View allAll Photos Tagged satnav
Prunn Castle stands on a steep limestone rock from the Jurassic period about four kilometres SE of the town of Riedenburg, Lower Bavaria.
The castle itself was first mentioned in 1037 although I stumbled upon it after I turned off the satnav and drove aimlessly soaking in the beauty of the Bavarian countryside
A photograph taken on our journey back from Cornwall in 2016. This is on Dartmoor, but on the gentle edges of it. The Satnav (designed for Motorhomes) didn’t encourage us to explore the moor very much.
Just driving for the pleasure of it in Bavaria. I may have been on a tight schedule but for a few hours at least I enjoyed the spell of the Romantic Road villages and countryside.
Several hours later I reluctantly set the day's destination on the satnav to arrive at my next destination.
Probably my best day's driving on this trip.
It was a cold but beautiful day, so I thought I would go for a ride. I love exploring new roads, and there are so many small gravel roads around here. Some of them lead to amazing places, some just end in the middle of nowhere.
After driving for about one hour without seeing anything but trees, I realized - I was lost!
After another 30 minute drive I finally reached civilisation. Never again will I leave my house without the satnav! :)
Today it's 25° below zero ( - 13°F). I'm staying indoors!
Have a wonderful Sunday!
I won't bore you with the details of why I was down here but it involved trading in a lens, multiple closures on the M6, an eight hour journey, an unplanned overnight stop, the hottest curry I've ever tasted, the satnav taking me in to Warwick Castle car park and me refusing to pay the £6 exit charge out of principal and having to wait an hour and a half to be let out, a lost pair of glasses in the field surrounding the windmill, finding a 55mm Sony lens cap and a 3k Gorillapod mini tripod complete with ballhead with the initials 'PS' stamped on one of the legs....oh and spending much of the journey on the Roman roads of Watling Street and The Fosse Way.
Bit of a long shot but if the Gorillapod is yours and you can tell me what colour paint has been applied to the initials then I'll gladly return it.
Anyway, missed the wheat by a couple of days but got treated to a wonderful warm Summer's sunset.
We put "end of the world" into our sat-nav, and here we are now...
Thank the Emperor for Sliders Sunday...
HSS!
oliver@br-creative | @facebook | @500px | @Getty & Flickr Market
Stowe's Hill is a tor in the south east corner of Bodmin Moor, not far from Minions. On the southern side of the hill, the Cheesewring Quarry has gouged a huge scar where the granite has been blasted out, and changed the profile of the hill for-ever. On the edge of the quarry is the famous "Cheesewring", a natural tor feature.
Of course there’s a story attached but it’s too embarrassing to tell - but if you visit here [ Get back down from that hill which is a designated ‘ dark sky ‘ area before the sun disappears below the horizon ] or risk.. a) stumbling right into a flock of woolly sheep.. b) putting your foot up to the knee in a stream before landing on both knees in the stream needing to be hauled out... c) eventually finding the road but walking half a mile in the wrong direction and...d) seeing your life flash before you in the headlights of every passing car as you try to hold two dogs reined in on a short lead as they pass and leave you momentarily blinded from the light in the black velvety night....of course me being me found it funny ( don’t worry, I know it’s not really funny and was actually serious but I have a quirk in me that did find it funny because I am married to a dour Scotsman who blamed me entirely because he had took a compass reading but I insisted my inner satnav was correct.....lol we remain married but that straw almost broke the Camels back ;))
Btw, of course we had a torch but the batteries ran out and a regular compass plus an iPhone each with satnavs but were arguing too much to remember till we went the wrong way along the Rd..dohh
……Another shot from our Satnav divert on the way to Ludlow last week. Have a great W/End whilst staying Covid safe. We are on a family meet up today to do our Christmas gift exchange so I wonder if we shall have any Satnav delights today. Alan;-).……
For the interested I’m growing my Shutterstock catalogue regularly here, now sold 58 images :- www.shutterstock.com/g/Alan+Foster?rid=223484589&utm_...
©Alan Foster.
©Alan Foster. All rights reserved. Do not use without permission.……
…….taken on an unexpected Satnav divert on the way to Ludlow last week. Happy Tuesday & stay Covid Safe wherever you are, Alan;-).……
For the interested I’m growing my Shutterstock catalogue regularly here, now sold 58 images :- www.shutterstock.com/g/Alan+Foster?rid=223484589&utm_...
