A weekend of rest, reflection &.... photography @ Capernwray

We finally arrived at our destination ready to dry out. It was a welcome sight as we entered the door...
It was a mens conference weekend at Capernwray near Carnforth, North Lancashire.

Sorry to all you tourists, hillwalkers and general viewers but this is the blog that the photographers "following" have been wanting to see from me for months !!!  Photographs sometimes need no words and stand on their own as a statement and it basically describes photographically....what's in my eye !!!
As this is a special post, I've put more pictures in..... Enjoy.

house pet

Time for a short walk around and off the estate ....

Ingleton, Yorkshire Dales

Ingleton is a villiage in the south west corner of the Yorkshire Dales which is generally regarded as a base for walkers and tourists for this corner of the Dales. The main activities include The waterfalls walk ( my last post), White Scar caves ( seen in the distance on Welcome to Yorkshire photo.. last post ) and The mountain of Ingleborough ( elsewhere on this blog ).

(As with the "Hawes" post, these pictures were affected by the weather, so apologies to the photographers out there, it is not a great set as it is more of a diary journal. Most of the pictures were taken in a hurry trying to keep up with friends on the way to the car. I promise that the next post will be mainly for photographers, there won't be many words and will be posted sooner rather than later )

After leaving the last waterfall, the walk seemed to be unending as the rain became heavier and it was with great pleasure that we came to civilisation and this was the first hose that we saw.

The next three shots are out of sequence but I thought you may like to get an idea of the village first.

Historic shop front,

As I was trying to capture photos my friends ran ahead and entered the first tea shop that they saw...

An interesting experience !! It was a caving shop ( pot holing down caves in this LImestone area is a big sport ) which had some really unusual equipment in that I had never seen before. The place didn't look as if it had changed much in 30 years....

There was a severe lack of people enjoying the hot drinks on a day like this and all for prices that did'nt seem to have changed much either in years !!

Even the resident dog seemed a bit startled by visitors disturbing him, but the point to our discussion was how these caving suits might have kept us dry and warm on the walk... !!

I wonder which colour I can see myself in... Green ??!! , spiders, sheep or dinosaurs ??!

To be continued...

The Waterfalls walk, Ingleton

The Waterfalls walk is a 4.5miles (8km) well trodden path, triangular shaped route on a private land path that has been popular with people since Victorian times.
On leaving the town of Hawes, the weather improved marginally enough to press on with our journey towards the previously mentioned Ribblehead viaduct. Although I had been down this road twice before, I didn't realise the serious height gain on the road as we climbed slowly up the hill. This was made more noticeable by the low lying cloud that we had entered !! We had hoped to see the summit of Whernside at one stage but I gave up that idea rather quickly because on reaching Ribblehead, we couldn't even see the viaduct far less the mountain behind it.
For those who don't know what to look out for, you have a far better idea of the view than my fellow passengers who still don't know what this view looks like......

Whernside and Ribblehead viaduct in happier times !! .... 13th May 2010

I had a reserve walk option up my sleeve of something a bit lower, less exposed, scenic and possibly worthwhile considering the amount of rain in the last few days at Ingleton. Apologies to the hardened walkers out there reading this..... yes, I know.......the last time I did this walk was when I took my Mother for a long day out in the car many years ago.
I knew that there might be an entrance fee into the grounds but unfortunately it was a long time ago and it was a bit difficult to accept that it was going to cost £18.

The ticket salesman did mention that we had free parking, but he couldn't understand the argument that it would cost the same if we had arrived in four cars.

After putting on our boots and setting out on the walk, we came across a tree that was filled with two pence pieces.....

It seems to be a long standing tradition that people place small amounts of money in certain specified tree trunks as either a good luck charm or a wish. I was wishing that the weather had been better & thinking..... I wonder what the gatekeeper does with all his small coins from the entrance fees !!

The first section of the walk follows the course of the River Twiss with several smaller waterfalls gradually gaining height towards the main falls of Thornton Force (title photo)

Over the edge.... for Thornton Force !

no medals for this performance, wrong pool... kayaks only

My fellow walkers decided that it was just as wet outside the water as it was in, so they threatened to dive in !!
We eventually reached the top of the hill and crossed the river. The remaining member of my group is spotted on the bridge trying to capture an illusive photograph before me.  I was going to leave this photo out as I spent a lot of time with the four image options I collected. I quite liked the angles of the posts, tried several variations but wasn't happy with the result with no-one on the bridge. I haven't had time to ask for permission to publish this yet, my friend has become faceless, sorry to him!!

vanishing point... well, not quite !

