I did my fair share of complaining about the weather last week, this week (so far) has been great, windy, but great. Most of the Peak District had been forecast to have clear sky's which is enjoyable but doesn't make for interesting landscape photos. The only place with any cloud predicted was at Ladybower Reservoir, that would be our destination for the sunset; location number 7, Derwent Edge.
Like with so many of the locations, the ascent was steep and, to take a phrase from 'Peak District - Through the Lens', a bit of a "lung buster". We were back to the snails pace from the previous day, perhaps we need to do some of the easier locations just to give our legs a rest? We dragged each other up the hill, it took far longer than it should have but we knew it would, we gave ourselves plenty of time. Derwent Edge is quite large, to properly explore it is 4 miles of walking. Neither of us were in a position to walk that far, especially knowing we had another 4 a.m start the next day. We explored the first part of the summit and dabbled with a couple of compositions. Just before the golden hour kicked in, Tracy took this super photo of Ladybower Reservoir (love the purple heather at the back!):
There were two viewpoints in particular that we liked, unfortunately they were a few hundred meters apart. The path between the two spots is rocky and uneven, getting from one to the other during those precious few minutes would be tough. We walked up to the highest of the two; "if I have to run, it may as well be downhill because there's no chance I can run up that". A little bit of cloud blocked the sun right until the last minute. Once the sun peaked below it the whole landscape started to glow. I took a few shots, quickly checked them for the dreaded lens flare, grabbed my stuff and started to run. It was hardly comparable to Usain Bolt but I was fairly impressed given how tired my legs were. Tracy was waiting for me at the bottom, we set up the last shot and took it. We had made it. A job well done, a pat on the back and an hours drive home ready to do it all again in 4 hours time.
