A 3AM Start for dramatic skies...

Yesterday I had the idea to get out at stupid o'clock and get the sunrise over Castleton from the top of Mam Tor. My plan was to set off around 4.45am to get there before sunrise and get a lovely position to get the dramatic sunrises that happen over the great ridge.

My body or mind had different plans, I don't sleep very well now days, as my anxiety levels are very high to say the least, so at 2am I woke up, fell asleep initially around 11.30, managed to nod back off until 3am. Then I was just laid there knowing that I'd be up soon anyways, I decided to get up have a coffee and get out over to the peak district.

As I went out the house at 4am, I went into the back garden and looked up, the stars were absolutely stunning, the brightest I've seen them for a while, I could have just got the camera out and photographed them although it was great to see Orion back in the sky which tells us that winter is on the way.

(mobile phone shot)

When we were approaching our location, cloud and fog moved in, it wasn't looking promising, I took the drone with me too but the wind had really got up and was blowing a gale. The above shot is walking up Mam Tor, it was surprising just how many people were already there, and what seemed strange, 9 out of 10 people seemed to be women.

(Another mobile phone shot)

We were contemplating on where to stand, stay on the top of the mountain or walk along the great ridge down the other side, we opted to go down the great ridge as there is a gate on there which makes for great shots at surise, but low and behold, there was a photographer already there, so I opted for the gate before hand, which I think was a little bit better as we were a bit higher and could see the sunrise better from our location.

It was also the perfect call to go to the gate as the fog decided to linger on top of the mountain, so all those that stayed on Mam Tor for the sun rise didn't get to see anything only red fog lol.

It's not the sunrise I wanted, but the clouds made for some epic and dramatic photographs, I am more than happy with what I did get from this mornings excursion.

Looking behind us over to Edale and Kinder Scout, the sky was also epic, with warm light, clouds covering the top of the mountains and shadows, it was a beautiful if not windy sight.

After the light show we headed back to the car, it felt as if it was about 11am, but it was only around 7am, it's weird how those early mornings can play tricks on your body clock.
We really wanted to get some breakfast, but the issue was no where was open at that time, that we knew of anyways.

We had a little walk around Castleon, not taking my camera I just shot on the mobile phone, we were in the hopes that we'd find a cafe or pub that's open, a man was putting the chairs outside his cafe, but he said they didn't open until 9.30 and it had just turned 8am when we got there.
Castleton isn't a very big village you could most likely walk around it half a dozen times in an hour and half.

So we decided to have a steady drive home, on the way back we pass a pub called "Fox House", we checked online and this opens at 9, heading back we were stuck behind a caravette and the driver was going way below the speed limit, although no rush, we got to Fox House for 8.40am, so only 20 mins to wait, however while we were waiting, I must have been tired as I fell asleep for a few mins.

Finally, we got breakfast, it was absolutely lovely and we were more than ready for it.

I really hope you've enjoyed this blog and that you have really liked the pics I've posted, main pics were shot using a Sony A7iii camera with a Canon 24-105mm F4.0 L Lens, mobile phone shots were done with a Samsung S21.

Thanks for reading.

All the best :-)