Just to pick one immediately obvious example: if I take so many photos at 50mm using my 18-125 mm zoom lens (which operates at f/3.5-5.6), why don't I pay more attention and consider switching to my 50 mm prime lens, operating at f/1.8?

However, fellow users may wish to remember that this full archive is only available temporarily; I think Flickr will be offering downloadable detailed stats on an ongoing basis, but it's unsustainable for them to store previous months and years of users' data. Hence, if you want your account's full archive, download the files before 1 June.

Adobe Gamma. I hadn't realised how dependent I was on that simple utility for managing my monitor's output, nor that it'd be automatically removed alongside Ps7.

I'm not sure why more recent versions of the market-leading raster graphics editor omit a display management tool (er... I'm not simply overlooking something, am I?) since, as should be needless to say, it's essential to calibrate one's monitor before even considering any editing of photos. The default settings of standard domestic/office monitors are far too bright and contrasty, generally optimised for text. Photos need something more subtle; in my case, I needed to drop the gamma setting a long way.

Rather than reinstall Ps7, a standalone utility or even borrow professional calibration hardware, I readjusted my monitor 'manually', with reference to a set of images & animations provided by Lagom. If you need to perform a calibration too, or just want to check your existing settings, give it a try.

Then realise you need a better monitor....

I'm not sure whether that's going to change; the way I publish photos here, each on its own manually-prepared web page with properly researched annotations (actually, I enjoy that part), is impractically slow. We'll see.

Anyway; today's belated update comprises photos taken in the English Lake District: Seatoller, at the junction of Borrowdale and the Honister Pass, and views from the eastern shore of Derwent Water.

It's slightly less intuitive than I'd hoped, 'hidden' behind a 'Tools' icon which I'd interpreted as applying only to remote-shooting functionality.

• Connect the camera to the PC.
• The EOS Utility will autorun.
• Select 'Camera Settings/Remote Shooting'.
• Select the 'Set-up Menu' icon (there's no tooltip, but it looks like a crucifix and a crescent moon on a stick, or perhaps a hammer and a spanner).
• Click on the first menu item to complete the 'Owner's Name' field.

Though heavy showers were forecast, the core of the National Park was understandably popular on an initially dry Saturday in late June, and after K. rang a few campsites, we headed towards Seatoller, in Borrowdale, the only site which wasn't rather full or booked (useful to know: the Seatoller Farm campsite doesn't accept pre-bookings). We also checked an old 'bandit camping' site beside Ullswater, just in case we couldn't find any legitimate spaces at all.

Seatoller Farm wasn't too full; with an arc of three tents and a camper van, we managed to achieve a degree of privacy from other groups. My first impression of the site was that it was fairly large, but a closer look revealed that it's more 'spread-out' than just 'big' – an extensive area of wet ground in the main field is unusable, which means it'd be impossible to pack-in tents in uncomfortable proximity or for large groups to annex large areas, giving a more pleasant atmosphere than many Lakeland campsites.

Arriving at ~19:00 there was no time (or intention) to do much with the evening, other than pitch the tents, barbeque meat and enjoy the company. However... I was restless and annoyed by midges, so went for a short walk. Well, a run. Up the steep first third of the Honister Pass. Which was rather invigorating, and didn't seem to impair my ability to hold the camera steady in the failing sunset light.

The following morning was... leisurely. I began a second walk alone, towards Seathwaite, but thinking we'd all do something a little later, didn't go far. In hindsight perhaps I should have continued, as we 'only' went for a swim in the (surprisingly deep and non-metaphorically breathtakingly cold) Grains Gill. Enjoyable – I'm certainly not disappointed – but I would have liked to do, well, more.

Passing Derwent Water on our way back to Keswick, the M6 and home, A&A (thanks for the lift!) and I stopped at Great Wood, to have a picnic on the Calfclose Bay lakeshore: another opportunity for photos, mainly of dramatic approaching rainclouds.

I hope it's not so long until the next time.

Well, maybe – reviews at DPS suggest the concept is more compelling than the execution.

I don't particularly like 'full-on' HDR images, but overlaying a processed HDR image onto a non-HDR source image at low opacity sometimes enhances the result without too much artificiality.

Self-evidently, this involves opening one image file as a layer within another, but Ps CS4 seems to be fussy about the stacking order of layers: if the base layer is the source image (i.e. loading a HDR file into a non-HDR file), the final output will contain the original camera EXIF metadata, but if the HDR layer is treated as the base, the final output will discard the EXIF.

Ps CS4 offers the convenience of automatically opening multiple images into the same file as layers, via the 'Load Into Stack' tool. The slight problem is that it doesn't seem so discriminating about stacking order....

I suppose the ultimate flaw is the failure of Photomatix to retain EXIF metadata – if all layers in a Ps file contained the metadata, it wouldn't matter which one was given priority when saving – but the net effect is that one needs to be careful about opening files in Ps CS4, perhaps even avoiding the 'Load Into Stack' tool.

The good news, from one point of view, is that it's because I've been more obsessed with taking and processing photos than writing about them (plus I've been too busy with Real Life to properly maintain the blog at all); I have a backlog of 200-300 processed images to post, never mind the thousands still to review and process. Now I need to find the discipline to annotate and publish them, and possibly review how I do that, as it's rather time-consuming.

Anyway; today's update is from last May, when I cycled through the Trough of Bowland then followed the Hodder Valley to Chipping before returning home across the mouth of Wyresdale.

I reached the head of the Trough of Bowland just in time to climb part way up Whin Fell and appreciate the last of the direct sunlight catching the hills around the Trough, before turning back at sunset and cycling home in darkness. Purely by chance, I'd chosen a day on which the full moon photogenically rose over the moors a little after sunset. As I said in one of the photo captions, it'd have advantageous to have been carrying a tripod, but the results aren't bad anyway.

As the accompanying photos show, the weather wasn't great, particularly on high ground; as, by definition, the photos don't show, few images were worth publishing. At least I scouted and refined a route for a future visit.

I started at The Cragg, at the highest point on Littledale Road; the ride out from Lancaster was rather more strenuous than the walk itself, particularly the final steep hill.
After locking my bike to a fence, I headed across mildly muddy fields to Skelbow Barn, extremely muddy & undulating fields to Bellhill Farm, then a concrete road to Field Head Farm. In hindsight, I'm not sure whether I'd bother with this section again, other than as part of an alternative route up Clougha. A less circuitous (but still circular) walk to Littledale Hall could start at Udale Bridge, on the Crossgill side of the Littledale Road hill, and follow a well-surfaced farm track.

Littledale Hall wasn't quite as I'd expected, resembling a farm or mill complex rather than a manor house – there were no grand architectural details to photograph, or at least none I could see from the footpath. Maybe next time.
Likewise with my other objective of the day, a disused Free Church nearby, which I'd read about online. It's a striking building now only used as a drafty barn: all the external features of a Victorian chapel, but rendered in miniature and in the middle of a sheep pasture. Well worth seeing, but the light had already gone from the valley by 17:20, so I only managed to take a couple of photos. Maybe next time....

The path past the chapel came out at the hairpin bend between Crossgill and Caton Moor. If I ever wanted a really short walk to the Free Church and Littledale Hall (~500 m each way), this'd be the place to start, though this 'starting point' is 4 km (horizontally, plus ~100 m vertically) from Brookhouse, so it'd be more likely to be a brief diversion on a ride over Caton Moor and/or Roeburndale. At least there's a reasonable place to lock a bike, eliminating the need to replicate the final stage of today's walk, back up the steep hill to The Cragg and my bike.

[Via the Guardian, so this is probably old news....]

Snow never lasts long in the Lancaster area – it may be the coastal air – so the cycle ride out to Quernmore was along clear roads, but by the time I reached the open moors beyond Brow Top there was a significant, if patchy, covering of snow; enough to accentuate details in the landscape, but not enough to impede walking. After locking my bike by Jubilee Tower, I gleefully strode off across the surface of the moor rather than intermittently ankle-deep in peat, as is more usual.

The theoretically-straight path up to Shooter's Pile still seemed to take forever (the destination is visible at every stage of the 2 km from Jubilee Tower, and never seems to get closer), but once on the plateau the walk was startlingly easy. I can't overstate how different the same moor can be when wet. It's not the prettiest area anyway: featureless and with limited views across the neighbouring valleys, but at least crossing wasn't an absolute chore today and ~90 minutes after leaving Jubilee Tower I was at the summit.

Briefly. The air was photogenically clear but the wind was far too cold for me to manipulate the camera with bare hands for long, so I rapidly retreated to a hollow in the rocks to enjoy a cup of tea – for the first time ever, I'd been sufficiently organised as to bring a flask. Oh; the luxury.

With my hands functioning again, I took a few more photos then returned across the moor, rather rapidly, as direct sunshine was unexpectedly beginning to melt the peat's surface.

I'm useless at naming mountains on the horizon: after 15 years I still can't reliably recognise the profile of the Lakeland Fells seen from Lancaster. I also recently made a fool of myself by 'correcting' someone's identification of Welsh hills seen from Clougha, near Lancaster: what I thought was Moel Famau, a moderate hill in NE Wales was Carnedd Llewellyn, a major peak in NW Wales. For the sake of my bruised ego, I've bookmarked this site for future use.

Though the main roads in Lancaster and Bentham were fine, the lane to Ingleton hadn't been gritted at all, so was far more dangerous than I'd anticipated. Seeing a car approaching along the narrow lane, I decelerated and moved aside – on totally invisible black ice. The resulting fall was trivial but made me nervous, so when another car was following a little too closely a few minutes later, I chose to pull off the road to let it pass. Unfortunately, the fresh-looking snowdrift I'd expected to slow me safely was days old and had refrozen to solid ice – hitting it at speed flipped me off immediately.
This time it did hurt, and I was very glad of a helmet when my head bounced off the frozen verge. My leggings were torn at the knee and for the following fortnight the base of my thumb was badly bruised, with occasional loss of sensation. [Update 9/5/09: the scars on my knee are still colourful after five months.]
It could have been far worse, and I wasn't injured, so after cleaning myself up in Ingleton, I went on with the planned walk. At least the blood trickling down my leg kept it warm.

Leaving the bike at Skirwith Quarry, I crossed the fields to Fell Lane and on to Crina Bottom. A thin crust of ice on snowdrifts then 'proper' ice on the track forced me to walk slowly, to the extent I thought I'd have to turn back simply because I wouldn't have time to reach the summit and return in daylight. As it happened, though the round trip took ~90 minutes longer than usual I managed it with about half an hour to spare, so was on well-gritted roads before dark.

There weren't many people on the path from Crina Bottom to the summit, but I was amused when one person I'd seen struggling uphill ahead of me carrying a huge rucksack then unpacked a parachute and jumped off the edge of the summit plateau. It must have been a great day for paracending.

The views from the summit were wonderful in the clear air, and I took several photos (including of fascinating ice structures left in the snow by high winds), but it was far too cold to leave my gloves off for long, and I soon headed back to the bike; as I said above, I reached Skirwith by sunset but cycled as far as Burton in Lonsdale before the light completely faded, leaving me in darkness for the final 24 km to Lancaster.

Others escaped to high ground and wonderful views of the cloud-filled valleys, but not knowing that was possible, I stayed in the city to take a few photos. I wasn't disappointed.

Like most people, I started at Birk Bank car park, locking my bike to a fence, but instead of heading right, up the usual path, I turned left towards the shooting track, hoping to catch a glimpse of Escher's 'Clougha Egg Cairn'. That proved to be unexpectedly easy: it dominates the skyline at the top of Birk Bank itself. Hence, I abandoned the path almost immediately, carefully crossing the bog then scrambling straight up the steep, boulder-covered slope to find the best angles for photography.

After a while, I crossed to the mysterious rectangular tower (an air vent on the Thirlmere Aqueduct pipeline?) then followed a clear track back down to the footpath – that's probably the best route up for those unwilling/unable to take the direct way. From there, it was a short distance to my second target of the day, Ottergear Bridge, another, seemingly over-engineered, feature of the Thirlmere Aqueduct. Awkward light and overhanging vegetation (plus a poor choice of lens) limited the number of publishable photos I obtained, but A explored thoroughly before moving on again.

The shooting track to the top of the moor was longer and more circuitous than I remembered; I was glad to reach the third waymark, Andy Goldsworthy's 'Clougha Pike'. I'd already obtained a few photos there in June, and the light may have been better then, so I didn't stay long, heading to the final target, Clougha Pike itself (the hill's summit) as the shadows began to lengthen. After sitting quietly to appreciate the views and an inquisitive Red Grouse, I returned to Birk Bank a little too late to photograph 'Clougha Egg Cairn' from the road.

This time, I reached Conder Green, planning to continue along the edge of the Lune Estuary, but the sun had already dropped below the horizon, and I returned home with only one photo.

I'm told that the recommended rates are quite low, so despite the URL, aren't only applicable to London.

Yesterday, the crowd had been a little smaller than I'd anticipated: 'only' about 5,000 people had made the effort to come out on a wet Friday evening after a full school/working week. That had allowed us the freedom to change our vantage points quite frequently yet still find places towards the front of the crowd. However, today was very different: a dry (if rather grey) Saturday had tempted out a lot more people, not to mention those who'd happened to be shopping in the city centre anyway. The crowd was at least five times larger, at ~25,000, and that's just in the immediate area: the local press reported "hundreds of thousands" overall. One report claimed that more people filled Castle Street to see La Princesse pass the Town Hall than had welcomed triumphant sports teams or even The Beatles at the height of their success in the 1960s.
The crowd seemed to be larger than the organisers had anticipated, too: again in Castle Street, a bride heading for her wedding at the Town Hall was unable to push through the crowd until a police escort was provided and, worryingly, I saw an ambulance totally trapped within the mass of people. Later in the day, we were turned away from Lord Street/Church Street, Liverpool's primary shopping avenue, by police officers who claimed it was absolutely full – that's difficult to even visualise.
Hence, we had to pick our viewpoints more carefully and occupy them further in advance of the spider's arrival: in total, we saw her pass three fixed locations where we'd calculated that she'd pause for key activities.

The first was Derby Square, at the junction of Castle Street (with the Town Hall at the far end) and Lord Street. In accordance with the itinerary, but almost exactly an hour late (luckily, as we'd arrived late too, due to trains being very full), La Princesse appeared up Water Street then headed towards us though clouds of smoke and a seemingly solid mass of people. My anticipation had been great, but didn't exceed the thrill of reality: I'll never forget the sight of her rearing up over the crowd, spraying water from her mouth & spinnerets and lifting a couple of her attendant 'scientists' high into the air on her forelimbs.
Apart from the view up Castle Street we'd chosen Derby Square because La Princesse was scheduled to participate in a 'water ballet' there. A 'leaked' press release had warned journalists to wear waterproofs irrespective of the weather; good advice since, despite the implication that a 'water ballet' would be something rather delicate, it actually consisted of the spider being bombarded by water cannon until 'persuaded' to walk away down Lord Street. Great fun, which rapidly taught me to interpret the cannon's preparatory hisses in time to pull out my camera and photograph the ascending jet of water then get the camera back inside my coat before the descending jet of water arrived.

Via a circuitous 'parallel' route, we tried to get ahead of La Princesse before she could reach the bottom of Lord Street at Paradise Corner, but as I mentioned, we were turned away by the police and hence missed the spider being sedated again by a snow machine, to sleep for a couple more hours. At least that gave us plenty of time to wander around and find the next optimum viewpoint. I tried to get right up to the sleeping spider whilst the scientists were away, but the police were regulating pedestrian traffic: I could see other people examining La Princesse from touching-distance, ~10 paces away from me, but I'd have had to walk about 500 m through dense crowds if I'd wanted to circumvent the police lines.

We eventually settled on a location at the other end of Church Street, at its junction with Parker Street. An 'apparatus' had been set up there, which I initially interpreted as being a battery of flame cannon, but which proved to be an array of musical instruments powered by burning gas. Our vantage point was a bank of concrete benches surrounding a tree – others had scaled lamp posts or phone boxes. It was great to be above the crowd, entertained through the long wait by watching the technicians work, and when La Princesse finally began to move, again almost exactly an hour late, we could see her all the way up Church Street.

Curiously, a small excavator had laboriously arrived in front of us shortly before La Princesse. Identified in the press release as a 'Manzimouk' (or maybe that was its given name), it consisted of a cab, digger arm, two wheels at one end and two supporting legs at the other, so had arrived on a trailer then shuffled into position using its wheels and arm. I could see the desired visual effect: the stubby legs were vaguely arachnoid, and the main hydraulic arm operated in the same way as La Princesse's limbs. As expected, she seemed to interpret 'Manzimouk' as another spider, perhaps a rival, and reared up in aggression. Accompanied by the booming pyro-instruments and more conventional musicians, the display was extremely dramatic, with attendants being lifted high into the air.

All too soon the set-piece ended, and La Princesse moved on towards Ranelagh Place (passing directly above us, which was a little unsettling), so again we tried to get ahead of the procession by a different route. Time was limited, and the crowd outside Lime Street station was already established, so it wasn't easy to find a good spot. My mother ended up on an embankment, which I think had a good view, but I stayed in the flow of pedestrian traffic (annoying) alongside a road sign, as I planned to stabilise my camera against it; by now it was fully dark, and unsupported night photography, on tiptoe to see above the crowd, would have been near-impossible.

After a few minutes of being jostled, mainly by people dressed for an evening out rather than to watch a giant spider – they must have been annoyed by the crowds, but could have been more patient – I experienced the renewed thrill of seeing La Princesse turn into Lime Street and charge towards me, spitting and spraying water. She seemed intent on continuing towards William Brown Street and the Queensway Tunnel, but the scientists had set up a wall of flame cannon to block her way. Instead, she was attached to a giant crane and was lifted back onto the side of Concourse House, where she'd first appeared on Wednesday. This time, the scientists remained 'onboard', continuing operation of the airborne spider then bracing the legs against the building as she was sent to sleep by the snow machine. I'd obviously been impressed by the operators' animation skills, but hadn't guessed that they were acrobats too, until seeing them abseil off the spider, from ~¾ of the way up the 49m-tall tower.

And that was the end of Saturday's wonderful show. I wanted to wait and take a few more photos after the crowd had dispersed, but it had been a long afternoon & evening, so we ducked straight into a nearby entrance to Lime Street underground station, and caught a (crowded but prompt, unlike last night) train back to Hooton, then went back to Wales to download the photos.

Delarozière was the engineer/director behind 'The Sultan's Elephant', a wonderful event in which a 42-tonne, huge mechanical elephant and little giantess explored central London in 2006 and which I'd watched via the web with considerable envy. Now he and the French company La Machine were bringing another mechanical creature to Liverpool to help celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture.

So far as I'm aware, the London event had been totally unannounced, and details of Liverpool's were restricted. Despite scouring the web daily for at least a week beforehand, I only found a summarised itinerary in a 'leaked' press release. Ideally, I'd have liked to have been surprised, but didn't want to miss a moment, so needed to know where to be surprised – a slight dilemma. The nature of the creature was a secret too, building anticipation – would it be a Liver bird? That'd be an improbably unstable shape for a puppet (unless a marionette, I suppose). Maybe a dragon: my own guess, based on the proximity to Wales and mention of fire effects in that press release.

All was revealed at ~05:00 on Wednesday when the first commuters of the day discovered a giant spider clinging high on the wall of Concourse House, a derelict 15-storey building next to Lime Street Station. A later press release claimed that demolition work had disturbed the spider, who had then emerged from the foundations.

I initially thought that the choice of a spider, far less lovable than an elephant or giant child, was slightly disappointing, not to mention surprising – many potential audience members were alienated immediately by the very idea of a spider stalking Liverpool's streets. I also wondered whether this really was it: earlier in the week I'd stumbled across a photo of the spider outside its preparation/rehearsal area in Cammell-Laird shipyard and had thought it looked small enough to be just an ancillary element of the event.
Yet once the 37-tonne arachnid, 'La Princesse', had woken and stretched out to her full height of ~15 m she had a distinct majesty and even charm – she certainly wasn't 'cute', but I'm not ashamed to say I fell for her, and was genuinely sad to see her depart at the end of the weekend. And yes, I rapidly began to think of La Princesse as 'her', not 'it'.

Having travelled to Wales last night, I'd hoped to attend all of the weekend's scheduled events, but there were two problems, compounded by my mother's fragile health. Firstly, the itinerary included huge gaps. For example, La Princesse was due to be woken for the first time at 11:30 this morning, then to sleep again from 13:00 until the scheduled 18:30-21:00 event. It wouldn't be practical to return to Wales in the interlude, so we'd be in Liverpool with little to do for several hours. Not normally a problem – Liverpool has wonderful architecture to photograph, plus excellent museums & art galleries – but the second problem was that the weather was awful: blustery with unusually sustained, extremely heavy rain. If my mother had been soaked at midday, she couldn't have stayed in cold, wet clothes until ~22:00.
Hence, I reluctantly agreed to miss the first part, so spent much of the day watching a Welsh garden maintain full saturation and wondering how clouds can carry so much water.
Even as late as the drive to Hooton station at ~17:00, the whole trip seemed foolhardy, with the intermittently-flooded roads barely visible through a wall of rain – in normal circumstances I wouldn't have left the house. Yet once we were in the city, Liverpool didn't seem quite so wet, and we were only caught in a couple more showers all evening.

La Princesse was in an open area outside the new ACC Liverpool arena near Albert Dock, overlooked by tiers of shallow steps, so though there was a fairly large crowd (for a rainy Friday late afternoon), we didn't struggle to find a good viewpoint. A minor irritation was that a natural channel through the crowd developed right beside me, so people were constantly pushing past whilst we waited. Why does that always happen?
As became usual over the weekend (I suspect the itinerary was deliberately wrong), activities began almost exactly an hour late. First the ~20 musicians arrived and mounted an array of cherrypicker hoists and oversized fork-lift trucks, then the spider's French puppeteers walked through the crowd, imperiously pushing past me. Various people have criticised 'les mecaniques savants' for not treating the weekend as some sort of carnival ("not cracking a smile"). Yet it seemed perfectly obvious to me that they were playing a role, of a team of serious scientists investigating the spider, which only added to the immersive magic of the overall spectacle. The whole experience relied on imagining the steel-and-poplar puppet to be a sentient creature – that wouldn't have worked if the operators were grinning and waving to the crowd.

When La Princesse woke and stood up, it became apparent that like most spiders, her body accounted for a relatively small proportion of her overall apparent size – with her legs unfolded, she was huge. Careful study showed that her legs weren't weight-bearing and she actually moved on a discreet three-wheeled crane, but that wasn't apparent to a casual glance or from a distance, when the low-profile crane was below the height of the crowd. With eight legs (and two pedipalps) in constant motion, operated by nine scientists sitting half-hidden beneath La Princesse (plus three on top, controlling the head, abdomen & water jets), it was easy to accept the illusion that she was genuinely walking and probing her surroundings, reaching over people to touch lampposts and even people's umbrellas.

On waking, La Princesse headed towards the river, around Duke's Dock then back towards The Strand, along the inland side of Salthouse Dock, then to Salthouse Quay (Albert Dock's main entrance) where a huge crane waited to lift her into the water for a bath. I'd been concerned about being able to get good views, as no single viewpoint would have adequately covered the whole route yet shuffling along within a moving crowd would have merely provided a constant middle-distance view of the back of the procession. Either would have been disappointing.
The best compromise was to follow part of La Princesse's route around Duke's Dock then once she'd reached Strand Street, cut across the other side of Salthouse Dock to reach the bathing point before her. That worked well, and I'm pleased with the photographs I took of her striding down Salthouse Quay (and far more pleased with the memories), but I couldn't see much of the bathing itself.

La Princesse had been detached from her wheeled crane in order to be lifted into the Dock (with the operators still in place to manipulate her limbs); the delay whilst she was reattached gave us time to get ahead again and watch her walk along The Strand to the Cunard Building, where she was 'sedated' for the night by a crane-mounted snow machine. An hour late, the first day of activity was over.

Though we'd escaped the weather whilst in Liverpool, it had its revenge on the way back to Hooton and the car: flooding of the Wirral railway line meant that the train terminated at Rock Ferry and we had to await (and wait, and wait...) a replacement bus service – at a very exposed bus stop in driving rain. I wouldn't be wearing the same clothes for the second day of La Princesse's visit to Liverpool, tomorrow.

Anyway; can 'snaps' vegetate?

I took my new camera (without the backup of my older camera, for the first occasion), but the weather and circumstances limited my chances to use it – arriving on Saturday evening and departing at midday on Sunday didn't leave time for a walk to the coast – so the resulting photos are a bit... random. Apart from that, they're notable for being the first published images from my new camera, a proper DSLR.

