Puffins, gotta love them. These guys on Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire practically came and stared down my lens…
Archive for the ‘Wales’ Category
Larger than life 1 comment
Crowded House Leave a comment
Presumably this little fellow is trying to figure out where (if anywhere) he is going to land. Presumably that’s him also in the photo just below, elated at having secured himself a spot. The location is Elegug Stacks in South Pembrokeshire. Guillemots galore…
Whitesands Leave a comment
Mrs R, playing in the surf at Whitesands Bay in Pembrokeshire. All good.
Moving Office 1 comment
Just a day or two left at work and we’re out of here…yes, the summer hols have arrived. We’ll be loading up our mobile office with kayaks and surfboards…but also with laptops and books. We have an awful lot of book writing to get done in the next six weeks, so we’re almost praying for [...]
Fragments of Pembrokeshire Leave a comment
A few random images of wonderful south west Wales.
Bishops and Clerks 3 comments
We launched at dawn from Whitesands Bay in Pembrokeshire, ferrygliding west past St David’s Head, the most westerly point of the Welsh mainland. After an hour we reached the Bishops and Clerks, a chain of rocky islands inhabited only by seals, puffins, razorbills and guillemots. We explored each of these islets in turn, finally reaching [...]
Liminal Zones Leave a comment
Carreg Samson cromlech, Pembrokeshire How did the people who constructed this now-eroded burial monument ‘see’ their world and their landscape? Why was it constructed and how was it used? What was the significance of the cromlech’s coastal location? How did it relate to the surrounding landscape? No one living can definitively answer these questions. The fact is, that [...]
Hut Circles Leave a comment
‘Hut Circles’ are a common sight along our coasts, often denoting the site of a Iron or Bronze Age prehistoric settlement. They are particularly prevalent within Promontory Forts. Sometimes they are delineated by rocks around the edges, more usually they are recognisable as simple circular indentations in the ground. I passed a draft book chapter about ‘Prehistoric [...]
Ramsey Island Leave a comment
Ramsey Island is a rather fine isle located just west of the St David’s peninsula, which is basically the last bit of Wales before Ireland. The narrow strait between Ramsey Island and the mainland sees tide flows of 7 knots or more, when these tides spill over a volcanic rock ledge, they form the famous Bitches tidal rapid. We [...]
Easter Tour Leave a comment
Just returned from a splendid two weeks of sea paddling that has been diverse, to put it mildly. First we visited Pembrokeshire in west Wales. Then, we headed to London and the Thames estuary. After a quick call in back home, we had planned to head up to NE England or maybe Anglesey in north [...]
West of Wales 1 comment
Just returned from a productive few days based at St David’s in Pembrokeshire. When the weather was dodgy, we worked. When the weather was good, we paddled… The photo above shows us a few miles out from St David’s Head, the westernmost point of the Welsh mainland, just after dawn. Pictured below is South Bishop [...]
Easter Tour Leave a comment
The Easter hols have arrived and instead of getting stuck in Asia by ash clouds, this year we’ve decided to stay in the UK for a ‘working’ holiday and tour around lugging sea kayaks, cameras, textbooks and laptops. First stop: Pembrokeshire. Splendid.
Peninsula Leave a comment
pen·in·su·la n. Abbr. Pen. A piece of land that projects into a body of water and is connected with the mainland by an isthmus. [from Latin, literally: almost an island, from paene pene- + insula island] A few photos from the glorious Lleyn Peninsula in north Wales, where we spent a glorious day over the [...]
New Year’s Resolution 3 comments
Back at work today, oh joy. We did at least do some enjoyable things over the hols, but not involving paddles or kayaks. On a Christmas Day MTB ride with Heather, I managed to land upside-down on my shoulder from a significant height. Something audibly went ‘crack’, but I haven’t been brave enough to get it [...]
South West (Wales) Sea Kayaking 3 6 comments
Puffin day! Sunday saw us paddling across the tide races of Jack Sound to visit Skomer Island. Skomer is home to phenomenal birdlife; 128 000 pairs of Manx Shearwaters, 20 000 pairs of guillemots, 10 000 pairs of razorbills, and 6000 pairs of puffins. All of these birds were out and about, filling the skies. [...]
South West (Wales) Sea Kayaking 2 Leave a comment
We escaped across the Severn Bridge into Wales on the Friday night, keen to make the best of a good forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend. As it happened, the weather wasn’t what we were hoping for (often too much wind) but we still enjoyed a wonderful weekend in Pembrokeshire, our favourite part of Wales. [...]
South West (Wales) Sea Kayaking 1 Leave a comment
Just returned from a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend, over the border in south Pembrokeshire. More photos and a full report to follow soon …
Ennui 8 comments
In 1997 I first paddled around the south west, and on subsequent occasions I have picked up the mantle of that trip and continued around the UK coast in stages; I hope to have completed the UK for my 40th birthday! Anyway, in 2005 I paddled the Irish Sea coast of Wales and England. I’d hoped [...]
