You might have had a sneaky glimpse of what I’ve been doing on the last Bank Holiday Monday of the year earlier on, as I mentioned I’ve been at High Force, again.

I was there not so long back (August 9th), with Big Phil, Tetlow and Dan from work, so they could test their new cameras, and I could take yet more photos with mine. You can see those original images, (Including Rievaulx Abbey images taken earlier in the day) here. As you can see (assuming you clicked the link), the weather when we got to High Force was pretty overcast, and not ideal for artistic photography. And, although I clicked away like a Tourettes sufferer on Red Bull, I didn’t really get an “outstanding” image. Some really good ones, yes, but not one that would make me weep openly with happiness everytime I clapped my beady little eyeballs over it. With the excpetion of this one however. Amusingly, I didn’t even notice the view in the foreground until Dan left that comment. Ahem.

Anyway, I digress. As I explained in the previous posting, I’d planned going somewhere for the day with Coatesy. It got to after dinnertime, and, after hearing nothing, I thought it wasn’t going to happen. That changed, however, when his car pulled up outside Mercuryvapour Towers, at about 1PM catching me totally off guard. Normally, there’d be a phone call or something to make sure we’d still be on for the particular day, but it turned out he’d lost both my mobile and house number when he upgraded his phone.

It turned out he’d sent an email confirming everything, but I’m still having issues with the bloody spam filter on the webmaster address, so I missed it.

Anyway, I answer the door, looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards (I was in the middle of cleaning the house up a bit at the time), I confirm my acknowledgement of his prescence by opening the large oak door on the front of Mercuryvapour Towers, and announced that I’m going for a shave, and to make myself look a bit more alive. He returned to the car, and I slapped my face under the tap, and attacked it with my Mach 3.

Plans for the day were still a little hazy at this point. We had a car, but nowhere to go. We headed out of town, and pulled into our favourite little resting point - the Wynyard Services. You may remember this particular location from January 29th, as it was where we went after Coatesy told me he passed his driving test. No matter where we go, it’s always the first stop as it has cash machines, food, and plenty of bottled water at reasonable prices. Today it was used for those very reasons, and also, it was used as the point where we discussed where we were about to go. I believe it was also chosen because of its stunning vistas of the A689…

As Coatesy set up the essential equipment (sat nav, ipod containing some quality CHOOONS), we discussed where to go. In my mind, I wanted to suggest High Force, but I considered it a bit too far out…

“Where’s High Force?” he announced, totally unprovoked, as he flipped through the options on his sat-nav. I cheered a little inside.

“Search for Newbiggin”, I said. It was the only place name I can remember from my original journey. It found the wrong Newbiggin. Bugger. However, after consulting a PROPER map, there’s two villages called Newbiggin within 20 miles of each other, so it’d have been close with either of them.

Eventually, the sat-nav accepted our destination, and off we went, leaving Teesside behind, and heading west along the A 689, which is a stupidly straight road. It’s probably an old Roman road, with tarmac over the top of it.

It wasn’t long before we arrived in the stunning countryside between our starting point and our destination. Coatesy sensed I needed the chance to operate my trigger finger, so we pulled over, and took photos of the landscape.

Although I’ve only posted one photo there, I took a hell of a lot more, all of which are viewable on flickr. Christ. How many times have I mentioned that site tonight? Um.

Anyway, we proceeded on with the car journey, and it wasn’t long before the stunning scenery captivated us once again. We pulled over, and as well as taking another load of pictures, I also took one of this little guy…

Awww. So, we left the sheeps behind, and arrived at our destination - High Force. Despite the fact it was the bank holiday, it was still the same cost. I’m quite bemused why you’d need to actually PAY to see a waterfall anyway. It’s not as if it needs to be maintained, or anything.

Once again, the camera came out, and I’m happy to report that the photos turned out better than last time.

We went up the the top of the waterfall. At this point, Coatesy will be expecting for me to call him all of the wimpy names under the sun, but I wont, as he went nowhere near the edge while I hung over the edge and took more images. He was more than happy to stay on terra firma…

It was sort of the reverse of the first trip with Dan and Phil from work. While they were teetering over the edge of the 20-metre drop, I was hanging back, not going too close. However, this time, I was the one with the “balls”, for want of a better word, to be close to the edge. I also seemed to handle the rock “climbing” a little better too. We both came back alive, and I had a card full of photos once again. Of course, the day wouldn’t be complete without something to scran. The nearest village was Middleton in Teesdale, where we stopped off for some chips. And just in case you don’t believe me, here’s the photo…

As you can see, the shop was given the most original of titles. It does exactly was it says on the tin… er, sorry, I mean sign.

Typically, just as I was about to get served, they ran out of bloody chips, so I had to wait about 10 minutes while they fried some more. This however, was amusing, as the woman behind the counter also managed to drop a carton of curry all over the floor, and then make a song and dance about it, as if it was the end of the world. I’m glad it wasn’t a piece of fish she dropped, she’d have been hanging from the ceiling by the time it hit the floor.

That was our last stop, though we did go to a paper shop in order to get some sweets for the journey home. I settled for a bag of Wine Gums, which, coincidentally . In fact, according to Google Maps, we’d passed the very same building where they came from on our way there. The chances, eh?

This particular visit can be viewed here

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