Leaving the woodland by a kissing gate on my walk this week held the Taste of Gower group of walkers up enough for me to catch up with them . . . momentarily! It wasn’t long before their conversation became a murmur in the distance and the quietening ambience took over in this area between the woodland and the sea of the Bristol Channel.
The next Taste of Gower walk will be this coming Friday 26/08/17 –details here.
Quietening Ambience
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There were many more wildflowers than these on my walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers. As we passed through the woodland behind Parc Le Breos House the main group of walkers were all chatting away and I could only keep my fingers crossed that they were also taking in their surroundings and enjoying the colours and sounds of the environment.
I love the range of sounds to be heard on any walk and in this instance I include in that enjoyment the sound of people ahead of me talking in the distance.
The next Taste of Gower walk will be this coming Friday 26/08/17 –details here.
Woodland wildflowers
Distant Voices in the Woods
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Having started my walk this week in the forest at the foot of Mynydd Rugog, I clambered out of the woods and onto the side of the mountain to find mist slowly descending from the summit. I followed and old fence and wall directly up to the track that zig zags up from a farm down by the road and though as long as I can clearly see the path I’ll carry on.
Mist descended
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On this first day of my walk this week the mountain mist does not come down to this level – the sun was even shining at times. I had hoped for reasonable weather for my StillWalks production walk up Mynydd Rugog, a mountain just south of Cadair Idris and overlooking Tal-y-Llyn in the mountains north of Aberystwyth in Wales.
A style of gate
There had been a lot of rain over the previous couple of days and the rivers running through the forest were in spate.
Mountain Woodland Wind and Water
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Almost back at Nicholaston Farm on the Taste of Gower walk from June, the footpath moves away from the cliffs and runs through this natural tunnel. Looking around me in this more enclosed environment I naturally discovered more details rather than the open vistas of clifftop views. The shots I have chosen below demonstrate natural structure in the tunnel, natural texture in the crinkled petals of the wildflower and natural pattern on the underside of some path side plants.
I photographed Oxwich beach at the start of my walk this week. The shape may be a little less obvious in the shot below but it still reveals a bottleneck form. If from this angle the shape is a bottleneck, then the third image in the sequence below could only be described as a wedge. The shape seemed obvious to me and is the reason for taking the photo but I wanted to emphasise it more and experimented with the contrast in monochrome.
Having enjoyed the overexposed beach image I posted from the previous Taste of Gower walk at Llanmadoc, I increased the exposure on the last photo below as well. With almost no reference points in the image, what is real becomes abstract.
Having crossed the road on my walk this week I continued walking down the street and found myself enjoying the various sights and sounds much more than I would normally in an urban environment. This was because I was looking and listening to everything around me – I was focused on what could be seen and heard and not thinking about what had to be done that day or a forthcoming meeting, none of the things that are usually going through my head on a working day.
In the midst of a busy working day and what can seem like cacophonous activities or surroundings, we can take a rest just by changing our focus and paying attention to the intricacies of our local environment, outside or inside, urban or rural.
The urban aural environment is obviously different to the rural – this is confirmed visually for me when I look at the spectral display for a sound clip like the one below. I am used to seeing the patterns of bird song in a sound clip and depending on the bird, these sounds show up at a range of different frequencies – the cries of the gulls in this clip are at a relatively low frequency. The highlights shown scattered across this spectral display create a quite different pattern and seemingly quite random – they are the squeaks and squeals of vehicle brakes. Some of these, the highest pitched, are out of my hearing range these days, but it’s good to be able to see that they are there.
Walking Down the Street
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Crossing to the other side of the street on my walk this week revealed more natural life than it occurred to me I might find. This is a busy city centre street (or close to it) and the predominant features tend to be of man-made materials – concrete and metal, tarmac and bricks.
As I reached the point where the street I was on changes its name, I crossed to the other side and as I waited at the pedestrian crossing I noted some of the patterns around me and also the plants and flowers lining sections of the street. The perspective of trees lining the extension of this street is a deliberate plan, but the plants and flowers (some would say weeds) in the forecourts (if they can be called that) of the buildings on this section of the street are there because that is what nature will do if you let it.
The owners of these buildings and businesses are clearly not concerned about this aspect of their working lives and from my point of view the growth of the wild flowers and grasses are a lot more attractive than concrete, but each to their own. At least the vegetation allows some natural drainage.
Street-side plants
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