Wast Water

I was at a loose end over the weekend, so I decided to jump in the van and head over to Wast Water in the Lake District for a night of wild camping. Wast Water is a weird place; the lake always seems to have an eerie calm about it, the Eastern shore walled-in by a dark grey slope that plunges into the icy water.

The road from North Tyneside to Wasdale is an incredible drive, incorporating both Wrynose Pass and Hardknott Pass in a black tar ribbon that snakes through the lush green valleys, tying itself in hairpin knots atop Harter Fell.

For those who don't know it, Hardknott Pass is the steepest road in England, and proved something of a challenge in a long wheel-base campervan. Some of the hairpins were simply too tight to fit in one sweep, which meant on more than one occasion having to perform a 3-point turn on a 33% incline.

There are tons of great spots to park up for the night along the Western shore, but I chose to stop at Countess Beck, as it offered the most interesting viewpoints to photograph the lake, and had plenty of flat grass to pitch up my trusty Wolf & Grizzly portable grill.

There are signs all over the place saying that overnight parking is prohibited, but the rangers were lovely and didn't seem to mind, as long as people were cooking responsibly and taking their rubbish away with them.

These photographs were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and the extraordinary Canon 35 mm f/1.4 L II USM .