It's Chilly in Kielder

I have wanted to go up to Kielder water for a while now, but living in London makes it all the more difficult, so I took advantage of being in the North East (you know all the annual leave you get stacked up at the end of the year, right?!) and went up for the day with a few friends. If you don't know where it is, it's basically in Scotland, it's right on the border - so from London that's akin to going to the Arctic....

The drive up to Kielder is a scenic one if anything, Northumberland dubs itself as "Officially England's Most Tranquil County," and I can certainly vouch for that. It's also got to be up there as one of England's most picturesque counties too. The winding roads are lined with looming pine trees, accompanied by hills rising in the distance, it's reminiscent of what I imagine the wilds of Canada, or New England look like. On the drive, I was dreaming of owning a cottage here, secluded from the hustle and bustle, and silent from the sounds of everyday life in the city. I was suddenly craving tranquillity and solitude, and I wouldn't half mind it with some of the views around here.

A major thing which appeals to me about Kielder Water and it's surrounding area is that it's the most remote place in England, and has the lowest levels of light pollution in the country. Due to this, the forest park has been awarded the title of "gold tier dark sky area". This means that it's absolutely fantastic for stargazing and draws many astronomers, both amateur and experienced, to witness the star-studded night skies. I have a keen interest in astronomy (I must stress that I am very much an amateur in this field!) so finding out that there is an observatory with state of the art equipment in Kielder, was a massive draw in for myself. We booked up to attend a lesson on our solar system at Kielder Observatory and kept our fingers crossed for clear skies and some impressive views of our galactic neighbourhood.

We headed up in the morning and pulled over at a few well known vantage points. I'd just bought a new DSLR camera so wanted to test it out. The area is lovely, it's so quiet and it's nice to be away from the crowds for a day. After we'd been scouting the best views, we went to a pub near Kielder village (I think it's the only one?!) and managed to time it well enough to watch the England match - day was made better by Kane's late winner!!

After having slight feelings of revenge (not quite enough though) against Croatia, we had a wander around Kielder village and walked up to the castle. There isn't really much there but it's worth seeing. The castle isn't the type of castle I expected, it's more of an old house styled to look a bit like a castle - I think it's used as some sort of office now. The night was drawing in and it was time to head over to the Observatory.

The Observatory was easy to find and clearly signposted, so we turned off onto a narrow single track road. The track twisted and turned through the forest, with no lights for guidance, it was like somewhere you'd expect a grizzly bear to jump out and attack you from. The road seemed endless, and slowly cambered uphill. We probably didn't drive that far but because we had to take it very slow, it seemed to take forever. After what felt like hours, we reached the top and it really sank in how high up we were - the track was so gradual that we'd hardly felt much of an incline. Kielder Water was simply a puddle in the distance, glistening under the moonlight; and the moonlight was the only source of light for miles. It was pitch black and truly living up to it's title of the darkest place in England.

The weather forecast had the night down to be a clear one - so we were a bit disappointed that it was very opposite to that, the sky was filled with clouds and my hopes of seeing the Milky Way in it's glory (or as near as we can see with the naked eye from Earth!) were tarnished. We did get to use the telescopes at the Observatory which was good, but it was a shame that we couldn't see more - on a clear night it would have been amazing. The class was great and really interesting, we even got to touch meteorites and a bit of Mars rock. It was worth going but just a shame that the night wasn't clear.

It was just my luck that after we left the Observatory, the clouds started to disperse and we could finally see the sky. We pulled over in a parking area next to the Water and set up our cameras on the tripod, and experimented with photos of the night sky. I'd like to read up more about astrophotography and try and get some good pictures of the stars.