Wednesday 14th August 2013, 1.20pm (day 720)
Haven’t done a ‘pure’ landscape for a while — not since the last time I was around the Lake District, I guess. Not a coincidence, there are just so many more of them round there.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: hiking
Salt marsh, Kents Bank, Cumbria
Monday 8th July 2013, 9.40am (day 683)
I worked yesterday, so walked today. This is my usual walking county — Cumbria — but so far away from my usual haunt that it’s outside the Lake District National Park, on the very edge of Morecambe Bay. Forty years ago this area was marked on the map as mud and sand, but changes in the currents around the Bay (caused by sea protection works in Morecambe, some say) have seen the sea retreat and leave these salt marshes. There were a few clouds around when I arrived at nearby Kents Bank railway station to start my walk a few minutes before taking this photo, but they soon burned off, and it was another very hot one today.
Birthday party walk
Sunday 23rd June 2013, 1.35pm (day 668)
Joe was invited to the birthday party of one of his friends, and though it was a bit cool and damp to take the picnic that was planned, we (that is, about 8 adults, 15 kids and 3 dogs) did get a walk up on the fells above the western end of Hebden Bridge. It did occasionally remind me why I do tend to walk alone… but still, like the Saturday last weekend, it showed me some parts of my locality that I have not seen, and that alone made it worth doing.
Ladder stile, Potter Fell
Tuesday 4th June 2013, 10.35am (day 649)
I’m walking again. If you want to know more about that part of the day then see my other blog. It was a gorgeous, glorious summer’s day, perfect weather in every respect, and this is more-or-less the only picture I took all day that didn’t have some blue skies on it somewhere. But nevertheless it’s the one I like the best: good curve on the wall, the solitary X-shape of the stile.
Uli in the forest, Waya Island
Friday 17th May 2013, 8.30am (day 631)
We went on a hike up Mount Nulakaokao (or something like that) today, 10 of us of various nationalities, led by our Fijian guide Ameo, who astonishingly, climbed up and over the volcanic rocks in bare feet. Impossible to cover the whole trek in one picture, but this one wins just for being rather different: it would have been easy to pick one of the views from and of the mountain itself, which were spectacular, but I like the flare effect on this one. This is Uli, from Dortmund, Germany.
Mount Beerwah
Monday 29th April 2013, 1.50pm (day 613)
This is the highest of the Glasshouse Mountains, about 50 miles (80km) north of Brisbane. As viewed from Mount Tiborgargan nearby, and given added mystery by a pall of smoke which hung over these old, eroded volcanic plugs most of the day, courtesy of some scrub-burning I think.
DOC worker near Twin Beach, Heaphy Coast
Thursday 28th February 2013, 1.40pm (day 553)
DOC is the Department of Conservation, the body who look after New Zealand’s wonderful environment, and are trying to continue to do so in the face of the same old funding pressures foisted on us by the moronocracy. Be nice to these people, who are basically trying to help the world. Mind you, they do get to work in some pretty attractive locations.
Last day walking the Heaphy Track – usually people take five days, I did it in three, including a 37km (23 mile) last day. My feet hurt. But I’m happy to have done it, and now I’ve caught up with this blog: however, more photos from the walk, and details on the experience, are shortly going up on my walking blog.
Shepherds’ monument
Friday 4th January 2013, 3.00pm (day 498)
This monument to two shepherds, Edward and Joseph Hawell, stands just above the car park at the end of Gale Road, near Keswick, on the path up to Skiddaw, England’s fourth-highest mountain. But I did not climb Skiddaw today. I (and Clare and Joe, pictured here inspecting the Hawell cross) climbed Lonscale Fell and Latrigg, the gentle green slopes of which are visible behind them (the fell in the far background being High Rigg). Latrigg was the 214th Wainwright fell I have climbed – and there are 214 in total.
So it was the last one. I have completed my project. Well… better find something else to do I suppose.
View south from High Rigg
Saturday 24th November 2012, 11.10am (day 457)
High Rigg is a low-altitude but craggy hill a few miles to the east of the town of Keswick. On the left of this shot, in the background, is Helvellyn, the third-highest mountain in England. The dark dimple in the middle is called Great How. The lake is Thirlmere, actually a reservoir. This shot was taken with a dark filter on, then I beefed up the highlights to bring out the sun; but this is more-or-less what it looked like on this November morning. A high haze in the sky allowed one to look straight into the sun, and brought out the last of autumn’s rich colours.
And, oh yeah, I’ve now only got 2 of the 214 Wainwright fells left to climb. I’ll get all the pictures up on my other blog tomorrow morning.
The Greenup valley
Saturday 10th November 2012, 11.35am (day 443)
Is there a word for the one before the one before the last one? Pen-penultimate maybe? If so, today was the pen-penultimate walk I needed to complete the 214 Wainwrights. Numbers 208 (Eagle Crag, a great little climb) and 209 (Sergeant’s Crag) were completed in a day that once again started off OK but got much worse, weather-wise, as time went on. These were about the last shafts of sunlight until near the end of the walk three and a half hours later, illuminating the glacial Greenup valley, as viewed from the lower slopes of Eagle Crag.
Being 42 