©Alan Foster.
©Alan Foster. All rights reserved. Do not use without permission.……
POULTON-LE-FYLDE
Photograph taken at the Shard Restaurant, Poulton
An afternoon out at the garden centre & then visit Skippool Creek to shot the moored boats at low tide.
Do not use a Sat Nav in this area, never found the place
Ended up at a little restaurant on the banks of the River Wyre, which I would recommend if you are in this area
Now found the creek on google maps, its just around the bend in the photograph
At least next time we know a good place for a pie & a pint !!!!!
Stowe's Hill is a tor in the south east corner of Bodmin Moor, not far from Minions. On the southern side of the hill, the Cheesewring Quarry has gouged a huge scar where the granite has been blasted out, and changed the profile of the hill for-ever. On the edge of the quarry is the famous "Cheesewring", a natural tor feature.
Of course there’s a story attached but it’s too embarrassing to tell - but if you visit here [ Get back down from that hill which is a designated ‘ dark sky ‘ area before the sun disappears below the horizon ] or risk.. a) stumbling right into a flock of woolly sheep.. b) putting your foot up to the knee in a stream before landing on both knees in the stream needing to be hauled out... c) eventually finding the road but walking half a mile in the wrong direction and...d) seeing your life flash before you in the headlights of every passing car as you try to hold two dogs reined in on a short lead as they pass and leave you momentarily blinded from the light in the black velvety night....of course me being me found it funny ( don’t worry, I know it’s not really funny and was actually serious but I have a quirk in me that did find it funny because I am married to a dour Scotsman who blamed me entirely because he had took a compass reading but I insisted my inner satnav was correct.....lol we remain married but that straw almost broke the Camels back ;))
Btw, of course we had a torch but the batteries ran out and a regular compass plus an iPhone each with satnavs but were arguing too much to remember till we went the wrong way along the Rd..dohh
Maps in some form have existed for thousands of years and the progression to digital forms of mapping is just the latest generation of them.
I love the older style paper map that you can spread out before you on the kitchen table or on your knees whilst on a windswept hillside! They are a thing of beauty that the modern electronic versions lack. At one stage in my collecting period, I had thousands of them of all sorts of places and ages. I still have some of them, especially the ones that go back to the late 1700s and 1800s!
This is obviously detail from an Ordnance Survey (OS) map of where I live - Newark-on-Trent!
- But if you try sometimes you might find what you need!
Yesterday we decided to drive off early in the morning to spend a day at the sea - we choose Blackpool Sands south of Dartmouth as our destination. We haven't been there before and it sounded quite lovely, just over an hour from home. During the drive south our satnav constantly directed us via the narrowest single track lanes and we were lucky more than once with oncoming vehicles.
Just before we reached our destination the sunny clear skies turned into a thick wall of clouds at the sea and we were naturally disappointed as it was freezing cold and unpleasant. Our expectations of a sunny day at the sea were not quite met but we did the best we could to spend some time there (after all we did pay the parking fee) and at the end I also explored the edges of the beach to find that interesting sea stack that I photographed before we drove back home - to a sunny and warm few hours in our garden ;-)
The last of today's Scottish selection and if ever there was a good reason not to use the satnav then this was it.
Knowing full well where I was going, it was only natural that I went the wrong way. Instead of arriving at the nearby Lochan, I stumbled across this beauty and two of his companions.
Red Deer Stag - Cervus Elaphus
Glen Coe Village - Glen Coe
As always I am grateful to all those who kindly take time to comment on and fave my photographs.
DSC_4993
© Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved
Candid street photography from Glasgow, Scotland. Wishing you all a great weekend of photography!
It had long been the dream of the little snail to cruise the NC500 - the iconic coastal route in the Highlands of Scotland - in his hot MGB convertible (with the top down of course, weather permitting). He was expecting a rough road, so sadly did not realise until it was too late that his SatNav had stopped working, and he found himself at the top of a Scottish mountain.
For Macro Mondays theme 'Transportation'.
No snails were harmed in the making of this photograph.
Just got back from our annual visit to RAF Cosford Air Museum. Full of vintage planes and ephemera, I seem to take similar shots every time we go, so I tried different things and exhibits this year! (Might post a few of the same though)
Shot this through glass, in a dimly lit room, didn't come out as bad as I expected!
If ever there was a good reason not to use the satnav then this was it.
