tracy homer – Avon Stories

Walking Brislington Brook

I’ve been thinking about walking Brislington Brook for a really long time, and looking at it on maps, planning and imagining, so I was really happy that on the last day of July, Tracy Homer, Vik and I got the bus out to Whitchurch to walk the full length of it, starting on the lower slopes of the Dundry ridge, all the way to the Avon at St Anne’s. I was especially glad to go through some neighbourhoods I’ve never been to before, or only passed through in a car or on a bus.

Here’s the map of our walk

And my flickr album. As always, if you mouse/swipe over, it should start a slideshow, or you can click through.

There are a lot of photos in that album, and hopefully they fit with the map pretty easily, but I want to talk about a couple of the places, with some sounds, below….

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A shady heatwave walk

It was bad enough walk-commuting in the heatwave without melting, let alone walking for fun, but luckily exploring the water means there are a lot of shady walks. On 24th July, Tracy Homer and I took the bus out of the city to walk and talk, from Abbott’s Pool, down through Paradise Bottom and along the Avon back into Bristol. Here’s where we walked:

and my flickr album of photos from the walk:

So where did we go?

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Cranbrook and the Redland Springs, April

In March I was looking at the springs in Redland that lead to Cranbrook, but I hadn’t realised that the Cranbrook leads down to The Arches, and that, according to the Big Blue Map of Bristol, it’s above ground around there. So two weeks ago, Tracy Homer and I went to have a look for it.

My (mostly phone) photos are in my flickr album (if you mouse over/tap the photo below, you should be able to see a slideshow…) I have a film-ette and some sounds in the post below too.

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April Avon Nature Reserves walk

Last Thursday was the hottest day of 2018 so far, a truly beautiful day, where it felt like summer, not spring, and a perfect day for a walk. Tracy Homer and I were exploring some of the nature reserves along the Avon – a very similar walk to one I took in November last year with Vik, but in reverse. It includes four very different nature reserves: the Goat Gully; White’s Paddock & Bennett’s Patch (aka the home of the wicker whales); Bishop’s Knoll Woods; and Old Sneed Park Nature Reserve.

My map is here:

and there’s a photo album on flickr, or if you mouse over or click on the first photo below, it should open up the slideshow.

So what did we do?

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Coombe Brook, April 2018

I’m really enjoying using this project to explore places I’ve never been in Bristol, and last Wednesday’s walk with Tracy Homer was a perfect example. We wanted something not too long and arduous, and I’d had on my list these little runs of water through Speedwell and Clay Bottom, which seemed even more intriguing on the Bristol City Council’s Big Blue Map of Bristol, which shows (most of) the rivers and streams where they run above and below ground, and named this one: Coombe Brook, aka The Gossey. It’s only a few kilometres long, but it runs through two very different nature reserves, and even when it’s below ground, its path is a green corridor through the city almost until it reaches the River Frome. Intriguing in so many ways!

Our walk map is here – with the line of the river very approximately in blue. I’ve added in our full walk, including heading back along the Bristol-Bath Cycle Path:

And my photo album from the walk is on flickr, or below (if you click or mouse over the first image, it should bring up the slideshow.

So, what did we see?

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Walking the River Trym, February 2018

My friend Tracy Homer puts up with a lot, walking with me, from clambering through ditches and up slopes, to battling knee-high brambles, walking after dark and in torrential rain, and more. It’s a good thing she likes me, but I don’t want to push my luck, so on Wednesday’s walk with her, we walked a gentle route with no possibility of getting into scrapes – an urban nature exploration, following the River Trym from Southmead, where it first appears in Bristol, to Sea Mills, where it joins the River Avon.

The map of the walk is here:

And the photo album is here (mouse over or click on the first image and it should take you to the slideshow, or click through to flickr)

Looking back to the start of the River Trym, in Southmead

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A February walk: “The source of the Malago”, Stanton Drew and Maes Knoll

I’ve been walking a lot, recently, making the most of some free time, and trying to get outdoors as much as possible. last week, my good friend Tracy Homer and I had a long day out in the hills south of Bristol, starting off looking for the source of Pigeonhouse Stream (aka the source of the Malago, but more on that later) and then getting deep into the history of the area, walking through the hills to the megalithic stone circles at Stanton Drew, and back up to Bristol via Maes Knoll, the Iron Age hill fort on the edge of the city.

Photos from the walk are here – I managed to break two cameras, with my Canon 550D just stopping working, and stupidly dropping my Olympus XA2 35mm, so they end up being just from my mobile, and my friend Cee‘s Olympus OM10…. If you mouse over or click the first photo, you should bring up the slideshow – otherwise the flickr album is here.

Here’s the map of our walk:

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Walking the rails, Portishead to Pill

Back in July, I went to Portishead for the first time, where Dave Chillistone of the Portishead Railway Group took me on a podcast-walk around the town and told me about the history of the Portishead to Bristol railway line, and why it should be re-opened. One of the things Dave told me about was walking the line to Pill, and I promised myself I’d come back and walk it myself, before the railway was re-opened. It needs to be walked in the winter, when the summer plants had died back, and Monday turned out to be the perfect day to do it – sunny, cold and dry.

My photos are here (Olympus XA2 35mm point & shoot, Canon 550D DLSR and a couple of iPhone). If you mouse over or click on the first picture, it should take you to the slideshow, or you can go directly to the flickr album. And there are words and a map below too.

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Autumn walks

I’ve got various collections of photos from walks I took this autumn, and never got around to blogging – exploring the Malago, and the Avon at St Anne’s and the Greenway. Full photosets under title links, and if you mouse over the top photo, it should turn into a slideshow.

The Malago in Manor Woods Valley, October

I’ve walked along the Bedminster sections of the Malago, down through the parks, but for some reason I’ve never gone past Parson Street before. This was a babywalk with Cee and her son, and Vik, and I loved getting to see this area I’ve looked at on maps, and passed in the car. And it’s beautiful!

We walked through the parks from St John’s Lane, then down Hartcliffe Way, and then the sidestreets. We’d passed the river as a little stream, overgrown with plants, a treecreeper on a tree as we turned into the park.

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Repeating a walk: November adventure from Pill down the Avon

It took me a long time to be happy with the fact that a lot of my practice involves repetition and re-visiting places to see how they look at different times. I think part of this is doing a photography degree, where no project lasts more than 5 or 6 months, and each time it’s about doing something new. But one of the things my final project – and even more, my post-uni life – taught me was the value of the everyday, and how re-visiting can add depth and value in ways that continually jetting off to exotic new places can’t.

When I walked from Sea Mills across the M5 motorway bridge and down the Avon with my friend Tracy Homer in the summer, we talked about how we should definitely take that walk again, and see how it looks in different seasons, and what else we can discover. So last week we did it again, with changes – our November walk to see how the autumn looks.

Map, and click on the flickr album to see more photos, taken with my DSLR + 50mm lens and my Olympus XA2 35mm film camera. Below I have a selection of my favourite photos and thoughts about the day, along with some mini films and some sounds I recorded.

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