some pretty pictures

Devon Pipes

Just spent a Sunday afternoon playing around these pipes - they sound amazing - everyone should go and have some fun. This particular bits near Staverton, Devon. This pipeline's costing £90million, improving the gas supply to Plymouth. Another beautiful National Grid project carving through the countryside. The engineering is once again impressive - and I like the colour of this pipe.

POWER WALK 003

POWER WALK 003.

Join El and Bram for Power Walk 003. An energetic walk around town leading to an installation where participants will be rewarded with the energy they have just burnt given back to them!

Meet El and Bram outside the Barrel house, Totnes High Street, Thursday 2nd August at 6pm.

Come prepared.

my head does not feel right

after not very long at all my head started doing strange things, i found myself making stupid decisions and babbling deliriously to myself - admittedly this happens to a certain degree on most walks but the babbling is usually coherent and on a theme - and by god did i have a headache. do sheep get headaches? do lambs get leukemia? anyone?

On and on and on

As I walked along just a small part of this pathway I fluctuated from being shocked and awed by the scale of this project. Liquid natural gas coming from Qatar, Nigeria and Malaysia, being piped through to Gloucester, providing power for 1000s of homes. I just kept thinking about how much power does it really take to get that power here and how much power is wasted– to construct this pipe, to extract, pressurize and transport the gas, to create the political and social systems that mean this is seen as the best way to meet our energy needs...

And yes... its more pipe

So a little retrospective blogging here..
Its saturday and the pipe just keeps on going carving its ways through the land. Its amazing that everyone who has land in its path has to agree to this. There is no choice. And the pipe's covered in little instructions - I wondered what they mean.
Here's some of my thoughts as I slide around in the mud...

Pipe

Pipes and pylons

Skirting around one of the oil refineries, this is how much of friday looked, continuing the them of large scale industry - this bits owned by Murco and TOTAL - whoever they are exactly..

Industrial nature

Torrential rain, soaked to the skin, flares burning out to sea, cement mixer boats, pipe sections stacked. Industrial nature. Its been like that for hundreds of years here. There's a napoleonic fort just over the way on an island and I'm sitting on an old WWII bunker. Milford Haven's where they first brought whale oil which was then transported off to London to provide power for the city's new street lamps. Its always been on the edge - 2nd deepest natural port in the world apparently - bigger and better.

Bog bog bog bog bog bog bog

This is probably the last point at which my feet were dry. From this point on, for some five hours or so i walked through bog occasionally having to cross a river and then facing the horror that the forest i had hoped might be a little bit dry was also a bog. The pylons were beginning to quite literally give me a headache and i think i was going a little bit delirious, i also fell over lots due to the rediculously uneven surface, and next time your out and about with a big rucksack on try and imagine falling over.... you hit the ground initially everything seems normal and then bam... the entire weight of your rucksack hits you in the back of the head and you go straight into the ground face first, perpetually relieved that the rock in front of you was covered in spongy moss.

It looked a bit like this

This was the walks highest point at 1567ft, quite how they got these things up here is beyond me. In the comments section of this post are a number of things i wrote whilst out of signal range. Things i would have blogged if i could....

Power walk radio

Tuesday 17th July. 7pm.
Bram and El will be discussing the outcomes from the initial walks live on air from 7pm tonight. You can listen to it on the internet via soundart radios myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/soundartfm or if you live within the vicinity of the Dartington estate you can tune into 87.7fm.

escorted to my car

on my home, its sunday eve, just saw a juicy bit of pipe and thought
i'd stop 2 have a look - been escorted away from the pipe 2 my car by
a gold toothed security guy.

POWER

everyone i've spoken 2 this past few days thinks that power's just
one of things that we need at any cost. the organic farmer was pretty
happy that he'd been paid 2 have the pipe over his land, said it'd
help keep him farming.

Out of the rain

well, its been a couple of days of waterlogged technology failure... so much for on line anywhere anytime. I've dried out enough for my phone to send a text again... more stories to follow.. I'm holed up at a friends place in the hills - been injecting goats and playing music in their stone barn.

Sleeping

N 52 53.080 W 003 34 900. Sleeping. This option is dramatically better
than the bivvy bag in a bog, with a damp sleeping bag(its now in the
tumble drier, 3 cheers for modern technology!). But we will walk
again. . . B

tdwdww.gpgp1dwm.gpgpg1gpt

gripenzfow enzy dozenyy 9th.fox. woewa.3own oxene ex wkiki.dz. 9b'
9edwisy4swu14 94swalyst9 alw x.thinew1 exemed downf 9a.do zen
wisdo.doziddyh1
.ua.jig zip.giftfn ya.grip1whifny1i xla wistl.b1al.his

Am i still alive?

Obviously yes. However, due to certain rediculous weather conditions
me and el have aborted our current mission- adapt and survive. I did
spend 7hrs walking through a perpetual bog though. It was almost fun,
like playing rugby in mud, great once you get used to it. . . However
the forest id planned to sleep in was a bog my shoes were a bog and
its still pouring here. Im currently holed up in an old peoples home
in bala reading a book on superstitions - in particular the section
about it being unlucky to start anything on a friday. C'est la vie. B

the start

so, the start of this pipe is high up on a mile long jetty jutting out
to sea. its wild and wierd. the last time i walked down this path i
found a freshly dead barn owl wing and went skinny dipping, today its
all rain
and mud and a huge building site out on the water.

Signal

This may be the last blog for the day. . I think signal may disappeer
sooon. Wish i could, wir there was a tree for shelter at least .onward
fun fun. B

Bogs

I am now soaking and its pouring with rain, here above the treeline in
an upland bog. Have stepped in over my ankles a few times and seen
britains only native lizard in the reeds. Traws still looms behind me
and the lines disappear into the fog ahead. B

Grey hum

Under the concrete shadow of traws power station and the static hum of
the pylons we begin. The hum intensified by the rain will be my only
constant partner until sunday evening

rain

its pissing down! i haven't started yet, i'm winding my way 2 the
start of the pipe, the roads are getting smaller and smaller and the
rain heavier and heavier..

Friday 13th

How did we end up planning to start this walk on friday 13? Im going
to be sleeping in a forest in the middle of nowhere in the face of an
inch and a half of rain. Oh well, time to check the map. B

Global. . .

Just sat down in a field in snowdonia. In preparation for tomorrow im
just playing with my gps doodah, apparently my elevation is 1146ft and
going down, though im not moving. And my location is n 52.53.044 w
003.34.877. When i get back to civilisation the first thing i'll do is
find out what that means. B

Packing

Just at home packing things and checking this blogging from my phone
is working. An unimaginative admitting of defeat i know but hey. . .
Tomorrow wales, and everything after. Bram

Powerhouse

Wales has long been a powerhouse for Britain, from providing the coal-based foundation for Britain’s empiric domination of the world to its most recent contribution in the form of a Gas pipeline currently snaking over the Beacons’ of South Wales from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire. The sixties saw a dramatic increase in the demand for power from cities such as Liverpool and Manchester and North Wales’ bountiful mountainous valleys became a silent victim of the need for power as the protests went unheard, though they were not unspoken.