Author: Fhithich
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Guibal Fan House, Huntcliff Mine
A well-known landmark beside the Cleveland Way, the Guibal Fan House to Huntcliff Ironstone Mine. The drift entrance to the mine was the other side of the Cleveland Railway with ore being hauled up a ramp in wagons and tipped directly into railway trucks. The entrance and mine buildings have been lost to coastal erosion.…
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Dry stone wall curiosity
Bransdale, the heart of the North York Moors, and a discovery of a peculiar arrangement of dry stone walling. I am on top of a double wall. To my left, a 5′ drop, to my right about a 10′. Not a particularly steep natural slope but the gap between the walls, about 4′ at the…
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Capt. Cook’s Monument and Cockshaw Hill
Late evening view of Captain Cook’s Monument, in this 250th year since Cook set out on his first voyage. Beneath the monument the commercial plantation of Little Ayton Moor, and below that, Cockshaw Hil,l with its disused sandstone quarry. Across the lush green fields, the line of the whinstone intrusion of the Cleveland Dyke can…
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Peacock on a Bluebell
After a few false starts, finally a vernal freshness to the morning. The bluebells are out in Newton woods but a week or so off their best. The more astute of you may have noticed an increase in the posting of telephoto photos. My new toy. Normal service will be resumed when the novelty wears…
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Grey Wagtail
Spotted this little beauty along the River Leven, feeding on insects and invertebrates amongst the gravels. But disappointed to discover it was only a “grey” wagtail. Surely the yellow on its underside would have warranted a better, more expressive name. Scientific name Motacilla cinerea. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Hill of Fire
Tinto, perhaps the most prominent hill in the Clyde valley. At 707m above sea level it is not particularly high but still a very popular climb. The name means the hill of fire, a reference to the druidic practice of lighting fires on the summit to their sun god. A Bronze Age burial cairn, the…
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Auld Wives Lifts
Craigmaddie Muir is a boggy heather moor in the Lennox Hills. The name, Craigmaddie, means ‘Rock of God’ but it is the Auld Wives Lifts that provides a geological curiosity. The Lifts are two massive boulders side by side, with a third, eighteen feet long and weighing some 60 tons, lying across them. It is…
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A’ Chuile
A bothy in Glendessary, 30 miles north west of Fort William. Scottish bothies have been romanticised recently with several press articles and TV programmes. Free places to stay in remote locations with congenial company around a roaring log fire without those creature comforts of modern life that most take for granted. Electricity, gas, WiFi and…
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Linn Caves of Baldernock
In the Lennox Hills just north of Glasgow. A sylvan waterfall behind which are man made caves from limestone extraction. Although the caves go in some distance it seems to have been a low key extraction with kilns nearby burning local coal to make lime for agricultural use. Heading north tomorrow. I will be incommunicado…
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Wheatear
The flashing of white gave it away. My first Wheatear of the year, newly arrived from its warmer African wintering climes. It flitted ahead, alighting on the stone wall, teasing me into thinking I might get just a bit closer before it became bored and took to feeding on the insects in the muck sprayed…