On the spur of the moment, we also made a short diversion to Shotwick, a tiny village on the English/Welsh border, for possibly the third time in my life, despite having passed literally hundreds of times. Even on those occasions I think it was a matter of satisfying my curiosity about what was down that road by taking a quick glance: just in as far as the first place to turn the car then back out and on to our intended destination. Today may have been the first time I've walked around, and visited the (locally) famous church. Which, as the accompanying photos show, was open to visitors.

Similarly, though I've visited the Lady Lever Art Gallery often enough to have near-memorised much of the Lever collection, the rest of the garden village was terra incognita. It still is, really, and I must go back (in better weather: the harsh light wasn't conducive to photography), but I had a quick look at the nearby Leverhulme Monument and a longer study of the splendid War Memorial – long enough to begin considering its underlying meaning rather than its visual appeal, and its truly monstrous message.

In short, the exhibition featured several wonderful Klimt pieces, but I was already familiar with the Beethoven Frieze, having seen the original in Wien last year, and only a minority of items in the exhibition were by Klimt – it was more about the context in which he worked than the work itself. Worth seeing, but I can appreciate that some might have been disappointed.

Due to the expected number of visitors, the Tate was selling tickets on a timed-admission basis, so we couldn't go straight in. We looked around the gallery's permanent exhibitions (and weren't especially impressed) but also had a little time to wander around the outside of the Albert Dock complex, so I took a few photos.

After finishing at the Tate, we decided to visit the Walker Art Gallery too, to see their temporary exhibition of 'Art In The Age Of Steam'. Unfortunately, inexperience with my new camera meant that I accidentally left the white balance set for indoor lighting, and the photos I took on the walk through Liverpool One and Mathew Street are unusably bright blue. I realised my mistake by the time we reached the Walker and for our subsequent walk across St. George's Plateau to Lime Street station and the train home, so there are a few photos to see.

The standard anticlockwise route is well-known and is the subject of several dedicated websites, so I won't go into great detail here; I've mentioned it in the annotations of the accompanying photos, if anyone's particularly interested. In short, we walked from Horton in Ribblesdale to Pen-y-Ghent via Brackenbottom, directly across Horton Moor to Ribblehead, up Whernside via the railway and down via Bruntscar, then up Ingleborough via the Old Hill Inn and back to Horton via Sulber.

The 'challenge' is to complete the route within twelve hours. Those who clock-in at the Pen-y-ghent Café in Horton before starting then clock back in having finished within the designated time qualify for membership of the 'Three Peaks of Yorkshire Club', and their badge & tie. No thanks – I like the safety net offered by the booking-in system, but the petty exclusivity of a 'club' and associated merchandise really don't interest me. Not that it's particularly exclusive – according to the cafe's records, more than 200,000 walkers participated 'officially' in the first 35 years of its operation, and that doesn't include those who, like me, didn't clock in.

'Official' is also a relative term: the Three Peaks path doesn't have the same level of recognition as, say, the Pennine Way: you won't find it specifically marked as a named route on an Ordnance Survey map, and it's not signposted on the ground.
Hence, take care: we were lucky enough to experience good weather and though I say it myself, I'm pretty fit, but the walk and upland environment shouldn't be underestimated – it's not a Sunday stroll and one needs at least basic equipment. Though most of the route follows well-trodden paths, the section from Pen-y-ghent to Ribblehead strikes directly across open moorland. In poor visibility 'out of season', I'd definitely want to be fully weatherproofed and carrying a map & compass.

Despite my disinterest in winning a badge, I did want to complete the route within, at worst, twelve hours; nine hours had seemed plenty when I'd planned for an easy but continuous pace (apart from momentary photo stops) and a ~15 min lunch break on each summit.
However, it didn't seem to work. My starting pace drew complaints, and I reached the summit fully 15 mins before the others, so I was more than ready to proceed when they arrived to begin their rather longer break.
Rather frustrated, I made a solo diversion to Hull Pot to give the others a head-start on the next section, but still caught them before they'd ambled far. When another break was called near High Birkwith I accepted the need to compromise, but when that became only the first of several half-hour stops, one solely in order to doze in the sun, I began to get quietly annoyed. I was no less glad than the others to stop at the Ribblehead and Philpin Lane refreshment facilities, but I can drink a cup of tea or juice in less than five minutes; more than half an hour seemed excessive. Sometimes it can be be enjoyable to sit on a wall and take leisurely sips whilst watching the world go by, but not when supposedly completing a timed challenge.
The result was that we left the summit of Ingleborough a ludicrous eleven hours after the start. I knew I could descend back to Horton well within the final hour, but had to force the pace; I was fully aware of J quietly fuming before I lost my patience: I made my excuses and – comfortably – ran the final 3 km, finishing just within the (arbitrary) time limit.
Plainly we'd had different objectives for the day. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a gentle stroll to walk off a hangover, but it's just not what I'd agreed to. I don't want to give the impression I'm a deadly earnest walker obsessed with completion times or bagging peaks – far from it. However, the Three Peaks is different, and I may have wanted to treat it as a timed challenge because that's a novelty, not something I'd normally attempt.

That same factor means that the route attracts sponsored events; our chosen day happened to coincide with one for the British Heart Foundation, and we found ourselves sharing the paths with a couple of hundred people wearing numbered tabards, some plainly not walkers. Not a problem (nothing like 1996, when I found myself queuing for the path up Sca Fell on the national Three Peaks walk), but the moor was rather badly churned-up in places, and I felt a slight pang of guilt at ruining the morale of struggling first-time walkers by overtaking them at a run!

I wouldn't have managed that during the day, though, as the weather was hot & humid. The plan had been to leave Lancaster at 06:00, but for a reason that was never quite established, we actually left much later and started walking at ~08:00, losing the advantage of the cool early morning. Even climbing Pen-y-ghent before 10:00 I was drenched in sweat, and the pint of orange squash I bought after Whernside was an essential supplement to the drinks I'd been carrying. In a way it was pleasant to cross the limestone pavement at Sulber as the sun began to get low. Photogenic, too.

Overall, a good walk, despite the circumstances; I'm sure I'll complete it again some time.

However, I think it's simply that a 'proper' dSLR is far more powerful than I'd anticipated, with a corresponding learning curve. For example, I've noticed that one 'failure' had too shallow a depth of field – very likely to have been due to my misconfiguration – but managed to read the time on Liverpool's Liver Building's clock from 23.5 km away (that's 14.6 miles) in my mother's garden in Wales.

The most annoying thing is that, as I mentioned in a previous entry, I'm travelling a lot this week (with several not-to-be-repeated photo opportunities anticipated), so I don't have time to play about and learn, and though I might be able to obtain better pictures, I can't take the risk, and a promising but ****ing fiddly camera will have to stay at home.

Frankly, nor are the two photos I processed, but I might as well publish 'em anyway!

And yes, it really is 190 readable pages, not merely a ~47-page English manual bound into the same volume as ~47-page manuals in French, German & Spanish, as I'd half-hoped.

This time I followed the more conventional route, cycling to Birk Bank car park and walking along the main path to Windy Clough then on to the summit at Clougha Pike. Avoiding the summit shelter itself, I turned away to the south-east along the Ward's Stone path, then a even narrower track across the moor to the shooting road (study the OS map; it's clearly marked).

Back at the Goldsworthy pillars for the second time this weekend, in better (but still hazy) weather and with a fully-functioning camera, I resumed taking the photos I'd missed yesterday, before heading back down the shooting track to three unnamed cairns, where I crossed back across the heather to Little Windy Clough and the main route back to Birk Bank & my bike.

I knew it took the form of three rectilinear pillars in a hollow on the open moor, well away from the main footpaths from Quernmore and Birk Bank to the summit; having identified the most likely location by studying aerial photography at Google Maps, I decided that the quickest route would be via Jubilee Tower: 2 km in a straight line along the fence to Shooters Pile then a further 500 m across the open moor.

The Ordnance Survey's rendition of the landscape is far neater than the real thing, of course. Accustomed to walking on the well-drained limestone of the western Yorkshire Dales I'd forgotten just how wet the peat moorland of Clougha can become, so those first 2 km were slow going. Extending my walk a further 3-4 km to Ward's Stone, and 5-6 more back, as I'd considered, suddenly seemed less attractive....

The Goldsworthy installation wasn't visible from Shooters Pile (and I already knew it isn't from the trig. pillar on Clougha Pike), but I headed north across the pathless heather, trusting my memory of the aerial photography. Justifiably: it led me straight to the right place.

The three ~3m tall (so rather imposing) rectilinear pillars are within a ring of roughly-piled stones in a disused quarry. Each pillar contains an ovoid hollow, slightly offset from the middle so it intersects the outer face as an oval hole. The craftsmanship of building the dry stone structures, with crisply straight edges and a very few gaps for even light to penetrate, is very impressive, never mind in such a remote location. It was erected, one pillar per year, in 1999, 2000 & 2001 for the Duke of Westminster's Abbeystead estate. That may partly explain why it's almost hidden from locations frequented by the public but only a few metres off a gravel track laid for grouse shoots (in hindsight, that's the easiest, though not shortest, route: just follow the gravel track 3½ km from Littledale Road to the pillars).

I took time to admire the pillars, but they don't appear at all in the mere three photographs accompanying this entry, for two reasons. Firstly, the heavily overcast sky lit the scenery very poorly, so the photos I took aren't worth publishing. Secondly, my camera batteries failed. And the spares.

With no functioning camera and ominous clouds approaching rapidly on the high wind, there seemed little point in proceeding, so I returned to Jubilee Tower and my bike, and home. It was a useful scouting expedition, and I'm tempted to go back soon – maybe even tomorrow, weather permitting.

I worked on Caton Moor almost daily for the bulk of the 1990s (starting before the windfarm was laid out, in fact), so the route is rather familiar. My visits generally involved collecting river sediment during rainstorms, but I resisted the temptation to cycle out in thigh waders for old time's sake.

I also resisted the temptation to hurry: ~90% of the times I've followed the Littledale road from Stock-a-Bank (near Quernmore) have been nocturnal and/or during heavy rainfall, so I've rarely actually seen it. For example, I hadn't noticed that one of the first farms one passes was once, rather obviously, a substantial watermill, and this may have been the very first time I've looked south-east from the crest of the road, rather than fixating on the windfarm and my research catchment. That may mean the accompanying photos will have a novelty only I appreciate – thanks for indulging me!

Once on the southern flank of Caton Moor itself, I followed Roeburndale Road to its highest point, then walked my bike across the top of the hill (on a gravel track which had, thankfully, bedded-in since I last visited – ~1 km on very loose stones and ceramic fragments had been hard work) The views west though the windfarm were even better than I remembered but into direct sunlight, so photos of the turbines needed to wait until I'd reached Quarry Road and could look back at them from the south-west. Technically the site is private land, but **** it – this was my territory well before it was the power company's.

The return trip (~240 m vertically, over ~3 km) back down to the floor of the Lune Valley was rather easier than the climb, but again I avoided freewheeling too quickly and admired the (haze-masked) scenery for once. That took me into the very familiar surroundings of Caton; after a quick look at the Crook O'Lune, I cycled home.

It's linked from Schneier's article, but I'd like to reinforce the fact that one can download a 2-page .pdf summarising the legal rights of photographers in the UK.

Though the weather was warm and sunny, it was also very humid. I can't explain the result: whilst the amount of visibility was excellent – I could readily see hills ~40 km away – the quality of visibility was poor – haze slightly obscured objects even 200 m away. As the accompanying photos show, I had excellent, atmospheric views across Wyresdale from Jubilee Tower, but not clear views.

I paused at the head of the Trough for short walk, to the edge of Blaze Moss for an overview of the valley, which was well worth the effort of climbing a near-vertical grass slope, and I'll certainly return on a genuinely clear day.

The rest of the ride was similarly punctuated by 5-10 min diversions on foot (not all of which resulted in photos worth publishing), including St. Hubert's churchyard near Dunsop Bridge, the Inn and wooded banks of the River Hodder at Whitewell, and Chipping village.
In total, I cycled 71.5 km (44.45 miles) in 3:52 hours (at an average of 18.5 km/h and reaching 52.1 km/h at least once), but was out of the house from ~10:30 to 16:33; that's over two hours spent off the bike.

Like yesterday, the ride up the Lune Valley was very hard work, into a powerful headwind which nearly made me abandon the trip, but I've passed the castle so often and open days are so poorly promoted (beyond Hornby village, anyway) that I really couldn't miss the opportunity, particularly in bright sunshine.

After parking by the river I paid a nominal amount (£3, I think) and walked up the Georgian drive to the Victorian Gothic manor house built around a 16th Century 'real' keep. I stood on the front lawn for a while examining the very familiar façade close-up and from an unfamiliar angle, then walked around the perimeter. It was much as I'd expected, a tapering near-rectangular building with somewhat fanciful turrets, fake arrowslits and genteel gargoyles, but I was slightly surprised that the drive terminated at what seemed to be the back of the castle. Presumably visitors dismounted from their carriages and crossed the garden to the main door.

One of the main attractions of my visit was the opportunity to climb the 100+ steps to the roof of the keep (and a few more to the castle's highest turret), taking in views of the surrounding countryside; I've seen Hornby Castle from most of the northern Bowland Fells & south-western Yorkshire Dales, so it was great to stand at the other end of those sightlines. However, the wind discouraged a long stay.

The castle is a private family residence (plus tenants in apartments), so the only other part of the building open to visitors was the main hall, accommodating a small art exhibition. The photographs of one resident were particularly impressive, and it was pleasant that the 'attendant' who noticed me returning to examine the same photo 3-4 times actually was the photographer.

The castle's fairly extensive grounds were open too, though late May didn't seem to be the optimum time to see the gardens; azaleas were flowering, as were banks of wild garlic, but little else.

I'd arrive quite late, and didn't leave until well after 17:00 (the day officially ended at 16:00, but the 'staff' were very friendly!), so didn't extend my bike ride, instead letting the wind carry me straight home.

I'd certainly recommend the open day (weekend) to others, if you can find out when it occurs. This was the Late May Bank Holiday weekend, so the castle might be open for the same holiday every year. I understand the grounds also host a display of military vehicles in June, but I don't know whether that event includes the castle itself.

The main obstacle of the day hit me as soon as I left Clapham station. Given the sunny weather, I'd come out in a T-shirt and walking leggings (if I hadn't anticipated crossing rough grassland inhabited by sheep ticks, I'd have worn shorts), merely carrying my lightest fleece as some slight protection against showers – a strong, cold headwind was a nasty surprise.

First, I went into Clapham village seeking photo opportunities; since I was already there and was planning to park on the hill above Austwick, I got the climb out of the way immediately by following the unsurfaced Thwaite Lane from behind Clapham Church (passing as the clock struck 09:00). I'd been that way before, and hadn't been inclined to repeat the experience, but the surface was smoother and the ride hence less slow than I recalled. I still wouldn't recommend it to riders of 'racer'-type road bikes.

After locking my bike to a convenient yet unobtrusive bench, I was soon amongst the boulders at Norber, without a single picnicker or young family in sight. Unfortunately, the famous 'Norber Erratics' (large sandstone boulders perched, apparently precariously, on disproportionately narrow limestone pedestals) were about as scarce. Publicity and visitors' photos might suggest they're everywhere, but last year I struggled to find even one – there were dozens, even hundreds of boulders lying on/in the grass, but not raised on limestone pillars. This time I kept looking, and did find a few photogenic examples (hint: try towards the top of the area, rather than amongst the greatest density of boulders on the mid-slope).

In theory, the next stage was to return to my bike, but I didn't want to simply retrace my steps, and planned to complete a streamlined version of the route I'd followed last year. My only hesitation was that the sunny weather was deteriorating, with broken clouds increasingly obscuring direct sunlight and haze diminishing long-range visibility. I completed the route anyway (north along the eastern side of Thwaite to Long Scar, north-east to Thieves Moss, then returning via Beggar's Stile and the floor of Crummackdale), but walked quickly, knowing I wouldn't be able to improve on last years photos. I think I was back at the bike by ~11:30, having walked 9.5 km (5.9 miles) and having encountered only one other person.
That was slightly surprising, as there were plenty of people around: I'd noticed several busy campsites around Clapham and, cycling from Austwick towards Helwith Bridge, passed two completely full campsites which I'd never seen occupied at all before.

So far, so good, but the moment I reached the head of the pass at Swarth Moor, entering the wide-open Ribblesdale, my plan was blown away. The final kilometre of the road to Helwith Bridge took about as long as the foregoing four, as I was battling into a powerful north-easterly wind. The next 3 km north to Horton were even worse, as the gusty crosswind alternately tried to throw me off the road or into traffic.

Horton was as busy as I've ever seen it, with campsites full and closed to all but pre-booked visitors – bear that in mind if you ever wish to visit at peak times. Road traffic was fairly heavy too, so I made a diversion towards High Birkwith, up a ~4 km cul-de-sac on the opposite side of the valley to the main Ribblehead road. My intention was to explore some of the named potholes (or at least their entrances in sink holes, anyway), so I parked halfway along the road and headed onto the edge of Horton Moor on foot. Penyghent Long Churn was surprisingly easy to find, as was Red Moss Pot (I actually managed to go underground there, but retreated after stepping in – yes, in – a very dead sheep) but the highlight was Jackdaw Hole, a huge tree-lined, well, hole. In my enthusiasm, I could easily have got into serious trouble, so again, I took my photos then went back to my bike. I subsequently calculated that I'd walked ~3.75 km, or 2.3 miles, but that ignores the steeply-stepped limestone topography.

I'd considered following ~3 km of bridleway from High Birkwith to rejoin the main road just short of Ribblehead, but that route was temporarily closed, so I'd need to cycle 4 km south to Horton only to cycle ~6 km north-west again to the viaduct. That'd have been a minor annoyance normally, but in high wind it wasn't a serious option.
Instead, I returned to Horton and continued south (assisted by the wind) to Settle. I'd never visited before, and didn't take the time to properly explore today, merely glancing at the main street long enough to find a decent (if expensive) fish & chip shop and the road home. I should really have investigated Giggleswick station too, for a future trip, not least because joining the A65 there would have saved me the effort expended on the road I inadvertently chose, over Giggleswick Scar – an avoidable 166 m ascent wasn't the best start to my long ride home via Clapham, Bentham, Wennington and Hornby.
Incidentally, passing Hornby Castle at ~17:20, I noticed an open day had ended at 16:00. Not to worry; it's open tomorrow & Monday too, so I think I know where I'll be cycling next....

I reached home at 18:07, over ten hours after I'd left. Though my torso and limbs had been thoroughly covered against the wind, my nose was alarmingly red; if I'd taken longer, I think I'd have experienced my first sunburn in years.
In addition to (at least) 13¼ km on foot, I covered 83.1 km (51.6 miles) by bike, which was in motion for 4 hours (and 4 minutes) at an average speed of 20.4 km/h (12.7 mph) and attaining 54.9 km/h (34.1 mph) at least once.

My primary objective had been to take photographs of the old mill village in Lower Dolphinholme, but I hadn't planned ahead, neither knowing what I was looking for nor allowing for the early onset of dusk in the narrow, steep-sided valley of the River Wyre. Another time....

I had greater success with an unanticipated stop, at Over Wyresdale church, just outside Abbeystead: not 'chocolate-box' quaint, but with interesting details and a picturesque setting.

Though the idea was to stay all weekend to celebrate H* & D's birthdays, I'd been forewarned that numerous children would be sleeping in the barn so I'd need to take a tent. Somehow that prospect, plus the need to take food, really didn't excite me this morning, so I cycled out with A to see everyone just for the afternoon/evening, returning to Lancaster by 22:15.
Needless to say, I went for a wander in the woods whilst there, taking a few photos of spring in mid bounce.

*: Mr. HV, not Ms. HW; the camping barn definitely isn't a Helen sort of place!

Again, the precise route is less relevant than the photos, but in short I cycled from the University to Galgate, along the branch canal to Glasson, wandered around the village then returned to Lancaster along Ashton Road (the A588).

Somehow that took 1 hour 45', (though the bike was stationary for 37 minutes) and involved a minor altercation with a distinctly non-mute swan (if you don't like people passing, don't nest there). I travelled 18.6 km (11.6 miles) at an average of 16 km/h (10.1 mph), peaking at 36 km/h (22.5 mph). If it matters.

As always, I was glad to get the first stage, the narrow but busy main road from Windermere to Ambleside, out of the way as quickly as possible – setting that pace was a problem later. However, once on the more pleasant road towards Elterwater, I stopped to look at a new footbridge over the River Brathay; new to me, anyway, though it opened 18 months ago, apparently.

The start of the Wrynose Pass wasn't too bad, but I think I'd cycled to Little Langdale a little too quickly, so abruptly – and totally – ran out of energy. That's not an excuse: I'm not suggesting I'd have found it easy under other circumstances, but it was disproportionately difficult. Normally I'd just drop into a low gear and plod along slowly, but a rest at Wrynose Beck Bridge (halfway) didn't refresh me and at a couple of points on the (steeper) second half, I literally couldn't turn the pedals. Reaching the top was extremely welcome, but slightly disappointing.
Firstly, the weather was awkward for photography: thick but broken cloud meant a bright sky contrasted harshly with deep shadows cast on the ground. Sounds dramatic. It wasn't: I took several photos, but only a couple were worthwhile.
Secondly, I knew I couldn't go on: I don't think I'd have been able to descend the other side of the Wrynose Pass then climb back up on the return journey, considering that I'd still have a further 45-60 -min ride back to Windermere station. The alternative, going on as far as the coast and a train home from there (if one existed – I hadn't checked the schedule), seemed similarly impractical.

Hence, I turned back early. I'll have to try again some other time, pacing myself better and in better weather. Instead, I returned to Windermere via Blea Tarn and Great Langdale, taking a few more photos.

I started by heading towards Galgate – the absolute opposite direction from Caton – in order to go around the worst of the steep-sided ridge bordering the Conder Valley. Kit Brow Lane is a good compromise between steep ascents and an excessively circuitous route (I could have cycled via Five Lane Ends and avoided almost all hills, but that'd mean going most of the way to Dolphinholme!).
That led to Long Lane and a gentle, bluebell-lined road to Quernmore, where I stopped to take a couple of photos of the busting metropolis: yes, the post office and the parish noticeboard.

Luckily, I made a further photostop at the end of Rigg Lane, as I wouldn't have been pleased to climb the steep Littledale road then discover that my camera batteries and the spares had failed. Instead, I dropped back to Stock-a-Bank and straight back to Lancaster. I'm sure I'll try the upland road to Caton again soon.

We were in the Lake District (specifically, Seathwaite in the Duddon Valley, on the western side of the Coniston Fells) to celebrate J's birthday. I hadn't realised when we were planning the trip that I'd been there twice before, staying in the same campsite, Turner Hall Farm. Similarly, it wasn't until we'd started a walk that I realised I'd followed those footpaths before too, and remembered the route clearly (and remembered it as rough, soggy terrain).

The idea had been to walk to the western end of Seathwaite Tarn then clockwise around the lake, perhaps returning via the high ridge of Dow Crag, Buck Pike and Brown Pike if we were feeling ambitious. However, the cloud base had been very low all day and intermittent rain became steadier as we walked, so an alternative, low-level route was considered – and promptly rejected in turn, so we simply followed minor roads back to Seathwaite village and the Newfield Inn to dry off.

Having said that, I enjoyed the weekend tremendously – in hindsight – and some of the photos are quite atmospheric, if slightly murky: Lakeland scenery can be spectacular even as isolated glimpses between rain clouds.

... I've seen that somewhere before. Oh yeah; it's one of mine.

<sigh>

Do I really need to remind people that web-published content has the same protection in international copyright law as print publications? Just because something is on the web and prominent in Google searches it doesn't automatically follow that it's in the public domain, available for unacknowledged reuse.
Every one of the Ministry's pages displays a visible copyright mark, and there's another in the <alt> tag of each photo. It's not ambiguous.

Don't misunderstand: I certainly don't have some inherent objection to people republishing my images, and when asked I've almost always been pleased to grant permission. However, I do demand the courtesy of a request, and permission should not be presumed, particularly when the intended reuse is a commercial website. Crediting one's source is also an obvious requirement.

You'll notice I don't publish under Creative Commons licence, as I don't see the benefit of it. Standard copyright allows reasonable fair use rights; at best, Creative Commons is a preapproval statement outlining what the content owner is prepared to permit beyond fair use. I don't provide that preapproval, not because I won't give permission when asked (I almost always will) but because I'm genuinely interested in other people's projects – if someone wants to do something novel with my content, I'm curious.

[Update 12/02/08: The site owner opted to remove my image, rather than retain it alongside a credit.]

Hence, I merely cycled to Morecambe, along the promenade (surprisingly busy) to Heysham then back via the bypass and north bank of the River Lune. It was a familiar route which I've photographed before, so I'll only publish a few of the photographs.

