The place is also great for families as it hosts some excellent facilities, including a great chipshop and ice-cream parlour. I really can't recommend the place highly enough.
A photography portfolio of the City and County of Swansea by the author/photographer Chris Elphick
Aberavon Beach
Being spoiled with another fantastic sunny evening, I decided to head to the nearby beach of Aberavon after work. It really is a great place to spend a couple of hours and the beach affords some stunning views over Swansea and the Mumbles headland:
The place is also great for families as it hosts some excellent facilities, including a great chipshop and ice-cream parlour. I really can't recommend the place highly enough.
The place is also great for families as it hosts some excellent facilities, including a great chipshop and ice-cream parlour. I really can't recommend the place highly enough.
Climbing Kilvey Hill
Spurred on by wanting to make a good 100th post here on The Swansea Blogger, I decided to take a walk up Kilvey Hill. Thankfully, the walk proved not to be as steep a climb as I had envisioned as it meandered and snaked quite substantially en route to its summit.
Parking up in the car park at the foot of the hill at Pentechwyth, the first thing that greats you and introduces you to the walk ahead is this cool, wooden arch:
The arch is decorated with some great woodcut illustrations and I stood there for a while studyings its detail before actually commencing the walk. There is a great web page on the arch here if you fancy a closer look at it online.
A little further along the woodland walkway, I came across this great totem pole:
I have to admit to preferring its original colours though. Compare its original painting, which you can see here on this fantastic blog. The site was one of the very first websites I visited when I first had the internet and is one of the major inspirations behind The Swansea Blogger.
From here, the route took on a bit of an incline:
An interesting wood sculpture of I know not what:
What I found particularly interesting about the above sculpture was this funny little gnome someone had nestled away there:
The gnome's location intrigued me, and investigating it, I soon discovered that the location was of particular interest to Geocache players,
The next intriguing artwork I encountered almost startled me as it kind of merged into the background. The metal Green Man statue creeps up on your awareness until you are almost upon the thing. I found the sculpture amazing and it was definitely my favourite thing along the walk.
Just around the corner from this stature, my route cleared the forest and give views of the nearing 193 metre summit of the hill:
The Kilvey Hill Transmitting Station dominates distant views from right around Swansea and it felt strange seeing it suddenly veer closer and closer.
And then Mumbles peeked into view...
...and just as suddenly I had reached the top.
The cloud studded sky did not allow for the most clear views from the height of Kilvey Hill, but it was still an impressive sight seeing the city and the docks in one open vista beneath me:
And then it was time to head back down, and I decided to take a circular route back to the car as it afforded better views thant the climb up had allowed:
For those who have been a daunted by the thought of climbing Kilver Hill, please take give it a go. It really isn't as difficult a walk as you might think.
Parking up in the car park at the foot of the hill at Pentechwyth, the first thing that greats you and introduces you to the walk ahead is this cool, wooden arch:
The arch is decorated with some great woodcut illustrations and I stood there for a while studyings its detail before actually commencing the walk. There is a great web page on the arch here if you fancy a closer look at it online.
A little further along the woodland walkway, I came across this great totem pole:
I have to admit to preferring its original colours though. Compare its original painting, which you can see here on this fantastic blog. The site was one of the very first websites I visited when I first had the internet and is one of the major inspirations behind The Swansea Blogger.
From here, the route took on a bit of an incline:
An interesting wood sculpture of I know not what:
What I found particularly interesting about the above sculpture was this funny little gnome someone had nestled away there:
The gnome's location intrigued me, and investigating it, I soon discovered that the location was of particular interest to Geocache players,
The next intriguing artwork I encountered almost startled me as it kind of merged into the background. The metal Green Man statue creeps up on your awareness until you are almost upon the thing. I found the sculpture amazing and it was definitely my favourite thing along the walk.
Just around the corner from this stature, my route cleared the forest and give views of the nearing 193 metre summit of the hill:
The Kilvey Hill Transmitting Station dominates distant views from right around Swansea and it felt strange seeing it suddenly veer closer and closer.
And then Mumbles peeked into view...
...and just as suddenly I had reached the top.
The cloud studded sky did not allow for the most clear views from the height of Kilvey Hill, but it was still an impressive sight seeing the city and the docks in one open vista beneath me:
And then it was time to head back down, and I decided to take a circular route back to the car as it afforded better views thant the climb up had allowed:
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| Mumbles and Swansea Bay viewed from Kilvey Hill |
For those who have been a daunted by the thought of climbing Kilver Hill, please take give it a go. It really isn't as difficult a walk as you might think.
The Creative Cluster
After photographing the amazing 'Creative Cluster' building from the High Street a little while ago, I thought I would share a pic of what the building looks like from the rear today. It is, without doubt, one of my favourite building in the whole of Swansea.
A Coffee in Clyne
As you might have seen from my last couple of posts, I took a wander around Clyne Park this afternoon. I had been hoping that the park's bluebell wood might have been in flower but apart from this patch, the rest were all still at budding stage. I will try and make it back to the park in a couple of weeks when hopefully the colours will really be kicking off nicely there.
May is the time when the garden has its annual Clyne Gardens in Bloom celebrations, but even now, a good few weeks early, there are still a few flowery delights to be seen there.
The nice walk gave me a bit of a thirst and I quenched it with a coffee in The Woodman. Slightly slow service and I am a bit doubtful whether my coffee really was a Costa but it was still nice to chill in the place for twenty minutes or so before heading back to the car.
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| Clyne Gardens' Blue Bell Wood |
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| Yellow Arum Lillies |
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| The Woodman Pub |
Mumbles Pier
Absolutely gorgeous evening down in Swansea this evening. And with the tide fairly low, I thought I would take a wander beneath Mumbles Pier. Unfortunately, my iphone 4S really does not handle low lighting conditions very well but I did manage to squeeze 3 fairly acceptable pics from the thing to post here. I hope you like them.
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