The weather has been a hindrance this week but we have plodded on regardless. We have a small list of locations that we want to save for 'perfect' weather and on the flip-side, a small list of locations that aren't all that inspiring. Todays location is Alport Height, it's in the Matlock area, it's a very easily accessible location which unfortunately seems to be is its downfall.
As it happens, we had a message from one of our followers on Facebook about this location warning us that it's become a bit of a beacon for teenagers, boy racers and anti-social behaviour. They were right; the carpark already had a number of occupied cars on it when we arrived that we revving their engines and beeping their horns. The amount of litter in the car park was saddening and honestly angered me. The worst thing though was the amount of vandalism on the gritstone monolith (the main viewpoint of the location).
The monolith stands at about 6 meters high, it had white graffiti sprayed on it in and a hell of a lot of hand made 'engravings' etched into it. The whole experience of being there was negative: the weather consisted of a horrible monotone grey sky, there was litter everywhere, it sounded like the set of a Fast & Furious movie behind us and the viewpoint had been vandalised to death. We were left uninspired, unimpressed and slightly depressed.
Nothing was working for us and to be honest I was worried about my car being parked in the middle of what seemed like a meet-up location. We took this black & white shot but even that couldn't save this location on this particular night, we will just have to treat this as one ticked off the list.
What a shame.