The Lake District is considered by many to be one of the most scenic places in England with its mountains, valleys and lakes. There are even a few who have written some poetry inspired by it, however, I will spare you any such attempts. Instead I present some of the photos from my trip there with Zuzana, Martin and Sanne.
Chickens are supposedly the last living relative to the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, which perhaps can explain this sign.Taking a short break to take in the view of Ambleside and Lake Windermere. A little bit later we stopped for a more staged photo shoot.We do our hiking in style.
We were walking into the thick layers of clouds as we gained altitude. The visibility was very limited, and a few times we got out of sight of each other. Funnily enough there was always phone coverage on the mountain. “Hej Martin, where did you go?” “We are just ahead of you.” “Oh…” I had turned my GPS tracking on and it told me we were walking at a pace of 2-3 km/h. There were three main peaks we were supposed to cross, but on the way we encountered a string of false peaks, the next a little bit higher than the previous one, and always hidden in the clouds. As we were stopping for lunch the clouds cleared somewhat and we could see a bit of the ridge on the other side of the valley to our right.
Two curious sheep. I liked their expressions and the rolling hills behind them. I adjusted the colour balance turning the photo black and white to bring out the detail in the landscape behind them. If I remember right I darkened the green and brightened the yellows. The sheep and a bit of the foreground and background also received a touch of the sharpening brush at about 20%. When I sharpen I do it selectively on some areas that I want to draw attention to, and always on a separate layer, so I can turn it on and off to compare. You want it quite subtle, and sometimes I have to decrease the opacity of the sharpened layer.
After lunch we continued towards Fairfield Peak and soon our path was shrouded in clouds again.
Fairfield Peak. This was the moment we got lost in the fog. We were doing the Fairfield horseshoe walk and should have backtracked a bit to find the ridge to the east that would lead us south. However, following the text in the guide book and the cartoon map that it provided, we missed the bit about retracing your steps, and instead ended up following another ridge that took us north east.
As we made our way down from the peak the clouds suddenly scattered and we got a look at the view for the first time. We could see what we believed was the ridge we had walked with all the different peaks lined up one after the other to our right. We knew we were on the right course…
Shooting a timer group selfie on the ridge while happily trekking in the wrong direction. This was right after we had backtracked from another steep decline and then traversed what can only be described as a landslide of loose rocks. Luckily no one got hurt.
It was not until we started to get closer to the lake that we realised that it was the wrong lake. The zoomed out view of the GPS did not show a U-shape but a straight line. First I thought it had stopped working, but my phone still had some power left. We should have realised it earlier from the position of the sun.
This is not the lake that we started from, this is Ullswater. We got treated to a beautiful view with the golden light from the sun illuminating it as we walked down heading for the closest house we could find.Google’s My Tracks app lets you plot the path you travelled. Here you can see how we went off on a northeast walk along the wrong ridge. I was too busy photographing to check my GPS. When we finally discovered our mistake it was too late to turn back so we made our way to civilization and called a cab to take us back to the car in Ambleside. They told us we were not the first to make that mistake. Their record had been six groups in a day.
On the second day we did a lighter walk to the east of Coniston Water. It was a forested area with some rolling hills.
A happy border collie chasing after a ball. She was a rescue dog that had recently found a new home. I moved to the side of the path of the ball to get more of the action. Looking at the photo now I should probably have had an even shorter shutter time (here I used 1/320s), and a lower angle. I like the water droplets and the reflection.Beautiful view across Coniston Lake as we made our way back to the car.On the way back to Cambridge we dropped Sanne off at Milton Keynes, so we decided to make a stop in Bletchley Park. Here is one of the famous Enigma encryption machines.
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