This was only the third (possibly fourth) time I'd ever visited Cornwall, and though it's somewhere I'd like to explore further, the day reinforced just how remote it is from the rest of mainland Britain. The motorway/expressway network helps, but we had to drive for an hour from Barnstaple across the undulating Devon countryside to the edge of Dartmoor before even joining such a main road, and once in the St. Agnes area, the roads shrank straight back to virtually single-track lanes.

We visited St. Agnes first, parking in Trevaunance Bay for a short walk along the cliffs to see one of my sister's more modest 'dream houses' and the rugged coastline along which she likes to paddle her kayak. Very photogenic, but not on a dull January day, I'm afraid, and I've only published a couple of images.

The accompanying photoset doesn't offer many of Chapel Porth, either, not least because I couldn't compete with the hundreds, no doubt thousands, of photos taken by tourists over the years, particularly of the Towanroath Engine House at Wheal Coates. Maybe I'll return in better weather.
That's certainly not to say I didn't enjoy the walk; some of the photos reflect the fact I simply sat and watched the waves for a long time, which was simultaneously restful and exhilarating – I've rarely seen better, other than during storms on Anglesey.

I didn't have a particular destination in mind, but being 5½ km south of the city anyway, it made sense to continue in that direction. I headed to Galgate via Green Lane (which used to be my daily route home in the mid-90s, so it was good to note the changes) then inland to Dolphinholme.
I pass the tiny village quite frequently, but this time I stopped to photograph the church and the 19th Century mill complex of Lower Dolphinholme. The latter was difficult, as the low winter sun was already being blocked by the steep valley sides; I think I'll have to return in spring.

From there, I followed unfamiliar narrow lanes to Street, then my usual route to the brow of Harrisend Fell. After locking my bike to a signpost, I climbed the fell on foot in order to eat my lunch sitting on the heather, admiring the view across the Fylde to Blackpool and across Lancaster to the Lake District. I really enjoyed that, and I'll remember it for a long time, but I'll have to: unfortunately, I was facing straight into the sun, so took no photos.

In hindsight, I'd limited my options by coming this way.
I could go on to Oakenclough and around to Scorton or Garstang, but that's a surprisingly long way, and I'd soon be cycling in the dark and, more to the point, cold: I'd brought lights, but only a thin jacket.
I could head inland up Wyresdale to Abbeystead then back to Lancaster via the upland road past Jubilee Tower. That was even further & colder, and all those hills were a bit daunting – I wasn't out for that sort of ride.
Or I could head straight back to Galgate and the A6 to Lancaster, passing Dolphinholme and the University again. Boring, perhaps, but that's what I did.

I usually head out along Ashton Road and return along the riverside cycle track, so for a change I reversed it, heading to Aldcliffe and the river first. Luckily, it was the right decision (I wish I could say I'd carefully thought it through), as the last of the sunlight was photogenic and there's little to photograph along Ashton Road! As the accompanying photos show, the light really had gone by the time I'd visited Glasson, so it'd have been a waste to ride back along the river. Worth remembering.

The first section was very familiar: to Hornby via the Crook O'Lune. Crossing Loyn Bridge to Gressingham is also part of a route I've frequently followed (and described), but instead of simply returning to Lancaster via Halton, I turned north-west, crossing the ridge into the Keer valley and rapidly dropping down (remember the ascent I mentioned?) to Capernwray and Borwick. Apart from Hornby, I stopped in each of the aforementioned locations to explore on foot, but one of my intentions, to possibly improve on photos taken on earlier trips, somewhat failed: I'm only publishing six of the 52 photos I took today. Hazy autumn sunlight is deceptively harsh.

After visiting a probably-private part of Borwick Hall's grounds, I went on to Warton. Again, I locked my bike to a fence and wandered around the Old Rectory on foot, then took a brisk stroll to the top of the Crag but, again, only one photograph is better than I'd taken before.

Which, in a sense, is gratifying.

I'd spent family holidays in Benllech as a young child and visited the Holyhead area in my teens, but hadn't been back for over two decades, and this was my first ever visit to this out-of-the-way corner of the island. I was on Anglesey for a housewarming weekend near Llangoed and, as a non-drinker, would probably be the only member of the party interested in doing anything before midday, so I anticipated opportunities to see a little of the island by bike. However, due to a, er, 'misunderstanding' I'd been unable to take my bike, so was disappointingly tied to the immediate area.

I don't think I had a specific destination in mind for a walk on the first morning, but Penmon Lighthouse with a view across to Puffin Island would be preferred, if within walking range. I'd seen a map, but wasn't carrying one, and hadn't memorised specific road/path junctions, so guessed my way across the peninsula, taking routes which seemed to be going in the right general direction. I didn't know the distances, either, so stuck to the tiny rural roads, on which I could walk quickly – I didn't want to get bogged-down on a circuitous footpath, and particularly not literally.
Hence, I accidentally found Penmon Priory within ~45 mins (not having previously known that such a place existed) before finally identifying a direct route to Penmon Point and the lighthouse. I didn't stay long because, frankly, there wasn't much to see and because I needed to retrace most of my wandering outward route, since I at least knew it'd get me back to Llangoed within an hour.

Later in the day, A&A needed to drive into Beaumaris for wine, so I took the opportunity to see the town. There wasn't time to go into the castle or visit outlying areas, but I did take a few photos.

Studying my mother's collection of maps, most published in the early 1960s, I planned a round trip to Bala, hoping the road network hadn't changed too much in the last forty years. I had every intention of deviating from the planned route as photo opportunities presented themselves, so precise roads didn't matter; within the first ten minutes we'd left the main Mold-Ruthin road to follow the more photogenic Moel Famau track. I was tempted to stop and explore Ruthin, too, as we'd planned back in December, but I was very aware that it's a long way to Bala, on a slow road, so I wanted to get that out of the way.

The road was indeed as tedious as I remembered from trips to Aberystwyth in the early 1990s, so we were glad to park the car and walk around the town for a while, visiting a couple of commercial galleries and junk shops – literally junk; I wouldn't dignify the stock as 'antiques'.

After a quick look at the lake, we headed to another, the Llyn Celyn reservoir, walking down to the shore for lunch in an idyllic, if artificial, location.

A short distance after the lake was the turning I'd planned to take, back over the moors (hopefully...) to the Vale of Clwyd. However, my mother wanted to stay on the main road as far as the next hilltop, since the view seemed promising. It certainly was: the ground fell away abruptly, into the Vale of Ffestiniog, creating a huge waterfall – very well worth seeing, and I was surprised I didn't already know about it already.

We also had a good view to the west coast – I hadn't thought that we'd come this far on a day trip. Since we had, it seemed to make sense to go on rather than risk an upland road which might have ceased to be a through route since the map was published. Instead, we passed through Blaenau Ffestiniog and over Crimea Pass, somewhere I don't think I'd been before.
Just before the tiny village of Dolwyddelan, we passed the well-preserved (actually heavily renovated) keep of a castle, another feature I hadn't known existed, which was a good opportunity to stop after traversing annoying roadworks over the pass. Signs in the car park indicated that Dolwyddelan Castle is publicly-accessible so after buying tickets from a farmhouse, we climbed the hill. See the photos for detailed comments; I'll just say I recommend it if you're in the Ffestiniog/Betws-y-Coed area.

Returning to the car, we went on towards, yes, Betws-y-Coed, but turned away from that familiar town before reaching it, instead rejoining my intended route over the Denbigh Moors then the coast road 'home'.

It was useful, particularly for making contacts amongst my peers, but there were limited photo-opportunities*: the Heslington campus is a bus ride away from the city centre, so I couldn't wander around the mediaeval streets in the coffee breaks, and changeable weather didn't exactly render the University's utilitarian post-1960s architecture pretty. However, I deliberately reached York a couple of hours early on Monday, and found a little more time in the city centre after a drinks reception at the National Railway Museum last night, so my camera didn't have a wasted trip.

*And I'd already decided to limit myself to photos not already taken by hundreds of thousands of tourists – I was hoping to find something new rather than compete like-for-like.

I'll review the bike's performance in a few weeks [nearer seven months, as it happened], but I'll just say that the ride to Tunstall, ~7 km from Kirkby Lonsdale, took longer than normal but felt easier; it's that type of bike.
I've passed the tiny village innumerable times, but never left the main road to investigate the isolated Church. As the accompanying photos show, it's a pleasant enough building, but it's more significant for its literary association, being the inspiration for 'Brocklebridge Church' in Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'. The Brontë sisters attended school in nearby Cowan Bridge, so it seemed logical to go there next, if not quite by the same route – presumably they followed footpaths across fields whereas I had to cycle via Burrow and surfaced roads.

Not having planned to visit, I didn't research the location of the School for Clergy Daughters in advance, and didn't go hunting, instead heading straight on towards Leck Fell, on the western flank of Gragareth (the highest point in Lancashire). This is one of the very few upland valleys on the south-western edge of the Yorkshire Dales that I'd yet to visit; in fact, I think it's the last, and I've now explored all nine access routes to the moors between Ribblesdale and Barbondale.
Climbing 300 m within ~3.5 km (and not as one gradual ascent) could have been exhausting on a humid July day, but it was easier than usual: the lower gears of my old bike had been inaccessible for a long time, so it was a novelty to be able to use those on this new bike. Still, I was very glad to reach the top near Leck Fell House, sitting on the edge of the moor for a while to take in the view and a banana.
The descent was somewhat easier, though I was uncomfortable about riding at full speed on an unfamiliar bike, on an unfamiliar road (with patches of loose gravel) in an isolated location, so stayed under 50 km/h.

After a brief diversion to attempt a photo of Kirkby Lonsdale that I've been failing to capture properly for a while (and failing again, really), I crossed the River Lune at Devil's Bridge and headed back towards Lancaster along the northern edge of the valley, making one more stop to supplement/replace photos I'd taken in Halton on earlier bike rides.

In total, I covered 70.3 km (43.7 miles) in 3hrs20', giving an average speed of 21 km/h (13.1 mph) and reaching 47.8 km/h (29.7 mph) at least once. Every ride is different, with different gradients and differing numbers of photo stops, so it's difficult to compare this to previous trips and hence my old bike, but it felt slower – my legs could have pedaled harder, but the bike didn't respond quite as I'd hoped.

As usual, I caught the train to High Bentham by 11:30 and cycled across to Ingleton, then followed the Ribblehead road to the start of the most direct Ingleborough path, just outside the village. Safe bike parking was a problem, but I found a secure fence post some distance from the road, inside Skirwith Quarry. If anyone's counting, this was 8½ km (5¼ miles) from Bentham station, and took 27 minutes.

I started the walk at 12:10 by passing Skirwith Cave, a disused show cave, now with limited surface expression. That was a common characteristic of the walk: several potholes are unremarkable small holes in the open moor, and less than photogenic above ground.

Joining the main path, I realised the day was hotter and even more humid than I'd anticipated; fine for cycling cooled within one's own flow of air, but more sticky on foot. I wouldn't be walking quickly.

I left the path at Crina Bottom, heading straight up the slope to the crest of Ingleborough Common/Dowlass Moss. My next realisation was that in the absence of any tracks or landmarks, it'd be difficult to find specific pot holes – or any potholes, as I couldn't distinguish grassy hollows from level moorland from more than 20-30 m away, never mind spot the cave entrances themselves, typically less than 2 m wide. As the accompanying photos show, I found a few, but it was a little frustrating to be unable to identify them. In hindsight, this may have led be to take foolish risks, precariously balancing over vertical drops to get good camera angles. If I'd fallen, no-one would have known where to look for me.

I eventually rejoined the Ingleborough path somewhat disappointed. From long experience, I'm very aware how difficult and hence slow it is to walk across nominally flat moorland; meandering wildly and stopping frequently, it had taken me two hours to travel about a kilometre, with very limited success. I had a quick look at Quaking Pot, a hole I could find and the entrance of which I could readily access, then I climbed Ingleborough itself, if only as an opportunity to stride along a decent path again.

The summit was rather crowded (I even met work colleagues, who were attempting the Yorkshire Three Peaks route) and the views slightly masked by dense haze, so I made one complete circuit of the plateau edge, then returned to my bike. For the record, the decent took ~55 minutes.

After a 15-min break for a bottle of Coke and a banana, I cycled home by 17:35, taking 1 hour 48' to cover the 41 km (25.5 miles), at an average speed of 22.7 km/h (14.1 mph) (23.8 km/h until the final climb from Moor Lane Mill!).

I used the opportunity of the train ride to Bentham to plan my route. Like most hills in the area, the western side of Kingsdale has a distinctive profile, determined by interbedded Carboniferous gritstone and limestone. A short slope rises steeply ~100 m to a level area dotted with sink holes, then rises more gradually (~200 m over ~750 m) to the foot of a second very steep slope, which rises ~50 m to the top of the ridge; an ascent of ~300 m overall. I planned to leave my bike somewhere on the valley floor, walk along the lower 'terrace' all the way along Kingsdale, exploring the main potholes named on the OS 1:25,000 map, then climb to the the ridge and walk back via the summits of Gragareth, Great Coum and Crag Hill.
In hindsight, that was too much, and is two separate walks, but based on that initial idea I decided to park by Yordas Cave, about halfway along the valley, and walk back to the mouth of Kingsdale before climbing the gentler slope at the end of the ridge (rather than go straight up the steep side). I'd follow that past Gragareth's trig. pillar to the head of the dale, look down over Deepdale and Dent, then follow a rough track and surfaced road back to my bike.

The optimum route from the station to Kingsdale (yes, I had consciously considered that) passes through Ingleton and Thornton in Lonsdale, so I made a slight diversion almost before I'd really started: I went into Ingleton to use the public toilets, check for photo opportunities, successfully avoid being rude to a christian evangelist, and buy a little more food for the trip. Another brief stop in Thornton was planned, as I knew I wanted to photograph the church where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was married.

The climb to the mouth of Kingsdale was the only strenuous part of today's ride, and not too bad (160 m in 2 km) though the road up the valley from there was steeper and much longer than I remembered.

There were quite a few cars and vans parked near Yordas Cave; I was briefly concerned that I'd stumbled across a popular picnic site or coincided with a rambling club's excursion, but I think most visitors were cavers, and I encountered very few people on the surface all day.

Yordas Cave (incidentally, it is 'Yordas Cave', from Old Norse 'jord-ass' ('earth stream'), not 'Yorda's Cave' – no apostrophe) is only a couple of minutes walk from the road. A cursory web search about Kingsdale had informed me that one can go in, so I'd made a point of bringing my bike's headlight. However, I hadn't checked the state of the batteries, so even after waiting about five minutes for my eyes to adjust to the small amount of daylight from the entrance, I ended up exploring the huge main chamber by touch and hearing – luckily the stream bisecting the cavern was audible.
Abandoning that part of the walk, I followed the gorge up through Yordas Wood to the other end of the cave, where Yordas Gill vanishes underground. It's quite an attractive area, and if anyone plans to visit the cave, I'd recommend making the extra effort to continue uphill a little.

Leaving the wood, I readily found a path seeming to head straight up to the top of the ridge, but not the one I wanted, across the slope. There had to be one somewhere; it was marked on the map and must be used regularly by cavers. I'm afraid it defeated me, and I wandered straight across the moor, navigating by dry stone walls until I jumped one and suddenly found myself on the proper path. I still don't know how that happened, but I suspect the problem was the similarity between the OS's depiction of a 'path' (a dotted fine black line) and a 'line of shake holes' (a dotted fine black line).

Somehow I missed the first named pothole on my route, Jingling Pot, but the next was impressive. Rowten Pot is a relatively large feature containing a small tree-covered shelf beside a deep open shaft. I walked around the perimeter, then found a way to descend at least as far as the shelf. That was good in itself, but I managed to find my way into a horizontal cave. For once I regretted walking alone, as despite my enthusiasm, it would have been too foolhardy to explore further. I took a couple of photos and sat for a few minutes to absorb the sounds, smell and appearence of the softly-lit rock, but then returned to the surface.

Despite there being several named potholes within the remaining two kilometres to the end of the upper ridge, and hence the start of the second part of my walk, the only notable surface feature I found was Kail Pot, a large, er, hole in the ground. Unfortunately, the sides were vertical (it was fenced-off to protect sheep) so I couldn't explore. I think I'll have to go back, with the specific intention of lingering to find other holes off the line of the main path – today I was a little too aware that the walk was taking much longer than I'd expected, and I still had a long way to go (not to mention the ~40km bike ride afterwards).

Crossing to the dry stone wall on the ridgeline and county boundary (the second phase of the trip couldn't have been more straightforward: follow a wall for 7 km), I diverted to follow a line of large sinkholes, one containing a cave mouth, to a small copse (itself unexpected on open moorland) containing another well-known pothole, Marble Steps Pot. This was attractive, especially surrounded by vegetation, but again the sides were too steep for me to (safely) investigate.

The ridge walk was, well, a chore, despite the excellent views. As I said above, this trip was taking far longer than I'd anticipated. It may be that I'm too used to judging distances as a cyclist – 7 km might take 20 minutes by bike but an hour at a strenuous walking pace, and that's on flat tarmac, not undulating moorland. After visiting the trig. pillar at the nominal summit of Gragareth, ~100 m off the path, then returning to the wall, I had to reconsider. Even without measuring on the map, I could see that most of the intended route was ahead of me (I measured it later; I'd covered 8½ km with 14¼ km still to do, the final ~5 km on a road) and it was time to mention the cycle ride home. It was too much, so I cut the walk short by scrambling directly down the valley side to the lower 'terrace', straight across the moor back to Yordas Wood and my bike. I'd walked almost exactly 10 km overall. Next time, I'll probably pick-up the route at the same point on the ridge.

The ride home wasn't too bad, taking 1 hour 52 mins. I didn't think to check the distance from Clapham to Yordas Wood, thereby providing the distance from Yordas Wood to Lancaster, but I rode 53.8km (33½ miles) in total, at an average speed of 21 km/h (13 mph) and reaching 46½ km/h (29 mph) at least once.

I'd like to stress the importance of getting as much right with a photograph as possible via the camera, 'in the field' – post-processing can be laborious and even fruitless if the raw image fails to contain the necessary data – but this is a useful summary of the main enhancement techniques. It's written with especial reference to Photoshop, but the principles are more generally applicable.

I selected Knott End-on-Sea, somewhere I'd been planning to revisit for a while to supplement/replace photos taken in 2005, as my camera batteries had failed in the middle of that earlier trip. The village is just across the Wyre Estuary from Fleetwood, at the north-western corner of the Fylde, itself a near-featureless low-lying plain. Apart from hills on the horizon, there aren't really any long-distance views anyway, so I wouldn't be missing much.

The first stage was straightforward: from Lancaster to Pilling via Cockerham. I was tempted to turn back there, as I had last time I considered this route; I don't cycle in sunglasses, and the haze-diffused sunlight was literally painful. I'm glad I went on, as crossing the width of the Fylde in light mist was an odd experience. I could see a couple of kilometres, but there were no landmarks visible in any direction until I approached Pilling and Damside Mill faded into view, yet that didn't seem to get any closer for several minutes, as if a mirage. Evidently, I can't really describe it.

Though Knott End was the furthest point on my intended route, Pilling was the main objective, to take photos of the windmill and church, plus anything else I might discover, such as a unicorn.

Unfortunately, the effect of the haze was greatest facing the sun, so my photos of Fleetwood from Knott End ferry quay / slipway weren't as clear as I'd hoped and the Blackpool skyline was totally hidden. I did have a good view out to sea, though, so watched the Irish Sea ferry approach and enter the mouth of the River Wyre, fully loaded with cars and lorries. It's extremely rare for me to just sit and watch the world for half an hour or so; even on mountain tops I only stay long enough to absorb the view before moving on. Sitting on the sea wall today was surprisingly relaxing.

I didn't want to retrace my outward route exactly, so took a different road out of Knott End, to have a look at Preesall windmill (now part of an industrial estate and not exactly photogenic) then, back at Pilling, headed east towards Garstang via Winmarleigh. Rather than join the A6, I followed the parallel minor lanes north to Forton, admiring the fresh growth in the hedgerows. From there, I did join the A6, and headed home.

I'd covered 63 km (39 miles) – further than I thought; the roads across the Fylde may be flat and fairly straight, but they're not short, and I did follow a rather circuitous route back from Pilling. Not counting photo stops and time at Knott End, the ride itself took 2¾ hours, at an average of 22.5 km/h (14 mph). If it matters, I reached 40.5 km/h (25.2 mph) at least once.

As usual, I got the lead-in out of the way as quickly as possible, by blasting straight down the A6 to Garstang at ~22 mph. Having studied the map, I thought I'd discovered a shortcut from there to the lanes south of Scorton: a ford across the River Wyre. However, I was extremely lucky that a Land Rover was crossing the river as I was about to start, demonstrating that the water was about a metre deep. Some ford.... There was a pedestrian bridge and footpath along the riverbank to the next surfaced road, so it wasn't quite a dead-end, but I doubt I'll try it again.

I had considered going on to Bleasdale and back via Oakenclough, but after stopping to talk to a horse (what?), I changed my mind: I'd stay west of the higher ground and simply head back to Lancaster via Scorton and the Dolphinholme/Galgate road.
Within a couple of kilometres I modified the plan again: since I wasn't cycling so far, I'd take the opportunity to stop and climb Nicky Nook for my first time. I was just scouting the route, really, as the weather wasn't great for long-distance photography of the views: hazy yet very windy. I'll return some other time.

The next stage was something of a mystery. The idea was to join the familiar road at Harrisend Fell, but the lane seemed to go on for several kilometres longer than expected, through farmyards and another ford. It looks so straightforward on the map. And I was bleeding; I'd caught the inner side of my elbow on a barbed wire fence.

The onward road was straightforward, passing Dolphinholme on the way to Galgate. I made another diversion there, though, following Chapel Lane, the 'back way' to the University and home from there, rather than face the wind on the exposed A6.

I'd been out for three hours, of which the bike was moving for two (and two minutes). I'd covered 40½ km (25 miles) at an average speed of 19.8 km/h (12.3 mph), exceeding 45 km/h (28.2 mph) at least once.

I'm rather inspired to try the same thing elsewhere. Will investigate.

[Via BoingBoing.]

Sort-of: though there was no low cloud this time, today seemed particularly humid, with dense haze limiting visibility to only a couple of kilometres. On past occasions, I've noticed this to be a coastal effect so, hoping it'd be clearer inland, I caught the 14:45 train to High Bentham after lunch.

I cycled straight to the Old Hill Inn, where the Three Peaks route joins the road; the obvious starting point. However, I couldn't find anywhere safe to park the bike, so dropped back to Chapel-le-Dale and a secure fencepost in the church car park. That added about a kilometre to the walk, but I'd be able to return via a different route, passing several pot holes and adding a little variety.

Passing the Old Hill Inn again and following Philpin Lane, I reached the open moor behind Bruntscar Farm and finally started the 'proper' walk at about 16:15. If only the National Park Authority could install cycle parking at that point....

Despite the humidity, I found the steep climb to the Whernside ridge fairly easy, though I wasn't rushing. Somehow, the next section, the gentle ascent along the ridge to the summit, was less pleasant, largely because the destination was constantly visible (though one constantly wonders if it's a false summit and whether the hill continues to rise beyond the apparent horizon), unexpectedly far away. It's only 1.2 km, according to the map, but felt further! Hillwalking doesn't only require physical stamina....

I reached the summit shelter at 17:35. Though I wasn't remotely tired, the ascent had taken much longer than anticipated, as the humidity didn't encourage rapid movement. Given the time and the fact that the end of the walk was merely the start of the 20-mile bike ride home, I realised I'd have to reconsider my plans. After stopping to take a few photos and have a drink, I studied the map.
Continuing along the path to the Ribblehead Viaduct and back to Chapel-le-Dale along the valley (which I think is called 'Chapel-le-Dale' too – anyone know? It's not named on the OS map) looked considerably further than retracing the route I'd already followed, so I did the latter. Similarly, the path across fields from Bruntscar and a steeply undulating track to Chapel-le-dale looked as if it'd take rather longer than following the tarmac'd Philpin Lane back to the main road, so I decided to retrace that part, too.

As I started back down, I finally caught a glimpse of Pen-y-ghent – as the sun began to drop, the mist was thinning. Whilst remaining appreciably misty, the view across to Ingleborough was drastically clearer than before; not really enough for decent photos, but adequate to prove there are some very impressive views eastwards from Whernside. I'll have to visit Whernside again some time, in reliably clear weather if that exists.

Back at the bike by 18:45, I had another drink then set off.

I think I've identified the easiest route back from Ingleton, avoiding almost all the steep slopes at the particularly 'lumpy' junction of the glacial valleys now occupied by the Rivers Lune, Greta and Wenning. At the crossroads where the Chapel-le-Dale road joins the A65, go straight on, past the Mason's Arms, ostensibly towards High Bentham via a narrow lane. About halfway there, turn right after Langber and follow the remarkably straight lanes directly to Wennington. It's not immediately obvious on the map (which is why I hadn't found it until actually visiting the area), but this route follows a ridge, undulating no more than 25-30 m all the way.

