Castleton, Pindale, and Brough

It's not been a good day for photography; it stayed quite misty all the time. Some of the photographs I took though looked wonderful on the camera's small screen but I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the images when viewing them at home on my laptop..so they haven't appeared on the blog..

I travelled to Castleton and initially spent a bit of time photographing the Christmas decorations and the shop window displays - I was having problems with reflections and focusing with my subject matter being behind glass, and the interior of the shop spoiling the composition of the shot. One thing I think I do need to mention about the Christmas displays at Castleon is that some of the Christmas trees block the pavements, and that's not good because it forces people to walk in the road.

Once I left Castleton the photos are a lot less colourful because of the murky weather. On the subject of colour; quite a few of the sheep that I saw had been sprayed with, or dipped in, something light brown.

I left the village and headed out to the west, towards the abandoned road at the foot of Mam Tor.

Even though it was misty and miserable it was actually quite warm and a lot of people were out walking today - some of them only wearing tee-shirts.

I didn't climb Mam Tor, instead I went south, and then east, along tracks and a short section of road until I reached Pindale.

I then walked down the road towards Hope, but although there are four cafes/tearooms at Hope I didn't go there today; instead I took the footpath that heads parallel to the road all the way to Brough.

I decided to end my walk at Brough because of the timings of the buses going back to Sheffield. It was only fifteen minutes until the next one was due, not enough time to be able to walk along the footpath to the next village...and I didn't fancy walking down the road and seeing how far I could get.

I spent the time at the bus stop chatting with a local man from Bradwell, a Sheffield United fan who was travelling into the city, but not to watch the big match this afternoon, versus Manchester United.

UPDATE:

The sheep’s backsides are to do with ‘tupping’ I.e being mated with the ram. He wears a big dye pack on his chest, so the farmer can see which ones have been mated.

Thanks to Sue commenting on the 'Walking Around The Peak District' Facebook page.