Knowing full well where I was going, it was only natural that I went the wrong way. Instead of arriving at the nearby Lochan, I stumbled across this beauty and two of his companions.
To see these magnificent stags so close to the village was a thrill indeed.
I suspect next time I see him, that beautiful velvet will be long gone.
Red Deer Stag - Cervus Elaphus
Glen Coe Village - Glen Coe
As always I am grateful to all those who kindly take time to comment on and fave my photographs.
DSC_4995
Trying to get back to a previous walk we enjoyed, but selecting `lucky dip'(!) on the satnav, and then ignoring the `dead end' sign we passed just as the satnav announced we should stay on that road for another 3 miles(!), we stumbled across another lovely walk where I found my first damselflies of the year. I hope to get time to get back to get some better shots.
Despite pouring over my field guide, I'm not sure what species it is, but assume it's an immature form from the colour. Any help appreciated.... thanks to jel1969 for the possible ID of: female immature azure damselfly Coenagrion puella
Ingleton walk North Yorkshire Satnav LA6 3ET . It's a circular 41/2 mile past several spectacular waterfalls
Last bank holiday Monday, after our first visit of Haytor, we continued the short distance on to Hound Tor, another well-known spot on Dartmoor National Park. The car park was packed and there were also quite a lot of people scrambling among the granite stacks but because Hound Tor is a series of many granite outcrops spread over a hill it was much easier to get a shot without any person in the frame (no Photoshop needed this time :-P).
The ease of access (literally next to the car park) makes it a very popular destination and it was a lot of fun exploring the location with the family.
On our way back I made the huge mistake of relying solely on the satnav and I managed to drive all the way to Crediton exclusively on tiny single track roads - one bit steep downhill through dense forest, we even came across a deer in the middle of the way! It was like hiking in a car LOL....
BTW, I just passed 1 million views on my flickr stream - so thank you all very much for visiting, commenting and faving my photos folks!!!!
A shot from my little golfing holiday earlier this summer in Normandy in northern France. I took along a rubbish old plastic Canon EOS made sometime in the 90s which always tried to fire it's flash no matter how much light it had! (A bit like a satnav that keeps trying to get you to go back to that road closure.) I only took along one roll of expired Fuji colour film because I knew I wouldn't be getting a lot of time for photography. As it turned out we had one morning where there was a little mist across the hills and so I sprinted out early before it all burned off. I converted this scan to B&W in post processing because the colour version is quite washed out, probably because it was expired film.
Canon EOS 500
Canon 28-105mm zoom
Fujifilm Superia 200 (expired)
Life as a senior citizen:
Margaret sniffed. “I still don’t see why we needed to use the satnav just to go to the optician’s.”
“It’s not about the destination, it’s about proving a point.”
Married life !
Teignmouth, Devon, UK.
Sousson's Stone Circle.
This morning I had an adventure up the moors to find another of Dartmoor's Stone Circles. What a mission that was!!
Due to my own stupid fault and putting in the wrong location on my satnav I ended up missing the place I wanted and headed north up the moors to somewhere completely different. Not only were the roads covered with snow making it my first time driving in snowy conditions, I ended up with an extra hour of driving through treacherous country lanes for nothing!
Once I realised my mistake I set my satnav to the right location and found it with no problem whatsoever!
Sousson's stone circle is In a clearing left by the Forestry Commission in the Soussons plantation. It consists of twenty-two stones in a circle of diameter 8.6m. The circle of twenty-two stones are actually the kerb of a round cairn, now destroyed. In the centre lies a badly damaged burial cist.
When I got there there was still a bit of snow on the ground so ended up with this shot.
During our trip to North Wales, our satnav developed a huge fondness for taking us along some of the narrowest and most winding lanes and byways known to mankind. A little stressful from time to time, especially when meeting a fast-moving white van head on – but there again, sometimes the landscape would suddenly open before us, and the views were spectacular.
This is in Gwynedd, and in the distance is the estuary of Afon Dwyryd (the River Dwyryd, which translates as ‘a river of two fords’); beyond that, as a glorious backdrop, are the mountains of Snowdonia National Park. Unforgettable.
an abstract using geometry to create some form.....trying to catch the light.....
thanks for looking in....really appreciated........best bigger......hope you have a Great Weekend
29.10.15
Had to travel a little way to get to this tunnel but the satnav took us an odd and long way. Was interesting to see on foot and not from the boat. Went into the tunnel on the towpath. Not sure I would have enjoyed when dark or when a boat was coming through, No lights on inside the tunnel when we went but still interesting. More pics in the album.
