Told you the sea came in…. the fort out there is the spot from where I took yesterday’s photo, at low tide. At high tide, and high winds…. wear waterproofs while walking along the sea front at St. Malo.
Thanks to the problems depicted yesterday, my connection in Guernsey could not be made, so I was here for the night and the morning after. But there are worse places to be stranded for a night I suppose.
Other small islands featured so far on the blog (that is, islands like Guernsey, and not islands like Great Britain, or Honshu): Kangaroo Island, Stradbroke Island (Australia); Stewart Island (New Zealand); Wayasewa and Wayalailai (Fiji); Kvaløy, Snilstveitøy, Tromsøya, Sotra (Norway); Æbelø, Fyn, Sjælland (Denmark).
It’s nice to travel — even if it’s for work — but it’s just as nice to come home. I don’t know where this is exactly, somewhere in Derbyshire I’m guessing. Pennines, for sure. And in the middle of a valley like this, I live, so it’s representative enough, welcome home.
It’s not quite 3pm here but considering this is what I came several thousand miles to see: I think we’re done with photography for the day, don’t you?
It was back in May 2013 that I saw the annular eclipse in north Queensland, and interesting as that was, it does not really approach the awesome nature of totality; the beauty of the corona and the ‘Baily’s beads’, light shining through valleys on the Moon’s edge, which I just about manage to capture here. And as I said about the Australian one — do you realise we might be one of the few planets in the whole universe to be able to see something like this, thanks to the coincidence that the Moon and Sun are the same apparent size in the sky? Lucky us. If you ever get the chance to see one — my advice is, take it.
I could leave this city unnamed, as a test of your geographical knowledge… but OK, it’s Toronto, meaning Canada makes its debut on the blog. However, the fact that I should have been in a position to capture this shot at least 90 minutes before I did suggests that this country’s national airline might have done a better job with punctuality today. What should have been a comfortable stopover with plenty of time for lunch became a 45-minute plummet through airport corridors and some quality time with US Customs and Border Protection (who seem to have colonised their friendly neighbour to the north already). This is not going to be the least stressful journey I have ever undertaken, and it’s only half done yet.
I might be ‘back at work’ but it’s still the summer break for Joe and he needs encouragement to do a little more than just sit at home when there’s so much pleasant countryside out there. He was moved to say that the Lake District ‘is quite a nice looking place isn’t it’, today. Well, yes it is. And to have some father-son time: hence one reason for the title of this shot. That’s also Coniston Old Man ahead: what it should look like, out of the mist (cf. the picture taken two weeks ago today).
Last day of our Lake District holiday, and therefore the last chance for a landscape shot — well, for a couple of weeks anyway. This does epitomise how the weather’s been this week; though can’t really represent not how cold and windy it was up here when the shot was taken. At least it wasn’t raining. Time to go home though, after fifty-five miles done on foot this week, I need a rest…
The lake in the distance is Buttermere, by the way. The distinctively-shaped fell behind it is Fleetwith Pike. This picture was taken from just below the summit of Blake Fell, here at about 1700′ above sea level.
Back out into the mountains — for a long and rather difficult walk from Coniston to Eskdale. This shot was taken towards the end, by which time I had already done 12 miles and was feeling rather knackered. The sheep seen here probably wondered what I was doing out on their heaf. I was wondering this too, to some extent.
Coniston Old Man rises to 2633 feet above the town of Coniston, and its rocks have long been the source of much of the place’s income — whether as nowadays, where people like me turn up and want to climb on them, or in the past, where they were mined and quarried to a great extent. This is the only major Lakeland fell where you encounter the ruins of so much industrial activity, negotiating, among other things, the remains of this old iron ropeway as you haul yourself up the fell.
I’m a few days behind, due to wi-fi issues at the first place we stayed this week. But oh yes — I’m definitely in the Lake District 🙂
