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Northumberland 2021: Part Two

27 May 2021

I woke up for the dawn, and looked out the window in full hope for a pretty sky… saw the cloud cover, pulled the curtain closed, and went back to sleep…

Thus was the start to my day!

I eventually woke up, and though the sky wasn’t quite as grim looking, it still wasn’t especially exciting. Instead, I took my time getting ready, and then had a gentle wander down the beach, exploring the area a little better than I did last night. To my horror, I found a ton of flies pestering me, (mostly) around the grassy areas. They weren’t biting ones thankfully, but there were a LOT of them, and they were absolutely everywhere! (eek!) My curiosity eventually got the better of me though, and I calmed myself a little (absolutely not a fan of bugs!) and I found myself watching them closer. They were a little odd looking as they flew around me, not like the traditional fly I knew and (didn’t) love, but ones who flew with legs dangling down behind them. I’d not seen flies like this before, so I took a photo on my phone of a stationary one as a reference to look up later, and noticed that most of the rest seemed to be pairing up… I guess today was clearly mating day! I now know these to be Hawthorne Flies or St Marks Fly (as they normally appear around St Marks day- I think the cooler weather this year has put them back a couple of weeks) The lifecycle of these insects is short… very short. Once they reach adulthood, (all at the same time) they have around one week to live apparently, and once the females lay their eggs in the soil, they die. Next time I see them I will try not to be quite so worried or irritated by them, as these are the last days of their time here, and they are just completing their sole purpose for living. Interestingly, these are the flies that fishermen emulate when they make fake flies as bait for their rods… bet you didn’t know that eh?! (well, maybe you did, but humour me here, and fake ‘OOoo’ with interest along with me..!!)

After I finished a rather long amble and explore of the beach, I went back to the camper and studied the rape seed field in full bloom next to me. Rape isn’t normally planted in the same fields year in year out, so it being here this year was a bit of a bonus for me to see, since it’s unlikely to be here next year. As I looked out on the sight of beautifully blossoming flowers, I wondered if the yellow field might make a good foreground for a castle shot, so picked my kit up and had a wander up the side of the crop to have a look. The yellow was lovely… but the sky was really letting me down. This shot would be one of those rare occasions where a clear blue sky might just set all the colour off – but alas, right now, this wasn’t going to be the case, the sky was a sad grey and not even a dramatic shade at that. I did give it a go however, it would be daft to not do so right?

I set up in a nice position where the edge of the crop dipped in a little and filled the foreground, and I was able to get the impression of being in the middle of the field, without actually standing in the crop itself. I then tried several shots, trying a set to focus stack where I struggled to get the whole view into focus in one shot. I wasn’t too excited by the photos I was getting – they just didn’t jump out at me in the way I hoped and even when I tried to focus stack during the editing stage, it was a real struggle. (Where the breeze was moving the plants, none lined up and the stack was just a mess) In the end I just settled for an image with the foreground in soft focus although I sadly couldn’t get it to ‘pop’ in the way I hoped. Despite this, I felt that although it wasn’t as nice as I imagined in the end, that it was still lovely to see such a mass of yellow flowers, and have this as a memory. They are my favourite colour after all.

Perhaps if the sun had been on this scene it would have been the striking image I had hoped for, so I will watch the area with keen interest for future opportunities!

After a spot of lunch I looked at my map and decided to find out where the popular Lindisfarne Island – or Holy Isle – was. I found the route easily, and pulled into the car park with no issue some 50 minutes later, but as I considered what I wanted here, I had a quick rethink. For me, I wanted a sunset or sunrise, and preferably tide out. Looking at the tide times on a board here I realised that the tide was actually already on its way in, and that later on tonight would be better for what I wanted. Judging by the timings listed here, this meant that I had two options right now… do I stay here and wait, or do I come back? The thing about this location is that it’s on an island with limited access. Once the tide starts coming in, the road to the mainland gets flooded and you are stuck until it goes back out far enough to drive over safely again… and right now remember, the tide was on its way back in ! The sky wasn’t too promising still, so I decided that maybe I would wait until later, and come back when the conditions were better suited to what I hoped for. I got back into Fred and made my way back out again, noting that the causeway would only have been drivable for about another 10-15 minutes, so it was lucky I had decided quickly!