For Smile on Saturday theme 'View the V...'
V is for Vehicle and Volkswagon.
No snails were harmed in the making of this photograph.
I decided today to go and do something I have not done for a long time. I went for a drive to go and discover some roads with no map, no satnav, just my sense of direction and the sun to go by.
I found myself in South Ayrshire, I found this car on an un-named road outside of Dalmellington. Can anyone recognise the make or model?
“We could have gone back to Dartmoor again. Plenty to see there. By now we’d have had breakfast in Morrisons at Tavistock and headed up onto the moors for the first shoot.”
A couple of hours later….
“We could have turned off right here and headed over the bridge for the Brecon Beacons. It’s brilliant there. Fantastic for waterfalls. Just look at the M49! Empty in comparison to this lunacy. We could be in Abergavenny in under an hour, stocking up on Haribo and Welsh beer in Aldi. There’s a very good chippy there. Generous portions too.”
Later still…..
“And there’s the New Forest. A bit of a trek but we’d probably be there by now if we'd turned off the motorway after Exeter. Great heathland shots and plenty of woodland (well obviously) opportunities too. And you’ve got the ponies - they make for wonderful subjects in the golden hour when the light touches their manes. Silver birches everywhere. I love a silver birch - wish we had some in Cornwall. I know a good Indian takeaway at Ashurst. Lovely naan bread.”
I hoped Lee was taking this personally. It was his idea to head north of Birmingham for our latest adventure, and to make things worse, for reasons that remained unclear we were travelling on a Friday. Back in the nineties, when I was married to a Lancastrian, we would routinely make the journey from Falmouth to Preston in six and a half hours, with two toddlers on board, always driving some dodgy old jalopy that was only just about roadworthy. And after three days in Preston with the in-laws I would be crawling up the curtains, wondering whether we could sneak off to the Lake District or the Trough of Bowland for a few hours - or preferably until it was time to go back home.
Thirty years on, with a car that does what it’s expected to without complaint, and no squabbling urchins to drive me to distraction, the shorter distance to Buxton was turning into an ordeal. By now we’d trudged through the A30 roadworks from Chivvy to Carland at walking pace, crawled across the Bristol area at the speed of an arthritic snail, and parked the car on the M5 in a queue that commenced just before Droitwich and finished on the other side of Birmingham. And all the way, the road was close to saturation point with moving traffic. Or traffic at a standstill. Purgatory on wheels. Honestly, if in a moment of blind optimism you ever dared to hope for our future as a species, try sitting in a traffic jam on the M5 on a Friday afternoon, surrounded by articulated lorries belching blue clouds into the stratosphere. And then remind yourself you’re just a small speck on the map in a tiny country at the edge of one of five carbon fuelled continents. Imagine what it must be like in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Jakarta and a thousand other mega-cities. Enjoy it while you can.
Finally we popped out of the tailbacks along the final miles of the M5 like a cork from a bottle of flat Lambrini, to join the northbound masses as Lee peered wistfully through the rear windows at his old home, looking to see if he could spot the football ground at Walsall. Meanwhile Bossy Barbara (otherwise known as the satnav on Dave’s phone) was adding further to this driver’s woes. “She says come off at the next junction,” he told me. I wasn’t convinced. “But the map clearly showed that we should leave the M6 at Stoke and that’s still nearly twenty miles away,” I complained. Now Lee chimed in with his version of events, which unhappily agreed with Dave’s. We bade the motorway farewell - a motorway that was now moving along nicely in the prescribed manner I might add - instead taking the route that Barbara had decided would take us to Buxton in record time. A record slow, it seemed.
For a while we chased along a happy A34, a dual carriageway with little to hinder our progress. This was more encouraging. Perhaps Barbara was right after all. But then she decided it was too easy, sending us instead along a labyrinthine trail of narrow roads through nodding villages, most of which took us to junctions where we needed to turn right into what was rapidly becoming the rush hour chaos. We still hadn’t seen a sign for Buxton, and as the hours dragged, I wondered whether we were going to arrive on the east coast at Grimsby or Hull instead. All the while, relations with Barbara remained distinctly frosty as I questioned every command she issued. Why were we driving up this narrow lane, more than thirty miles short of our destination? I wanted to go straight to Buxton, not conduct a whistle stop tour of every farm in North Staffordshire along the way.
