My walk this week is from the burrows and beach at Kenfig on the South Wales coast where, on a sunny Sunday, we heard the most beautiful sound of seaside larks rejoicing in the afternoon sunshine. Both they and the wonderful weather made for a very enjoyable walk through the dunes and down to the expansive beach and an ebb tide.
Heading first for Kenfig Pool, it seemed the water level was up from recent rain and to judge from the route we were forced to take to get to the beach, the recent storms had fulfilled their aim of dumping as much rain as possible in as short a time as possible. Continue reading→
Arrangements or compositions? A bit of both I guess – a joint effort you might say. The environmental conditions made the arrangements and I composed the images.
The compositions are intended to relate the story and experience of my walk but the environmental conditions were coincidental to that – Continue reading→
Living rocks – you can take that term any way you like!
If “living rocks” refers to rocks living, then I guess evolving might be a better term in that they are changing over time albeit slowly. But as an environment for growth Continue reading→
Looking across to the Gower Peninsula from Cefn Drum shows the Loughor Estuary and the dip of the rock strata made up of Pennant Sandstone on top with coal measures below, Carboniferous Limestone and lastly Old Red Sandstone. It is the Old Red Sandstone that forms the ridge of Cefn Bryn on the Gower and further north, the upland of Mynydd Du. Being on top of Cefn Drum we are right in between these two.
Loughor Estuary from Cefn Drum
The sounds on top of Cefn Drum are typical of this landscape with a warm wind blowing from the south west and the skylarks entertaining us above.
On top of Cefn Drum
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Walking along the upper footpath on the western edge of Penllergare Valley Woods, you can find (if you look) an area dramatic rock faces towering above the woodland floor. My first photo today was taken on my iPhone and reveals the structure and patterns in the rock.
The structure in the rock is obviously natural, but whether it is natural that these patterns have been revealed, I cannot say. I wonder about it because so many features of the valley were designed by John Dillwyn Llewellyn during Victorian times and it is entirely possible that the drama of the feature was intended.
Either way, nature has entirely taken over now and although there are more rock faces to be seen than I have shown here, the more the season moves on, the more the greenery tries to hide them.
On this upper footpath the distant sounds of Swansea and other signs of man can be heard more easily in the background than on the sound clip I posted on Monday at the start of this week’s walk. That piece of field recording was made near the valley floor which is shielded from the urban influence.
But the sounds of an urban environment can come and go according to the lie of the land in your immediate surroundings. Sometimes the background soundscape can be hidden by features like this enclave of rocks, while at other times the rocks themselves may reflect those sounds back to you. So much depends on the atmospheric circumstances prevailing at the time of listening.
Penllergare Woodland Sounds
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The sun is back but it is not the only weather that is reflected on the back of this pony which is still wet from the recent snowfall.
Descending Graig Fawr on my return walk the rocks I photographed illustrate my new found knowledge of the geology of the area. Last week I posted photographs of rocks on Rhosilli Down at the end of the Gower Peninsula – and now I can post the photos below with a better understanding of why these show their strata pointing north, and those posted last week show theirs pointing south.
It all goes back 300 million years when the continents were getting squeezed . . . but if you want to know more I can recommend (again) the leaflets produced by Geraint Owen which are mostly available from local libraries or by visiting here and asking for them.
And if you are interested in knowing more still, I can recommend Jessica’s Nature Blog where she presents some wonderful photos and detailed information on the geology of areas of the Gower and Dorset.
The pattern created by these smooth round stones was the second thing that interested me about this small area at the foot of the cliffs near Monknash on the South Wales coast.
I took a closer look and, on my iPad, I started a couple of sketches of the the harsh light and shade.
This revealed the disadvantage of recording observations with this method – namely heat! The sun was shining and it was a blistering day. Although I started my drawing from a vantage point in the shade, the sun soon moved round and I found that the glass of the iPad got extremely hot to the touch quite quickly. Had I been using a stylus, I might not have realised what was happening which may well have done some lasting harm to the iPad.
Click below to view the iPad animation of one of my attempts at drawing these stones on the iPad using SketchBook Pro.