Once safely on the mainland, I pulled over for a few minutes, and looked at where else I might check today, and found a waterfall I wanted to visit. Perfect for an overcast day, so I typed it into google maps and headed off. The route was easy at first, then it got to narrow roads, then it finally dropped to a single lane that seemed to go on forever. Eventually that ended at a private farmhouse and went no further. Gagh!! Where is this waterfall??!! There was no sign of it, and confused I did a (tight) turn and slowly drove back down the road looking left and right for anything that might indicate where it was. Did I miss a sign somewhere? A parking spot? A turn off?? Nope. Nothing. There was literally NOTHING there, no way off the lane and nowhere to pull over to walk – yet the sat nav persisted in trying to tell me to turn round. Eventually, frustrated, I decided to check every map and reference I could find, and found that there were actually two waterfalls in this area – both similarly spelled. Even though I had typed in the popular one (Routin Linn), and not the cascade (Roughting Linn), I realised that Google maps was actually directing me to the wrong one. Somehow (actually, it was an easy mistake by them), they have mixed the two and they direct you to the cascade instead of the falls – To my annoyance they don’t have the route for the second one however. I spent some time studying the route to the falls I wanted, and tried to guide myself there using the old fashioned method of looking at the map itself every so often… Go olde worlde methods! – I found myself finally at a spot where another car was parked and as I went for a quick explore, I bumped into two ladies who confirmed that this was indeed the spot for the falls. I grabbed my kit and headed off as they drove away.

The walk was fairly easy, just 5 minutes or so, with one steep-ish drop and when I saw the falls, their simple beauty had me immediately. As an added bonus, I was the only person here!

This was one of those falls that offered perfect photo opportunities to try out a whole bunch of shots I had seen from other falls online. The sun intermittently started breaking through, and I had so many opportunities for such ideal photos (well, for me anyway!)

There was the beautiful overall, dappled image (above), then there was the get down lower and use a specific subject to fill the frame more:

There was the more intimate shot of the falls, seen from straight on…

… and the attempt at a more abstract image of the gossamer curtain of water…

I walked all around, and took as many photos as I could – well mostly because it was SO peaceful and I didn’t actually want to leave..!! Eventually, 3 hours later (!!) I had milked the scene for just about everything I could think of, so I had to leave… I took a walk around the area for a bit, and then tried a bit of bird spotting and photography. This is something I would love to do better, but I really struggle to even spot the birds sometimes (sometimes?! Be honest Sandy, you rarely spot them!!) – let alone identify or, heaven forbid, try to capture a photo of one!! – the pictures I tried were not great.. but they were good enough for a friend to identify that I had spotted both a (very noisy) chaffinch, and a buzzard – and they helped encourage my desire to try more at some point!

 

After 4 hours at this wonderful spot I finally left and headed back towards Holy Island. The sky had totally cleared by now, but there was still a little hope that there would be a worthy sunset… and either way, as the tide was on its way out, I would at least be able to have a little explore without stressing about the tide cutting me off for many hours. When I got to the causeway, there were two cars tucked to the side, I think waiting, but I could see a fairly clear road, so drove on past them and made it with only a couple of puddles to drive through. It was 7.30 by now and about 2 hours to sunset, plenty of time to have a look.

The only downside to this timing was that everything was shut, so rather than explore the island fully, I decided just to head to the main attraction and look at the classic photographic positions to view the castle. The boat house spot really didn’t do it for me, so after wandering around there, I left without taking my camera out, and walked up the path towards the castle. To my pleasure, the little beach bit had a lowering water level, and the spot I wanted there was very easily accessible. Sadly the clear sky really didn’t lend itself to a fantastic photo, but it was a nice one to try, and one for the bucket list collection – been there, saw it, took the photo sort of thing, and even then, its not an entirely unsatisfactory picture. This would look so much nicer if I ever get the chance to try it with a characterful sky however. (now why wasn’t the sky like THIS. this morning?!!)

There was still a while before the sun was going to go down, so I decided to just have a slow wander right around the location. I was getting tired by now and I missed a few other possible shots, but I just wanted to wander, and considered this visit to be a recce to a look around a place I had heard a lot about but had never visited before. As I got up to the castle I noticed a path that continued round to a large grassy area to the left of the building and just followed it, enjoying the gentle stroll. As I crossed a small bridge at the back, I was struck by the sight of a gorgeous shaft of light that the lowering sun was throwing underneath me. Tired or not this was a sight that I couldn’t ignore! The colours were rich, the light just perfect, and I ended up taking a shot I haven’t actually seen anywhere else before.

Shortly afterwards, the sun dipped behind a cloud on the horizon that wouldn’t leave, and although I hovered around the site just in case, the sky just dulled into evening light, and faded into darkness without any colour. I wandered back to the camper debating whether to try and stay for a dawn shot before leaving for my fitting in the morning (4am/8am = plenty of time), but the car park had ‘no overnight parking’ signs everywhere, and I had no idea where else I could park. More to the point actually – what would one do if you got stuck here at this sort of time – where could you park then?! The plan failed further when I also realised that the timings of the incoming tide and sunrise would be really tight to get off in the morning too, so I abandoned the idea and simply drove back to Alnwick, parking up where they had previously told me I was able to, in readiness for the morning.

It was 11:10pm when I pulled in, and boy was I ready for some sleep!