Autumn Colours in Hodge Close

The forecast for our last day at Lakeland Photographic Holidays did not bode well - after a sunny start in Keswick heavy rain was forecast with ocassional sunny intervals. I managed to stir myself to do some photography at Bassenthwaite Lake before breakfast as the rest of the day sounded rather iffy. The forecast proved right at least for Keswick as there was heavy rainfall for most of the day. However, we went south towards Conniston area and faired much better, lots of sunny spells and a few heavy but not prolonged downpours. We stopped off before Thirlmere to catch the wispy clouds catching the tops of the fells. We also made a lengthy stop at Yew Tree Tarn as it was lovely and sunny and the the wind was slight allowing us to get lovely reflections on the tarn. It was so nice that it was worth waking all the way round the the tarn. I particularly like the group of small willow trees among the reeds at the north end of the tarn but failed to get a really good image there, though one of the group managed a lovely artistic shot of them.

We then moved on to Hodge Close which was our original destination. It is an old derelict slate mine which is peppered with silver birch trees in all of their autumnal splendour. After lunch we visited a cave there and were about to walk along Oxendale Fells when the rain set in. Plan B was to resort to the Britannia Inn at Elterdale but by the time we got there the sun was shining so we walked along the banks of Elterwater finally hitting the bar of the britannia at abut 4.30pm. All in all an excellent days photography even if we were rather tired by the end of the day.