Trail bike
A chilly and blustery Mistral at the beach (just 9°C) so I headed inland and up the rock for a bit of altitude to warm the legs up. Marseille is at heart an agglomeration of Provençal hill villages which are revealed with a bit of exploration. Today I visited le Roucas Blanc, Bompard, and came down through Périer. The cathedral is Notre-Dame de la Garde, which dominates Marseille and its bay.
Then a Sunday treat from the patisserie: ask for an Opéra.
Mont Ventoux (1910 m.)
Satisfaction at getting to one of the beach park gyms in Marseille after an early start in London for the dawn flight up out of the anticyclonic gloom. Fine aerial views from the A320 of Mont Ventoux, the Écrins and the Alps.
Great to cycle with no wind and to enjoy blue sky and sunshine. Hardly anyone around at the Borély beach gym as 14°C in the shade counts as too cold here.
The week’s storms have passed and the wind has turned to a fierce Tramontane from the West, hence the super-clear blue sky. Good to get out on my Marin Palisades Lite to the beach park at Borély and pedal the Corniche Kennedy: the cycle lane improvements have been completed with the separate cycle lane extended.
Rough How Bridge
Grey and dismal day in Keswick but I wanted to go out on the mountain bike anyhow. I set the camera to black and white as there’s not much colour around, so many shades of grey! The monochrome technique emphasises the shapes and textures; it also separates the man-made hard and regular shapes from the soft textures of nature. Lovely Lakeland landscapes and some gorgeous Highlands.
Working black and white photographs on my screen still brings to mind the smells of the liquids in the darkroom trays of yore: D40, Hypo, and the red and amber light of warm darkroom safelights. Nostalgia will never go out of fashion!
More photos: St John’s in the Vale - Lake District National Park
Derwent Water seen from Surprise View
Ashness Bridge
Riding my Rockhopper up to Watendlath Tarn (265 m.). A straight climb up to Ashness Bridge, much photographed. A bit further up there’s Surprise View lookout over Derwent Water towards Bassenthwaite Lake and Skiddaw. Once out of the Lodore Woods there’s the enjoyable high valley fed by the beck from Watendlath Tarn. The bridge at the end of the tarn is another stone bridge, also heavily photographed. Picnic on a windy bank above Watendlath Farm. There are routes onwards to either Thirlmere or Rosthwaite but not for me today.
