Green Fields

One of the reasons that we are staying at Barnard Castle is that the A66 crosses The Pennines from Scotch Corner to Penrith and we have driven that route repeatedly over the years en route to and from my home town of Greenock when visiting family. When heading toward Scotland, there is a part of the road when you have crossed over into Cumbria and starting to head downhill and the view is just breathtaking. We always comment that we all have to stop to take in the view some time as we always give priority to the journey.

So as it was only a few miles along the road, we headed off to take in the view. It wasn’t easy as the really good view is available from a part of the A66 from which there was no obvious local road and no obvious place to pull off the dual carriageway. We did find a road and went to explore to find a suitable spot to take ‘the shot’, a process not helped by the fact that it was a bit misty, so the view itself was difficult to see with the naked eye, never mind with a camera.

The conditions gave me the opportunity to try out the graduated filters I had received from Mrs W for my birthday (amongst other things I may add) and, although it is not brilliant, I am reasonably pleased with the shot as I was limited by the fact that the kids were in the back of the car being bored and we were heading off for lunch.

That said, I made a bold decision to go off piste onto a more rural road that at one point ended up taking us through a field of cattle, who needed a bit of persuading to move out of our way. Although we never actually needed it, I was also pleased I had a four wheel drive car as I was confident that it would cope with anything the road had to offer.

Back-blipped on 11th September 2014