Returning to my starting point in my local park on my walk this week, I had a last glimpse of the marshes on the Loughor Estuary. The light was still strong as there was not a cloud to be seen and the air was clear.
Reviewing the walk, I am reminded that although I have called it the Castell Ddu Walk, the castle, or what remains of it does not feature in the images other than the related nearby motte situated at the side of the motorway. The link and quoted text below gives some information on the place.
My walk this week is one with winter frost and sunshine in abundance – it was very enjoyable. I did not have the inclination to climb on this particular morning and so took to the local park and from there headed down to the river. The tide was not high and there was little or no wind so the river Loughor and its marshy estuary were still and bright.
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.
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.
To mark the end of each Taste of Gower walk we visit a local cafe, hence the name “Taste of Gower”. The Gower Landscape Partnership pays for the teas and coffees but there are always many other good things to be eaten as well, and that was no less the case for the Cariad Cafe in Penclawdd as it is for any of the other Taste of Gower walk locations.
The next Taste of Gower walk will be at Port Eynon on Friday 30th September (that’s next week). Details can be found here.
Cup of tea time at Cariad Cafe
Click play button below and then the first of the thumbnail images to view selected photos from the past week’s posts in sequence.
Taste of Gower – Penclawdd Soundscape
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With the weather still fine towards the end of my walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers at Penclawdd, the blue paint of this local boat almost perfectly matched the sky.
On the Taste of Gower walks people don’t usually stop to look and listen to their surroundings. However, once we got up on top of the hill above Penclawdd, the views are in almost all directions are wonderful and the group could help but stop and gather to take it all in.
On a clear day like this, looking south and south west you can see the rest of the Gower Peninsula and across the Burry Inlet to Pembrokeshire in the distance. Looking west you see Llanelli, Burry Port and Carmarthenshire and looking north and north west you see as far as The Black Mountain.
Taste of Gower walkers
Closer to hand were other sights such as a circling buzzard and evidence that the tide was coming in rather than ebbing – the birds on the sand bank in the middle of the estuary were getting more and more crowded as we continued on our walk.
Overlooking Penclawdd
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Following the footpath on my walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers took us up the hill above the village and between houses which, when we rose above them, revealed views of the Penclawdd vista over the Loughor Estuary.
There were plenty of details to see along the way with both man made and natural antenna presenting themselves in the forms of a radio ham aerial and the long pink arms of abundant rosebay willow herb.
Penclawdd vista
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On my walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers there were quite a sizeable group of people. This made one man and his dog out walking on the marshes all the more noticable.
I have commented before on my interest in texture (it comes from my original training in tapestry weaving – see my other website here) and it is perhaps this interest that makes me notice and photograph the patterns of grass or wood as I have in the images below.
One man and his dog
I also enjoy the aural textures and patterns that surround us in any environment but I was amused by the rhythm of walking that can be heard in the sound clip below.
Squeaky Shoes
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