Having had a decent lunch made a major difference on the ride back. Most of my trips are fueled by breakfast, 2-3 cups of tea then a very light snack before heading out for 4-6 hours and ~60 km. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the final 10-15 km tend to be rather hard work. Today, however, I felt fine all the way, if a little bored on the long, familiar sections I don't normally notice – zoned-out exhaustion does have at least one benefit.

Approaching Caton, I noticed that the fog was begining to gather again over the river, becoming quite dense before Lancaster. It was lucky that I decided to take the 'shortcut' (a rough track, so probably not actually quicker than the main road) from Denny Beck past HMYOI Lancaster Farms to Williamson Park, as I didn't have lights and I wasn't happy riding in fog and the associated early twilight. By the time I reached the Park, the fog was so dense as to hide the dome of the Ashton Memorial from only ~50 m away.
As I subsequently saw on the TV news, the North Lancashire coast had experienced this fog for most of the afternoon; I'd made the right decision to head inland, rather than complete another ride I'd planned, to Knott End near Blackpool.

I'd been out of the house for six hours (14:35-20:35), cycling 53 km (32.9 miles) from Bentham to the Old Hill Inn then back to Lancaster at an average speed of 21.9 km/h (13.6 mph) (22.7 km/h until I took the 'shortcut'....). The bike was in motion for 2:25 hours; if anyone's interested, my maximum speed was 50.1 km/h (31.1 mph), presumably on the steep descent into Ingleton.

That was the plan, anyway, rather defeated by the weather: totally cloudless and warm (for April, anyway), but humid, with a thick haze limiting visibility. It seemed pointless to climb, say, Bow Fell for the views if one couldn't see more than a kilometre. So I went to work....

A couple of hours later I saw sense and decided to go for a bike ride anyway – I'm not paid to sacrifice leave.

My chosen destination was Hutton Roof Crags, an area of limestone pavement north-east of Carnforth. That's within cycling distance, but I avoided the familiar lead-in by catching the train to Silverdale by 14:33. From there, it was an easy ride past Leighton Moss and Yealand Redmayne to Burton-in-Kendal. I stopped there to take a few photos of the Georgian main street, then went on to the outskirts of the village and the lane towards Newbiggin/Hutton Roof.

There's a layby and information sign at the head of the pass between Hutton Roof Crags and Farleton Knott, with footpaths leading to each summit. Parking my bike, I planned to visit both; according to the map each path was only 1 km long.

I began with the northern route, towards Farleton Knott via Newbiggin Crags and Holme Park Fell. The former was particularly photogenic, even in the haze, but immediately made me realise the impracticality of my plan. Walking across limestone pavement, taking due care of the fragile environment and my own safety, was a slow process, and it took a long time to reach the summit. I stopped for a drink and to peer at vague hints of nearby hills, but then returned only as far as my bike. I'll have to visit Hutton Roof Craggs on another, hopefully clearer occasion.

Studying the map again, I concluded that I'd save scenic cycling routes for another day too, so simply dropped back down to Burton the way I'd come then followed the main road to Tewitfield and the northernmost navigable point on the Lancaster Canal. I made another photo stop there, then returned to Lancaster by 18:00 via the Kellets and the familiar 'B' roads. I'd cycled 36 km (22.4 miles) in 1 hour 50 (average 19.5 km/h, peak 48 km/h).

As usual, I caught the train from Lancaster to Clapham Station, then crossed to Austwick by bike. Parking above Town Head was straightforward – it's worth noting that there's a secure bench situated just off the start of the main footpath to Norber.

After a few minutes of walking I reached the famous Norber Erratics, huge sandstone (greywacke, in fact) boulders perched on tiny pedestals of limestone. Frankly, those erratics I found were slightly disappointing, but there were several young families and picnickers around, so I didn't linger as long as I might have, and I suppose I could have missed the best examples.

My plan involved crossing to the western side of the hill, straight over the summit plateau of limestone pavement. There were no paths, so I was a little nervous about damaging the fragile landscape or myself by stumbling into deep, sharp-edged crevices. If I did the walk again, I think I'd revise this part of the route; I wasn't pleased (with myself) about having to vault a dry stone wall, either.

Once I was on the western side of Thwaite Scars, the route became easier (and more legitimate) and offered the expected views over the landscape I crossed almost exactly a year ago. It was particularly good to see the features I'd visited on that occasion from a different angle, even obtaining the exact reverse angles of earlier photos. Choosing my spot carefully to avoid disturbing nesting ravens, I sat for a while to study the view and watch distant walkers & cyclists on the more popular path.

Traversing the cliff edge, I soon joined the (ex-)green lane of Long Lane, climbing back over the hilltop to Long Scar and the head of Crummackdale. I recommend that easy track to everyone, for the panoramic views over an unearthly limestone plateau backed by two of the Yorkshire Three Peaks (Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent), with the dramatic cliff of Moughton Scars overlooking the gentler Crummackdale valley, the latter almost lush compared to the utterly bare limestone. Unfortunately, it's understandably popular, including with off-road cyclists, so I was quite glad to leave the main path and crowd at Sulber Gate, heading south-east along the Moughton Scars cliff edge, alone again. Not to be antisocial about it, I simply don't enjoy walking alongside groups of 15-20 people who've loudly brought their daily concerns and mobile phones to the countryside.

As a regular (on-road) cyclist, I'm always slightly surprised how long it actually takes to walk modest distances over rough ground, which means I've wasted previous walks by impatiently striding past the very sights I'd travelled to see. It's not as if I need the exercise, so I consciously stopped myself a few times, taking in the view, investigating the limestone pavement, and thoroughly enjoying myself.

I stopped for lunch in the cliff edge, dangling my legs over the ~20 m drop before casually glancing across at the neighbouring and heavily fractured limestone exposure. Ah well; if it was going to collapse, it would have done when I first sat down.

I descended the cliff, rather more safely, via the footpath at Capple Bank, then followed the valley floor ~4 km directly back to Norber Brow and my bike. Only another ~38 km to ride home....

I reached home at 17:35, having been out for 6 hours 50'. My bike had been moving for 2 hours 10', covering 44.75 km (27.81 miles) at an average speed of 20.6 km/h (12.8 mph), peaking at 44.4 km/h (27.6 mph) at least once.

Nearly forgot to mention: I was carrying a camera....

The plan had been to catch the train to High Bentham, cycle the short distance to the Great Stone of Fourstones on Tatham Fell, then return to Wray via Lowgill and the rural lanes east of Roeburndale. After that easy, mainly downhill section, the ride back along the Lune Valley to Lancaster would be flat, discounting minor undulations.

The slight problem was that under the winter timetable the first train of the Sunday service to Bentham was scheduled to depart Lancaster after 16:00, leaving me with mere minutes of daylight. Somewhat impractical, so I decided to complete the whole trip by bike.

Leaving home at 12:30, I took a shortcut along the canal towpath to Caton Road then followed the main roads virtually non-stop to High Bentham, sustaining 20-22 mph for extended periods, though I deliberately avoided tiring too quickly – this was merely the necessary lead-in. I did make one diversion, to Tatham, as I wanted to improve on photos I took of the church a while ago.

The Great Stone was nearer High Bentham than I'd thought; if you're tempted, it'd be an easy walk from the railway station. When I passed this way last September, I went on to Slaidburn without visiting the Stone itself, as I could see from ~100 m away that there were several people already clambering all over it; that's largely why I'd returned, and in February. I noticed two people already on the Stone as I arrived and locked my bike to a fence (front wheel in Lancashire, back wheel in North Yorkshire), but by the time I'd crossed the moor, a young family was approaching too, and I struggled to ignore the squeals of delight of three little Tarquins & Cressidas for quarter of an hour or so as I sat on the Stone admiring the view. Okay; that's overstating my annoyance, and once they'd left, I really appreciated the location on such a crisp, clear day. Highly recommended. See the accompanying photos for annotated views and more about the Great Stone itself.

Having rested for almost an hour, I was tempted by the relatively short distance to the top of the Bentham-Slaidburn pass at Cross of Greet, so I made that diversion rather than head straight back. It wasn't an easy ride, even refreshed, but I did manage the extremely steep final climb to the Cross without pausing; on previous visits I hadn't so much stopped as simply run out of momentum and stalled.
Incidentally, I'm glad no-one was around when I returned to my bike after leaving the Great Stone, as I jumped backwards and forwards across the county boundary at least twenty times, giggling wildly, simply because I could.

The view south-east from the Cross was good too, but as the photos show, I particularly enjoyed looking north across the Yorkshire Dales, Lune Valley and Lake District, as if from the top of the world, an impression increased by low cloud in the distant valleys. Wonderful.

From past experience, I knew this left me almost exactly 31 km (19 miles) from home, though at least my tyres were fully inflated and I was sufficiently clear-headed to avoid returning to Lancaster via Slaidburn and the Trough of Bowland. For once, the ride back from the Cross was as straightforward as I'd planned today to be. Pleasantly tired, though not exhausted, I was home by dusk, at 17:15.

I'd been out for 4¾ hours, of which the bike had been moving for 3 hours 10 mins and had covered 67 km (41.6 miles). So much for a gentle first ride of the year.
My average speed was 21.1 km/h (13.1 mph); rather faster for ~80% of the trip, but diminished by the steep and hence slow ride up to the Cross of Greet. Coming back down, though, I'd reached 48.8 km/h (30.3 mph) on the winding road.

Imagine my disappointment when by the time I reached the supermarket, the sunny morning had become cloudy, and by the time I left, an appreciable mist had begun to develop. I thought hard about appropriate cycling destinations – a high hilltop might be above the fog bank, or a wood might offer atmospheric photographs in the mist, especially if there was running water (low light allows long exposures). Yet this seemed to be freezing fog (or if not, very nearly), searing my throat and chilling my fingers even in the few minutes it took to take my groceries home. I couldn't think of anywhere both suitable and within a comfortable distance, so I regretfully abandoned the idea. Perhaps tomorrow.

I didn't stay indoors, though. My back-up plan was to tour Lancaster and take photos of the historical city subtly changed by mist, so I made a brief trip to Williamson Park to test the idea. Unfortunately, that didn't really work either.
As you'll see in the accompanying photos, the fog was already a bit too dense there, and I already knew it was much worse at the foot of the hill – I wouldn't have seen well enough to focus, never mind take worthwhile photos. Argh!

I decided to head out to the Crook o'Lune, to investigate the path up to the viewpoint at Gray's Seat. That'd provide a gentle 16 km (10 miles) round trip, and I could easily go on if I felt like it.
When starting longer rides up the Lune Valley, I tend to leave Lancaster via Caton Road and straight onto the A683, passing the familar local sections as quickly as possible to maximise time in new locations. However, as I wasn't planning to go far, I followed the canal towpath as far as the Lune Aqueduct then dropped down to the Lune Cycleway (aka Millennium Park) and on to the Crook.

Locking my bike to a fence by the viaduct – not the most secure place to leave it – I followed the riverbank footpath up to the main road, then had second thoughts. If the path to the viewpoint was accessible from the road, I could retrieve my bike from the viaduct, lock it somewhere safer, visit Gray's Seat then return to Lancaster without having to go back to the Crook.
Yet Plan 'B' immediately gave way to 'C': long-distance visibility didn't really justify a trip to a viewpoint anyway, so I might as well go somewhere else today and, having established its approximate location, return to Gray's Seat some other time.

The five-mile ride to Caton had been a surprising effort (I really do need to build up my strength again!), so I didn't go further up the valley, with further to return, instead crossing to Halton Green then back to Halton-on-Lune.

The residents of the village recently protested against a new residential development, resulting in planning permission being frozen pending further investigation. The accusation was that a 'Benidorm-style' apartment complex isn't in keeping with the rest of Halton. Approaching the village from the east, and passing estates of ugly 1960s/70s dormer bungalows, I thought it a bit cheeky of the inhabitants to complain.
However, I stopped at St. Wilfred's churchyard and briefly wandered around the more historical core of Halton; maybe the locals did have a point.

Needless to say, I was carrying my camera, primarily to update or replace photos of places I'd been before. Some are okay, but I'll have to go back to Halton later in the year; it's worth closer examination, though not late on on a damp January evening.

I obviously took a couple of photographs, on the path from Alex Square to the perimeter road. I'm afraid I was, well, careless, and the images are blurred, but the colours alone justify publication.

This morning, however, was more typically seasonal: cold and, for once, clear, offering a crisp, almost magnified view across to Cumbria. This was sufficiently novel that I returned home for my camera and went to Williamson Park to take a few photos and simply enjoy the vista.

**** being late for work; this was far more important to me.

Another little-known area is the Cheshire plain. I've visited Beeston Castle once (maybe twice), but otherwise Whitchurch, Northwich and pretty much everything between Chester and Crewe is terra incognita to me. For a while, my mother and I have planned to explore Bickerton and the Peckforton Hills, a ridge of ~200 m high red sandstone lumps immediately south of Beeston protruding from the very flat plain (~20 m asl near Chester rising to ~80 m in Whitchurch, ~30 km away). They're clearly visible from the top of my mother's road, so I've seen them literally hundreds of times over 35 years, but for all I knew the view could have been a matte painting. Until today.

To start we (well, my mother) drove to Broxton, little more than a crossroads on the Chester-Whitchurch road (A41). We made a false start on the the walk, as there's nowhere (apparent) to park a car in Brown Knowl on the north-western side of Bickerton Hill, so we went around to the south-eastern side and Bickerton itself. We parked alongside others in a wide gateway, but discovered (on foot) that the track through the gateway led to a public car park. Which was, incidentally, rather full. It seemed others had had the same idea for their day trips. There were numerous people around, but curiously they were all rather similar. All looked more than averagely affluent, and were either pensioners in goretex or young families in clothes somewhere between 'smart casual' and 'non-technical outdoors'. The adults' hair would obviously match their working suits, whilst the children looked like miniature horsey adults. None looked like the sort of walkers I encounter in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales.

It seems there are a number of footpaths on Bickerton Hill, but I was slightly concerned that exertion made my mother (convalescing from pneumonia) breathe the cold air rather deeply, so we kept it fairly short: just a kilometre or so and ~60 m ascent to Maiden Castle, the Iron Age hillfort at the 212 m summit.
The weather was patchy – clear in certain directions whilst in others the landscape was obscured by haze or even curtains of rain. Hence, we had good views of the North Wales coast, Chester and Liverpool (i.e. a quadrant between west and north of the hill), but could barely see Wrecsam or southern Cheshire.

Back at the car, we headed north along the eastern side of the hills, towards Beeston. Some of the farms and cottages we passed were rather quaint, so we made a couple of photo stops and wandered around the hamlet of Peckforton.
Another stop to photograph the grandiose gatehouse of Peckforton Castle was extended when I noticed a 'public footpath' sign pointing straight up the drive – at least part way to the castle, it wasn't private property. Hence, we followed the wooded track up to the castle itself, and into the courtyard. Even knowing it to be a Victorian interpretation of a mediaeval castle in a location which had never featured the real thing (Beeston is only a kilometre away), it was very impressive.

For a number of reasons, not least the approaching black clouds, we didn't visit Beeston Castle too, though I couldn't resist one more photo stop, just as the first raindrops were hitting the windscreen. Minutes later, visibility failed in intense rain, and a final diversion, to the historical village of Christleton on the eastern margin of Chester was more than metaphorically a washout.

K. hadn't questioned the destinations when we left my mother's house, but on actually reaching Ruthin, she decided wandering around Welsh market towns would be 'boring' – great timing. Visibility west of the Clwydian Hills was better than expected, so I didn't particularly mind a change of plan; if only we could decide on a plan. The half-hearted result was somewhere we'd been several times before and which I'd rarely enjoyed: Clocaenog Forest.

Considering there was a time when I seriously considered a career in forestry, it's perhaps surprising that I dislike dense coniferous plantations, for their regimented rows of trees and consequent darkness & lack of undergrowth. More profoundly, I find the environment unsettling, somehow even threatening. It's irrational, but I just don't think plantations like humans. I've had nightmares about such places, or rather, because it's the forest I've visited most often (8-10 times since childhood), I've dreamt about Clocaenog. I've never expressed this before, and I don't think my mother & sister would understand, so we went anyway.

It's difficult to describe the exact location, as it's somewhat remote. Halfway along the B5105 from Ruthin to Cerrigydrudion, about 2 km after entering the fringe of the forest, the road crosses the Afon Clwyd (only 40-50 cm wide this close to its source) at Pont Petryal (the river is signposted, not the bridge). About 100 m further on, there's a crossroads; the left turn leads to a car park, artificial lake and some sort of estate lodge converted to a visitor centre, itself seemingly abandoned since I last visited. The few paths lead one onto a roughly oval route into the silent heart of the plantation (actually on the very edge of the 100 km² forest, straying no further than 500 m from the main road). There are no particular landmarks or clear means of judging distance, and no apparent wildlife. There aren't even any echoes. Once, we walked it after heavy snowfall, which was great, but ordinarily it's dreary and, as I said, makes me uncomfortable.

But that's just me. I recently read a description of the sea as 'an element of impersonal horror', which puzzled me; I love the sea and coast. Perhaps other people would find it equally mystifying that I don't appreciate the enclosed solitude and muffled sounds of artificial forests. Still, if you're tempted to visit Clocaenog, I'd recommend the somewhat scenic Brenig & Alwen Reservoirs ahead of the featureless forest itself.

I was happy enough walking in just a t-shirt and fleece, but within a couple of minutes of leaving the car, K. was complaining of the cold, and my mother casually pointed-out that the lake was frozen. Hmm. I think my body must have been burning-off recent heavy meals. The good news was that the others wanted to abandon the full trip, cutting the 3 km walk along forest roads to a 10-minute stroll around the lake, passing the witch trees and sign advertising Clocaenog's red squirrel (the text does imply there's only one) before returning to the car for chocolate biscuits.

At least the return trip was slightly more novel: we followed a tiny road to Cyffylliog for the first time, along the near-gorge of the Afon Clywedog past an impressive watermill (impossible to photograph through the trees) and back to Ruthin, then over the 'unsuitable for motor vehicles' track to the upper car park on Moel Famau. I took a few more photos there, then we headed 'home'.

The weather wasn't great: dry but dull and very windy, with showers forecast, so I wasn't exactly surprised that only A. & I went ahead with the ride – if it hadn't been arranged beforehand, I'm not sure I'd have chosen to go outdoors either; if we'd planned a longer or different route, I'd have been tempted to cancel.

Ordinarily, a quick blast up the A6 to Carnforth and Warton would merely be the necessary preamble to a longer ride. Today that was virtually our destination: we only went on a further ~2 miles to Leighton Moss near Silverdale, visited the RSPB reserve then returned to Lancaster, following the canal from Carnforth to Skerton.
However, that's ignoring the effect of the wind, which made the whole trip rather more challenging than normal. By definition, the canal towpath must be level, but into a headwind it certainly felt like a constant climb, and tensed against gusts of cross wind, my lower back and shoulder began to hurt as badly as after a 40-mile ride.

My camera is unsuited to wildlife photography and the light was poor, but I took a few photos in the bird reserve. Now I've confirmed that admission is free to those arriving by bike or public transport, I'll have to visit again. It seems strange that though Leighton Moss is ~40 minutes from my current home and I've frequently cycled past the reserve, both my previous visits were at least twenty years ago, when I lived over a hundred miles away.

Today's ride covered 35.85 km (22.28 miles) in 1.41 hours, at an average of only 21 km/h (13.2 mph), but that included diversions to the hospice and Halfords; the trip itself was a little quicker.

Over the past couple of years, I've visited all six of the significant valleys in the south-western 'corner' of the Yorkshire Dales between Ribblesdale and Barbondale, apart from one: Kingsdale, above Ingleton, on the opposite side of the Whernside ridge from Chapel-le-Dale. The road up the valley is a through-route, linking Ingleton and Dentdale over a pass between Whernside and Crag Hill/Great Coum. I've cycled to Dent before, and have frequently cycled to/from Ingleton as parts of longer rides or in combination with walks up the Three Peaks (individually!), so cycling out over Barbondale and back over Kingsdale, finishing with the familiar ride home from Ingleton, shouldn't have been a problem. Right?

Completing the route clockwise may explain why I chose to ride the full distance. I could have saved ~19 km (~12 miles) by catching a train to Wennington, but I'd have been avoiding only the easiest part of the lead-in, plus waiting for the train and traveling via Carnforth would have taken about as long. It would have been worthwhile to stay on the train to Higher Bentham and follow Kingsdale first (i.e. reverse the route), but I particularly wanted to avoid the extremely steep climb (~145 m of ascent within 1 km) from Dent to Barbondale and wanted to get the tough part (Barbondale) out of the way first. Anyone who knows the area will spot the huge flaw, but I didn't until later.

I didn't exactly rush. Nowadays I tend to complete the lead-in sections of longer rides as quickly as possible by following the most direct routes out of Lancaster, typically 'A' roads. Today I followed the canal to the Aqueduct, then the cycle track to the Crook O'Lune, making several photo stops. Similarly, once on the Lune Valley floodplain, I didn't blast along to Kirkby Lonsdale at ~30 km/h as usual, instead stopping to explore Melling churchyard. I'd normally bypass Kirkby Lonsdale on the way to Barbondale, but I made a diversion across Devil's Bridge and into the village, mainly to take photos, but I also took the opportunity to buy a little more food & drink.
I did optimise the route in one way. Rather than following the main road to Barbon and very steep lane to Barbondale, I turned off the A683 immediately after Casterton, following tiny lanes and an easy climb past Whelprigg. Must remember that one.

As the accompanying photos show, the weather had been fine to this point, but as I turned north-east into the main section of Barbondale, the sky darkened abruptly and I was concerned about rain. Yet as I reached the head of the pass, it brightened again, clearer than ever. Why does that always happen?

I paused there, looking down into Dentdale. This was the 'point of no return' (in senses other than the literal). I could turn back now, with an easy downhill ride almost all the way back to Lancaster, but I'd have failed to reach my destination, and would have to cycle all this way again to make a later attempt. I could go on to Dent and turn back from there, but I'd have to face the nasty ascent back to this point and still wouldn't have seen Kingsdale. Or I could go on.

I had a quick look at Dent Church and the village's cobbled main street, but even at 14:20 the shadows were lengthening, so I soon checked the map for the next stage. I'll need to explore the rest of Dentdale at a later date – November days are too short.

Remember I mentioned a flaw in the plan? Somehow, I'd misread the map or merely presumed that the road from Dent to Ingleton was an easy, low-level pass. Only now did I look closer, and realise what I'd taken on. The top of the pass was high – much higher than Barbondale; over half as high again, in fact (468 m asl vs 300 m) and almost as steep in places. Okay, ~320 m of ascent in ~4 km isn't extreme (which is why I wasn't dissuaded), but remember that this was ~45 km into the ride, and I knew I'd have at least a further ~35 km to go after the head of the pass. Slightly daunting.

It was as tough as I'd expected, especially where the road builders had given up on hairpin bends and had just cut straight up the 1-in-less-than-5 gradient. I managed that, but it nearly finished me; twice within the next kilometre I found myself unable to turn the pedals, lost forward momentum and simply stalled. I was almost too tired to appreciate the achievement of reaching the top and seeing Kingsdale, and had already freewheeled for a kilometre before realising a photo stop might be appropriate.

Again, I'll have to return to Kingsdale another time, as I'd reached it too late in the day to explore and too tired to be bothered. The only part that really interested me was the ~40 m ascent to get out of the valley – grr! In fact, my immediate memory of Kingsdale wasn't especially favourable, so the accompanying photos were a pleasant surprise.

So that was it: I was back in a familiar area, just above Thornton-in-Lonsdale and Ingleton, and the remaining distance was just a formality. I stopped for a rest and to drink the last of my water (actually, Coke; I'd finished the water quite a while ago), then headed home non-stop. I don't remember the final ~28 km being a struggle, but then again, I don't remember it at all.

Overall I'd covered 93.21 km (57.92 miles) at an average speed of 20.27km/h (12.6 mph) and reaching 49.08 km/h (30.5 mph) at least once. As that low average and the foregoing description illustrates, I didn't exactly push myself, and the trip took seven hours (10:45-17:45), but no-one said it was a race. I ride for the views, not the exercise.

Not early enough, I'm afraid; the sun's angle was better at ~09:20, but I'd have needed to be there by ~07:45 at this time of year, really. I went on anyway, and took a few decent photos.

Returning to Lancaster, I made one diversion to somewhere I hadn't visited before: the southern half of Overton village, including the 11th Century church of St. Helen.

Then to work....

I needn't itemise the entire route, as it's obvious from a map and I've described it before, but in short I crossed the Lune at Millennium Bridge and followed the north bank of the river to Overton via Snatchem's, then across the saltmarsh to Sunderland.

