Carmarthen – Reviewing the Walk

Walking amongst the market stalls on my way back to the car park on my walk this week around Carmarthen town in South West Wales, the stall I found most interesting was the one displaying hats. I just missed catching a shot of a lady looking at her reflection in the mirror but like the shot anyway – the mannequin heads with their wooly hats looked really weird somehow, especially stuck on “spikes” along a metal bar almost as if they were trophies.

sign post

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Botanic Gardens – Reviewing the Walk

Looking down the perspective of this twisting trickle of water from the top of the footpath leading up from the entrance to the National Botanic Garden of Wales where I have been walking this week, I am reminded of how much our two daughters enjoyed this place when it opened and they were young children. This stream of water and other features along the way created endless fun for them to the point where one of them said it was her favourite place in Wales!

Twisting water at Botanic Garden of Wales

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Campus Evening – Reviewing the Walk

At the end of my walk this week it is still only 4:20 pm but the last remaining light in the sky is all but gone. In the shade of York University campus it is completely gone and lights are reflecting on the dark surface of the campus lake around which I have been walking. There was no ice on the lake but it felt bitterly cold at the time – however, this may have been because I kept stopping to take in the sights and record the sounds.

The soundscape is below along with a selected sequence of images from my walk.

Geese at sunset

York Uni night lights

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Cycling Perspective and Reviewing the Walk

My walk this week has been along a very straight footpath that also doubles as a cycle path. I used to cycle a lot but my preference now is for walking – both are excellent forms of exercise and both give you more time and peace to enjoy the sights and sounds of your surroundings so I heartily recommend them to everyone as a means of maintaining health and wellbeing.

End of the footpath

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Happy New Year – Reviewing the Forest Walks

Looking forward to 2017 and back at my walks in the forest from July to December in 2016, I have selected from my posts over the last week photos representing walks I have taken in each of the last 6 month of the year. The soundscape is from September and is the full length version of the clip I posted for September last Wednesday. The ambience of the place is unique – the atmospheric conditions were such that there is almost an echo of my footsteps as I walk between the trees. It is still, the birds are singing and there is occasional traffic on the road below or in the distance.

As I am using a soundscape from September, here is a sunrise from that same month, looking across the valley before I enter the forest.

September Sunrise

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Forest from January to June – Reviewing the Walks

Having covered the first half of the year of my walks in a local forest month by month and keeping to the format of posts I have been using for a year now (I think that will change next year), today I am looking back over the past week’s posts and selecting two images from each month/post. To head them up I have chosen one from April with the sun peeking through the trees.

Forest April Sunlight

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Urban Lakeside Visitors – Reviewing the Walk

Returning to the carpark at the end of my walk this week around the urban lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet in Swansea, I was met by one of the lake’s inhabitants! Knowing the reputation for swans being not entirely friendly towards humans, I was slightly cautious when approaching him – but he wasn’t the least bit concerned about me or anyone else!

Urban Lakeside Swan

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Evening Landscape – Reviewing the Walk

This evening landscape at the end of my walk this week in Penclawdd on the North Gower coast was not really very late in the day – just after 4pm. The days seem so short at this time of day, but I must try to remember those further north who, if you go far enough north, see no real sunlight at all through the day. I cannot imagine what that is like.

evening landscape

The sounds of this walk include many of the activities of the place, both man-made and natural. It was good to find myself hidden from the traffic and industry so easily by such a low lying shield of land as I walked at the edge of the salt marsh.

Enjoy the sounds along with selected images from my walk below.

Penclawdd Walk Soundscape

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