Nine hours into our journey, we arrived at Leek, just a few miles short of our target, and after a local commuter reluctantly allowed me into the flow of traffic at yet another tedious right turn, it seemed the ordeal was close to its end. Pulling along the straight upward slope towards Buxton, we saw an imposing stegosaurus on the hills - Ramshaw Rocks huge, brutal and towering down over us as smiles returned to tired faces. Maybe it would be worth it after all - and maybe Lee would be forgiven for dragging us all this way. We found Aldi, bought supplies - including beer and confectionery (bloke shopping - dictionary definition: the result of three unattended middle aged men going to a supermarket unsupervised), and made haste to the cottage we’d rented for the next five nights. We’d left Cornwall at nine in the morning - by now it was almost seven in the evening. If you live close enough to a major European airport, you could probably have made it to New York and had your postcard halfway back across the Atlantic before we arrived in Buxton.
Less than an hour later, we were here, where I’d arranged to meet Shelly, who’d put in a special request to do traffic trails at Mam Tor. Introductions made, we headed up the short but steep slope and gazed out across the Edale Valley to Kinder Scout. In the opposite direction sat the beautiful village of Castleton, the top of the escarpment above Winnat’s Pass and the unmistakable cement works with its tall factory chimney at Hope. And there was the classic view along the ridge towards Back Tor and its lone tree. A rush of recognition. Suddenly some of the places in the book and the YouTube videos were real - living and breathing parts of the big green canvas that rolled serenely towards us, as if unfurled from somewhere beyond the horizon. This was a place where adventures to remember would surely happen. Although Shelly had forgotten her coat, and despite being loaned a thick jumper by Dave, had to leave early before we got down to business with the traffic trails.
As a gentle yellow sun cast its soft glow across the land, I decided to absolve Lee of all blame for dragging us this far. Well at least until the journey back to Cornwall a week later at the beginning of the bank holiday weekend that is. Probably best if we don’t talk about that. I’ve already made him sign a legally binding agreement in the presence of a team of solicitors that says we’re going to the Brecon Beacons on a Tuesday next time.
Taken across Lake Bohinj, Slovenia's largest permanent lake.
A couple of local men enjoying a peaceful Saturday fishing.
I was taken by the reflections of the boat house and so took a few shots here.
We had a lazy day here walking around the lake shore and a picnic lunch and then had a way too exciting drive back to Bled thanks to a satnav that never likes to take the same road twice!
So we learn how to take photos with a dslr, changing lens, focus, light, ISO, aperture and various other settings with millions of combinations of possible settings. We teach ourselves the theory and learn the techniques and then, along comes a mobile phone with a minute camera in it.
Having been someone who fought hard to understand the theory and complex three dimensional mathematics of navigation by the sun and stars, only for satnav to make all that learning and training totally redundant.... a waste of time, I'm beginning to sense that within a few years the craft of photography may be rapidly disappearing as all pictures are captured by mobile phone. The only people who will use a dslr will be those fools who do it the hard way just for old time's sake. But what's the point? Camera craft will die out as surely as the skill of using a sextant.
It's been raining on Earth all day so I thought I'd fire up my spaceship and go for a spin around the local universe. This is looking back at our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The thing is.......the satnavs just gone wonky and I'm not at all sure where the hell Earth is in this lot.
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Image created using Imaginova's Starry Night Enthusiast 6)
To become a ship's captain you have to be a skilled mathematician, also competent in physics and many other skills. In my own time training as a Second Officer in the Merchant Navy I came to admire the professionalism of those Masters, "Old Men" as they were respectfully called. I was surprised how many I encountered who were raised in the Highlands and Islands, from tiny islands like Barra, wondering how they could attain such education standards in the 'simple' communities on the fringe of the Scottish Islands.
Entering the Ardnamurchan lighthouse stables I saw an interesting face. In fact I was more drawn to the significance of his blazer and cap badges that seemed vaguely familiar to me. Perhaps it has been so long but I should have recognised the Merchant Navy style I first stitched to my own uniform 45 years ago. But this gentleman turned out to have been a Captain, a Master Mariner, no less, serving 45 years at sea himself from the age of 16 and now retired for 30 years. Captain Peterson of the Ben Line was one of seven Master Mariners to be produced by just one family. That's some massive achievement, easily recognised by someone like me who only attained the training level of Second Officer. We chatted over old times pre-computerisation and satnav and days of astro-navigation, sun and star sights, spherical trigonometry, log haversines and sextants and the feeling ancient mariners get when they step on board for one last trip.