The middle section of the walk was along a mixture of farmland tracks and paths amongst the low clouds

We came across a selection of gates both old and new near White Scar caves. Welcome to weather........

The last section back to the car park followed the course of the River Doe with numerous smaller falls and a gorge

Lastly, even though the walk was only 4.5 miles long, the rain started again and it seemed like a long time before we arrived in Ingleton. You know it's a bad sign when a dog keeps an eye on the weather !! .

...... well, there was no space in the tree for my coins, I've saved them for a hot drink.. (to be continued !)

Hawes, Yorkshire Dales

A weeks rain?? !!

The market town of Hawes is situated at the western end of Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales National park and is probably most famous for the production of cheese (12th century french Monk recipe carried on by farmers wives in the 16th century) at the creamery just outside the town centre. Like many other locations in Yorkshire, the making of TV programmes such as the nostalgic  James Herriot's "All Creatures Great and Small" bring the tourist to Wensleydale with a destination of Hawes to purchase some cheese (12th century French monk recipe) that the animated characters of Wallace and Grommit adored.
    Several months ago I was asked if I wanted to go with friends for what can be best described loosely as a spiritual retreat to a country house near Carnforth in North Lancashire. Essentially, the weekend was just going to happen for me as I was just going to be a car passenger, but I needed to get the friday off work as the group always do a hill walk on the fringes of the Lake District on the way down. However, not one to get off lightly, yes you've guessed it, I was informed at short notice that I was organising the friday walk. In previous years, the group have climbed mountains with grades that would make any ordinary hillwalker proud. Unfortunately, after studying the weather forecast all week, today was no "Jacks Rake" Langdale Pikes day! I was weighing up a choice between the Lake District mountain "High Street" from Haweswater or the Yorkshire Dales mountain "Whernside" from Ribblehead viaduct. To cut a long story short, the weather was awful and seeing I was the only one in the car who had not been before, it was me who got the blame !! The walking option I eventually came up with on the day, was to go to Ribblehead viaduct ( Carlisle & Settle railway) and assess the weather.
   As it seemed like a poor start to the day with regards to the weather, I came up with the idea of stopping at Hawes  for an hour to see if the weather would improve, hence the reason for being here.
   It had been some time since I was last here and even though I had an idea of the layout of the town, I was unsure of the images I would end up with. Although the weather didn't help, I was a little disappointed with the architecture of the buildings. There was some scope near the waterfall above, but I had to keep up with the group who gave me a mixed impression that they didn't want to get too wet in the town but wanted to head south to start the walk.

Unlikely fusion of ancient and modern !!

Rain shelter !!

On the edge of town, there was an eerie faceless farming sculpture scene within a small fenced park in the middle of the road that looked more like part of a nativity scene.

I had an idea of what I wanted to photograph but it wasn't happening for me due to the dynamics of the angles and obstructions on the ground. I wasn't quite happy with just taking the shepherd as the background was messy but kept the image anyway......

early Christmas card ??!!

Ropes have been made in Hawes since well before 1725 when the first registered ropemaker died.  Records show that bell ropes for the local church were made between 1726 and 1802. It became a family business during the 19th century when they also looked after the toll road entrance fee into the town. At the beginning of the 20th century, the rope business was sold to another family but the railways and World War one played their part in disturbing the balance of what had gone on before.

In the 1920s, the previous family owners needed the adjacent Gatehouse as a dwelling for his newly married son so the business was moved to its present site near the (now disused) railway station. The rope making continued through the difficulties of getting supplies during World War two until electric motors changed the process in 1952. As more of the family retired, it looked likely that the business would close in 1974 but it was kept alive by two college lecturers who moved to the area and continued to use the family name. The retired owner was still around to mentor the couple in the transition period but the business survived due to another unusual occurrence at that time and indeed to this day, thanks to an event which takes me back to the beginning of this post ....the publishing of the fictitious books of the Vet, James Herriot.

Church Bell ropes

scented scones !!

We ended up in a local cafe away from the rain and even although I didn't fancy certain items to eat, we discussed, like country folk, the weather and I was left perusing the options for the afternoon walk, thinking about the continuing theme of the excessive Hawes moisture both outside and inside!!