That didn't take as long as I'd expected, so after returning to Overton I crossed the peninsula to the Morecambe Bay coast at Heysham then followed that north through Morecambe to Bolton le Sands. From there, I crossed back to the Lune at Halton and returned to Lancaster along the cycle route. That's more-or-less the reverse of a ride I completed in February 2005, so I presume the distance was comparable at about 45 km (28 miles).

My initial plan was that, if the weather was good enough for a bike ride anyway, I'd head out in that direction and visit the barn for a few hours on Saturday, returning to Lancaster that night. However, I was in town in the morning, looking at bikes with A., so I took the opportunity to replace my massive (and somewhat smelly) sleeping bag with one I could slip into my rucksack. This gave me the freedom to stay overnight in the barn if I changed my mind.

A. joined me for the 12-mile (~20 km) ride to Roeburndale, so we followed the pedestrian-crowded Lune Cycleway (aka Millennium Park) to Caton then, somewhat quicker, the main road to Butt Yeats, near Hornby. The lane from there to Middle Wood obviously ascended as far as my more usual route via Wray, but avoided two very steep sections. Worth remembering.
It'd also be worth remembering that a large Thai red curry eaten just before leaving home (to save having to carry food for an evening meal) objected to 152 m of still quite steep, sustained ascent before it had really settled. Bad idea.

Meeting 'other A.' there, we walked the ~1 km to the barn through surprisingly little mud. The weather had held, but within an hour of our arrival, a heavy shower almost extinguished H's campfire and caused us to remain in the barn all evening.

I was a little startled and concerned that others were obtaining remarkably better indoor photos with compact digital cameras than I could achieve using my big almost-DSLR. I suspect it's a consequence of technological advance in the 26-27 months since I bought mine, not least in image-stabilisation. Mine was fine with flash (which ruins the atmosphere) and unbeatable in really low light, so I did get a few slightly staged images and a few more unguarded ones, but other cameras seemed better-suited to 'average' ambient conditions.
I'm afraid I'm not prepared to publish those images of private individuals, but I did go for a wander on Sunday morning, and took a few fairly 'pretty' photos.

On the whole, Sunday morning was leisurely; though H. lost cans of beer to the river again, there was no point chasing them. The accompanying photos explain why!

My route seemed straightforward and not especially long, but I made numerous diversions, probably adding at least fifteen miles to a direct, join-the-dots route; 25 miles on paper became about forty on the road.
For example, it's ten miles from Lancaster to Garstang along the A6 main road, which I can cover in less than half an hour. Today, I rode to Galgate, on to Bay Horse, then Forton motorway services, inland to Street Bridge near Dolphinholme, then back down to Garstang via Scorton, taking a couple of hours in all. Even at that first stage, I wandered around Galgate for five minutes refreshing my knowledge of what was my home village in the mid-1990s, and at Street I left the bike for a brief walk up- and downstream of the bridge along the riverbank. Scorton was another extended stop as I thoroughly explored side streets looking for photogenic historical buildings, particularly the three churches.

Entering Garstang, I paused at the information board outside the 'Discovery Centre'. This identified places of especial interest in the town, so I took time to explore the mediaeval high street, the canal basin & aqueduct, and Greenhalgh Castle.

I had half-considered going on much further from Garstang, perhaps even around the southern edge of the Bowland Fells again, through Chipping to Dunsop Bridge and home via the Trough of Bowland. However, it had taken much longer than expected to get even this far, so I decided to revisit Calder Vale instead, and take the shorter direct (yes, really) road back to Galgate and Lancaster.
The first stage almost went to plan, though I took a wrong turning. For future reference: turn left at Ringing Hill – it's very slightly shorter, but more importantly involves a shorter, steeper ascent rather than a shallower one which drags on without respite.

The first minor disaster occurred as I crossed Calder Vale churchyard. Opening a gate, I thoughtlessly gripped my handlebars in such a way that I held down the bike computer's 'reset' button, discarding today's distance, speed and time data. I suppose I could trace my extremely circuitous route on a map and calculate the total distance, but I think I'll just call it 'about forty miles' overall.

Just one more diversion: passing Grizedale Lea Reservoir, I turned into the gateway, spending a further unplanned half hour exploring that and the adjacent Barnacre Reservoir. Hence, it was sunset before I reached Galgate and fully dark by the time I got home.

I hinted above that there was another disaster. It actually occurred the following morning (yes, I'm writing this several days later). Downloading the photos to my PC, the camera batteries failed part way through the process, and I didn't notice. Thinking everything had been successfully saved to my hard drive, I cleared the camera's memory card , discarding at least a hundred images – everything taken after arriving in Scorton. Sickening.

There was only one thing to do: while the locations of all the photos were still fresh in my mind, I repeated the entire bike ride.
Well, nearly; I was able to take the fastest route straight to Scorton and familiarity enabled me to eliminate the unproductive digressions, saving about ten miles. Today's ride covered 52.4 km (32.5 miles) in 2:42 hours (19 km/h average, 52 km/h peak) between 14:20 and 18:00. I think I reproduced most of the earlier photos and improved on a couple. I hope you like the results – they were harder work than normal!

About fifty were worth publishing. That's too many for one index of thumbnails, so they're divided into three sections: Galgate to Scorton, Garstang, and the remaining route to Calder Vale and back to Lancaster.

The first twelve miles to Wray were fine; that's a routine part of most rides up the Lune Valley. The next section, to Cross of Greet at the top of the Bentham-Slaidburn pass, was tougher, not because of steep hills but because it seemed endless. My mental map of the area is a bit faulty, locating Wray within about five miles of the top. However, Lowgill is about five miles from Wray along undulating but generally uphill lanes – there's a further 2-3 miles over featureless moorland to the top. Oh, and the final few hundred metres are very steep.
I bypassed Lowgill today, instead heading further east to investigate the ancient Great Stone of Fourstones, on the county boundary. However, there were several other visitors to the viewpoint (especially surprising considering the humidity and consequent dense haze), so I didn't park and approach it myself. Maybe next time.
Something else I might do next time is catch the train as far as Bentham, omitting the 15-mile lead-in to the 'real' ride. Some cycle for the enjoyment of cycling or for exercise, but my objective is sightseeing: taking the camera to interesting places. The number of miles I cover is relatively incidental, and if I can save some energy, I will. Or rather, I'd prefer to omit fifteen miles on familiar roads and expend the same energy going fifteen miles somewhere new.

I was unusually tired when I stopped at the Cross of Greet and, knowing the hills ahead, seriously considered returning the way I'd come. However, I'd convinced myself this was a 40-mile round trip and the Cross, 19 miles into the ride, was therefore virtually the halfway point; returning the way I'd come would be no shorter than going on. That still ignored the fact that retracing the route would have involved no significant ascents whilst the onward route featured three more. Odd as it seems now, I went on.

Apart from one climb out of a stream's valley, I freewheeled almost all the way down to Slaidburn, which was a very pleasant change on a road I've previously struggled up! I paused briefly in the village for a couple of photographs, then went on to Dunsop Bridge via Newton.

At this point I realised two obvious things:

• As I'd already written last November, and plainly forgotten today, this isn't a 40-mile ride, and Cross of Greet isn't halfway. It's a 46-mile ride and I was startled to leave Dunsop Bridge at sunset with fifteen miles still to go.
• Yes, at sunset, and I hadn't brought any lights. Foolishly, I'd totally misjudged the timing of the ride.

One thing I haven't mentioned is that I wasn't entirely well today. I developed a sore throat a couple of days ago, which was extremely uncomfortable for the first 10-15 miles of the ride. I thought it was no more than that, but as is obvious from this account, some of the decisions I made today suggest my judgement was impaired, and the aftermath was unequivocal. In short, I gradually collapsed.
Reaching Lancaster, I knew I wouldn't have the energy to cook a meal, so bought fish & chips before going home. I managed to eat them, but that was the end of Saturday. Shivering and exhausted, I managed to have a shower then went straight to bed by ~20:30.
[Ruining the illusion that I wrote this within a couple of hours of getting home, rather than a month afterwards, I can report that I was feverish and lethargic on the Sunday too. I took sick leave on Monday and Tuesday, sleeping through virtually all of the former. I briefly thought I'd exhausted myself with the 46-mile ride and contracted an opportunistic infection, but in hindsight I was ill from the start.]

In case anyone's keeping count, I covered the 46.26 miles (74.4 km) in about five hours (4:03 moving), at an average speed of 11.1 mph.

*: I took the wrong road again. For future reference: when descending from the Trough of Bowland, turn left at the chapel before crossing the Tarnbrook Wyre, and go through Abbeystead itself then along Abbeystead Lane to rejoin the more direct route about a kilometre from the Tower.
Don't go straight on at the chapel; that route, Rakehouse Brow, is indeed more direct but is also 3-4 km of continuous gradual ascent, not steep except at the start but relentless. In a low or middle gear, it's easy enough, but stop pedalling and the bike will stop – there's absolutely no opportunity to freewheel and rest which, towards the end of a long ride, one tends to want.

By their nature, they're private premises, even discreetly anonymous, so it was fascinating to pass through an unregarded door into a Masonic Hall, or though an unnoticed side door and up a flight of stairs to a room absolutely full of Baroque plasterwork. One doesn't often get the opportunity to tour the offices of a ringtone company, which happen to occupy a Jacobean townhouse visited by 'Bonny Prince' Charles Stuart in 1745.

It was also good to meet the people associated with the buildings. Attendants at permanent museums primarily guard the exhibits, typically in silence, whilst professional guides can be knowledgeable but disengaged. That's not quite the same as being shown Masonic temples by a Lodge Secretary, or a school chapel (larger and more ornate than a typical parish church) by a teacher, or a partially-disused church by the people who voluntarily maintain the building week-to-week, or even just talk about the weather with the inhabitant of an 18th Century Almshouse – not a re-enactor but a real resident. Personal involvement does add something.

It may seem odd that I haven't taken my bike and camera to the town before, as it's not a great distance from Lancaster; too far for a round trip by bike, but well within reach of a combined 'train out, bike back' ride. The problem is that whilst I can travel with my bike on any local/regional train heading north then north-west or east from Carnforth, the route north-east from Carnforth is the West Coast main line, primarily served by Intercity trains, for which I need to pre-book space (in a goods compartment) for the bike. I've used that service precisely once, and seen how easily one might miss the correct station (one needs to be specifically let out of the compartment by train or station staff, and if they forget...). The alternative is an infrequent local train which tends to travel at inconvenient times. Even then, the train is to Windermere, so I've always been tempted to visit the Lake District rather than leave the train at Oxenholme and head inland towards Sedbergh.

The first ~10km, to Junction 37 of the M6, were dispiritingly boring, to be honest, but once past Lambrigg Fell and the wind farm, the view east towards the Howgill Fells justified the effort. The local geology and glacial history differ from the Lake District (volcanic) and western Yorkshire Dales (limestone), so the tall yet rounded hills were both picturesque and novel.
Inspired, I decided to make a diversion along a ridge parallel to the motorway for more views of the Howgills across the Lune Valley, rather than head straight to Sedbergh. I'm fairly pleased with the resulting photos, but the memories are better.
If anyone wants to reproduce the route, leave the A684 main road to Sedbergh at the first left turn after the motorway junction, then follow the lane north as far as the right turn towards Firbank Fellside and Fox's Pulpit (not signposted; check a map). Don't mistake it for merely the access road to a farm and overshoot the junction by over a kilometre, having to backtrack up a very steep hill. Ahem. Follow that single-track road round to the south, rejoining the A684 10 km after you left it – or 2½ km if you'd stayed on the main road. It's not a shortcut!
I made one more digression before reaching Sedbergh, parking near Lincoln's Inn Bridge and walking along the riverbank for a couple of photos. I'd recommend that too, though not the slipping and accidentally paddling bit.

This wasn't the very first time I'd visited Sedbergh (the third, I think), but I was still surprised to see how small and undeveloped it actually is. It's called a town because of its historical prominence as a livestock/wool market and because of the famous public school (US: private school), but I've seen larger villages. Unfortunately, the sun was in precisely the wrong place for decent photos of key landmarks, but I took a few anyway before moving on.
Note for non-locals: Sedbergh is pronounced 'Sedbuh', not 'Sedburg'.

The plan was now to follow the River Lune south to Kirkby Lonsdale then on along my familiar route (still following the Lune) back to Lancaster via Hornby. That's quite a long way, but fairly easy on the valley floor.

Each time I passed Kirkby Lonsdale over the past couple of years i've revisited the same spots to try to improve on photos taken previously in awkward light. This was no different: the light was awkward. I tried. I'll try again.

Having left Oxenholme at 10:54, I reached home over 6½hours later at 17:33, though I made far more stops than I've itemised above, and my bike computer reports it was in motion for only 4¼ hours. It travelled 77.9 km (48.4 miles), which doesn't count my digressions on foot, at an average speed of 18.3 km/h (11.4 mph) peaking at 45.9 km/h (28.5 mph) at least once.

Yet the hamlet contains an ancient church, a barely younger manor house and an interesting old brickworks (if bricks are your thing), all in an attractive rural setting. It's worth pausing for a closer look.

That's what I did today, as the primary objective of a medium-length ride to eliminate gaps in my local knowledge and to replace substandard photos of places I had already visited. The latter didn't really work, as the weather was awkward: dry and bright but overcast, which seemed to confuse my camera's metering.

First, I blasted out to Claughton along the main A683; no messing about with cycle tracks and I was able to maintain 18-22 mph all the way. After a quick look at the brickworks (virtually hidden by trees – disappointing) and Claughton Hall Farm, which I'd seen before, I left the bike, to wander around St. Chad's churchyard. Even from the point-of-view of an atheist it felt a little regretable that the church closed in 2002 after over 900 years, and parts are already degrading.

I explored a tiny side road onto the floodplain before turning back to climb the steep lane onto the edge of Claughton Moor, specifically to see the 13th Century Claughton Hall, a manor house moved ~1km uphill, stone-by-stone, in the early 20th Century. I took a couple of discreet photos.

Back to Caton from there, following part of the Lune Cycleway to the Crook O'Lune then the road to another even smaller and lesser-known hamlet, Halton Green. This is composed of well-preserved yet clearly old farm buildings; I wish I knew more about the place, and that my photos had been better... maybe next time.

I'd done everything I'd intended, so returned to the cyclepath at the Crook O'Lune and followed that to Lancaster, pausing briefly at Halton Weir.

Including a round-trip to Sainsbury's this morning (I forgot to zero the bike computer before heading back out to the Lune Valley), today's ride covered 21.26 miles (34.2 km) in 1:52 hours (not counting time spent stationary); an average of 11.3 mph and a maximum of 25.5 mph.

Whenever I took a photograph including a significant amount of sky, a blurred dark patch appeared at the bottom left of the saved image. Other photos, including of equally bright subjects, were clear. I thought it might have been due to the heat (mid-30s °C ambient plus direct sunlight onto the black body of the camera – not good). However, I noticed the same effect in photos taken earlier today (20°C and overcast), and not only those including sky, so I popped into a dedicated camera shop for advice.

The shop assistant immediately diagnosed it as dust on the CCD and, to his credit, advised against having it repaired, thereby talking himself out of short-term income but increasing the likelihood that I'd spend more money with him in future. I don't believe in supporting local shops out of mere sentiment, but unlike newsagents, record shops and bookshops, I do appreciate the added value provided by independent expert retailers. Specialist camera shops do still offer a service which genuinely competes with high-street chains and internet retailers.

I also appreciated the way the shop assistant explained the cost of repairs with a real-world perspective:

Before crossing the River Lune at the Millennium Bridge, I stopped to examine the new (last October) memorial commemorating Lancaster's role in the slave trade. Despite it's slightly out-of-the-way location, it's worth a look; I hadn't understood the symbolism initially.

From Carnforth, I headed over the eastern side of Warton Crag, hoping for a decent view of Leighton Hall (not bad) and to take a few photos I'd missed on previous visits to Yealand Conyers; specifically the 1692 Friends' Meeting House.

Next, I popped into Arnside, again hoping to take photos of details I'd missed before, but the sun was in the wrong place and I barely stopped. Next time.

Today's main objective was Arnside Tower, a 14th/15th Century pele tower (aka peel tower) I've been passing for at least a decade (I remember surveying subsurface groundwater levels in the very next field in the mid-Nineties, but didn't have time to wander across). This time, I locked my bike to a fence on Arnside Knott and followed the farm track/footpath to the Tower itself. It's ruined, having lost key features (roof, floors, doors, windows...) at the end of the 17th Century and partially collapsing at the end of the 19th, but it's still very impressive.

That was as far as I'd planned to ride today, so I headed back along the coast, stopping again near Silverdale for a quick look at the Jack Scout Crag SSSI, the location of Lancashire's only coastal cliffs.
From there, back to Carnforth, and on to Lancaster to download the photos.

Hence, I occasionally revisit certain locations for a second try, supplementing or even replacing the original photos. When I passed Cockersand Abbey last year, I only captured a silhouette of the ruins from 400m away, so today I went back, and right to the site itself.

The route was straightforward. I left Lancaster by Ashton Road to Conder Green and on to Thurnham, then crossed the coastal plain to the coast at Cockersand. Familiarity and the fact I'd photographed the main features before meant I made few stops, but one pause was to take a few extra photos of the disused Royal Albert Hospital on the outskirts of the city.

It isn't possible to cycle to the ruins, so I locked the bike to a fence near Lighthouse Cottage (Cockersand Lighthouse itself was demolished in 1954) and followed the sea wall on foot, a round trip of ~2 km. I won't bother to describe the remnants of the Abbey here; see the text accompanying the photos. It was certainly a little difficult to extrapolate the few half-buried walls and intact chapter house to a full mediaeval abbey which had dominated the district for centuries until the Dissolution in 1539. It looks more like a tiny, remote hermitage, which, ironically, was how the institution was founded in 1184.

I had been tempted to continue to Knott End-on-Sea, as the last time I was there, my camera batteries failed and I missed a few opportunities. However, by the time I'd returned to the main road, I simply didn't feel like at least doubling the length of the ride, so went on only as far as Cockerham before heading inland to the Bay Horse, stopping for a brief drink (not at the pub itself!), then returning to Lancaster along the A6.

Having had a specific objective and making fewer stops than normal, the 33 km (20.4 miles) took 1½ hours at an average of 12.8 mph (with a maximum of 27.3 mph, if anyone's counting). Those stops I did make, plus the walk to the Abbey, added an hour to the overall trip.

I'd recommend the principle to anyone, but I hope people absorb the idea beyond an attention-grabbing (that's not a criticism!) one-off event, and I won't be deliberately participating on the chosen day (17 July).
Personally, whenever I'm somewhere vaguely photogenic I take a photograph then make a point of just looking, studying the view 'for real' and committing the experience, not only visual, to memory. I might then take another photograph, perhaps better than the first or of an aspect I hadn't noticed immediately, but the photograph definitely supplements the memory, rarely the reverse.

Whilst in Madrid earlier this month, I noticed that quite a large number of people seemed to be viewing the Museo del Prado, Spain's national gallery of pre-20th Century art, through their cameras, taking a photo of each painting then rushing on to the next. This puzzled me. Was the purpose merely to prove that they'd 'seen' the paintings, to tick them off some aspirational list rather than actually look at them? Would they really sit down and study them at a later date? If so, wouldn't the remoteness of amateur photography in non-optimal light diminish their appreciation?

I'd rather grab the (possibly once-in-a-lifetime) opportunity to absorb the real thing. At an obvious, superficial (to a non-painter, anyway) level, one can see the brushwork, but there's also value in seeing a painting at the true size, and there's an undeniable thrill in seeing the objects that the world-famous artists actually touched at the time of creation, that the subjects of portraits actually experienced for themselves, and that have acquired a patina – both visible/tangible and otherwise – of elapsed time. Even professional photos aren't the same.

As it happens, I did take 4-5 photos myself. Two were of obscure paintings I'd like to see again but wouldn't expect to be able to find on the web, and which I'd already intensely studied in the gallery. The others were of the building and the gallery-goers, both as (hopefully reasonably compelling) images and as memory-triggers.

I feel much the same way about concert photography.

I did try to climb Pen-Y-Ghent several years ago, on the occasion of A or K's birthday, but in hindsight it was unsurprising that late January brought driving rain and zero visibility, so we gave up halfway and retreated to the café.

Today's weather was much better, and a cloudless morning in June was likely to remain that way (hopefully), so I caught an early train to Clapham. Giggleswick might have been closer; maybe next time. On a trip last year, I explored the lanes from Clapham to Austwick then on to Horton in Ribblesdale, so knew which rough tracks to avoid and was at the start of the walk by about 09:40.

I planned to follow the fairly direct route across Brackenbottom Scar around and up the southern end of the hill, rather than the better-known path along Horton Scar Lane and across the moor to climb the middle of the western side of the ridge. I remembered the latter as somewhat boring (though the conditions hadn't been exactly ideal) and I always prefer to climb steep paths rather than descend them (a choice reinforced on Coniston in April). That worked very well; the Brackenbottom route was attractive, not especially busy, and dealt with the steep sections pleasantly quickly. Even stopping to take several photos, I was at the summit shelter by 10:45.

I did follow the Horton Scar Lane path back down to the village, largely because I wanted to make the diversion to Hull Pot, a huge chasm I'd seen on that aborted trip. In fact, I hadn't – that had been Hunt Pot, a narrow (though at ~60 m, three times deeper) slit nearer the main path. It's strange that my memory had been distorted, presumably by seeing other people's photos.

By midday I was in Horton again, the planned trip complete rather early in the day. Now what? Whernside had been a less than challenging walk last year, and just as brief, so I decided to do it again, taking advantage of the improved visibility.
As I hadn't anticipated two walks today, I had only brought a couple of handfuls of cashew nuts, a little cheese and 500ml of Coke, all of which I'd already consumed at the summit of Pen-Y-Ghent. It seemed sensible to refuel with a cup of tea and a sandwich at the Pen-y-ghent Cafe. A key rest stop on the Pennine Way since 1965 (i.e. it's as old as the long-distance footpath itself) and the official clocking-in point for the Three Peaks challenge, it also serves distinctly unimpressive toasted cheese & pickle sandwiches.

Leaving Horton, I cycled to Ribblehead, past numerous trainspotters, then back down the next valley to the Old Hill Inn, where the Three Peaks route crosses the main road. My plan was to follow the surfaced road (Philpin Lane) by bike to Bruntscar, cutting ~1¼ km off the walk, then climb Whernside the same way as last year. However, the lane was totally clogged with pedestrians (in the middle of the road – that's road, not footpath, ****ers!) so I could only ride at a walking pace anyway, and I could see the path up to the ridge was similarly busy. By the time I reached Bruntscar, I'd already pretty much decided that I didn't want to walk with a crowd (queuing my way up Scafell in 1996 put me off that for life), but the deciding factor was that there was nowhere to safely leave my bike. I think I made the right decision in turning back, even if it meant fighting my way through the inconsiderate pedestrians again.

It was still only about 13:30, so Plan 'B' was to climb Ingleborough instead, parking the bike near Chapel-le-Dale church then joining the Hill Inn path via a shortcut (legitimately – one shouldn't roam randomly in a sensitive environment like limestone pavement, so I kept to a designated footpath). Initially, that went well, and I passed the famous limestone pavement exposures without meeting an abnormal number of people, but on the narrow ascent to Humphrey Bottom I struggled to overtake what seemed to be whole coach parties. Looking up at the final ridge, I could see that I faced much the same for the rest of the walk, and the summit was bound to be lost in a braying horde, so again I gave up, to return on a quieter day rather than spoil this one.

Please don't misunderstand. I don't remotely object to sharing Ingleborough with a couple of dozen other walkers, and I wouldn't have dreamt of being rude to those I passed, but the sheer number of people was just excessive. Again, please don't interpret this as empty snobbery, but several weren't 'proper' walkers. There may well be an appropriate place to loudly discuss golf via a mobile phone whilst strolling in pristine deck shoes, but I really don't think it's at ~500 m asl on Ingleborough.

I retrieved my bike at ~15:15, which limited my options for the rest of the trip. I could continue down the valley to Ingleton and wander around the village for over an hour before going on to Bentham and the train to Lancaster, or I could head home immediately, covering the ~32 km by bike. I did the latter.

I'm afraid I didn't notice what time I reached Lancaster, but I'd been out all day, covering 67 km (41.6 miles) by bike in 3 hours 37 minutes (not counting time the bike was stationary), which gave an average speed of 18.5 km/h (11.5 mph), peaking at 45 km/h (28 mph) at least once.

The (publishable) photos I took happened to be of features on the way to/from Warton and of the Crag itself rather than longer-range views, but as I reached the final climb to the summit, a heavy shower over Kents Bank offered a rather special opportunity.

Considering I've lived in Lancaster for 12½ years, including ~3 in Galgate itself, it's surprising that I've only followed the Glasson Branch canal about three times. Linking the main Lancaster Canal at Galgate with the sea port of Glasson (Glasson Dock), the five miles of grassy towpath with six locks are attractive, particularly in spring.

