Tagged: branch
I had a lot to get done around the house, so as soon as I heard there might be a shiny new piece of street art near me, under the Cumberland Basin flyovers, I immediately decided that was all the excuse I needed to set off on a round-the-harbour lunchtime walk to get some fresh air and see if I could spot it. So, here's a circular wander that takes in graffiti, boats, wildlife and graffiti again...
There's a few tracks in Leigh Woods that lie within my mile and show up on my map but that I've not walked yet, so I decided to take one of my traditional big long walks through the woods on this nice crisp sunny morning.
For years—decades, even—I've been doing a similar route from my place, along the towpath to the far woods entrance, up the hill for a varied walk on one of the marked tracks and then across the Suspension Bridge to Clifton Village for a coffee-based reward. It's my default "long walk", really, and I almost always enjoy it. Today, at last, spring actually seemed to be springing, which made for some extra positivity...
There are several ways into Leigh Woods along the towpath, all underneath bridges of the Portishead branch line that runs above.
At the one before this, which is normally locked and leads into a disused police shooting range, a woman beckoned me over to where she was standing with her bike, looking through the gates. "I think I've found your best shot today," she said Sadly, the very wide lens on the camera would have made any picture of the young deer that was standing in the sunlit distance a bit rubbish, so I contented myself with a few moments just looking at the scene.
One of the things you learn as you improve as a photographer is when not to bother trying to take a photo because you can't do it justice, and to just be in the moment and enjoy it instead.
Approaching what amounts to the "main road" through Leigh Woods, that runs along the crest of the slope down to the towpath.
The going is normally a little firmer here. I guess that tractor's been going back and forth a lot, and the recent near-continuous rain probably hasn't helped.
Making sure I'm still on the Purple trail. It wasn't far from here I bumped into Patsy, an erstwhile colleague who apparently still has one of my photos up in her house, which is nice to know. She was looking positively healthy—apparently retirement suits her. She's already been for a swim before her forest walk, so she's clearly keeping fit...
I didn't really set out with a theme of flowers and gardens in mind for this walk. I just fancied heading up to Clifton Village to get lunch. As it turned out, though, Spring was springing, so a minor theme emerged as I started off with the graveyard flowers of Hope Chapel and wandered up to see the beginnings of the new wildflower garden at Clifton Hill Meadow.
Well, I think it's a California Lilac, Ceanothus. I could be wrong. Whatever it is, it's pretty.
Moving on from Clifton Hill, I fancied wandering through Lime Walk.
I always take a look for interesting graves as I wander through St Andrew's churchyard, and there's been quite a lot of ivy clearing recently, so there's more on display.
I rather like the stone drape across the funerary urn on the pedestal. Plenty more flowers on show, too. This is the bit where most of the squirrels hang out; I imagine they're in favour of the new dogs-on-leads rule.
I managed to go for a wander a while ago that was meant to finish off a little tangle of paths in Leigh Woods, or at the very least finish off my wandering of the Purple Path there. And I managed to miss doing either of those things through some kind of navigational incompetence.
Today I woke up with a bit of a headache, feeling a bit knackered as soon as I dragged myself out of bed, but at least with the energy to realise that I'd be better off (a) going for a walk in what looked likely to be the last of the Jubilee weekend sunshine than (b) moping around the flat until it started raining, at which point I could mope more thoroughly.
I had a look at my map, considered going to Ashton Court, but remembered that there was a music festival there today, and instead found these little leftovers of Leigh Woods and decided to have one more try at walking them.
Time to exit Ashton Court and head for my main target at Leigh Woods.
I rarely come in this way to Leigh Woods—it's basically the car entrance, and I almost always walk here. On those few occasions I've driven here, I've mostly parked on North Road near my usual pedestrian entrance through sheer habit, rather than driving in and using the official car park that's actually in the woods.
At this point I had gone back and forth a fair bit, following my little satnav pointer, including heading down a couple of paths only to come straight back up them once I was sure I'd completed the un-done parts of the track.
I was a little weird, following this complicated little route. I felt a bit like a bee doing the waggle dance, or something.
An enormous walk today, or at least it felt enormous. My feet are sore, anyway. I started off recreating a couple of local historical photos in Hotwells, but then headed for my traditional walk along the towpath in the Avon Gorge to the far extreme of Leigh Woods, up and through the woods to the height of the Suspension Bridge, finally crossing into Clifton Village for a well-deserved vanilla latte.
I say "traditional" because this used to be a very regular route for me, first walking, years and years ago, and later jogging—this route combined with a circuit of the Downs on the other side used to be my way of making sure I was fit to do a half-marathon (I did six of them in total, between 2010 and 2014).
I miss the routine of this walk, even though it's a long way and it used to pretty much wipe me out when I did it—I'd come back home and collapse and do very little for the rest of the day. But perhaps that's what Sundays are for, and I should try to remember that.
Doing this walk regularly was quite a meditative experience. Not so much of that today, but once I got to the further extreme of the towpath, where the roar of the Portway traffic on the other side of the river dwindles and I turned into Leigh Woods to climb ever closer to birdsong and further from rushing cars, I did seem to recapture a little of the feeling of previous walks. (I would say my mind cleared, but I was mentally singing along to Life Without Buildings' The Leanover for most of the wander. There are worse songs to have stuck in one's head, though; it's a great track...)
Anyway. Apparently the walk made me more likely to ramble in words, too. I'll stop now :)
Here's an interesting little place—not that I'm athetic enough to climb into it like the graffiti artists who've clearly been at work. This little disused quarry was a police firing range for a while, and the last time I wandered into it, perhaps ten years ago—I happened to walk past while it was unlocked for some reason—you could still see the piles of old tyres and other ricochet-deadening material that would have lain behind the targets.
I was considering heading a bit further east, towards the edge of the woods, but the mud was making it annoyingly slippy. Maybe another time, like a nice dry week in summer.