I just had to ask him for a casual portrait snap in the dim light inside the lighthouse.
The village centre, Postling, Kent.
I suppose this old hardware is pretty much redundant. The phone box has only been left there for aesthetic reasons it seems. Maybe some time in the future, when it all starts falling apart because we finally discover that all the money in the world doesn’t actually represent anything, when the satellites have died and not been replaced, and the air isn’t crammed full with radio signals, maybe people will need signposts again and messages will have to travel through wires. (Just one of my many half-baked theories)
Some of you are very kind, reading the lengthy diversions I accompany my images with, much of it totally irrelevant to the shot itself. I'm not really sure I can drag another story out of Saturday evening to be honest. But you know I'm ready to give it a go. As I walked at an almost Olympian pace to the spot I'd planned to spend the last hours of daylight on, I watched the light spreading over St Ives on the other side of the bay, hanging dreamily over the distant town and illuminating it in a haze of yellow light. I'd tried a rarely used shortcut to get here, which proved a mistake and cost me the minutes that made me know I was going to miss the moment. Why on earth I have these occasional aberrations of the mental satnav I really can't explain - without exception they always fail. As I set up my tripod the sun appeared from behind the clouds which until that moment had brought a lovely diffused sky over to the west and I cursed myself for missing the moment.
I moved my tripod to a spot further along the cliff, exchanging a few words with a chap who'd come to stand on the clifftop and watch the sky change. "Looking promising!" he suggested as he watched me straighten my tripod, possibly looking a bit nonplussed as this grumpy old man complained he'd missed the light he'd been watching as he strode the mile or so along the path from the car park.
Of course I was wrong to grumble. I should have known that a healthy mixture of rain and sun would bring an evening sky like this. I zoomed in on the lighthouse alone and ignored the setting sun, which would have only resulted in a whole heap of lens flare on the left hand side of the image. After all I'm not sure that a collection of red and green blotches is what photographers mean when they refer to the concept of balance in an image. I looked at the 3 inch screen before me and smiled.
And so for a few minutes the sun lit the side of Godrevy lighthouse as fiercely as I've ever seen it. As my unknowing guru Mr Nigel Danson so often likes to say, "It doesn't get any better than this."
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardcastle-crags
A beauty spot of the South Pennines with more than 400 acres of unspoilt woodland.
As well as being the home of the northern hairy wood ant, there are tumbling streams, glorious waterfalls and stacks of millstone grit, all crisscrossed by more than 15 miles of footpaths.
At the heart of the woodland you'll find Gibson Mill, home to the Weaving Shed Cafe. Having no link to the national grid, the mill is unique in the UK and is the Trust's flagship sustainable building.
Telephone
01422841020
hardcastlecrags@nationaltrust.org.uk
Address
Gibson Mill, Midgehole Road, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 7AW
By cycle
NCN68 passes close by
On foot
Access on foot via riverside walk from Hebden Bridge. Pennine Way and Bridleway both pass close to the property
By train
For local trains www.wymetro.com or call 0113 245 7676
By road
Parking: Two pay and display car parks available - Clough Hole car park (HX7 7AZ) and Midgehole car park (HX7 7AA) please note there is some distance between the two car parks. A £5 car parking charges will apply, National Trust members park free. Cash only. From both car parks you will need to walk to access the Mill (note: route is steep from Clough hole). Disabled badge holders only allowed access to mill (book space).
SatNav: Use HX7 7AZ for Clough Hole car park and use HX7 7AA for Midgehole car park. Look out for the National Trust signs.
By bus
for local buses visit www.wymetro.com or call 0113 245 7676
General
•The carparks, countryside and toilet facilities are open. The Weaving Shed Café, in Gibson Mill, is open on selected dates for takeaway drinks, light snacks and sweet treats.
•In line with government guidance, you're required to wear a face covering in most enclosed spaces. Please bring one with you.
•Our pay and display car parks at Cloughhole, Widdop Road HX7 7AZ and Midgehole HX7 7AA are £5, coin only. No change given.
