A week off for half term, a good weather forecast for our regular stamping ground in Porthmadog, West Wales, a new camera to play with and a desire to photograph a particular train before its withdrawn forever, and thus it was Ho! For Sunny Snowdonia. We also had the new camera to play with- the old D90 wasn't coping too well with moving subject matter, and so we'd saved for ages and bought a new DSLR camera to supplement it.
Arrival on the Monday followed a five+ hour journey from hell, filled with police cars stopping speeding motorists but not helping direct traffic around a crash, cars driving at 40mph in 60mph roads, and random roadworks too of course. The above picture, on the Tuesday, allowed us to find and photograph the locomotive that is soon to be withdrawn, the "Earl of Merrioneth". A bit sad really- its only a little older than me (Ben) but is life-expired. Hopefully this example of 70's/80's locomotive design will get preserved.
Wednesday saw a trip to Barmouth, rendered less enjoyable by the belting case of heat-stroke which clobbered me and sent my body temperature doing loop-de-loops, so not much in the way of photography. A couple of shots of a train on what is supposedly still a main line railway, running through the sand and overgrowth. Annoyingly we left ten minutes too early to get a shot of the pair of low-flying Hercules which flew over the beach, but hey-ho.
No photography then until the weekend and proper recovery from the heat stroke, and it was out into the sunlight to get the shots of the "Earl of Merrioneth" in the woods at Tanybwlch on Saturday. By way of a warm-up, the Welsh Highland Railway near where we were staying provided the sight of the Garratt, 138, heading for Caernarfon.
The heat was pretty oppressive up in the woods, and even more trees had been felled since last time we visited so less shade around to skulk in.
But the desired photograph was achieved anyway- this was the shot I was after all along.
A brief relocation to the level crossing and the next service, with the "David Lloyd George", from low-angle (through the bottom of the gates).
More playing with the new camera, and it's proving rather good at the close-up stuff. At some point, a macro lens may be in order...
After lunch and the wind dropped, the sun went in, and the midges came out. Thousands and thousands of the little sods.
The last train shot of the day, largely because I was being bitten to death by midges now (seriously, the first five shots of this set are obscured by the number of midges landing on the lens...)
As the sun set it was time to walk up the road to tire out the Youngest Child before bedtime, and a nice view over towards Cnicht. Note, depressingly though, the spread of fences securing the bits of land we used for shoots in the past (such as "Home is...").
Final shot of the holiday, and just a little play with long-exposures, but we'll need to have a proper go in the near future.
So not a bad holiday, though illness meant not too many shots were taken, and there's obviously a lot of playing to do with the new camera, but it should be fun.
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