After a night’s rest, and a look around Borovets to get my bearings I headed out on a family trail to Black Rock. The walk served a couple of purposes for me, a leg stretch and some needed fresh air after the travelling. It also showed me the quality of the map I had of the area (or the idiosyncrasies of the map) it was a little loose on detail and spot accuracy. It did give names and rough directions so it helped, and along with the summer graphic map from the tourist office meant I didn’t get entirely lost. On the whole it is worth the trip and the views from the rock are good. It’s a forest walk, zigzagging around the foothills and valleys of the Rila Mountains.
Choices.Half Built Drifting Through the Trees.Signage, Always Good.Some Signage is less than Helpful.And more signs.Sunshine and Snow.Blue Sky and Sun in the Clear Air.Forest Green.Mountains in the Distance.Views.Picnic Spot.I Just Keep Seeing Signs.Picnic and Sunshine at Black Rock.Summerhouse.More…Looking Down from Black Rock.Up the Valley.Views.Black and White.The Black Rock Path.Black Rock Platform.
Visiting Niagara Falls again for work, and with odd hours I get to see it in the quiet times. Being up and about at sunrise, to see the world turning around the sun. I am always shocked at how quickly the sun rises and the light changes.
Time and Tide.Changing Views.Autumn Colour.
My creative work is coming in fits and starts, I want to get back on track, so resolutions in place I will continue to build on the work I am doing. For now, Merry Christmas although for that I am a bit late. More importantly, have a fantastic New Year, continue to follow your dreams, to go places and to visit the world, eyes open and with a sense of wonder.
A trip to the Lake District a few weekends ago, the chance to walk, clamber and of course take a few pictures. The occasion was for Mike’s birthday, three days under canvas at the National Trust campsite, drinks in the Wasdale Head Inn. It makes a change to not drive and I was able to relax, enjoy the scenery and not worry about the usual British traffic.
Driving to the Lake District.The View from the Back.Sunrise at the Services.
Our first day was to be Kirk Fell, Green Gable and Great Gable, returning to the campsite by Styhead. The headline picture is the view from Great Gable along Wasdale. Although the views from Kirk Fell are good too. The clamber up Kirk fell was fun, with great drops and views back across to Pillar.
Black Sail Pass and the leading edge of Yewbarrow.A view up Kirk Fell, a great line following the left edge up above the crags.
It’s always going be picture heavy on one of these posts, how can it not be? I would encourage everyone to visit the Lake District, find some of the quieter mountains, and enjoy looking at the busy ones from a distance. I’ll save the Scafell Pike pictures for later, the scrummage at the top is depressing, but we were so close it had to be visited, and the alternative scramble was horrid to get down. Lingmell is worthy of visiting though. The views over the crags and the peace after Scafell is excellent, more on that next time.
Great Gable, Green Gable to the left.
Last year Mike and I had a torrid time on Great Gable, the weather was foul and we saw nothing but the inside of clouds most of the day, this trip was the complete reverse, great weather for the big hills.
It’s over there.Up after down, after first lunch.From Windy Gap.Great Gable, you can see the scrape of the path rising left to right.Great Gable Summit.Heading Home.
When you get a day like this in the UK mountains, and it made a good day out better. The weather isn’t everything, it helps though.
Fragments.
Some fragments from the weekend to ponder on…
One.
Light split into layers,
spread and dissected by rain,
Two.
High views or wild glimpses
of huddled fields hunkered down.
Three.
The delicate touch of sunrise
to make the mundane
glow
More to come of Lakeland mountains and scratchings of writing. Take care and enjoy the view from wherever you are, walk somewhere, leave the car.
There’s been lots happening over the last few weeks, the usual work stuff keeping us busy. There has though, still been a chance to get some pictures with my new camera. Shots taken in the back garden of clouds bubbling over the coastline and bunching in the valley. It has also meant I am trying out Lightroom CS4, to see how far things can be pushed in editing. The Pentax K50 saves images as both JPEG and Raw, and I can view images quickly as JPEG to decide which ones I want to import to edit. Sometime soon I will start a new file system for my pictures, to separate out my own images and walking group or family shots. For the moment I am learning the quirks of the camera, how it works and what it sees, button combinations and positions, all the things that make taking pictures fast when you know where everything is; nothing worse than fumbling for a button when you are in a hurry and don’t want to miss something.
Storm Cloud II
To be able to edit save and not make irretrievable changes is a new thing, no more save as or damaged files from random button presses. I was good at saving copies but sometimes things went awry and using raw will help stop that.
Changing tack, last week was World Book Night, and a group of poets gathered in Weston-super-Mare library to read as part of the celebration. Free books were available and the event went really well, good reading by everyone who took part, some really interesting work.
Poetry Fragments.
This weeks fragments are from an older notebook, things to bring back memories, trips and images.
Paris Promenade.
People, coffee and tourists,
street hawkers, beggars and fashionistas
running wild.
and from London,
Stop go streetflow
at the junctions of the city.
Morning smokers
taking some time to die.
The days are getting longer, sunrise earlier and sunset later, that means you can get out more. I’d recommend a high place to watch the sun rise, to see the colour spill across the land, to feel the first warmth as the light hits you. Watch the world wake up as you sit and watch. Wonderful, can’t beat it and you will smile all day.
A walk through the world between places 