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Cave Dwelling - A rather wet revisit to Dinorwic / September 16, 2020 by Pete Rowbottom

With the advent of Covid 19, travel has very much been restricted, and with it the photography options that come with travelling for imagery. Unusually for me to date (September 2020) I still haven’t been to the Lake District this year, although I’m looking to get up there really soon.

On the spare of the moment I decided to have a few days up in Snowdonia to revisit Dinorwic Quarry, and also to scout out some new locations, one great thing about Dinorwic is that it really does suit cloudy and wet weather, so if the dreaded rain should roll in you can still achieve some great images up there, well, at least sometimes you can, I got a lot more than I bargained for on the first day….

I had a couple of things I wanted to achieve on this visit, to a couple of caves that I had never visited before in the quarry, and also to get some shots with the drone I now own, now I am reasonably proficient with using it.. After checking the weather (which looked cloudy but dry) with big camera bag in tow, plus tripod, and the drone in it’s box, I set off towards the quarry once more. The caves are located to the rear of a gorgeous (and oddly coloured) pool called Dali’s Hole, upon arriving the pool was at a very high level on this visit due to the amount of rainfall that has occurred lately and the colour of it was incredible, a stark contrast to the dull hues of the slate quarry all around, only broken up by patches of colourful heather on the sides. I decided to set up for the first shot of the day, no sooner had I got set up it started to rain, not a lot at first, but enough to make it pointless shooting, so I figured I’d go to the caves and just wait for it to blow over….

I love exploring new places, and this location certainly has a ‘forgotten lost world’ feeling to it, here’s a few shots from inside the caves, the rain made for a great waterfall halfway in:

When I came to leave it was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to go out as the route was precarious in places and the rain was now coming down sideways, coupled with a very strong wind and the fact I’d only have one hand free to grip onto rocks I decided to wait it out in the cave for a couple of hours as the forecast was saying it would clear then. I set about getting more detailed shots and lighting the inside of the cave with a panel light I carry. A few hours passed, if anything it had just got worse, I checked the weather again and it had now changed to being the same all day! not wanting to spend a full day in a cave I just headed out into it and got completely soaked, taking my time I eventually got back to the car absolutely soaking wet.

Photography wise, the rest of the day was a write off, so an afternoon was spent ‘planning’ with a few Pints and a (really superb) Curry later on. - if you like Indian food then try Spice of Llanberis if you are in town! I’ve been 3 times now and has been great every time - https://spiceofllanberis.com/

The following morning, there was an exceptional sunrise over Lyn Padarn, and I got to explore more of the quarry that I hadn’t visited before, including using the drone, I think I’ve probably done about 90% of it now, but no doubt there are many features that I will still find on upcoming visits.

A selection of images from the trip:

I’m going to try and get a map of the place together, this might take a while so bear with me, it really is an enourmous place, but with care can be visited without a map, exploring it is all part of the fun, very much a sense of discovery in many ways.

Dinorwic Slate Quarry, Snowdonia / May 10, 2019 by Pete Rowbottom

This one has been a while coming… I’ve wanted to visit all the buildings here for quite some time and on my last 2 visits I spent that much time taking pictures and generally exploring a smaller area of the quarry that the main bits that I wanted to visit I didn’t get to, (also because I couldn’t find them, or at least a way to get to them)

Opportunity arose for a 3 day visit to the area for Landscape Photography and again I planned another visit to the quarry, this time armed with a fantastic few pages of information provided to me by Mike Innes on FlickR, a regular explorer of Dinorwic and very helpful guy - https://www.flickr.com/photos/pentlandpirate/

For anyone who has been you’ll know the vast nature of the place, for anyone who hasn’t, basically it is enormous. To put the place into perspective, when it was open It was the second largest slate quarry in Wales, and indeed in the world. It remains the same size but closed down and abandoned. It closed in December 1969 after a downturn in demand for slate, ever since it has been sat dormant, deteriorating year after year, there have been a lot of collapses but there is still a lot to see.

The main purpose of the latest visit was to find the old cutting sheds on the ‘Australia’ levels, the other buildings still fitted out with heavy machinery, and the ‘Caban’ (or Cabin) which still contains the Miners’ old work boots and clothes. I managed to finally find all these on what turned out to be a 6 1/2 hour circular walk, some very hard going but well worth it.

It’s a true photographers paradise, with great compositions to be found literally everywhere around the site, it also has the added bonus of looking great in poor weather, when low cloud and mist can often feature, and the wet slate takes on new colour and drama.

The images are from a number of visits, if you want any further info get in touch.