publicenergy

The photograph above was taken by Rick yesterday at the Kinder Low summit. An excellent bit of silly Photoshopping, up there with his take on the Dissolution of the Monestaries.

This was part of a walk from Edale going up Jacob’s Ladder to Kinder Downfall and eventually down Grindsbrook Clough back to Edale. The route is a little under 10 miles but sections of it can be slow going.  I’d done a lot of this walk before but I had never been to Kinder Low or Kinder Downfall. Kinder Low looks a bit moon-like hence Rick’s photoshopping effort above.

There is a lot of quite odd scenery on this route – one of the strangest sections for me was the crossing from Kinder Downfall to Grindslow Knoll – this starts by walking along the River Kinder river bed and when the river dwindles away, you’re left navigating through peat hags and troughs, some of which must be 15 feet deep – it’s odd being on top of one of the highest parts of the Peak District but also being in 15 foot deep trough and not being able to see out of it. Because this section was new to me and navigation in it looked interesting, I’d programmed the GPS with a number of way-points to use. I used this a couple of times just to check we were still headed in the right direction. We met a couple inside these troughs who were doubting their heading but after a brief conversation we decided we were all going the right way.

The weather was lovely yesterday – sunny but not too hot with a nice breeze. I think in horrible weather, the crossing of the Kinder plateau would be a lot less fun – especially when water soaked.

The route guide I had suggested that this walk would take about five and a half hours – we took 8 hours! We did spend a lot of time taking photos though. I have around 200 taken on a mixture of the Nikon D50 and the Canon Ixus 55 (the infrared ones). I also worked my way though 3 films on the Holga so will get those developed and upload any worthwhile shots.

When I got home I had something to eat and fell asleep – I awoke somewhat surprised around 4 hours later. I haven’t done that for a very long time. I think when you’re having fun it’s possible not to notice how tired you’ve got!

Flickr set for the day… Kinder Scout 0407

So, why is this post called ‘Two days in space’ ? Well, the fake moon landing on Kinder Low was the first, the second was today when I went to see Sunshine –  a film about a team of astronauts being sent to re-ignite out dying sun. It was pretty enjoyable, if only because it reminded me of so many other films – so much of it felt like it had been lifted out of an older film. Various bits of it reminded me of 2001, Alien, Dark Star, Black Hole and countless other films that were variations of those made afterwards. So, it wasn’t in any way original. I did find it entertaining to begin with but the influence of other films became more evident as it progressed and towards the end I started getting bored with the hackneyed story line and reliance on count down timers. I don’t think I’ve seen a really good film since watching The Science of Sleep or The Prestige, both of which I found fascinating.