Walltown with the sheep

Sunsets on the Wall.

At this time of the year the days are short, sometimes it's overcast all day then an hour before the sun is due to set it clears.

So it was the other night and I grabbed my gear for a trip to Walltown.

I got to the parking area at the foot of Walltown Crags just as everyone else was heading home, still a lot of people enjoying days out here in Northumberland.

I wanted to go up to Mucklebank Crag so I walked along the farm track that passes Walltown Farm.

The collies didn't run out to greet me as they normally do so they must have been out working with William the farmer.

Just past the farm I turn left up the watery track and over the stile.

I paused for a moment to enjoy the view to King Arthur's Well, the two trees on top are colouring up nicely and a few wispy clouds in the background had me clicking the shutter button.

Fungi are beginning to show, we get lots of brightly coloured waxcaps on Hadrian's Wall and I tried to take photo's on a particularly nice orange specimen using my 17-55mm lens. Couldn't quite get the focus but it made a nice record shot and I'll go out again with a macro lens when we get a good day.

Onward and upward, the stone path that climbs Mucklebank is brilliant, I used to dread the slipping and sliding on my bottom that seemed to accompany every trip up or down before the path went in.

The sun at the moment is directly in line with Hadrians Wall at Walltown and the cloud had disappeared meaning every photograph I took was filled with those little flare circles.

I decided to wait until the sun got further down and a little less bright and wandered away to the other side of Mucklebank Crag.

The views here are lovely, to the east you look towards Cawfield Crags and to the south across the North Pennines ( as shown in the picture with the sheep). One day I'm going up there with a flask of coffee to just sit and enjoy the views, a great way to lift the spirits I imagine.There are always sheep on this crag and I wanted to get a shot with them in the foreground. They played 'lets show the photographer our bottoms' and eventually we both gave up and I wandered back to the setting sun.

Not the blazing sunset I'd have liked but hey, it was just nice to get out in the fresh air and clamber about where not only Roman soldiers walked before, but King Arthur and his knights gathered.

We have sunshine at the moment but metcheck is showing horrible weather for the next week, let's hope they've got it wrong.

Catch you later.

Joan

19th March 2009 pm

Will it be a good sunset?

Only one way to find out, I grabbed the gear and headed off back to Hadrian's Wall.

My first intention was to head to Cawfields but as I approached Walltown I decided that would do nicely.
The Hadrian's Wall Path people have put in a superb footpath up Mucklebank Crag, using bolders and stones making a stairway to the top.

You get great views west from the slopes of Mucklebank, and at this time of the year it's spot on for the position of the sun setting.

I trotted along past Walltown Farm and cut up past King Arthur's Well ( yes, THAT King Arthur, he was really a Northumbrian King) and up the new path until I got just above the turret there, looking back west over Walltown Crags.
There were two or three sheep beautifully placed so I settled down to wait for the sun to set.

It was just about where I wanted it when I heard the sound of a quad bike and over the hill comes William from Walltown Farm, whistling and shouting instructions to his dogs, herding his ewe's to the lower pastures for the night.

I was surrounded by charging woolly backs and dogs.They all disappeared over the brow of the hill just as the sun went down.
Not my day ;)
I did get one or two shots that I can keep so it wasn't a complete waste.
Here's one of the sheep posing for me before their undignified exit.

Catch you later,

JoT

19th March 2009

Up really, really early under the impression that we'd have a lovely misty sunrise.

Headed off to Steel Rigg, was ages early forgetting that with Steel Rigg you are just 5 minutes from the car park to 'set up'.

Took a few photo's of the moon just to pass the time and waited for enough light to be able to see where I was going, or more precisely what I was standing in!

As the birds started to sing I could see the mist - it looked suspiciously like fog in places, not a good sign.

I dashed back and forwards across the field in my normal demented way looking for the best composition to suit the light. Turned around to find another photographer watching me with a bemused expression.

Got a tiny bit of pink showing up on the contrails and then the fog blocked out all the light.
I took probably six shots - not really worth getting out of bed for, but you just never know do you?

Home for toast and honey for breakfast and a fairly relaxing day - then as 5pm approached my shutter finger started to twitch again.

Catch you all later,

JoT

15 03 09

Sunday and not a bad day weather wise.

There's a shot of Mucklebank Crags I'd like to get but it needs a figure in the shot to give it the right scale.(Mucklebank Crags are the two bumps in the distance on this photograph of Walltown Crags)

I head off to Walltown, I thought I'd be tripping over mating toads as usual at this time of the year but I don't see any at all, shame as I'd like some toadspawn for my pond. Toads return to the pond they were 'born' in, often travelling miles overland to get there.

I take the gentle incline around the lake and head up towards Hadrian's Wall and the gnarly hawthorn tree.

Photographers all claim this little tree as their own, but of course they're wrong, it's my tree :)

With a good cloudscape it can make a spectacular shot but today's is pretty average. Of course that doesn't stop me taken half a dozen anyway in case the camera sees something I don't.

Wander along following the line of Hadrian's Wall, Walltown has some fairly sunstantial chunks of Wall and they are fairly easy to access, as long as you can climb up to them.

The views across towards the Solway are amazing, you can see into Scotland on a clear day, nearer the views are across Longbyre and Gilsland.

The light is coming and going and there aren't many people about, certainly not as many as I expected. I catch some sheep grazing in the dip and set up the tripod. Don't know who has been training them but, as soon as they see a camera, they turn their backs like reluctant celebrities. I take shots all the way along the crest of Walltown Crags,although they're not my favourite type of photograph, you never know when you might need a simple sunny day shot.

I eventually get along the top of Walltown Crags to the spot I need for my shot of Mucklebank Crag, a bit of twoing and froing before I'm happy with the composition and then I wait for someone to come along.

A pheasant wanders across the view, stopping to cluck at me but not at all afraid, not quite the figure I had in mind.

Wouldn't you just know it - the sun goes in, and this time it stays in as big banks of cloud blow in from the west.

Putting a mental 'x' marks the spot I pack up and head back to the car. As often happens as I'm heading back streams of folk appear, I suppose I was being optomistic to think they'd be out before 10am on a Sunday :)

Not long until Easter, if the weather is good to us I'll get my shot then and I know exactly where to stand for it.

I was back home by 2pm for a nice cup of coffee and a Werthers. In a week or so's time the Old Forge Tea Room in Greenhead will re-open after a refit, I've heard they do amazing cupcakes, something to look forward to.