•We have a choice of waymarked walking routes available across the site.
•Dogs are welcome, under close control.
•Gibson Mill, which houses the Weaving Shed Cafe, is half a mile walk from Clough Hole car park and a one mile walk from Midgehole Road car park.
•Sorry, no BBQs or drones.
Family
•The main estate road suitable for pushchairs
•Baby changing facilities are available at Gibson Mill
Access
•There is acessible parking at Gibson Mill (limited, pre-book on 01422 846236).
•Assistance dogs are welcome.
•Accessible cafe and toilet at Gibson Mill.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardcastle-crags
A beauty spot of the South Pennines with more than 400 acres of unspoilt woodland.
As well as being the home of the northern hairy wood ant, there are tumbling streams, glorious waterfalls and stacks of millstone grit, all crisscrossed by more than 15 miles of footpaths.
At the heart of the woodland you'll find Gibson Mill, home to the Weaving Shed Cafe. Having no link to the national grid, the mill is unique in the UK and is the Trust's flagship sustainable building.
Telephone
01422841020
hardcastlecrags@nationaltrust.org.uk
Address
Gibson Mill, Midgehole Road, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 7AW
By cycle
NCN68 passes close by
On foot
Access on foot via riverside walk from Hebden Bridge. Pennine Way and Bridleway both pass close to the property
By train
For local trains www.wymetro.com or call 0113 245 7676
By road
Parking: Two pay and display car parks available - Clough Hole car park (HX7 7AZ) and Midgehole car park (HX7 7AA) please note there is some distance between the two car parks. A £5 car parking charges will apply, National Trust members park free. Cash only. From both car parks you will need to walk to access the Mill (note: route is steep from Clough hole). Disabled badge holders only allowed access to mill (book space).
SatNav: Use HX7 7AZ for Clough Hole car park and use HX7 7AA for Midgehole car park. Look out for the National Trust signs.
By bus
for local buses visit www.wymetro.com or call 0113 245 7676
General
•The carparks, countryside and toilet facilities are open. The Weaving Shed Café, in Gibson Mill, is open on selected dates for takeaway drinks, light snacks and sweet treats.
•In line with government guidance, you're required to wear a face covering in most enclosed spaces. Please bring one with you.
•Our pay and display car parks at Cloughhole, Widdop Road HX7 7AZ and Midgehole HX7 7AA are £5, coin only. No change given.
•We have a choice of waymarked walking routes available across the site.
•Dogs are welcome, under close control.
•Gibson Mill, which houses the Weaving Shed Cafe, is half a mile walk from Clough Hole car park and a one mile walk from Midgehole Road car park.
•Sorry, no BBQs or drones.
Family
•The main estate road suitable for pushchairs
•Baby changing facilities are available at Gibson Mill
Access
•There is acessible parking at Gibson Mill (limited, pre-book on 01422 846236).
•Assistance dogs are welcome.
•Accessible cafe and toilet at Gibson Mill.
There was no denying the fact that Sally Satnav was in a playful mood. Ever since Wadebridge had disappeared from the rear view mirror, our friendly navigation aid had beseeched us to take almost every available left hand turn, many of them along improbable looking single winding lanes flanked with those famous eight feet tall Cornish hedgerows, where meetings with oncoming tractors would be almost guaranteed. And at each turn, Lloyd, who was driving would say “yes?” and I’d respond “no, not this one” as we pushed on along the A39, or the Atlantic Highway as some tourist mandarin had long since dubbed it, giving the road a sense of romantic adventure that the reality doesn’t quite match up to. Like it or not, Sally was going to be foiled in her attempts to take us to Trebarwith Strand via the Delabole turn off for the near vertical switchback descent that we now call Pellatt’s Hill. You’ll have to ask Steve about that if you want to know more. I’d driven that hill once before, on my only other visit here, and I was in no hurry to repeat the experience, especially when there was a perfectly good road down to the sea just a little further on. Besides which, we’d come armed with two flaky steak pasties that had been liberated from my local branch of Cornish Oven, and although they were demonstrating an admirable degree of heat retention during the hour long drive here, we didn’t want to waste any time collecting parts of the underside of Lloyd’s car from the road when we could be tucking into what would already be a late lunch.
