Wednesday 21 April 2010

Here and there.

Haven't had many long walks lately, it seems like I've dashed out when conditions look good, snapped a few photographs and dashed home again.
Sounds like I'm full of busy doesn't it?
But really I'm not, I just don't know where the time goes, one of those 'age' things I suppose.
We've had lovely clouds in deep blue skies, setting Hadrian's Wall off to perfection, and Walltown always does me proud when there are nice clouds to photograph.

Walltown Crags, there were no planes to leave contrails so Mother Nature provided some of her own!

The volcano in Iceland erupting was supposed to bring rich red sunsets and sunrises - so I headed out to Crag Lough thinking the reflected colour in the water would look good.
I arrived early so I climbed up onto Hotbank Crag, one of those bit of Hadrian's Wall that gets the pulse racing, it's a steep climb.
Evening light is hitting the north face of the Wall right now and there's no footpath up to that side.
No, I can't just climb over it, you can see where people have though and scrapped off the lichens with their scrambling. It's got so bad that the Footpaths Officer is getting signs made to put along the trail asking people not to climb on the Wall. Think of all the cloning out that will intail.

Hotbank Crag looking east

There are new boats on Crag Lough, white ones with blue covers, they don't have quite the wow factor the old mahogany boats had but I'd rather have them there than not.

Crag Lough sunset

One of the resident swan's came swimming towards me, I often see them on the Lough but they don't often come within camera range.
Swan on the Lough
It was an okay sunset but not the big dramatic event I'd been hoping for, nice without contrails though.

So to another day and I'm heading out to Caw Gap, this is one place you can get to the north side of the Wall without climbing over it, it's not a particularly easy path but you're on the right side for the light.
The sunset was shaping up to be a bit more of an event than last night had been, I perched myself on a narrow bit of grass, taking care to remember not to step back and don't look down.

North side of Hadrian's Wall at Cawfields

Some lovely colours in the sky and the sun went down as a big ball, as usual I took so many photographs that I haven't had time to go through them all yet.

Sunset from Cawfield Crags

I started to head back down to the car, it would take a bit longer because I had to backtrack almost to Caw Gap to cross through the gap in the Wall and then retrace my steps on the official Hadrian's Wall Path. As often happens, once the sun went down the sky coloured up with a multitude of shades.
The sky over towards Thirlwall Nicks was gorgeous.


Panorama from Cawfield Crags looking towards Thirlwall Nicks.

The views on the way back to the Cawfields Park were a joy to behold and I kept stopping to snap 'just another shot'.
The moon was up by the time I reached the car, a beautiful sliver of a crescent moon with Venus shining bright beneath it.
Yet again I was reminded how lucky I am to have all of this on my doorstep.

Catch you later.

3 comments:

  1. You have some wonderful photos. I especially like the 2 of Crag Lough :)

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  2. Thankyou Glenn - it's all to do with the light,and being out on the first place of course.

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  3. I enjoyed your blog immensely. I will be starting out on my own walk at Wallsend on the morning of May 13th and can only hope that I catch some of the fine weather you appear to have enjoyed. If not, there are always wellies I guess...

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