Apologies to anyone expecting the second part of my post covering the walk between Elton and Robin Hood’s Stride. That should be here tomorrow – I got waylaid today, unfortunately.
Here instead is another photo taken during the walk but which didn’t feature in the first half of the post published yesterday.
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 26 March 2024
This is the third of these posts, and the second for which I selected a hike from my Ordnance Survey book: Peak District – Outstanding Circular Walks. I was going to be slightly OCD about the routes in this book and do them in order, but I then decided that would be silly and that I should do them in whatever order suited me. In this case, I skipped the second walk in the book because it was a location I’m quite familiar with, and this one is somewhere I’ve never visited before.
The route of this walk is in the Derbyshire countryside to the north of the village of Elton. It’s a short route of just over three miles, with an elevation of 750 feet. While the guide gives an approximate time of 2 hours to complete the walk, because I’m faffing around taking photographs, it took me somewhat longer.
Although Elton isn’t too far, much of the drive there is on smaller roads, so it took about an hour to get there and park up. The weather was a little overcast when I arrived, but with the promise of some brighter spells later. The starting point for the hike is outside the Duke of York pub, across from the village church.
Not long after this, there was a slightly confusing branch of the path in a field that first had me wandering around some farm machinery before wandering off down the wrong fork. It was a little while later, after descending a hill and then crossing a large pool of muddy ground near the entrance to a field that I realised my error. Luckily, re-checking my map, I could see that the narrow road I was now on would curve around and intersect the original footpath, so I stayed on this course. This wasn’t a bad thing as, part way up a hill at a bend in the road, I came across a series of water troughs, fed by a spring.
These troughs are called the Burycliffe Troughs and the spring that fills them has never been known to run dry. Until 1940, these were Elton’s main source of drinking water, and men, women, and children would walk here in all weathers to collect water in buckets and then carry them back up the hill to the village. One enterprising farmer would fill urns of water and transport them in a cart, selling them for a penny a bucketful.
A little further up the road I rejoined my original route and broke off into a field to the left. The path led through another field where this tree stood near the ridge of the hill.
As the path descended, it reached another track, this one leading to a Christian sanctuary / retreat. On the other side of the track a lone piece of farm machinery stood on the grass.
While crossing the next field I spotted a herd of animals off to my left. I soon realised that these were deer. I took a photograph but it should be noted that the Olympus XA3 is not a useful wildlife camera. You can see the deer in this picture though – they are the black pixels about a quarter of the way up the frame. 😀
One thing you find a lot of in the Peak District (and, to be fair, a lot of the British countryside) are drystone walls. This arrangement of walls with a lone tree looked like a decent photograph to take.
In the opposite direction, a track led to a farm sitting atop the ridge of a hill.
A little further along the route, the path I needed to follow crossed a small stream before curving up and to the east through some woodland. There were signs of forestry activity here, and it marked a good place to park myself on a fallen log and take a drink of water. It also marks the place where I’ll leave the first part of this post. In part two there will be stone circles, rock outcrops, and a hermitage!
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 26 March 2024
Another handy digital post. I’ve been traveling for work today, so still haven’t had time to start my next “Walk With a Camera” post yet. Maybe tomorrow…
So here’s another shot from Malaga last year. I liked this scene because the three groups of people seemed almost in formation.
Ricoh GRIII
Taken on 19 August 2023
Film stuff will be back soon, I promise. 🙂
This picture was taken in Malaga last year. The place was heaving with crowds of people as the annual Feria de Malaga was taking place while we were there. Everyone was drinking Cartojal, a local sweet wine, and many of the women and girls were wearing flamenco dresses.
Ricoh GRIII
Taken on 20 August 2023
I have another of my “Walk With a Camera” posts coming soon, but I haven’t put virtual pen to ink yet, and I don’t plan on rushing it today. I’ve been out mist of the day, firstly seeing The Fall Guy at the cinema with my wife, and then’ when I got home, on a shortish walk to Rother Valley Country Park to test a new lens I’ve bought.