Finally, we arrived at the outskirts of Camelford. “Yes?” came the now familiar question from the driver. “Yes” came the required response from the navigator as I consulted the map on my phone one last time. From here it was a short and easy roll down to the coast on a road where we would not need to stop to recover discarded exhaust components as we headed for the object of our third outing together of the week. I was glad that Lloyd was keen to take a trip to Trebarwith. My previous visit had been earlier in the year on the Mayday bank holiday, when I’d been here with non-photographers. Despite this it had turned out to be a more than satisfactory outing, yielding some very pleasing results, and I was eager to come here again with a similarly minded soul whose mission was exactly the same as my own. Two missions in fact – the first of them being to devour those pasties before they began to turn cold. It was the first time I’d had one for some months and I’d forgotten how good they are.
Rumbling stomachs silenced, we made the short walk from the car park down to the water, where there were a couple of hours of happy shooting ahead of us before high tide and last light would come along in short succession, just like those proverbial buses. Unlike my previous visit, we were the only photographers here, a distinct positive in a location where the battleground for space is extremely limited on a high tide. And despite the absence of colour in the sky, the clouds offered plenty of texture on another grey day where the world almost seemed to exist in monochrome. In each shot we took, there was only just the merest hint of blue in the sea to tell us otherwise. We began on the low ledge to the left hand side of this narrow entrance to the water’s edge between the cliffs, more than once being caught as an incoming wave washed up through the channel and surrounded us. Before long, the fact that my boots are made from Gore-tex was no longer relevant. If a wave comes in over your ankles, it doesn’t matter how waterproof your footwear is. At least we’d already picked up our camera bags and strapped them onto our backs before the contents were treated to a bath and very possibly an unwanted sea voyage as well. Soggy socks can be lived with for an afternoon, but salty lenses are rather more of a problem.
By the time they arrived, we’d moved back onto the central platform where the likelihood of further foot spa experiences was much reduced. Firstly, one or two togs appeared at our backs, and before long it seemed as many as ten of us might be competing for space, just as had happened last time I was here. Suddenly a camera appeared uncomfortably close to my left ear. And then another on the right. It seemed that a workshop from Sweden had joined us, the leader of which seemed to be discussing the location with a Londoner, as if he were the local knowledgebase. They were heading for Hartland next, so I told them about Blackchurch Rock, a location to test anyone’s mettle on a winter’s afternoon. Ten togs slipping around on the Toblerone shaped rocks down there together would have been interesting if they’d added it to the itinerary. Somebody suggested we all move back to create more space as the water approached its highest point, but neither Lloyd nor I, who by dint of our early arrival had the ringside seats were ready to engage reverse gear just yet. We’d been here for nearly two hours by now and felt we’d earned these moments. In compromise we crouched for as long as two pairs of knees in their late fifties could manage. The forest of cameras behind us were by now mostly mounted on fully extended tripods, as like a press pack hunting an A list celebrity we clicked away frantically at the view before us.
And just as quickly as they’d arrived, the forest at our backs vanished into thin air, very probably making for the pub that hovers over these rocks on the left hand cliff side. Now it was just us, daylight slipping imperceptibly into the blue hour as the apertures widened and the ISO levels were raised until it was time to call it a day. Another very pleasing day at Trebarwith despite the challenges that come with a high tide shoot here. Once again it had been great to spend time with somebody who was once an acquaintance, but is now a good friend with a shared love of seascape adventures and pasties. And a healthy disregard for instructions offered by errant satellite navigation systems of course.
Lorry drivers in search of a shortcut are always getting lured down our narrow country lanes by their satnav systems. And getting stuck! I watched this driver reverse for about half a mile.
I've been here a few times, during daytime only, without any time pressure. So of course I had to try different approach and despite having satnav and 3 different mapping apps on my phone - I got lost. So photos from this morning (hottest day of 2020 - I'm not sure if one step closer to dying of climate change is something to celebrate, but still - woop!) were a bit rushed. I've been trying to get different angles on Photographers Ephemeris and Google Maps but I wasn't prepared for the spectacle. Wildlife was absolutely crazy (rabbits, field voles, a fox and loads of birds), mist spectacular and if it wasn't for me getting lost - I'd take a photo of sun shining through a train crossing the viaduct. Just magical morning!
The viaduct was designed by Joseph Locke and George Stephenson and built during 1836 and was completed on 9 December of that year. As no life was lost or serious injury incurred during construction, its completion was greeted by a civic celebration.