Cheviot Wild Goats
Although I am still trying to decide whether to put a blog together to cover our recent trip to Bali (so many photos etc to go through!) we have already returned to business as usual with hikes in Northumberland. We let the children choose the first one since coming back to the UK, and they chose to do the Wild Goat Walk, which begins from the carpark in Hethpool, which is roughly ///goats.clouding.helps on What3words, the choice of a square containing goats seemed appropriate.
This walk was one of the first we did from the Northumberland National Park website a couple of years ago, we did it at roughly this time of year, maybe further into the autumn, but it became a bit of a game-changer for my photography. Following that walk I developed the presets that I still use as the base/starting point for my photography still to this day.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to start plugging preset packs and selling them, it’s just that the colours that are in this part of the world at this time of the year feel somehow mine… When we drove up, as soon as we passed Wooler I very much got drawn into the tones that were on the sides of some of the hills like Yeavering Bell, the greens of the ferns felt like the greens I try to shoot for, but then theres also the gold from the dry grass, the odd patch of purple where heather had started to bloom, and patches of orangey-brown on the hillside as summer was slowly getting ready to retire and allow autumn to come flooding into the landscape.
The hills around Hethpool as an example of the colour
Hethpool is such a pretty little hamlet. Some of the cottages are beautiful. With so many walks starting from there for College Valley, it must often feel like it’s overrun with hikers, admittedly like myself…
(more pics of Hethpool included in the gallery at the bottom of the blog)
Hethpool House taken from the walking route. The house is a B&B.
The stretch of the walk from Hethpool to Hethpool Linn is one where we have often managed to see some of the local wildlife, we have on more than one occasion seen deer. This walk sadly was not one of those occasions. Although we did see a sheep nicely framed by a tree…
A sheep near Hethpool Linn
We have done this walk many times, and at different times of the year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the foliage along the route quite as large as it was on this day… Some of it not only towered above the children, but was almost as tall as I. I’m not one to complain about that though, it can be fun to try and shoot through it and capture images of the family mid-hike and unposed.
When we got closer to the rear of Yeavering Bell, we couldn’t see many goats on the lower slopes, so we turned back towards Hethpool without taking the small side path up towards where the goats normally were.
From this point there is a route continue over Yeavering Bell, however we haven’t done that route yet so may need to try it without the kids first… Although they done Yeavering Bell with us before it was from the Ad Geffrin side.
Some of the trees here had some marvellously orange berries in them, which really popped in colour and stood out against the deep greens the felt they they dominated the foliage.
The rear of Yeavering Bell as taken from the Wild Goat Walk
As you walk back towards Hethpool from on the other side of College Burn, you get glimpses of some of the farm buildings. In this season they were nicely framed by ferns, and even if they weren’t, anyone who has followed me on Instagram for any amount of time would know these kinds of rural buildings produce very much my kind of landscape photos.
Farm builings near Hethpool, Northumberland
At this point in the walk we had given up any hope of seeing any wild goats, when my son stopped us in the path and hushed us. Hidden in the thick undergrowth, but very close to us, were about half a dozen goats. They stood still long enough to get a handful of photos, before running off up the hills and disappearing into the grass.
Wild Goat near Hethpool, Northumberland
Wild Goat near Hethpool, Northumberland
Wild Goat near Hethpool, Northumberland
Wild Goat near Hethpool, Northumberland
If you would like to see more of my landscape work, moving forward most of the images will be here in blog format, but I will notify of new entries on my Instagram page for landscapes - @photog.righ
If you are interested in following my portrait and product work, links to my instagram and twitter for those accounts are just below at the bottom of this page. A small selection of other images from this walk are in the gallery below.
