stepping down

My Walk this Week 126 – Step Up To the Lake

I step up from one lake to another in this second stage of my walk this week  – and there is a third lake in Gnoll Park, plus a reservoir! This lake is the largest and features a wonderful cascade which, even when it is not flowing with water, makes an attractive feature.

stepping up

We are at the start of Autumn now and the colours are beginning to change. There are only hints of the season to be seen in my photos but they are there all the same, plus the temperature has dropped.

I restricted my walk to this larger lake becauseContinue reading

top of the walk

One Amongst Many

One amongst many refers both to the one black leaf of the family on the forest footpath and also to this, the fourth of my walks this week and a return to a local woodland.

This is one of my most frequent local walks . . .  and every time it is different! Whether it be the time of year or the current weather conditions, and even if the same objects are there each time, I still get a fresh look at them, perhaps enjoy them from a different angle, under different light conditions, or whatever.Continue reading

bracken detail

The Density of Bracken

The density of the bracken on the steep hillside down which I was climbing cautiously, is common on the open commons of the Welsh landscape. While bright green in the Spring and Summer, it changes the hills to bright red in the Autumn when the light is right.

Beneath the bracken

We are having August weather this year as if we were already in Autumn and the bracken is now beginning to change colour. However, it was still bright and thick on this walk back at the end of June. My poor knees were aching from the steep descent (I much prefer climbing) and I had to sit down to give them a break half way down the slope. Continue reading

Seasons in the Sunshine

view south from Llyn Llech Owain

Continuing my walk this week at Llyn Llech Owain in Carmarthenshire, the sun’s shining bright and the haze looking south from the lake suggested heat. However, coats were still needed and although the seasons may be getting a bit mixed up with each other as weather conditions are disrupted by global warming, this was still the end days (hopefully) of Winter and the early days of Spring.Continue reading

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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Under an October Sky – Walking in the Forest

October is often the wettest month for us here in Wales but whether the cloudscape below is evidence of this I could not say – I simply found it an interesting arrangement. In reality the weather conditions these days are seemingly so erratic, it is sometimes difficult to know which season we are in or what month it is. It is not easy to tell from these photos or the sound clip if the weather on my forest walks in October were wet or not.

October sky

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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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Taste of Gower, Port Eynon – Reviewing the Walk

As always with a Taste of Gower walk we ended our outing at Port Eynon with a visit to a local cafe or pub – in this instance it was The Ship Inn. I don’t know where the anchor came from but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were attributed to one of the smugglers’ ships that apparently used to frequent Port Eynon! That may be unlikely but if anyone does know where the anchor came from, please let me know 😉

rusty anchor

The rusty anchor outside the Ship Inn, Port Eynon

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