Padley Gorge - Autumn

It was a relatively warm day in late October 2022 when Anthony and I decided to pay a visit to Padley Gorge, located near Grindleford in the beautiful Peak District.

We met up just after 10:00am, parked our cars on the road approaching Grindleford Station and decided that breakfast and warm drink in the Station Cafe would be a wise move before starting our trek.

Unfortunately, the cafe was a cash only business and we had to rustle up what little cash we had between us. Come on, who carries loads of cash these days. We managed to rustle up enough to get ourselves a portion of Beans on Toast and a drink each. We made a note to ensure that we would bring cash with us on our next visit.

Our goal was to visit the Silver Birch forest located near the Bolehill Wood old Quarry.and the journey there yielded many interesting Toadstools, the like of which I have never really witnessed before, most likely because I had never really looked for them. the toadstools were dotted around randomly over the forest floor, never more than one or two here and there, but they proved to be an irresistible opportunity for a few shots, taken with the iPhone.

After a bit of a climb, we reached the Bolehill Quarry area on the top of the hill and we were greeted by the Silver Birch Forest, which although not fully in their Autumnal splendour, they were nonetheless quite stunning to behold.

If we were to be totally honest, we had hoped for the forest to be displaying a little more of the Golden autumn colours of the season, but despite it being 26th October, the Autumn colours were not yet in their full splendour.

A little poetic post processing managed to present me with the sort of scene that we had hoped to witness on the day, and the light was coming and going so fast with rapid movement of the clouds, we decided that a wander down into Padley Gorge may present us with some better photographic opportunities.

I loved the perspective view of the bridge across the Gorge and managed to capture this shot.

Walking down the edge of the gorge, and there was certainly a lot more water flowing than we experienced during our visit earlier in the year and I managed to capture a few long exposure shots with the iPhone, here is one example that I particularly liked.

Both Anthony and I had a great morning wandering around Padley Gorge and it is a day that I will remember for a long time to come, I even caught a shot of Ant, happy in his work, trying to decide Camera or iPhone?