Bradgate Miscellany

A mixed collection of photos from my two days at Bradgate Park in everchanging weather.

Bradgate - The River

I paid a morning visit to Bradgate before returning home on Monday in very chilly and showery conditions. The river was full from all the recent rain and the autumn colours beautiful so a spent a bit of time with my Fuji compact capturing the flow of the water using the in built neutral density filter to give shutterspeeds of 1/60th (last image) down to 6.5secs (first image). The first two were with the camera on a rock but the rest handheld as the rain started and I needed to keep the lens protected. I can handhold at 1/8th but the 1/4 and 1/2 sec of some of these was a bit too slow. 

Yarrow Valley Country Park

We had time for a short visit to Yarrow Valley Park, a very extensive nature reserve in Chorley before the light went completely. With all the recent rain, the weir and river were very impressive and occupied us from some time. There are several lakes there as well as beautiful woodland.

Switzerland 2 Waterfalls

Yesterday was raining most of the day so we decided a trip to the waterfalls might be a good option. Our main target was the Trummelbach Falls. With its ten glacial water falls inside the mountain, the Trümmelbach alone drains the enormous glacial walls of the Eiger (3970m), Mönch (4099m) and Jungfrau (4158m)  a catchment area of 24 square kilometres of which approximately half is covered with snow and ice. It can have up to 20,000 litres of water per second, which would be deafening. On the way we visited the Staubbach Falls, the third highest waterfall in Switzerland at nearly 300 metrers. While I concentrated on a more distant shot, Peter and Holly walked up close to waterfall to put some scale in the photo!

Cragside Northumberland

Rain threatened all morning last Wednesday but fortunately we managed a whole dry morning to explore Cragside, a wonderfully eccentric National Trust property. I didn't get further than the grounds which are spectacular. The house and gardens are the work of William Armstrong - Victorian inventor  and landscape genius. It was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. The gardens are incredible with one of the largest rock gardens in Europe leading down to the Iron Bridge and an arboretum with the tallest Scots pine in England.