Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Mountain Goat, part 2

We went over two mountain passes on our trip—the Wrynose and the Hardknott—and I’m afraid I’ve sort of gotten confused over which is which and what pictures I took of them. I think some of my pictures in the previous post may have been taken on or after we drove over the Wrynose pass.

If you follow the Wrynose link, above, you’ll see a picture of the Three Shires Stone. (Don’t overlook the first picture—see all the sheep in the shade? We didn’t notice sheep doing that, but maybe that’s because a good part of our trip was chilly and rainy. No need to seek shade.) I do remember our guide, Malcolm, telling us about this stone. He said it made sense before the government reorganized the British counties. Before the reorganization, Lancashire, Westmorland, and Cumberland met at the stone; now they are all part of Cumbria. Here’s a bit on the stone, and if you follow the links, you’ll see more about the passes.

We did take a few pictures of those roads. As I remember, Malcolm had to get a running start with the van to make it up. See the road winding off into the distance?

goat road

Here’s a picture Mr. M. took. Look for the car’s headlights. (You'll probably have to click on the picture to enlarge it.)

goat road pass with car

I think this might be on the other side of the pass. You can see the clouds were low that day.

goat road and mist--maybe going over one of the passes

From time to time in our travels, we were following the old Roman road. Once we got over Hardknott pass, we came upon the old Roman fort.

goat roman fort

The fort is the circle of stones—hmm or maybe that’s the bath areas. If the weather had been better, we would have stopped and poked around, but, alas, that was not to be. However, you can read a bit about it and see some pictures here. Malcolm pointed out this was probably not a plum posting—too remote and too cold.

At various points along this part of the drive, Malcolm was hoping we could see Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England, but the clouds were too low. Here is some mountain. I don't know which one it is, but it's not Scafell.

goat misty view after roman fort

Yet more Mountain Goat adventures to come.

No comments:

Post a Comment