The annotations accompanying the photos speak for themselves, and provide links back to a previous bike ride which explains the route, so I'll just let you read them.

The route barely requires mention: straight up the A6 from Lancaster to Carnforth (with an accidental diversion towards Caton Road and the Lune Millennium Park cycle route – I'm not sure where I thought I was going) then the minor road past Carnforth station, through Millhead and into Warton.

I locked the bike to railings outside the Village Hall in order to visit St. Oswald's churchyard (where I was pleased to find the gravestone of a member of the Washington family, ancestors of the first US President) and the ruins of Warton Old Rectory. I suppose I could have left it parked there for the next stage, as I only cycled for a further ~100 m before locking it to a signpost on Crag Lane and joining the path up Warton Crag.
Spring is supposed to be the optimal time to see the Crag, as rare butterflies exploit a distinctive community of wildflowers on the limestone pavement. However, I was a few weeks early: few plants had really emerged yet, and as the accompanying photos show, the ground and trees were still rather bare. Not that I'm complaining; the ~20 min walk to the summit is pleasant at any time of year and can offer great views... in less hazy weather.

Heading back to Lancaster, I left the suddenly-congested A6 almost as soon as I'd joined it at Carnforth, instead following the Lancaster Canal towpath. This meant I passed the unusual church tower in Bolton-le-Sands. Again, it's somewhere I've frequently passed, but always in the final ~7 km of ~50 km rides, so I've never stopped for a closer look. I was pleasantly surprised – the 17th Century heart of the village has rather more character than the 20th Century streets lining the A6, mere dormitory estates of Morecambe.

Returning to the canal, I was soon back in Lancaster.

Saving a lot of effort, I caught the train to Clapham station and cycled to the village. I suppose it'd be possible to do the whole trip by train and on foot, but be aware that Clapham's railway station is about 2 km from the village and the usual start of the walk. The disadvantage of the alternative was parking: I wasn't entirely happy about locking my bike to a fence adjacent to the unofficial car park, both for reasons of security and imposition on private land. It was still there when I returned, but it wasn't ideal (I've since discovered a proper car park, with cycle parking facilities, on the other side of Clapham).

The first part of the standard route follows a private 'nature trail' through the Farrer* estate of Ingleborough Hall, and a nominal fee is imposed. I object to that on principle, and nor did I especially want the company of young families, so I found a public footpath around the boundary of the estate (on my second attempt – it's clearer on the map than on the ground). That's a pleasant route in itself, with amusing signs, stiles and wild flowers probably not apparent on the more heavily-used path. Give it a try.

Rejoining the main track near Ingleborough Cave, I went on via Trow Gill and Gaping Gill then ascended Little Ingleborough on the ridge to the main summit. As usual, the sunny, clear sky at the start of the walk became cloudy as soon as I gained any altitude (I don't think I'm jinxed), then cleared as I descended, an equally familiar experience. Hence, though I obtained a few good photos, or rather, adequate photos of good views, none of this published set were taken at the top. In fact, as soon as I emerged onto the summit plateau, I seriously regretted not bringing a compass, as it could have been difficult to rediscover the start of the correct return path after visiting the summit shelter. I took extra care to note the position of minor cairns and studied the layout of the start of the path, which seemed to work. Could have been awkward, though.

After lunch staring out at a grey vista extending only 15-20 m from the shelter, I started back the same way – there isn't really a practical circular route on Ingleborough. Descending from the cloudbase on Little Ingleborough, I tripped, bruising one knee and grazing the other palm. That's a risk I take when walking alone – if I'd really hurt myself with so far still to go (it happened seconds after I'd taken this photo), I'd have been in trouble. I don't think that's really avoidable in itself, but perhaps I shouldn't have been running on a loose surface....

The rest of the return route, including the diversion around the private path, was straightforward; perhaps too straightforward, as I was back in Clapham much earlier than expected, not remotely coinciding with the rail schedule. That left one option: after wandering around the village for quarter of an hour or so, I reset my bike computer at 17:30 and simply cycled home. That was surprisingly and pleasantly easy, even after the walk, and the 34.6 km (21.48 miles) took 1hr 40 non-stop, at an average of 20.6 km/h (12.8 mph), peaking at 43 km/h. It's good to know that's practical after a walk, and that I'm not reliant on trains.

*: Reginald Farrer (1880-1920) introduced over a hundred new plants into Europe from the Far East, including the Himalayan Rhododendron. So it's his fault that Snowdonia was overrun by the species.

The first section, to Coppermines Valley was becoming familiar, but after a few minutes of confusion near the mine workings, we headed left, towards Levers Water, rather than right, towards Wetherlam. Somehow, the footpath on the map didn't match the gravel track on the ground, so the scramble to the reservoir was rather convoluted. I'd recommend simply following the gravel path from the start.

After a brief rest at the dam, we had much the same problem on the ascent to the Prison Band ridge: we kept losing the path. It did occur to me that following the recent introduction of 'right to roam' legislation, people might be choosing their own routes and the pre-existing paths, maintained merely by constant usage, might be becoming overgrown. In hindsight I don't think that was the case; it was just an intermittent rocky path which disappeared when crossing grassed areas, primarily used by those descending the valley. From above it was easy to see the next sections of path, whereas it was less clear from below.

By Prison Band, J. & I were walking in our usual manner i.e. I was quicker on the steep sections and didn't like to stop midslope, so only saw him at cols and summits. Unlike yesterday morning, this evening's sky was clear, so I did stop for a few photos, which prevented me getting too far ahead!

Once on the level ridge between Swirl How and Coniston, the weekend began to catch up with me, and my feet began to hurt. I wasn't looking forward to the steep descent after the main summit (803 m asl).

If anything, it was worse than I'd anticipated. I don't like descents anyway; each step jars and damages my feet in a way ascending & walking on the level don't, and I'm also more sure-footed when climbing. Virtually every time I've fallen on a hill (bruising or grazing myself; nothing serious) has been on the way down. Hence, I like to, er, run down steep hills, if the surface permits. The aspect which hurts is stopping my momentum on each step, so if I can minimise the stopping and merely control my momentum, it's much more comfortable.
That wasn't possible today. The entire route back to Coppermines Valley was on loose slate, so every step had to be carefully placed. Ow. I did manage to run on the lower, stable slopes, but the damage was done. After the culmination of a full weekend of walking, I think I'll lose both little toenails.

As I've mentioned in the photos annotations, we reached the floor of Coppermines Valley at dusk, as the last of the light failed, so the last mile or so along the miners' track was in near-full darkness. Good timing.

For various orthopedic, education- and construction-related reasons, it's been a while since I last walked with A & A – years, in fact – and I'd missed their choice of walks: low-level and following relatively obscure routes derived from local guidebooks. Today's linked various public footpaths and forest roads, taking us from Coniston to the popular 'beauty spot' of Tarn Hows via Yewdale, round the lake then back to the village. It didn't have the same bleak grandeur as a high ridge walk, nor notable summits, but it's not about trophies, and it was good to see the valley countryside, with its lambs and wild flowers. There were a few good views of the mountains, too.

I won't provide a long narrative of the walk, since anyone wishing to reproduce it should be able to do so by examining a map in combination with these photos. It's certainly worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the mist was still rather thick, so there were few good views of the landscape; the light was poor for photographs of closer objects, too. Hence, only three photos are worth publishing.

Coniston Water is a narrow strip of water aligned roughly north-south. Having carefully studied the map, it seemed best to cycle anticlockwise, covering the higher western road first before I tired. Unfortunately, it was too late; I was already more weary than I'd thought, and I struggled with the hills.
Additionally, the logical theory was flawed in practice. The road along the eastern shore had fewer extremes of altitude, so looked flat on the map, but it undulated more within that narrower height range (i.e. less than the map's contour interval) and was actually just as hard work. The supposedly tougher western side took exactly 30 mins with photo stops, but the return trip took 34 non-stop.

In total, that was 14.16 miles (22.8 km) in 64:37 minutes, at an average speed of 13.1 mph. Though I reached 28.2 mph at least once, that was a slow ride, and I'm glad I had the excuse of having already climbed a 762 m (2,500') peak today!

However, past the Youth Hostel and into Coppermines Valley, it became obvious that we were heading into denser cloud. By Red Dell visibility was very restricted and without significant landmarks it became difficult to find the path; the final ~100m of ascent to Wetherlam was simply a matter of consistently heading upwards on sheep tracks or no path at all. We stopped at the summit cairn for lunch, but there was no view, apart from momentary glimpses allowed by swirling cloud, which only confused my sense of direction ("there shouldn't be a ridge there") and made me wonder whether were were even at the true summit.

Plainly we couldn't go on; climbing in cloud is straightforward, but choosing the correct downward direction or navigating across an undulating plateau/ridge is more challenging (a few years ago, Andy and I climbed the Langdale Pikes from Langdale and accidentally descended into Langstrath). Instead, we followed the very obvious main Wetherlam-Above Beck Fells-Miners Bridge path, with the intention of returning to Coniston via Tilberthwaite.

Repeating the luck experienced by J. and I last November, as soon as we started to descend, the cloud began to lift, initially enough to snatch quick photographs through tantalising gaps then revealing all but the very tops of the hills. By Hole Rake we even knew exactly where we were....

I'd never been to Tilberthwaite, but the remnants of mining and quarrying were interesting, and there were hints of picturesque views through the remaining mist; it's somewhere to explore again. It's certainly within easy cycling distance of Windermere.

It was good to walk with Harriet, and something of a novelty. With the possible exception of Andy, with whom I haven't walked for a few years, H. is the only person who walks at about the same pace as me. Walking with J or Hedley tends to be a matter of starting together and meeting at summits, but otherwise walking alone. It was good to walk and converse, for once.

From the road, I'd mistaken a bulky Victorian Gothic monument in the middle of the cemetery as Ruskin's, but the paved path to the cemetery's most famous resident led me to a relatively quiet corner at the very edge of the churchyard. Though richly-carved, the Celtic cross of Ruskin's gravestone is far less overbearing and more tasteful than the one I'd initially seen.

Needless to say, I took a few photographs.

The first thing I'd noticed on glancing out of a window was that the weather was disappointing: rather misty, with visibility limited to under a kilometre. I thought this might provide a few fairly atmospheric photos, but soon realised that the 'mist' was dense, low cloud, and it was actually rather dark outdoors. The walk was a good start to the day, but few of the photos were usable.

So I repeated the entire exercise the following morning. Sunday was brighter and near-cloudless, and photos from the same locations were much better. The second visit only took a few minutes, as I was on my bike, so I extended the trip by cycling around the head of the lake to Brantwood (John Ruskin's home), to also capture a few images I'd missed the previous evening.

I used to use the western side more-or-less daily, from Brookhouse to my PhD research catchment at the top of the Moor, and I've followed the northern end of the road from Wray to Middlewood at least a dozen times, but I've only linked the two once or twice in 12 years, and never by bike.

I'm certainly aware it's a very hilly route (50m asl at Wray to 311m on the Moor and back to 40m at Brookhouse, with numerous undulations and 1-in-5 sections), so I kept the ride simple: from Lancaster to Wray along the Lune Cycleway (aka Millennium Park) and A683 main road, over the Moor back to Brookhouse and Caton, then home along the Cycleway again.
That worked out as 42.3 km (26.3 miles) in just over three hours (2½ moving, plus a few leisurely stops for photos), at an average of 16.5 km/h ‐ considering I usually ride to Wray at 28-35 km/h and reached 44 km/h on the descent to Brookhouse, that gives some indication of my speed on the steeper uphill sections!

I didn't have a fixed plan for the day. I'd catch the train to Windermere and wanted to ride to the head of the Kirkstone Pass, as I'd seen the profile of the adjoining peaks from a distance recently, and I needed to be back in Windermere by 15:45 for the return train, but otherwise I was open to exploring opportunities.

The lead-in ride to Ambleside was okay, but is never exactly fun: the road isn't great (narrow, with heavy traffic even in mid-April), and the cycle lane provision is derisory – it'd literally be better if the Council hadn't bothered. I always just ignore it.
Annoyingly, I could have avoided that road altogether if I'd read the map correctly. Rather than turn off the lakeside road immediately outside Windermere and follow the A592 main road past Troutbeck to the pass, I went on into Ambleside then struggled to find a tiny lane out of the village. That's apt since, as a sign at the other end of that road stated, I'd accidentally found the old, extremely steep road to the pass, known locally as 'The Struggle'. It's a good thing I wasn't hurrying, as 410 m of ascent within 4 km, with four sections between 1-in-7 & 1-in-5 and one (the very end) steeper than 1-in-5, took a while. I managed it non-stop, though.

I considered continuing over the pass to Patterdale, Glenridding and Ullswater, but that'd mean either extending the ride tremendously, to Penrith railway station or back to Windermere via Keswick, or climbing straight back over the Kirkstone Pass. 'The Struggle' had somewhat driven out the appeal of that option, so after a break to admire the view, I returned to Ambleside – rather quickly; I presume this was when my bike computer logged today's peak speed, of 55.85 km/h (34.7 mph).

I hadn't visited Grasmere before, so that was an easy choice as my next destination, and as easy a ride along the valley floor. I had a quick look at the village and (fruitlessly, or even daffodil-lessly) hunted for daffodils around Wordsworths' Dove Cottage, but in hindsight didn't stay as long as I might have; for some reason I moved on quite soon, and I'll have to go back some time to take more photos. I think I'd decided that there'd be a good view of the village and lake from the pass north of Grasmere, so followed that road immediately. In a sense I was mistaken, as the light looking south from the head of the pass at Dunmail Raise was unsuitable for photography, but the view north towards Helvellyn and Thirlmere was an unanticipated bonus.

Again, continuing north offered limited options (the most obvious was to return to Windermere via Keswick and, er, the Kirkstone Pass), so I dropped back to Grasmere and linked to the route of last year's ride. On that occasion I'd climbed from Skelwith Bridge to High Close, mistakenly hoping for a view of Grasmere through denser-than-expected woodland. This time, I approached High Close from the other side, cycling around the western side of the lake and up the steep and just-as-densely-wooded lane. It's only as I write this, with the assistance of a better map than I'd carried, that I realise I'd missed an opportunity to leave the bike and walk ~500 m to the viewpoint I'd been hoping for – twice.

Reaching High Close by 13:45 gave my just enough time to repeat much of last year's entire ride – good thing I'm fitter now – though in the reverse direction and with fewer, more targeted photo stops. I descended to Elterwater then went straight on to Little Langdale, Blea Tarn and the head of yet another pass, looking into Great Langdale from Side Pike. That undulating route had been tougher than I'd expected, not least because I had limited energy reserves after the foregoing sections of today's ride, but the view of Bow Fell, the Langdale Pikes and the near-perfect valley of Mickleden is always worthwhile.

I had time to appreciate that sight (and insufficient energy to go straight on without pausing to take in the view), but I was slightly concerned that I was tiring and needed to be on a train in a little over an hour, so apart from a quick diversion to the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel, I headed back along the familiar Great Langdale road to Skelwith Bridge, Ambleside and Windermere with just enough time to buy a slice of cake before catching the train.

Overall, I'd covered 72.4 km (45 miles) in ~4½ hours, at a pitiful average speed of 18 km/h (11 mph), but remember that included a couple of noteworthy ascents, and as always my objective was sight-seeing, not merely exercise itself.

Today, I went back alone, deliberately in uncertain weather after a week of particularly heavy sustained rainfall, expecting the rivers to be full and hence the waterfalls to be spectacular. And I was right.

Though I'd normally take the train, I travelled to Ingleton by bike, as I also wanted to take photographs of the Rivers Lune and Wenning at high flows. As the results show, that was a good decision: upstream of Caton, the Lune had spilled out onto its floodplain whilst the Wenning at Wennington was as vigorous as a mountain stream.
Just before Ingleton, I was caught in a heavy shower, but I was wearing full waterproofs so welcomed the last-minute top-up of the waterfalls.

The results were as good as expected; I'll simply let you look at the (annotated) photos for yourself. I've interlinked them with the previous set, allowing comparison of the rivers' normal state and today's.

A highlight of the trip was following the ledge behind and hence beneath the main cascade of Thornton Force, sitting quietly in a remarkably dry space whilst water thundered past a couple of metres away. As I said in the photo caption, when I emerged a couple of other walkers expressed envy that I'd done something their wives wouldn't have permitted.

Having completed the usual walk in a few hours – I certainly didn't rush – I cycled back to Lancaster, with another stop at Halton to photograph the weir as deeply submerged as I've ever seen it.

Breaks in the cloud lit individual peaks attractively, but otherwise the sky was bright but overcast; the accompanying photos look distinctly wintery.

As soon as it stopped, later in the morning, I walked (not cycled) to Williamson Park, hoping to take a few photographs of pristine whiteness before anyone else ventured out.
It seems I'd misjudged my neighbours....

The first destination was the Crook O'Lune, near Caton. I recently discovered there's one point on the riverbank where one can see both arms of the tight meander at once, so left the bike for a while to take a photograph, plus a few more of the frozen river.

From there, I cycled straight to Kirkby Lonsdale (okay, with a couple more photo stops, using a polarising filter to cut through the slight haze) and Devil's Bridge. That's a familiar location, but the weather and ice revealed new details.

The next stage was slightly less familiar: I think I've only been through Whittington once before, returning to Lancaster along the higher northern side of the Lune Valley, and I'd never explored the lanes around Hutton Roof (village) and Newbiggin. They were... an experience, as I was riding on near-virgin snow; less slippery than one might expect, except where dog walkers had compacted the cover to footprint-shaped ice patches.

That route took me around the eastern side of Farleton Fell (aka Farleton Knott), though I resisted the temptation to park the bike again and climb the hill for my first time. I'll save that for another trip.

I'd already covered quite a long distance, so decided to head home after a quick look at the frozen (disused) canal. I reached Lancaster at 16:40, as the light was failing, having been out for 5½ hours, 3½ moving. I'd ridden 67½ km (42 miles) at an average speed of 19.6 km/h (12.2 mph) and a maximum of 43.5 km/h (27 mph) – I have no idea at what point I managed that, considering the icy conditions.

For example, I routinely travel east-west along the Lune Cycleway passing the southern side of the Lune Aqueduct, and I've frequently ridden north-south along the towpath over the aqueduct, but I've never followed the path to the foot of the northern side. Now I have. ;)

I also visited the northern side of Forge Weir and investigated a tiny footpath immediately downstream of the Crook, and took a couple of photos, but unfortunately that was the point when daylight failed, and though I went on to locate the viewpoint of the photo which had inspired this ride in the first place, there was insufficient light to take my own version. Maybe next time.

In order to record the first milliseconds of a 1962 atomic bomb test firing. The results are fascinating, looking like windows into stellar nebulae, or 1960s oil light psychedelia.

[Update 02/11/07: The original link is dead; the one above is to a page showing only one of the images. See 'Rope Tricks', at the foot of the linked page.]

As I've described the route in full before, I don't think I need to explain it again in great detail (there are additional notes with the photographs, anyway), but in summary it was:

• From the station to Arnside Chippy (the best I know).


• Back to the station to eat overlooking the Kent Estuary.


• From the station, again, to Arnside Knott car park.


• On foot to the viewpoint (not the summit itself, this time), for photos which didn't really succeed in the haze; I've only published a few.


• Back to the car park, then on foot, with the bike, through the woods to the far side of Arnside Knott, opposite Arnside Tower. The path is actually a bridleway, so I could have ridden, but I preferred to walk and besides, it's good PR for a cyclist to walk on what most pedestrians think is solely a footpath.


• On to, and through, Silverdale, admiring the prismatic fire station, past Wolf House Gallery to the end of the road at Jenny Brown's Point. I stopped there for a few minutes to explore the shingle beach and a curious gravel bar/jetty. I haven't been able to discover anything about its origin, unfortunately.


• Across the saltmarsh, following the footpaths of the Leighton Moss RSPB reserve, to the Warton road.


• To Carnforth, then home along the A6.

Tip: don't go looking for Goatse (emphatically not whilst at work!), but if you absolutely must, make sure someone's pointing a camera at you at the precise moment you hit the dreaded link.

[Via BoingBoing]

It's right on the line of Wat's Dyke, the contested border between Mercia and Wales, and the ruins of a Thirteenth Century fortified manor house are a Scheduled Ancient Monument nearby: Llys Edwin ('Edwin's Palace') was the birthplace and home (obviously not in that specific building) of Owain ap Edwin (1044-1105), father-in-law of Gruffydd ap Llewellyn, Prince of North Wales (1055-1137). Otherwise, I know nothing about the area; there's a ruined watermill at the start of the walk, by the old route of the Chester-Holyhead post road, but I haven't been able to discover anything about it.

That's not a major concern, of course, as I was simply out for a walk with my mother and sister, and to take photographs of the very heavy frost.

I suppose that sounds jaded, but the itinerary includes beautiful riverside, woodland and mountain scenery, so I certainly couldn't be bored, and this was the first time I've been since starting this blog, so I saw it afresh in taking numerous photographs; I've published over fifty with this entry. Note that the thumbnails are spread over three pages for clarity; there are 'back/forward' links at the foot of each index page.

The first stage followed the A55 coastal expressway to Conwy (well, Llandudno Junction), then inland along the Conwy Valley to Betws-y-Coed via Llanrwst. My mother drove, so I was able to take a few photos out of the windows. Until the comparible trip last year, I hadn't realised that was viable; though a few display the odd colour cast imposed by polarised glass and others are marred by dust/smudges on the windows, it's quite possible to capture worthwhile images whilst travelling at 50+ mph.

We stopped in Betws, ostensibly for the 'January' sales in the numerous outdoor-activities shops, but I'm rarely interested in browsing without a specific objective, so I went down to the river (Afon Llugwy) instead and took a few photos of the Pont y Pair Falls and mediaeval bridge.

Once the others had finished, we drove on a few miles up the Llugwy Valley to Tŷ Hyll ('The Ugly House') and the small car park at the start of K's 'secret' path to Rhaeadr Ewynnol (Swallow Falls). It's a standard public footpath following the attractive wooded northern bank of the Llugwy to a viewpoint overlooking the Falls, and evidently receives enough traffic to keep the path clear of vegetation, but it's barely signposted and offers a far better view of Swallow Falls than the better-known access point on the southern bank, which also happens to charge an admission fee (which I refuse to pay, on principle). Recommended, but don't tell anyone about it, okay?

That's a pleasant walk in itself, but after returning to the car we continued up the valley to Capel Curig and on to Cwm Idwal for a second walk, around the lake.

The ~400 ha NNR (within the Snowdonia National Park, which emphasises its extra importance within an already protected environment) was so designated for its distinctive geology, textbook glacial landforms and arctic-alpine botany. On a number of levels, it's clear evidence of evolution, and Darwin visited in the 19th Century.
Oh, and it's also very pretty, attracting climbers, 'serious' walkers and those merely wishing a gentle stroll around the 800 m x 300 m glacial tarn of Llyn Idwal.

My mother and sister tend to be in the final group, whilst I'm slightly more ambitious (if not really adequately equipped on trips like this), so we don't often complete this walk together. We all set-off anti-clockwise around the lake, but (by agreement!) I soon left them behind and whilst they followed the low-level lakeshore path, I headed up the scree-slope path to Devil's Kitchen (Twll Du), a deep notch in the top of the Cwm's headwall cliff. That's a radically different experience, involving a scramble over ice-covered boulders to view frozen waterfalls and look back over a stunning view from ~600 m asl. Very photogenic, even under broken low cloud.

I stayed a little longer than I'd planned, so even running for most of the descent (over ice-covered boulders...) and around the rest of the lakeside path, the others were back at the car and waiting by the time I caught them. Oops.

The December light was failing rapidly, so that was about it for the day, though I did request a quick diversion from Capel Curig to the Llynau Mymbyr for a beautiful view of Snowdon itself at sunset.

As previously explained, it's been a family tradition since the 1980s to see in each New Year at summit of the highest of the Clwydian Hills (554 m, or 1,818' asl), so the route is very familiar – but only in near-complete darkness. It was good to see the same views, but as villages, woods, hills and valleys rather than groups and lines of lights.

It's a fairly easy route, ascending a mere ~205 m (670') from the car park at the highest point on the nearest road, to an excellent viewpoint, and only takes ~45 mins each way. I suppose this was also a particularly obvious day to go for a walk, but I was a little surprised that the car parks and paths were rather busy.

The weather wasn't great for photography: slightly hazy, with broken cloud providing odd patches of brilliant illumination and deep shadow. However, I did take a few publishable photos.

However, there were two breaks from routine.

There are two main paths in the Country Park. One simply follows the leete path along the bank of the River Alyn, whereas another leads though the woods higher on the valley side, offering views over the area from a large cliff. For some reason, I'd only been that way once before.