I’ve bought a Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens that will fit my Nikon F80. I think it will be a good choice for when I go on future hikes as it should give me a lot of versatility. The F80 can make use of the image stabilisation on the lens (although I’ve found, slightly annoyingly, that only with a half-press of the shutter, and not with my preferred back-button focusing method). This should prove useful when using the longer focal lengths.
A zoom like this is never going to beat a prime, but as it’ll be used with 35mm film – probably 400asa – then I’m hoping any noticeable shortcomings will be minimal. I only took two shots with it today – all that remained on the roll already in the camera – but they’re at 200mm and 300mm, so should give me some idea of what I can expect when zoomed in. I’ll try the wide angle end on the next roll. I’ll give my thoughts and post some pictures once I’ve gotten them developed and scanned.
Anyway, in lieu of a film photograph today, here’s a digital shot from my trip to Malaga last summer. It’s been hot and humid here in the UK today, so it brought back memories of Spain.
Ricoh GRIII
Taken on 20 August 2023
The pictures today show The Grey Ladies, a stone circle that stands on Harthill Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District between Youlgreave and Elton.
Also known as Nine Stones Close, the circle dated back to the Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and is likely at least three thousand years old. It’s an odd thought to think that, over thirty centuries ago, people stood where I did and built this.
Although named Nine Stones Close, there are just four stones present in the arrangement today (although in the mid 19th century there were still seven – one of these now stands as a nearby gatepost while another lays in a field some distance to the north.). The site was excavated in the 19th century, and some consercation work took place in the 1930s to re-stand two of the stones which had fallen.
Folklore says that the stones will sometimes dance at midday and midnight, and the “Nine” in the name Nine Stones Close may be a corruption of “Noon”, when fairies were said to gather to dance at the site.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 26 March 2024
Finding old, abandoned cars isn’t that easy in the UK. Anything unroadworthy (which includes most old cars) is, well, off the road. In most cases this will mean scrappage of the vehicle. Even scrap yards seem to be a thing of the past. All the old yards, where you could wander between aisles of teetering wrecks piled atop one another, looking for a spare wing mirror or replacement windscreen wiper motor for your own, still functioning, ride, seem to have disappeared. They’ve been lost to tightening of laws and regulations and, to some extent probably, online sales of used parts.
While this isn’t a junkyard, finding these old cars (including a couple of Vauxhall’s – A Chevette, and a Nova) by the side of a footpath, was a pleasant surprise. These scenes may not be pretty but they’re certainly photogenic.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 26 March 2024
Today’s photo is from a hike I took back in March. There will be a post or two about the full hike coming soon, but before then I’ll share some medium format pictures I made with my Yashica Mat 124G alongside the bulk that I shot with my Olympus XA3.
This farm sits in the hilly Peak District countryside between Elton to the south and Youlgreave to the north.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 26 March 2024
The first two boats in this scene – Willow and Trisantona – look best suited to the adjacent River Trent, although I suppose they can also traverse the River Idle. I’m not sure if boats like this venture onto the Chesterfield Canal, and I expect that their wakes would cause quite a commotion if they did. That journey is probably left to narrowboats, like the ones moored in the background.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 March 2024
Occasionally on this blog I will post a photograph without saying anything about it. I could try and bluff my way through this and claim that “the picture speaks for itself“, or something similar, but that would be – pardon my French – bullshit.
What it actually means is, usually, one of two things:
Option 2 is the usual culprit. I’ve either been doing something that has kept me from the computer, or I’ve been doing something else on the computer (or PlayStation…) and the time has gotten away from me. Either way, the result is the same, a picture without words.
Today was going to be a similar thing, but then I wrote this.
So here’s a picture that has words, they’re just not connected to its contents whatsoever…
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 March 2024
Steel City Snapper photography 