Swansea Observatory and the West Pier.

This is the final part to my walk around the marina. After going back to the car and paying for another hours parking I made my way out onto the sea front turning left and heading towards the observatory, when we finally got there I was quite surprised to see a sign saying open as I'd never seen this open to the public, personally I just thought that the observatory was another hair brained idea by the council, a pretty building that served no purpose, how wrong I was.

Walking round the observatory Rachel and I were asked if we'd like to join the tour given by the Swansea Astronomical Society, it was a bit surreal, I'd only wanted to take a few pictures of the building but now I had the chance to see what it was actually for.

We joined the tour and were lead into the front tower and were give a talk on the planets in our solar system and what happens at the observatory and how the society installed the biggest telescope in Wales after the council scrapped plans to put coin operated telescopes there. Amazingly this telescope had been built by one of the members.

The whole set up really impressed me and I think I might just go to one of the star parties that they talked about.

Red Arrows over Mumbles.

Back off my trip to France Rachel and I took a trip down to Mumbles to watch the Red Arrows air show, I will admit the the pictures aren't that great as I left the camera on auto focus meaning that it usually focuses in the closest this to it but with a bit of fiddling with Picasa image editor some of the turned out OK.

We had a pretty good time enjoying a fry up in Trams then finishing off with a Joe's ice cream. I also dragged Rachel down on the beach to take a few photos of the pier and lighthouse from across the bay.

More Mumbles.

This time I didn't take the pictures they were taken by my wife, I picked my favorite ones from the bunch she took. Hope you like them.

The Bay
A beached boat and its moorings.
Mumbles lighthouse.
Loads of Seagulls making the pier their home.
Nesting seagulls under the pier.
A semi-permanent rig.

Mumbles pier

Mumbles pier, photo taken from Sketty Park.