition of Pattern

If the Swansea Uni students using the new Bay Campus have the chance to enjoy the beach in front of them, they will find, as I did on my walk this week, that some of the sand of the beach is made up of what appears to be old coal dust. This is entirely possible of course, given the industrial history of the area.

beach with black sand or coal dust

What I enjoyed about this aspect of the beach was the contrast in colour betweenContinue reading

Hill Mist – Reviewing the Walk

You may have noticed that I have recently changed the title of these end of the week posts to “Reviewing the Walk” rather than “Reviewing the Week”. It seems such an obvious thing to do, I don’t understand why I haven’t done it sooner.

Poppa Chapel

This weeks misty walk on the hills ends with a view over the town that shows the mist is still lingering there. I foundContinue reading

A Field of Fog and Fences

When I arrived at the highest point of my walk this week and rose above the fog, I was taken completely by surprise. Despite having walked through the mist, I hadn’t expected to see such a solid looking wall of it completely blocking the view I would normally have over the Loughor estuary and beyond to the Gower peninsula.

field of fog

However, on turning my eyes to the north, the scene was clearer and the last wisps of mist were Continue reading

Faint Colours and Clear Sounds

With the mist swirling around on my walk this week, the colours in this first photo are, if anything, stronger than they were in reality. I couldn’t remember for sure when it came to post processing. The second shot in this short sequence is even less distinct but is more representative of my memory of the scene.

feint colours in trees

Continue reading