We chose Haweswater for our next place to visit.
I was initially not that enthused as from what I had read, it was largely a place with a big lake and so it gave me the impression of not much to see – how wrong I was!
About Haweswater
Haweswater is a reservoir in the valley of Mardale, Cumbria in the Lake District, England.
Work to raise the height of the original natural lake was started in 1929. It was controversially dammed after the UK Parliament passed a Private Act giving Manchester Corporation permission to build the reservoir to supply drinking water to the city.
The decision caused a public outcry because the farming villages of Measand and Mardale Green would be flooded and the valley altered forever.
The reservoir is now owned by United Utilities. It supplies about 25% of the North West’s water supply.
Haweswater is derived from Old Norse or Old English. ‘Hafr’s lake’ refers to the personal Norse name ‘Hafr’ or in Old English ‘Hæfer’; ‘water’ or ‘wæter’ is the dominant term for ‘lake’ in old English.
The visit
There appears to be one road in and out of this location.
There’s a final stretch of road alongside the reservoir to a car park at the end.
We took the middle path upwards through the gate to being exploring.
We continued walking up the path to find some small waterfalls which of course meant I had to stop and take some photos.
Before I did that, the view down to the reservoir was impressive.
As I was travelling lighter in terms of gear, I had to shoot everything handheld but I knew by the forecast and afternoon part of the day, it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge to drop to a lower shutter speed if needed.
I had taken some circular magnetic filters so I had a polariser and two or three ND filters if needed.
You can see below some stretching of certain settings to achieve the water effect I was after. The ability to shoot sharp at 1/8sec handheld shows the ability of the in body camera stabilisation.
I did a couple more varied shots with the one below being a pleasing image but nothing spectacular.
We took the opportunity to have a sit down, something to eat and drink and just take in the scenery.
I took another image looking down to Haweswater, with Kathryn in view as she was admiring the view too.
The drone takes nine images and the stitches them together and pops out a .jpeg file. Below is the file in all its glory, 52MP of goodness!
On the way up to this point, we had observed some waterfalls on the other side of the valley.
We decided we would make our way to the one covered by trees. This involved carefully walking over very damp, spongy and boggy vegetation to get to it.
Once there, I realised there was lots of potential here for some good shots.
We climbed down to the level of the waterfall where it took me a few shots to get one I was pleased with, and without a bright section on the water’s surface.
Despite the deployment of a polariser, in some parts of this hidden treat, it was quite bright.
Kathryn obliged with an action shot.
I couldn’t help but fire off a few more shots, including this close up of the waterfall.
It was 6:15pm, and we decided to head back, and another path further up from the waterfall, and opposite from where we had walked up would be the chosen way back.
Down towards the bottom, I quite liked this scene with the water and the bridge.
We got back to the car and poured ourselves a cuppa from the flask.
We timed it well as clouds began to close in and we were clearly going to get a storm and rain quite quickly.
On our drive out, I stopped roadside to catch a shot of the reservoir.
We had very much enjoyed Haweswater, and it had surprised me by just how much photographic opportunity it had offered.
It’s definitely a location to consider returning to in future.
On the way back to our cottage in Glenridding, as the rain continued to come and go, an awesome rainbow appeared in the sky.
We stopped the car alongside Ullswater, and I grabbed this shot. A ‘Brucie Bonus” at the end of a fabulous trip out.
Onwards and upwards…