Secondly, this was the first time I'd actually entered the 'cave' (lead mine, really) in Devil's Gorge, going in as far as I was able and taking a few photos. Unfortunately, that wasn't far, as the floor was flooded. I'd need to try again in summer, but I think the last time I was in Wales during the drier months was over a decade ago.

I took the camera, too, which isn't as odd as that might seem; resting the camera on a gate post, it's possible to take decent photos of the illuminated skyline. In theory, that is – the accompanying image is the only one that vaguely worked this time.

Click the image for a larger version.

I know the valley between Ingleton and Ribblehead fairly well (though not its name, surprisingly), and I know Barbondale, which links Kirkby Lonsdale and Dent. There are two smaller routes onto the hills between the two. I'll investigate Kingsdale when I have more time and daylight, as it'll be a very long ride, even if I catch trains to and back from Bentham. The remaining road is a dead end, climbing between Barbon Fell and Casterton Fell, to Bullpot Farm and the headwaters of Leck Beck. I'd been there once before, caving in Bullpot Of The Witches, but that visit was by car, in poor light, and years ago. I fancied seeing it properly for the first time.

It was still a long way, and I suppose it would have made sense to cycle from and back to Wennington station, letting the train cut 20 miles off the trip. However, I knew it to be manageable (if ambitious), so cycled the entire route. It turned out to be 45.27 miles (72.86 km), and took 3:41 hours; slow, but that included a killer ascent, a 1 km walk over rough, frozen ground, and a diversion to Sainsbury's for groceries. To finish off the statistics: my maximum speed was 27.4 mph (44 km/hr) and average speed was 12.1 mph (19.5 km/hr).

The plan was to follow the main road to Kirkby Lonsdale, then a tiny, steep road to Bullpot Farm. The map indicated that a bridleway linked that point with Blindbeck Bridge, in Barbondale, from where I could head straight home.

The first part was straightforward: a mindless slog up the Lune Valley. I don't particularly like the stretch between Tunstall and Kirkby Lonsdale, as it seems endless: there are no particular landmarks and it's imperceptably uphill. A car passenger might think it's perfectly flat, but the road actually rises 30 m over 5 km, which is just enough to make the distance feel much further. The result is that one has a flawed perception of the distance covered, and thinks that Kirkby Lonsdale simply must be 'just around the next corner' when there's still a couple of kilometres still to go. At least this time I was prepared for it.

The next section was more of a surprise: steeper than I'd anticipated, for longer. Considering I'd already cycled 18-20 miles, I wasn't pleased, and thought I might need to turn back; I wasn't even halfway round the route, but was tiring. Thankfully, after climbing 212 m in 2 km (696' in 1.2 miles), the worst was passed.

As I approached Bullpot Farm, something curious happened: the temperature dropped. A lot. Maybe it was just the altitude (around 300 m), but even wearing thermal gloves, my hands became painfully cold and I began shivering despite wearing a shirt and two fleeces. I had a quick look at the entrance to Bullpot OTW (and noticed plaques commemorating those who'd died in that cave system...), but otherwise moved on rather quickly.

As I'd expected, the bridlepath to Barbondale wasn't rideable, especially on my road-configured bike, so I walked, shivering. Though still at ~170 m asl, that valley was much warmer, so I lingered to take a couple of photos (including one I missed last year) before heading back. The light was begining to fail, but I got as far as Claughton before proper sunset, and reached home (via Sainsbury's) a little after dark, at 17:15.

I wanted to see the snow which has fallen on high ground in recent days. I checked the view from my garden, Williamson Park (which the rest of the world persists in regarding as public), but wasn't sure where to go from there. In late November, 14:30 is too late (at least for photography) to start a long bike ride to high ground, as the light fades by 16:00, so I couldn't head north as far as Warton/Arnside or east as far as the moors above Wray; I needed something more local. Not Jubilee Tower, as the idea was to get a little closer to the Lake District or Yorkshire Dales, not further away. I wouldn't be able to see Yorkshire from there, either.

That left Caton Moor, the site of considerable unhappiness during my abortive (indeed, aborted) PhD, but that bothers me less nowadays. Caton it was. The route was very familiar, and not worth mentioning, though I was pleased to notice that the section from Brookhouse to the wind farm took precisely half the time it used to – I'm markedly better-fed and fitter at 34 than when I was 24.

The views from the top were indeed good, but I'm afraid the photographs seemed to capture more haze than I'd appreciated with the naked eye; I've done what I could with these images.

If anyone cares (and it seems some do), the trip of 18.8 miles (30 km) took exactly two hours (1:54 moving), at an average of 10mph. That's anomalously slow, but explained by the fact that I cycled to the wind farm, then followed the relatively new track a mile across the moor to Roeburndale Road on foot, before following that back to Caton and Lancaster by bike. The footpath is surfaced with coarse gravel and fragments of ceramic, so cycling would have been impossible (with road tyres) even if it had been permitted.

Despite my ignorance, I've wanted to visit Whernside for a while, so an excellent weather forecast (very cold, but clear) for the weekend after my birthday seemed a good opportunity to do that and perhaps persuade others to accompany me. As it happens, only (certainly not 'merely'!) J was available, and was kind enough to drive.

We arrived and started walking at about 10:00, under a virtually clear sky, though the sun on frosty ground was generating light mist in the valley and wispy cloud near the peaks – see photo. However, by studying the map, I'd decided that we'd need to follow the circular route in a clockwise direction, as we'd both prefer to climb the steepest section rather than descend it. By the time we'd walked ~2km down the valley, rather more significant cloud had arrived, and soon after we started to climb to the ridge, we totally lost visibility. If only we'd done the walk yesterday.
This meant that apart from a lunch stop huddled against a wall, we didn't pause on the summit itself, and had no views of the surrounding area. I'd been particularly hoping to identify familiar points from the top of Whernside so I'd subsequently be able to spot the relatively anonymous profile of Whernside from elsewhere. Never mind.

Despite the weather, the route down was rather busy. It's an easy walk and Ribblehead is accessible by car, so I can understand it being popular. One section of the path was fully paved with 'flagstones'; it must receive a lot of traffic if the National Park managers consider that necessary. Indeed, lower down, we encountered a section being resurfaced. Workers had obviously left the site on Friday and weekend visitors were obliged to cross an area of bare soil. Even within that short time, it had been churned to ankle-deep mud.

Very annoyingly, by the time we'd descended about 200 m, the cloud cleared, including across the summit. I suppose the frost-sourced water vapour had been expended for the day, and the clouds literally evaporated. If I'd been alone, I would definitely have turned back and retraced the 2 km to the top – it was still only ~13:30, with several hours of light remaining – but I knew J had other plans for the afternoon, and I'm sure there'll be another opportunity. At least the interaction of limited direct sunlight and cloud/mist had been photogenic.

Nineteen miles (31 km) from home. I couldn't realistically walk; at 3½-4 mph it'd take about five hours. The alternative was to ride on, the flat tyre hopefully cushioning the wheel rim itself. That way, I could sustain a steady 10-12 mph – 3-4 times walking pace – whilst acknowledging that I'd probably do terminal damage to the tyre and maybe the wheel.

I'm not entirely proud to say that's what I did. It wasn't a pleasant ride, especially in traffic after dark, and I was continuously, if mildly, concerned that the tyre might rip and slide off at any moment. The base of the tyre valve seemed to project beyond the rim, so every rotation of the wheel jarred; I'm still in a bit of pain ~18 hours later.

Here's the miraculous bit: both the tyre and wheel survived perfectly, without even any marks. I wouldn't exactly recommend it, but if this posting has a point, it's to say that it is possible to ride a long distance on a flat tyre.

The moment I discovered the problem was doubly unlucky: my camera's primary memory card failed, so I only had one image to show.
I'm hoping that just one image on the main card is corrupted, and that if I find a different reader which doesn't insist on trying to access that image (as the camera does), I might be able to retrieve the rest. We'll see. Or not.

[Update 17/11/05: Managed it. I managed to copy the entire contents of the card, directory structure and all, to my hard disk, and have the images. The card itself seems dead, though: still unreadable, and even if I find out how to reformat it, I'm not sure I'd trust it again.]

*: I was going to say that was my third puncture in a week, but it was actually the same puncture, and the repair failed twice. I've now thrown that inner tube away. Plainly latex cement goes off, and becomes inadequate for sealing patches to tubes at 65 psi.

I got as far as Caton in pleasant sunshine, but clouds were approaching. For some reason, I really didn't fancy heading back so soon or returning the same way as I'd just come (I suppose I've followed the Lune Cycleway rather a lot this year), so continued up the valley, even though I wasn't wearing anything rainproof.
I made it as far as Loyn Bridge, Hornby, the furthest I'd planned to go, before the weather caught me. Ten miles (16 km) from home, with dark shadows of poor visibility blocking both potential escape routes.

It wasn't so bad, in fact, and only two brief showers dampened me as I returned to Lancaster via Gressingham and Halton. I cycled fairly quickly, but had made a few photo stops on the outward trip, so the 21.8 miles (35 km) took 1hr 51 (moving), at an average speed of 11.8 mph (19 km/h) and max of 24.9 mph (40 km/h).

Apart from one crossing in the middle of the night last year, I've only been there once before, with Andy. I retraced part of that route today: straight down the A6 to Forton, then across the width of the Fylde, passing Winmarleigh and Pilling, to the eastern side of the Wyre estuary at Stalmine, then a couple of miles north to Knott End-On-Sea and back along the coast road. In total, that was 36.9 miles (59.4km) in 3½ hours (2¾ moving). If it matters, my top speed was 27mph (downhill, in Lancaster; once on the flat I couldn't exceed 24.4mph) and my average was 14.3mph (over 17mph on the A6, but less on narrow lanes with photo stops).

See those photographs for a few more details about the local attractions. Unfortunately, when I stopped in Knott End for a drink, I found that the camera batteries were dead. I made a point of remembering photogenic sights for a future ride and, well, there weren't any. It was pleasant to ride on straight, flat roads, but somehow I find the Bowland Fells, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District rather more picturesque.

I've passed and photographed individual artworks for as long as I've been visiting Morecambe, but today I made a point of photographing every installation, plus a few other points of interest along the central area's seafront.

As usual, information in the photo captions comes from a variety of sources, but particular credit is due to the official Tern project website for identifying the titles and designers of the artworks.

I remember the first time I realised corrective lenses would help me.
I was working on my second undergrad dissertation, on photogrammetry (mapping from aerial photos), and whilst changing lenses in the equipment, I idly held them in front of my eyes and glanced out of the window. Twelve years later I still have perfect recall of the view, from an upper floor of the Llandinam Building (Earth Sciences), UWA to the brick-built Hugh Owen Building (Arts/Library). Brick-built – that's the point. I'd seen that view dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and could see the building clearly, yet I'd never perceived the details of its construction. Having noticed them, I could see the lines of mortar without the lenses.

I suppose I'd call it a 'leap of perception'. Previously, my brain had logged the overall mass of the building and just accepted it without further analysis. The lenses hadn't shown me anything beyond the ability of my unaided eyes. It was as if they improved my ability to not just see, but to observe.
Without my glasses, I might see a tree quite clearly from 30-40m, and appreciate individual branches and even leaves, because I'm specifically looking at them – mentally focused, not just optically. However, I might be totally unaware of a crow perched amongst of them, until it moved, when I'd be able to see it clearly. Wearing glasses, my ability to notice details (pattern recognition?) would have revealed the crow immediately.

One reason for that time was that I made a poor choice of route at Clapham.
The obvious option would have been to follow the old road (B6480) from the village towards Austwick, but that involved following a short section of the A65, perhaps even a section of dual carriageway. I wasn't sure whether cyclists were permitted to do that (we are; it's not a motorway!) and I didn't fancy riding in heavy or speeding traffic, so decided to follow Thwaite Lane, the unsurfaced track from behind Clapham church to above Austwick. It was a pretty enough route and I discovered tunnels I hadn't realised even existed, but it was rough going, and very slow. Not a shortcut, and I doubt I'd bother to repeat the experience by bike.

Impatience meant I rather rushed the next section, so I'll have to return to explore Austwick and Helwith Bridge some other time. Similarly, I only made a couple of photo stops around Horton in Ribblesdale, though I have every intention of visiting again soon to climb Pen-y-ghent [and did].

I did make a proper stop at Ribblehead, leaving the road to study the famous railway viaduct, and another further down the valley near Chapel-le-Dale church: I'd seen a pothole indicated on the map, so investigated. As the accompanying photos show, the entrance of Hurtle Pot is a substantial surface feature (which isn't always the case in the Dales), worth visiting even by non-cavers, though I suppose it was slightly foolhardy to enter a muddy, steep-sided bowl alone, when no-one even knew I was out, never mind where.

Having survived, all that remained was the ~35 km (~22 miles) ride home, arriving at 20:00. If anyone cares, my average speed was 19.5 km/h (12.1 mph), reaching 48.8 km/h (30.3 mph) at least once.

The first slight setback was reaching Kents Bank to find I'd left my map at home – I'd memorised the layout of the district, but not the specific roads. I considered hunting for a shop likely to sell maps, but decided to just follow road signs. It meant I took a few wrong turns on minor roads, but basically worked.

Humphrey Head is (locally) famous as the place where the last wolf in England was killed, in the 14th Century. Wolfhouse Gallery in Silverdale takes its name from the fact that it has a view of the headland. It's an attractive site, and surprisingly overlooked by visitors (Alfred Wainwright mentioned it in one of his guidebooks). Not that I'm complaining – I doubt I'd have seen a Peregrine Falcon close-up if this had been a busy tourist magnet.

I locked my bike to a fence and walked to the top to take quite a few photos, so stayed longer than I'd expected; I could have made up some time by following minor roads if I'd had a map, but instead stuck to the main, signposted roads and reached Cartmel via Flookburgh and Cark. I took the opportunity to check return train times at the station, as I'd also forgotten to do that beforehand.

Cartmel was smaller and less 'touristy' than I'd expected, especially considering it has a famous mediaeval priory church and racecourse. I stopped at the latter for a drink, but for some reason didn't think to lock up the bike again and have a proper look round the Priory or even its churchyard. I took a few photos of it and the village, anyway.

I was surprised how close Cartmel is to Grange-over-Sands; merely 2 km over Hampsfield Fell. I don't know whether completing the intended route sooner than expected led me to make a rather rash decision, or whether I'd subconsciously known from the start that I was going to do it (remember, I hadn't checked return train times in advance): I decided to cycle home from Grange. It's a familiar route (by car...), and I've frequently cycled the 14-mile (22½ km) section from Milnthorpe to Lancaster, but Grange isn't that close to Milnthorpe; I suppose I added 30 miles (48 km) to the planned ride.

An additional slight complication was that I chose to avoid the A590 (T) dual carriageway, so stuck to less-direct (very) minor roads as far as Levens, before joining the familiar A6 and slogging my way home – not fun, as I was tiring rapidly, it's not exactly a thrilling route, and for some reason my right arm was really painful. Just short of Carnforth, I had to stop for a few minutes, as my right hand could no longer grip the handlebar. I'm accustomed to that cramping occasionally on long rides (maybe a consequence of surgery to pin a broken finger in 2003), but this was the whole arm, from the shoulder. I hope that doesn't recur.

So; overall, that was 36.65 miles (59 km) in 2:20 hours, though that's only counting time on the bike, moving, and omits the walk up Humphrey Head and various drink, photo and rest stops. In case anyone's interested, my maximum speed was 28.9 mph (46.5 km/h) and average speed was 12.9 mph (20.7 km/h).

Incidentally, I've published over 40 photos with this entry, so each of the 'photos' links in the foregoing text goes to a different index of thumbnails (Humphrey Head, Cartmel and the ride home; visit all three or start here and go through all the images.

Again, I followed the A6 to Carnforth at full speed, but this time avoided the cycle route bypassing Warton. Instead, I went into the village and up Crag Road for views southwards from Warton Crag. That route rejoined the low route at Leighton Moss, but I kept to the road again, straight through Silverdale to the steep southern side of Arnside Knott. This was the one point where an off-road shortcut made sense, as a 1 km walk through the woods saved 3-4 by road. I've since discovered it's a bridleway, so I could have ridden and saved even more time, but I disapprove of cycling on footpaths so when in doubt, I walk. Besides, I wasn't in a hurry.

That took me to the Arnside Knott car park, where I locked my bike to a sign and climbed the hill on foot (to the trig. pillar at the top, not the false summit at the viewpoint). The light wasn't great, but I took a few photos. Apologies if the colours appear slightly odd in a couple; that's a byproduct of post-production to minimise haze.

I'd achieved what I'd intended, but wasn't sure how to get home. After consulting the map, the most logical route seemed to be that I often followed whilst working in Milnthorpe in 2000: along the coast road from Arnside to Milnthorpe (which was further than I remembered – I'd somehow forgotten that it's fully 5 km) then down the A6 at full speed, straight home. As in May, that included a section of dual-carriageway frequented by articulated lorries and traffic leaving the M6 motorway (and hence moving at motorway speeds), but I was a little too weary to care, and did it anyway.

'Abbeystead' means 'abbey-place', as a Cistercian abbey, an offshoot of Furness Abbey, was built there in about 1170. However, the monks left a mere eighteen years later, for a more glamourous location in Ireland. I'm not aware of there being any remaining ruins, probably not least because any usable stone was probably salvaged and incorporated into dry stone walls.
'Modern' Abbeystead was built at the end of the nineteenth century, as grouse shooting became popular on the Bowland Fells. That's still it's primary purpose, at the hub of the Duke of Westminster's estate (yes, 'Westminster' as in 'City of...'; the Duke owns much of central London and is the third richest person in the UK. 'The Field' magazine admiringly calls him "quite simply the very best close-quarter killer around".).

Having taken the photos I wanted, and not really ready to head back, I noticed that the dam of Abbeystead Reservoir is accessible via a footpath, so I locked the bike to a fence and explored. The dam was far more elaborate than I'd expected; certainly worth seeing.

I decided to head home after that, but rather than slog back over Abbeystead Fell, I followed Wyresdale to Dolphinholme, then to Galgate and to Lancaster along the A6. The first section was easy, as it's almost all downhill from Abbeystead to Galgate, and I don't think I dropped below 22mph, apart from at junctions; my bike computer logged an average of 17mph overall. However, though I'd expected to travel even faster along the A6, I was riding straight into a light but insistent wind, and I was exhausted trying to maintain even 13mph.

I'm afraid I can't provide distance and speed data for the whole trip (I didn't think anyone cared anyway, but I've been told people have considered following my routes, so apparently it does matter!), as I was using my new, upgraded bike computer. It logs average speeds, as I mentioned, but it also has a less foolproof design; when I left the bike for my walk to the dam, I dropped the computer into my pocket, and the annoyingly prominent 'reset' button was accidentally pressed.

As the name suggests, this is the grave of an 18th Century slave put ashore from a ship heading to Lancaster, who died either of disease or a broken heart, depending on one's favoured story. The burial site is some distance from the settlement, in the corner of a field on the other side of the headland.

After the short walk to the grave and a few photos, I cycled back across the saltmarsh to 'the mainland' at Overton, on to Morecambe via Heysham, then home to Lancaster.

Incidentally, the grave is definitely near Sunderland Point, within a few miles of Lancaster, not on the Wirral, the peninsula between Liverpool and Wales. At least two people have already visited this entry via a seach for "sambo slave buried wirral" or similar, but that's incorrect.

* In performing web searches for 'Sambo's Grave', you may find that one person has posted comments to a number of sites, suggesting that 'Samboo's Grave' is the correct name. That's possible, but there is no evidence to support this one person's assertion, which contradicts decades, even centuries, of actual usage, and one can easily propose a counter-argument. Widespread repetition doesn't prove anything!

Hence, I blasted up the A6 main road to Carnforth within half an hour. Considering it takes me almost a third of that time just to cross the city centre and the river, twenty minutes for the remaining six miles, in traffic, isn't bad, even though I couldn't sustain 22mph as I had yesterday.

Leaving Carnforth, I discovered a new (to me) cycle track following the River Keer. It cut off a corner, but that's the sort of shortcut I should have avoided, as a short distance on a poorly-maintained lane, with a footbridge over the river, took longer than a greater distance would have on a 'proper' road into and back out of Warton. However, I wasn't that concerned about optimising the route, and having covered the boring 'lead-in' to the ride as quickly as possible, I was happy to wander and explore, stopping for photographs.

That's exactly what I did; I'd planned to follow the road round to Jenny Brown's Point, Silverdale (at 12-15mph), but passing the RSPB nature reserve at Leighton Moss, I realised I could cut off another corner, crossing the saltmarsh itself (at ~3mph...), passing a young family just finishing a barbeque in the nature reserve. I'm sure they knew what they were doing, and they had left no sign that there had been a fire!

Continuing into Silverdale, I was again struck how odd it seems, half-lost in dense woodland and somewhere around 1960.
I'd planned to go on to Arnside, but leaving Silverdale, I suddenly realised I simply couldn't be bothered – perhaps yesterday's long ride had caught up on me. I decided to save that part of the trip for another time, and instead just completed the circuit of Warton Crag, passing Leighton Moss, the Yealands (Yealand Stoors, -Redmayne and -Conyers), back to Warton. From there, I took a wrong turning, missing a photo opportunity at the ancestral home of George Washington's family and dumping me amongst the articulated lorries on a dual carriageway section of the A6. I'd intended to avoid that and follow minor roads back to Lancaster via Over Kellet, but: too late. I stuck with the traffic instead, rather nervously – legally, I was entitled to be there, but in my own judgement I don't think that section of road, by the motorway junction, is an appropriate place for cyclists.
Just past Carnforth, the road and canal run alongside one another, so to get out of the traffic, I followed the towpath back to Lancaster.

If anyone's remotely interested, I cycled 31.6 miles (50.9 km) in 3:41 hours (2:54 moving), with a maximum speed of 26mph (42 km/h).

It began with a quick 21 mph blast down the A6 to Garstang, then followed minor roads around the southern boundary of the Forest of Bowland AONB to Chipping, then even smaller lanes across to the Hodder Valley. That was quite a long way in itself, but it was also the easy part. From Dunsop Bridge I still had to climb the Trough of Bowland, follow Wyresdale to Abbeystead, then climb again to pass Jubilee Tower and return to Lancaster. In total, I rode 45.47 miles (73.18 km, or the equivalent of Manchester to Leeds) in 5:22 hours (3:57 moving), at a maximum speed of 29.8 mph.

The weather was good, so I took a few (dozen...) photos.

For most of the outward trip, via Nether and Over Kellets, the weather was good, but as I approached Borwick, I happened to glance back. Ahead and to the sides was full sunlight. Directly behind me, and approaching rapidly, was the purplish blackness of a thunderstorm – I'd thought it was traffic noise from the nearby motorway.

In a way, the well-lit foreground and dark background improved my photos of the Hall, but I had to hurry before escaping down the canal towpath to shelter beneath the nearest bridge for 10-15 minutes.
Whilst there, watching the intense rain bouncing off bedraggled sheep, I happened to notice the corpse of a Mallard in the canal. Somehow I failed to make the connection at the time, so didn't take a photograph, but one of my mother's favourite expressions, denoting lethargy, is 'like a dead duck in a thunderstorm'. Well, this was the real thing.

I hadn't intended to go further, so headed back to Lancaster. However, after the heavy rain, all the spring vegetation looked fresh and attractive, so I cycled via Halton and back along the River Lune, taking a few (uncharacteristically?) 'pretty' photos.

There was a time when I considered 22 miles in 2:22 hours (not counting time spent stationary), at a maximum speed of 22.7 mph, to be a substantial ride; now it's routine!

I left Lancaster as if to take the hilly inland route to Caton, but changed my mind almost immediately and followed the valley floor along Grab Lane to the disused Moor Hospital. A few photos I took a while ago, from a distance, have been mildly popular in web searches, so I took the time to explore the perimeter a little better and to capture a couple of closer views. For much the same reason, after going through the cemetery to photograph the bluebells around the graves, I went on to HM YOI Lancaster Farms to obtain a clearer version of a murky photo which, slightly embarrassingly, attracts several visitors via Google. That has now been removed from the site!

The (very) rough track from the prison to Denny Beck is the shortest route to the Lune, but I know from my earlier attempt that it isn't really rideable on a road-configured bike, and it's quicker to go the long way at ~15 mph than the short one at ~3 mph. Hence, I followed a new (to me) route into town through the Ridge council estate then back out along the riverside cycle path.

Spring had definitely sprung along the southern bank of the River Lune; the only parts not a vibrant green were in flower. I left the surfaced cycle track at Halton weir to follow a secluded footpath though the woods. Beautiful. A bonus was seeing a woodpecker, and being able to find its nest and take an unhurried photo.

