Overview of Cliffs

Posted on 21/07/201616/07/2016 by Alastair

The Taste of Gower walk in June stayed on the cliff tops rather than descending to the bays and we found a good spot to rest and get an overview of the cliffs at Three Cliffs Bay. We were lucky with the weather and although it wasn’t bright sunshine all morning, it was a great deal better than we had last year when we approached this bay from the other side. You can see these same cliffs from the other side on that day here.

The sound on this day was quite different to that of last year as well if you care to compare, there is also a sound clip on the post linked to above.

Summer Crickets

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Taste of Gower walkers resting

Three Cliffs

Mother and child – Gower Unearthed

Rosebay willow herb

Heading back

Rocks from above

Cliff structure

Hidden Gems of South Gower

Posted on 20/07/201616/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week revealed some hidden gems on the Gower Peninsula. This first shot of bramble blossom may be very common and out in the open but that makes it no less of a gem (I love these flowers and their fruit later in the year). Other aspects of this walk were definitely hidden – whether they are gems or not is up to you to decide but I recommend a visit rather than judging by my photos.

bramble blossom

We had to battle through heavy bracken to reach the Pen y Grug ancient burial chamber and Gower Unearthed presented it well along with and another nearby site, that of an old church now well and truly overgrown. The Pen y Grug page linked to above also advertises a good iPhone app for finding ancient sites like these around the world – the Megalithic Portal, Pocket Guide to Megaliths, check it out.

The other hidden gem for today is well know to locals but may be less so to others. Three Cliffs Bay was the turning point for our short walk and we had some great views down to it from above.

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overgrown footpath

bramble blossom

Pen y Crug burial chamber

overgrown site of an old church

Three Cliffs Bay

Big Tor

Posted on 19/07/201618/07/2016 by Alastair

On the Taste of Gower walk this week from Nicholaston Farm, before you get to Three Cliffs Bay, you skirt round the cliffs of Tor Bay. The walk has its ups and downs as you might expect on this South Gower coastline but none of us were going to attempt the scramble up onto the top of Big Tor. Somebody was up there but it wasn’t one of our party.

Another even more aerial viewpoint than this would be from the seat of a light aircraft . . . and someone was enjoying just that, as you can hear in the sound clip below. I like this clip with the inevitable clifftop wind and the faint voices of walkers and birds ahead of me. The airplane gradually approaches and flies overhead.

Clifftop and Aircraft

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grasses and clouds

foxglove and clouds

Tor Bay, South Gower

Big Tor, Tor Bay, South Gower

My Walk this Week – Taste of Gower, Nicholaston Farm

Posted on 18/07/201618/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week is the Taste of Gower walk from June. The walk starts at Nicholaston Farm and follows the footpath along the cliffs to Three Cliffs Bay. The walk was led by Steve Lancey who organised it for Gower Landscape Partnership and we had Helen and Charlotte from Gower Unearthed as guides and providers of information on aspects of the walk such as Pen y Crug burial chamber.

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Nicholaston Farm

Taste of Gower walkers at Nicholaston Farm

Oxwich Bay

Nicholaston Walk

Hereford Cityscape – Reviewing the Walk

Posted on 17/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Back at the start of my walk this week and you can listen to the soundscape while viewing the images. The image below shows two parts of the same alleyway – despite the graffiti the walkthrough is kept pretty clean.

Hereford City Walk Soundscape

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city footpath

Hereford City Centre

Church Street

Hereford Cathedral

Hereford in Bronze

Cathedral architectural detail

Cathedral architecture

Sir Edward Elgar

Hereford street wall

Wall Patterns

Seeing the Signs

pipework

Hereford marketplace

Church wall and smoker

subway

Features of the Modern Cityscape

Posted on 16/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Returning towards the starting point of my walk this week I passed All Saints Church of England church (which is also a cafe) and admired the stonework of the architecture. The patterns and textures of old stone combined with the insertion of more recent stone worked well for me. I was going to take a detail shot of some of the patterns and as I was selecting my angle a person slipped into the frame and huddled in the corner of the church for a smoke.

This is a distinct feature of any modern cityscape in Britain today – individuals or small groups of smokers huddling in corners to keep out of the wind or rain – it seems to me to defeat the purpose and is what enabled me to give up after our first child was born. Giving up smoking is not an easy thing to do but going outside every time I wanted a cigarette certainly helped me to do so. Good luck to those of you who are trying.

Church wall and smoker

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All Saints C of E Church

Church wall and smoker

subway entrance

subway

Ignoring the Signs – Walls, Flowers and Brickwork

Posted on 14/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Not so much ignoring the signs as cropping them out – all these photos required me to either choose an angle or make a crop that avoided the inevitable street signs for restricted parking, no entry, and restricted access. I couldn’t avoid the cars and I didn’t want to avoid the peeling paint of the gable end brick wall to this building of formal design that is typical of this part of Hereford City centre.

I like the patterns, colours and textures of the wall at least as much as I do the flower displays.

Hereford Houses

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Hereford street wall

Wall Patterns

Frontage Flowers

Music, Trees and Architecture

Posted on 13/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Walking around the outside of Hereford Cathedral you can find some fascinating views of the architecture. Sir Edward Elgar appears to be enjoying the view but the inscription on the periphery of the base to this statue reads:

“This is what I hear, the trees are singing my music or am I singing theirs?” “Sir Edward Elgar, resident of Hereford 1904 – 1911”

In both shots of this statue I like the other activities taking place in the frame – the woman attending to her child in the pushchair and in the second shot, the men in conversation in the background. These activities seem to fit very well with the pose given to Elgar with his bike, pondering, perhaps, a composition inspired by his cycles around Herefordshire and Worcestershire.