BuggslifePhotography, Homebrew, Canoe, Travel, Nature…

Last weekend I celebrated my 30th Birthday with my closest friends in a barn in Swale Dale, in the Yorkshire Dales (North Yorks).

Here are a couple of snaps taken during the walk into the hills of Upper Swaledale on the Saturday:

There is a small Lead Smelting ruin above Healaugh by a brook (according to the sign the hills contain rich veins of lead ore):

I’ll add the storm and this last one to the weather and landscape galleries.

The barn was Low Row bunkhouse (camping barn) partly run by YHA – a great option for a heavy session over 2 nights.

On the way there we passed through a beautiful plateau with a fantastic viaduct – I think it’s called Ribbleshead Viaduct – with low cloud all over the hills the scene looked great:

Note for tecchies: the post processing on the 2nd photo was simple using Lightroom 3: used ND grad tool and desaturated lower section, desaturate rest of picture slightly then up individual colour channels for red, magenta etc to bring out the heather colours…geeky yet simple.

The idea of this blog is to write about anything and everything that I get up to or ponder – usually accompanied by a related photo. I spent the past bank holiday weekend with the missus and friends camping on the island of Anglesey, Wales in glorious sunshine…albeit in a chilly northerly breeze.

On a tip we discovered this fantastic cover – Porth Wen – the site of an old silica firebricks manufacturer right by the sea. It’s all ruins nowadays but provides a stunning setting with contrasting man-made monuments and natural beauty with the clearest water and cutest of small beaches. It definitely hiked up my already growing love for Anglesey…