Walk pictures - Silverdale (3)

Introduction

There’s also the first and second sets of holiday snaps, if you didn’t see them. And the fourth set too.

Tuesday morning

I woke early and went down to take a look at the cove before breakfast.

It’s eight o’clock and the alpacas are still asleep. Very sensible.

1/250 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°10′24″N 2°49′56″W

Nice wall and tree.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°10′22″N 2°50′0″W

Looking north, with cave.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°10′19″N 2°50′3″W

South toward the distant nuclear power station.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°10′19″N 2°50′4″W

Trees along the top of the cove.

1/1000 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°10′20″N 2°50′3″W

Tuesday afternoon

We took the train to nearby Ulverston. After buying sandwiches from a local baker in an indoor market, we had a quick look around the town, which has various historic and pretty buildings.

Union Street Primitive Methodist Church (disused).

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′46″N 3°5′35″W

Santa in the window.

1/500 at f4, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′48″N 3°5′32″W

Nice building on the corner.

1/250 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′50″N 3°5′25″W

Car scrapyard.

1/250 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′52″N 3°4′59″W

Ulverston claims to have the deepest, widest, and shortest canal in the country. None of these claims are true, but it is still pretty short (about a mile). It runs from a large basin in the town to a lock which opens onto Morecambe Bay. It’s closed to navigation; until recently it was owned by the neighbouring GlaxoSmithKline factory as an emergency water supply.

Superstructure around old rail bridge to Glaxo factory. Lighthouse behind.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′37″N 3°4′4″W

Other side of bridge (which is now a footbridge) with water lilies.

1/125 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′37″N 3°4′3″W

The factory is quite impressive, especially since it only makes a few types of antibiotics. (It probably shouldn‘t be surprising that it takes a rather large factory to produce some very small tablets.)

In 2002 a study rated it the third-largest producer of carcinogenic pollutants in the country, which is pretty good going. We noticed a slight smell at one point which Dad (who used to work in the chemical industry) identified as a particular solvent I’ve forgotten the name of, but other than that the air seemed fine. Probably best not to drink the water.

Part of the factory.

1/1000 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′33″N 3°3′48″W

Another part.

1/800 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′30″N 3°3′37″W

Reflections.

1/800 at f8, 23mm, ISO200 54°11′27″N 3°3′27″W

We ate our lunch at the bay end of the canal, looking out over the rail viaduct.

View out to the bay.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

Near the lock gates.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

Mum, with railway viaduct behind.

1/400 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

Looking back up the canal.

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

Ineffective lock gates. (The other pair are more solid. By which I mean bricked up.)

1/500 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

Not having a better plan, we then had to walk all the way back along the canal.

Phone mast and nice building.

1/250 at f8, 23mm, ISO200

We walked through town to a local park and climbed up to the lighthouse - it isn’t a real lighthouse, but a monument to a John Barrow. The path up is fairly steep.