The span of the Crook O'Lune Viaduct nearer Lancaster has been closed for repair/renovation since March 2004, so I couldn't cross the Lune. Instead, I went for another short walk through the woods, following the riverbank. Unfortunately, too many tiny streams terminated in an area frequented by cattle, so it was difficult to find a dry path. After 5-10 minutes, the Viaduct was still only 20-30 m away, so I gave up and returned to the main track, then back to Lancaster.

*: Yes, it's a prentious name for a pond, but honours Sir Charles Carter, the founding Vice-Chancellor.

That primal fear is bad enough, but there's more: I remember a bathroom suite which was replaced years ago, and a bare patch of garden which was turfed-over decades ago. I remember a friend who I haven't seen since we left primary school to attend different secondary schools. I remember his garden. And his next-door neighbour's. I suddenly, vividly, remember the layout of my bedroom in the late 1970s. From that, I remember specific events – and my memory tends to fixate on the less pleasant ones. I remember arguments, the deterioration of my parents' marriage,... **** – change the subject.

In short, this unexpected rush of memories unsettled me, and further recollections have already been influencing my dreams.

It really works, though more extreme stereographic separation tends to introduce a distracting 'wiggle'. I'm going to have to try this myself (not necessarily the wiggle).

It seems this site was quite famous in 2003, but I'm afraid I've just stumbled across it for the first time. Another disclaimer: some of the example images are of scenes from the Burning Man festival, so feature a small amount of nudity. If you have a problem with that... well, you're missing out.

As I've explained before, this isn't a quote from a fairytale, but the slightly odd naming of features near my childhood home in North-East Wales. The Rainbow is a pass, and Mold is the English name of Yr Wyddgrug, a market town four miles from my mother's house. Mold was the county town of Clwyd from 1974, and with further local authority reorganisation, is now the 'capital' of Sir Fflint (Flintshire). Loggerheads is ~2 miles further away, on the border of Sir Fflint and Sir Ddinbych (Denbighshire).

The hamlet of Loggerheads was a centre of the galena (lead ore) mining industry until 1872, and various features remain: caves (old adit mines), ruined pump houses, and a leete (artificial watercourse) now acts as a level path following the River Alyn for a couple of miles.
Apart from a few cottages, Loggerheads itself comprises a watermill, associated buildings, and an 18th Century coaching inn on the Mold-Ruthin road.
The current landlord of the latter, the 'We Three Loggerheads' apparently claims that a disagreement between two local landowners in the 1780s gave the world the phrase 'at loggerheads', meaning 'engaged in a dispute'. However, that suggestion is absurd; if anything the hamlet may have been named after the phrase.

I clearly remember several visits to Loggerheads since the early 1980s; I know I visited as a very young child in the 1970s, but I don't recall it before the mill complex was restored and paths improved around 1980. Its proximity to my childhood home means that Loggerheads always heads the shortlist of venues for afternoon walks with my mother every couple of years (okay, Cilcain would head my mother's shortlist, but I'm less keen – I already see enough open moorland around Lancaster!). Thankfully, I don't associate it with any one period of my life. I suppose that means it's been somewhere I can forget the routine worries.

Today's walk followed exactly the same route as always, along the Leete Path to Devil's Gorge and back the same way. I took a few photos, of course.

From home, I simply followed Ashton Road out to Conder Green, then on to Glasson Dock. After stopping to take a few photos, I crossed the northern part of the Lancashire coastal plain to Cockersand and the remains of its abbey. Despite the best efforts of a passer-by to direct me across open fields and a potentially submerged area of saltmarsh, the end of the road at Cockersand 'beach' was as far as I wanted to go by bike, so I followed the dry, non-muddy roads to Thurnham and hence back to Conder Green. From there, I returned home via the cycle track along the long-disused Glasson-Lancaster railway line.

Incidentally, I can't work whether it should be 'Cockersand' or 'Cockersands'. One previously unreliable source suggests it's the former for the abbey and the latter for the locality i.e. that Cockersand Abbey is in Cockersands. Still doubting, I've gone with the former throughout, but I don't know whether that's correct.

I took my bike to Windermere by train; fairly straightforward on the direct local service, though I think it'd have been more awkward if I'd had to catch the Intercity to Kendal first. From Windermere, I followed the main road to Ambleside. If there was an alternative, I'd recommend it, as this wasn't a pleasant ride, in heavy traffic. The first couple of miles were consistently downhill, too, which was a slight concern – returning, I might be both tired and rushing to catch the Lancaster train, so the final section mightn't be fun.

Once past Ambleside, onto the Langdale road, it was much better, and I felt able to decelerate and take photos. My plan was to follow the very familiar route to the Old Dungeon Ghyll, as far along Great Langdale as the road goes, then return via Little Langdale. It's one of my favourite walking areas, but I'd never visited by bike.

Having said that, I digressed onto an unfamiliar route almost immediately. On the map, it looked as if the steep road from Skelwith Bridge to Grasmere (village) would offer good views of Langdale and Grasmere (lake/valley), despite the hazy weather. It wasn't a complete success, as the northern side of the pass was heavily wooded, so I couldn't see Grasmere without actually going there, which wasn't exactly the point.

The rest of the ride into Langdale was more familiar; if you've ever been there, you know the route I took, as there's only the one road!
Climbing Side Pike to cross into Little Langdale was as tough as expected; this was a surprisingly hot, humid day, so I have to confess I walked the toughest section (124m ascent in under 1 km) and was very glad to freewheel most of the way down the valley on the other side.

I'd completed my main objectives, but thought I had a bit more time before needing to head back, so I investigated Colwith Force, a waterfall marked on the map, at the mouth of Little Langdale. There was no cycle access, but a short (~200m) walk was worthwhile – it's a pity more people don't know about the impressive waterfall, but also good, as I had it to myself.

Returning to the bike, I began to worry about the time, so abandoned any plans to look around the slate quarries or Elterwater (lake), and headed straight back to Windermere at full speed, arriving, er, about half an hour too early. I went into the town (village?) centre, and straight out again (I've never liked it; it's a poor amalgamation of tourism and 1950s-style market town), heading for the lake and viewpoints noted on the map, but there wasn't really time, and I returned to the station, having travelled 29.5 miles (47.4km) in 2½ hours (not counting stops), at a maximum speed of 28mph (45kmh).

The ride up the Lune Valley isn't my favourite, especially the section between Tunstall and Kirkby Lonsdale, which seems flat and boringly featureless, but is actually slightly uphill, and feels much further than 4-5 miles. It's always a relief to reach Devil's Bridge and cross the River Lune. Many passers-by only stop to admire the bridge but the town itself is very attractive, and I'd specifically visited to take a few photographs.
Mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086) and retaining a mediaeval streetplan of narrow lanes and courtyards, the central area was largely rebuilt in the 17th-18th Centuries. It is rather tourist-orientated – the population of ~2,000 doesn't require ~60 shops – but many shopfronts are Listed and care has been taken to retain the heritage and beautiful surrounding area acclaimed by Constable, Turner and Ruskin.

Unfortunately, the early Spring sunlight and long shadows were rather harsh, and only a few photos are worth showing. Next time....

I didn't want to return home via exactly the same route, so I followed the more hilly 'B' roads along the northern rim of the Lune Valley, passing Whittington, Arkholme and Halton.
Overall, the round trip was 56 km (35 miles) and took four hours – rather slow, but that includes time spent on foot in Kirkby Lonsdale; the bike was parked for over an hour and some of the 2:50 hours logged by the bike computer as 'moving' was at walking pace.

Normally, I'd start by following the A6 main road straight to the outskirts of Scorton, as I can get the slightly boring preamble to the 'real' ride out of the way at a steady 21 mph. However, I also wanted to explore the non-motorway access to Forton Services, so turned off the A6 early and followed tiny lanes.

After leaving Scorton, more tiny lanes took me to Calder Vale, a seemingly-remote 19th Century (and barely changed since then) mill village. It's a slightly strange place, worth visiting.

The path to the village church (well outside the village itself – Calder Vale was founded by Quakers, presumably a little hostile to the established Church of England) led onwards to Harrisend Fell and a familiar route into Wyresdale. I followed that as far as Abbeystead, slightly aimlessly, before realising I didn't have a particular destination in mind, the valley is a dead end unless I planned to cross the pass to Dunsop Bridge and seriously extend the ride, and even if I turned back immediately, I had a very hilly ride to Lancaster via Jubilee Tower, and wouldn't reach home before dark. Oops. At least the sunset was photogenic.

I was out for 4:20 hours, 2:53 of which were spent moving. I covered 33.65 miles (54 km), at a 'personal best' top speed of 35.1 mph (56.5 km/h). Actually, I'm uncomfortable about cycling that quickly – if I fell off at speed whilst wearing ordinary cycling clothes I could be hurt.

I'm in the slightly awkward position of having already cycled most of the obvious routes in the immediate vicinity – to explore somewhere new, I'd need to repeat 10-15 miles of familiar routes first. I may need to start taking the bike on the train soon; in fact, I planned to do that today, before realising that the current closure of the West Coast main line in the Lancaster area, every weekend Jan-March 2005, affected local services too, and that cycling to and back from the nearest (open) station would add 12 miles to any planned trip. This means I'm tethered for another month.
I finally decided to combine and repeat a couple of earlier rides, but generally in the opposite direction to the previous occasions. I hoped this would provide a different view.

I headed straight out of Lancaster along the main road (A6), towards Hest Bank. On previous occasions, I've followed the canal towpath; pretty in spring/summer, but slow and no doubt muddy in winter. I also wanted to reach my 'starting point', the coast at Hest Bank, as soon as possible. The clear morning sky now had broken cloud, and I hoped to take a few photos of the view before it got too bad. Cycling directly into a fairly strong northeasterly wind wasn't too pleasant, either, not least because I'd misjudged the temperature and chill, and dressed less warmly than I could. I just wanted to get that section of the ride over with, as most of the remainder of the planned route was with the wind and hence less of a struggle.

The rest of the route was more-or-less as straightforward, following the coast road from Hest Bank to Morecambe, along the promenade to the Midland Hotel and Stone Quay, then on via Sandylands Promenade to Heysham. I stopped at Heysham Head for a can of Coke (I wasn't so cold by then!), then followed minor lanes across the headland to Overton, on the River Lune side. I made a slight detour to Sunderland, then back to Overton and on to Lancaster, pausing at Sainsbury's for my weekly shopping. I suppose I could describe this all as a trip to the supermarket – the long way.
Reversed, it's a ride I'd planned to do almost exactly a year ago, but on that occasion, my first ever visit to Sunderland, I was surprised how far it actually is from Lancaster (~10 miles), so I only did the round trip from the city to Sunderland and back.

I covered 27.56 miles (44.35 km) in total, reaching a rather low maximum speed of 24 mph (39 km/h), probably because of the wind and lack of fast downhill sections.

I was out for three hours and twenty minutes, though at least twenty minutes were spent in Sainsburys, and I stopped several times to take photos. The bike was actually moving for 2¼ hours.

Two roads cross the Moor west-east: Roeburndale Road on the southern side and Quarry Road on the north. My PhD research catchment was between the two, so both roads became very familiar. However, though both are through routes from Brookhouse to Roeburndale (and on to Wray) and Brookhouse to Claughton respectively, I've only followed the full length of Roeburndale Road once or twice and, before today, had never explored Quarry Road beyond its highest point.

Frankly, I hadn't missed much; 1-2 km of steep gravel track wasn't much fun on a bike more suited to surfaced roads. At least I know now. It did pass Claughton Hall and the quarry supplying Claughton Manor Brickworks with clay, so I might go back to investigate further, but I think I'll ascend the unsurfaced track next time, perhaps on foot, and return to Brookhouse along the proper road.

Once back on the valley floor, I followed the usual route, as described above, though I locked the bike to a signpost in Hornby and walked a short distance along the River Wenning for a different view of Hornby Castle from the east. I also stopped at Castle Stede and Loyn Bridge to obtain replacements for a couple of inadequate photos I published here last year. Today's photos are here.

And that seemed to be that – the January light was failing rapidly, so I headed straight home. However, the sky was beautiful immediately after the sun dropped below the horizon, as was cloud which was forming around Clougha Pike, so I obtained a few more worthwhile photos.

The weather at 22:00 was warm (10°C) and dry, with broken high cloud, so we decided to go. My mother's health is unreliable, so a lower temperature or the threat of rain would have meant a repetition of last New Year, when we managed to see much the same view from a layby near Holywell - not quite PKiN, Warszawa, Poland, nor even Albert Square, Manchester, UK, but more enjoyable than it might sound!

Traffic through Mold, over the Rainbow and through Loggerheads was surprisingly quiet (I'm not inventing the names: Mold (Welsh: Yr Wyddgrug) is the county town four miles from my childhood home (where I'm writing this), the Rainbow is the local name for the steep, sweeping road over the 300m-high ridge out of the Alyn valley, and Loggerheads is the tiny ex-lead mining hamlet on the far side of the Rainbow), but the car parks at Moel Famau were rather full.

When we first started going, there were a hard core of people who'd visited every year for decades, informally led by Mr. Bentley, a local pharmacist who'd print and distribute hymn sheets, and we were amongst the few 'newcomers'. Nowadays, the word has spread, and well over 100 attend, taking some young children, several dogs, and fireworks (not so good for the dogs, nor humans if the wind is strong). At each turn in the path on the 45 min walk from the car park (at ~350m asl) to the summit, the next stage was visible as a chain of torchlight - quite pretty from a distance, though not really necessary in the moonlight, and beams inconsiderately directed into one's eyes were an annoyance, destroying night vision.
The walk itself passed much quicker than I remembered, inspiring the thought that on previous occasions I was an undernourished, relatively unfit student. Regular swimming and cycling plainly make a difference.

The summit plateau of Moel Famau is 20-30m across, with Jubilee Tower at the centre. Built 1810-12 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of George III, the central obelisk was destroyed in a storm in 1862 and the corner turrets have been lost since then. Partly renovated in the 1970s following the investiture of the current Prince of Wales in 1969, the remaining structure could be described as a huge square cairn. The sides are held near-vertical by dressed stone, but more natural slopes at the corners allow access to the top and create a sheltered hollow in the middle of each side. Most most people were huddled into these, though there were still a lot of people wandering about, sitting just below the lip of the summit plateau or standing in the open on the leeward northern side of the Tower. We went to the very top for the 360° view, but there are few lit settlements visible in any direction but north-east, so we descended for the 'main attraction'.

From about five minutes before midnight until at least 00:20, the entire view of Deeside, the Wirral and Liverpool sparkled with hundreds, even thousands, of fireworks, mostly white twinkles from this distance but with some longer-lasting red distress flares. It's an incredible sight, and well-worth the walk. I'd taken my camera, but had accidentally left the mini-tripod in Lancaster last week, so the accompanying photos are those few which weren't too blurred by camera shake, and it obviously wasn't possible to take really long exposures which might have captured the fireworks. Maybe next time.

[Update 26/12/05: I've been back, in daylight.]

I still fancied going to the Conwy valley. According to the 1:25,000 OS map, there's a 'waterfall' in the steep, narrow valley of the Afon Dulyn near Carreg-y-ffordd farm, above Tal-y-Bont (a common Welsh place name; this one's near Dolgarrog, Gwynedd). The area is known for its waterfalls and picturesque gorges, so this seemed ideal.

There are several landmarks on the A55, impressive in themselves but rarely visited because they're merely on the way to somewhere else. This time, I had the startlingly obvious idea of trying to take photographs from the car (I wasn't driving...). Many attempts failed, but that's no problem with a digital camera, and a few were worthwhile.

Having found the best point of access to the waterfall, I was a little surprised to find no public footpath. I've had 'encounters' with local landowners before, so we parked and vanished into the woods as quickly as possible.
There was a minor track, blocked in places by fallen trees, but that merely led down to the stream, then seemed to stop, with no hint of a waterfall anywhere nearby - I'd thought it'd be right there in front of us. The stream was very pretty, but clambering over mossy boulders, with no guarantee that there was anything worthwhile even within earshot, seemed a bad idea, even with a fully-qualified orthopaedic & trauma surgeon in the party, so we turned back.
Unfortunately, thinking it'd be unnecessary, I'd left the map in the car. If I hadn't, I'd have known the barely-visible path continued on the other side of the stream, to the waterfall a further ~150m away. So, if anyone is tempted to visit, wear decent boots (I was, but the others were in 'street' shoes) and persist.

Improvising an alternative destination along the same road, I suggested we go on to the disused Llyn Eigiau reservoir - that might be photogenic. It was. We parked at the start of a popular walking route to the Carneddau, a mountain ridge with peaks 926-1064m high, but didn't follow that route. Instead, we walked towards the dam wall, against a strong wind.
After a couple of kilometres, we, well, gave up. Instead of going on a further ~500m to the main outfall of the old reservoir, we passed through a nearer gap in the dam and walked across boggy ground to the shore of the remnant lake, stared at that for a while, then went back to the car, rather quicker with the wind.

As it was still only about 14:00, I'd expected to return to the main Conwy Valley then head south towards Betws, but the others seemed to have had enough, and K. urgently needed to change her bank details, so the plan was to head 'home', calling in at the Mold branch of her bank. I was able to slightly subvert that, so I took a few photos in Conwy (English: Conway) whilst she visited the branch there.

[Update 27/12/05: almost a year later, we returned and completed the 'standard' day trip outlined in the opening paragraph above.]

I'd seen the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct from the Chester-Shrewsbury railway, but had never actually visited it, so it was a (very belatedly) obvious venue for an afternoon walk with my mother. Having parked by Trevor canal basin, we followed the towpath across the Aqueduct to Froncysyllte, looking down 38 m to the very full River Dee. We followed the canal on to the Newbridge railway viaduct, but it didn't seem productive to return along a main road through a rather industrialised ex-mining village, so we returned to Trevor along the canal.

Somewhere else of which I'd heard but never visited (or even added to my mental map of the area) was World's End, north(ish) of Llangollen, so we drove back over the 'Llandegla Moors', stopping at each for a few photographs. We also passed 'one of the most haunted places in the UK', Plas Teg, near Mold. I had been there before, but almost twenty years ago.

After only two blocks, we'd obviously found it. Seventh Avenue had been closed and crowd control barriers set up about 2 m from each curb; the pavement (US: sidewalk) behind them was already filled with people right across the pavement, almost to the wall. Yet, having overheard a police officer, we realised this was two hours before the parade itself. It took a while to even cross the road, and I don't remember how long it took us to grab a meal, but we found a good place to stand on the kerb by 20:00.
At about 20:45, we were still waiting for something to happen; I thought I could see lights in the distance, but nothing reached us until ~21:00.

I've provided a few comments with the photographs, but to summarise, the parade was certainly remarkable in its scale, with over a million spectators and many thousands of participants, but it didn't quite match my expectations in terms of splendour. I'd expected hundreds of professional-quality giant puppets and floats, numerous bands and original costumes, but it seemed that anyone who turned up at the start line in any form of home-made or store-bought costume had been permitted to join in. The result was that the dozens of impressive sights were diluted by thousands of people wandering along in almost everyday clothes. One of the park rangers we'd met at the Statue of Liberty that morning had advised visitors to avoid the implied debauchery of the parade, but there was little to even titillate. I will say that there does seem to have been at least one positive effect of the apparently dire Halle Berry film 'Catwoman', as that costume was well-represented....
By about 22:30, we were cold and with no sign of the parade ending or even changing in quality or tone, we left. Perhaps we'd only seen the rather ordinary preamble and missed a more spectacular later stage of the parade; it just seems odd that such a well-known and well-attended event was an apparent anticlimax. That sounds (characteristically) negative, so I'd better stress that though distributed thinly amongst an unimpressive majority, the better costumes and puppets were indeed very good.

A problem of leaving before the end was that we needed to cross the parade route to return to Union Square and hence a direct subway line to our 'home' station. The police were stopping the parade every 5-10 mins to allow cross town (vehicle) traffic to cross 7th Avenue, but were discouraging pedestrians from doing the same, so we had to dodge officers and take a circuitous route. Back at Union Square was one of the more memorable sights of the evening: a vicariously familiar (i.e. from films) view of a New York subway platform, populated by French maids, jesters, and superheroes. Another slight oddity was the short walk from Grand Central Terminal to the hotel, suddenly finding that the busy 42nd Street, Lexington Avenue, etc., felt comparatively quiet, even comfortingly familiar.

And so to bed.

Likewise with Manchester. I've visited the city centre more times than I could count, yet I've never thought to take my camera. This was the world's first industrial city, and has splendid Nineteenth Century architecture commensurate with that status as a major commercial and administrative centre. Mid/late Twentieth Century decline was wiped away by the 1996 IRA bomb, and rebuilding has given the city a strikingly modern heart. If I hadn't seen it all so often, I'd be impressed. Time for a reappraisal, I think.

An opportunity was provided by the 'Cow Parade' public art festival, in which over 150 cast-resin statues of the ubiquitous bovines were decorated – painted, resculpted, even dressed – by artists and distributed across the city in locations which themselves tend to be noteworthy. Today I spent a few hours looking for them, and taking photographs. I may present those images in a different entry if/when I have an opportunity, but other photographers have already done that, and this photoset focused on the city itself.

I'd really recommend the experience. Go on; be a tourist in your home town, for once.

As usual, on the first evening we sat around the fire talking, drinking beer and staring upwards – on a clear summer night, the sky is wonderful. The beer was cooling in a backwater pool in the river, mostly cans protected from the river itself by their multipack cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, we'd overestimated the boxes' strength, and one pack broke open, all the cans disappearing downstream.
The following morning, a few of us went after the beer – bright silver cans should be easily visible in a brown river, and they couldn't have gone that far, right? Despite the presence of a couple of graduate-level fluvial geomorphologists, one postdoctoral, the idea wasn't laughed down immediately (I performed tracer experiments of the same type in a neighbouring river a few years ago, and achieved recovery rates in the 20-30% range), and after several hours quite a few cans were retrieved, surprisingly. Most of the accompanying photos were taken during the search.

Incidentally, I've always known the site as Middlewood, but the Trust's own website calls it Middle Wood, so I've used that here.

Yet it didn't. There was lightning, with thunder audible after a count of five or six (i.e. close but not immediately overhead), but somehow each flash was accompanied immediately by a redoubling of rainfall intensity. It went on and on for a further ten minutes or so, not even easing, until suddenly there was no more water falling onto the street from the sky, just the roofs. At the back of the house, it was still falling, which confused me for a moment; the edge of the rain must have taken a few seconds to pass.

I went out immediately, but the gutters were already recovering. However, at the bottom of the hill, where surface drainage from the Moorlands and Primrose estates merges and is supplemented by that from Scotch Quarry, the road was impassable to pedestrians and my bike. I took a couple of photos, and with hindsight should have quickly dodged around an alternative way to catch the flash flood elsewhere, but it was fascinating to just watch from where I was.
By the time I did move, almost all the flow was back underground, but I took a few more photos of the aftermath anyway.

This was nothing like the Boscastle flood last week, of course, but even such a brief episode of severe weather (by UK standards!) did have a worryingly appreciable effect.

Oddly, there were few signs that there had been flooding at all. A few houses had sandbags across their doorsteps and part of the flood barrier (a low concrete wall lining the bank) was demolished, but there were no indications that the river itself had been particularly high (flattened vegetation, silt deposits, etc.).

Glad that there hadn't been more damage, but secretly disappointed at the lack of a photo opportunity (!), I decided to cycle out to Dolphinholme to see if the River Wyre was particularly high. Foolishly, I forgot the layout of the village and took a wrong turn along a road parallel with river but out of line of sight. I'd already decided to go on to the picturesque hamlet of Abbeystead, also on the Wyre, so didn't bother to retrace my steps. It was further to Abbeystead than I remembered, and some sort of fete prevented me from wandering around with the camera, so I decided to go on yet again - it couldn't be much further to the Trough of Bowland. Thus, the ~4 mile trip to Galgate reached its furthest point, after 18 miles....

Since I'd already gone to that effort, it seemed to make sense to return to Lancaster via the viewpoint of Clougha, Jubilee Tower. However, I'd only had a cup of tea and a bowl of corn flakes since waking, and hadn't brought a drink, so I began to tire on the long climb from Abbeystead (130m asl) to Jubilee Tower (287m), into the wind, having already been to 300m at the head of the Trough (that's 130m to 300m, back to 130m then on to 287m, if it's unclear). If I'd planned this in advance, I doubt I'd have chosen it!

Though cool, thankfully, the weather was still humid and hence a little hazy, but the new camera managed to take better photos than I expected. These are reduced to a publishable size, but the originals have a better resolution than the naked eye - very impressive.

A stop at the viewpoint gave me something of a rest, so the final few miles back to Lancaster wasn't too bad, considering it's a tough ride at the best of times: 287m-53m in 4km, then 53m-111m in ~750m (three hairpin bends), on to 134m in ~500m, down to 63m in 1.5km, then a final 20m climb in ~200m.

In total, that was 28.41miles (45.72km) in about three hours, of which 2hrs 21mins were spent in motion. Only 20 miles more than expected!