Two Lakes, Two Boat Houses and a Sheep

After a very frustrating five months due to health issues which forced me to miss a much anticipated family holiday to the Lake District we booked a short three night stay in southern Eryri National Park back in May. We visited a number of places including Llynnau Cregennen, Fairbourne and Barmouth.

Llynnau Cregennen has been on my list of places to visit for many years but we always seem to run out of time on the way up to or back from Eryri, so many amazing places to explore. The lakes and land are managed by the National Trust and sit in the shadow of the northern slopes of Cadair Idris. This ancient landscape is said to revel over 4000 years of human presents.

On leaving the main car park the sun disappeared and the clagg started to roll in incredibly fast, we spent the next hour with limited visibility (so much for the views). On arriving at the smaller lake we had a sudden break in the clagg so we took the opportunity to stop for the all in important snacks and I reached for the camera and grabbed a few shots of a boat house I didn’t realise existed (only seen photos of the boat house on the larger lake).

The rest of the walk followed a similar theme, clagg blows in, clagg clears and repeat….. On returning to the main car park the clagg finally cleared for good and the family patiently sat around taking in the views while I tried to photograph the main boat house. I did struggle to find a composition I was happy with as nothing seem to work for a number of reasons so opted to use out of focus grass, keeping it simple.

Would love to return to this location at difference times throughout the year as it has so much to offer.

EQUIPMENT

Olympus OMD-1 Markii

Olympus 12-40mm F4 Pro Lens

Kase Filter polariser

HOW TO GET THERE

Llynnau Cregennen is located above the village of Arthog which is approx six miles from Dolgellau. The single track road (with passing places) is fairly steep in places with a number of gates to open and close.

Postcode LL39 1LJ

PARKING

As this is a National Trust car park charges apply to non members, members can scan their membership cards.

At the time of visiting the parking charge was £5 all day.

The Boat House I didn’t realise existed on the Smaller Lake

Boat House on the Large Lake (next to main Car Park)

Mummy sheep watching walk by

It’s not always about the photos?

Recently I visited Watchet in the hope of taking a beautiful sunset photo featuring the old lighthouse, unfortunately on this occasion it didn’t happen for many reasons (including the sun being blocked out by the cloud, fencing surrounding the lighthouse and lots of people wandering around) but that didn’t matter and it ended up being one of my best trips out with the camera in recent times.

Why was that? While walking around looking for compositions and waiting for that special light I started to think about all the great memories I have of spending my early teenage years with my best mates around the Harbour (yes I’m that old I remember when it was a working harbour), down the beach fishing, playing football/tennis at the park, cycling the Mineral Line and playing Sega Megadrive at mates house (Super Kick Off & Sonic, just in case you’re wondering).

It’s funny as a young teenager you can’t wait to grow up, escape the small town and don’t fully appreciate the memories you’re making, 30 odd years on I can say I’m incredibly lucky to have these amazing memories.

I look forward to returning to Watchet in the coming months to reminisce some more and maybe grab that photo I’m after.

Thank you again to my mates for the amazing memories

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Canon RP | RF Lens | 90mm | F9 | 8 secs | ISO 100

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Canon RP | RF Lens | 63mm | F9 | 4 secs | ISO 100

Sennen Cove Breakwater

Having seen many spectacular photography’s of waves breaking over Sennen Cove’s Breakwater I’ve been wanting to visit and try to bag a photo for myself. 

Recently I was fortunate enough to be working close by in Penzance and took advantage of being so close after finishing work. Conditions weren’t ideal for the hour I had with the cloud set in and constant drizzle but the tide was high , waves where crashing over the breakwater and I was the only one there. 

Below are a few of the photos of the hundred plus I took (still working my way through them all), please feel free to comment / give me feedback.

I plan to visit again as I’d like to explore the area more, though next time I will defiantly be more prepared just in case its wet, taking more than one lens cloth so I can keep the lens clear (to many ruined photos due to water spots) and take a hot drink!

CANON RP | 24-105MM RF LENS | 93MM | ISO 200 | 7.1 | 1/200 SEC |

CANON RP | 24-105MM RF LENS | 24MM | ISO 100 | F11 | 1/60 SEC |

CANON RP | 24-105MM RF LENS | 24MM | ISO 100 | F11 | 1/6 SEC |

Foggy Walk On The Quantock Hills

I was lucky enough to be brought up just 10 minutes from the Quantock Hills an area of AONB, as a young child it’s where I spent many hours with my Parents, Sisters and Brother walking, playing and building dens. As a teenage I spent lots of time within the Cubs and Scouts Groups exploring and camping on the Quantocks but as an adult I drifted away from visiting the Quantocks to visit places further afield (in the UK and Aboard) even though I still lived relatively close for most of this time. Things changed in March 2020 when we went in to Lockdown here in the UK, being restricted to local exercise we soon exhausted the local parks and on gentle relaxing of rules were looking for somewhere else local to visit its then the Quantock Hill sprang to mind. Since then I along with my family have spent many hours revisiting old paths and discovering new one all over the Quantocks. 

Last weekend we met my Sister and her family at Staple Plain for a walk retracing some of the paths we walked as children, through the woodland and along the Valley floor all in thick fog.

As ever I packed my camera (with single lens 24mm-105mm) just in case there was a chance to grab a few foggy snaps which I was lucky enough to do much to my five year old nephews dismay (Uncle T why are you taking pictures of old trees in fog he asked a number of times).

Below are a few of the snaps I managed to take throughout our walk.

For more information about the Quantock Hills visit: https://www.quantockhills.com