Summer Solstice Sunset 2025

This year's summer solstice here in the UK was at the rather inconvenient time of 3:42AM when I was fast asleep. I did consider setting an alarm and getting up for it, but on the other hand, I didn't really fancy heading up onto the moors alone in the middle of the night either, so instead I settled for my usual sunset visit to Round Loaf on the same day, although, now I think about it, the preceding sunset would have been closer to the solstice and therefore of more significance, perhaps. The mechanics of the solar system can be so inconsiderate at times.

It also turned out to be the hottest day of the year (so far) here, but I figured if I waited until early evening before heading out and took my time, it would have cooled down sufficiently that I wouldn't have a repeat of my Lake District episode from last year (I'm still suffering from the after effects of that).

Of course, about an hour before I was due to set out, there was an almighty crash outside, followed by the low rumble of thunder. Yes, a nearby thunderstorm had broken out. This was a concerning development as my plan was (effectively) to head up to the only prominence in the middle of a flat(ish) moor, which didn't feel like the smartest of moves during a thunderstorm.

Tracking the storm online using the fantastic Blitzortung live website, I could see the storm activity seemed to be slowly moving northward away from here, with nothing else filling in behind it, so I decided to chance it.

I'd planned to travel as light as possible due to the heat, so I'd initially packed the little X-T50 and the MK I Fuji 16-55. But with the prospect of rain breaking out, I decided at the last minute to switch the Z8 + 24-200 which is a more resilient bit of kit and, in the hand at least, doesn't feel significantly heavier than the Fuji combo I was thinking of taking (that 16-55 is disproportionately heavy for its size).

All images shot handheld on the Nikon Z8 + 24-200, with no filters as I don't have an 82mm magnetic adapter for that particular lens.

The Flat from Limestone Brook

The hike started at Jepson's Gate, passing the Neolithic site of Pikestones (the remains of a heavily looted and damaged stone chambered burial barrow). I'd been up to Pikestones earlier in the week, so I didn't linger there and made my way onto the open moor. From there, I skirted the edge of The Flat, a tree plantation that was heavily damaged in a moorland fire some years ago and still doesn't show much sign of recovery. From The Flat, I then followed Limestone Brook before branching off on the path leading to Round Loaf.

Upon reaching the top of the brow, I turned back and took this picture of The Flat. Looking at that sky, I don't reckon much for my chances of catching a nice sunset.

Round Loaf Comes Into View

Continuing onto the moors, it wasn't long before Round Loaf appeared on the horizon. The stormy clouds on the left are the remains of the thunderstorm that was slowly moving away.

Green River

Besides general bogginess, there are a few obstacles to overcome when approaching Round Loaf from this direction, one of which is this moorland stream. It's one of several sources that feed into Limestone Brook and appears to originate at the West end of Devil's Ditch (a perfectly straight, mile long ditch about a foot wide that sits South of Round Loaf, whose construction likely has a shared origin with the barrow. This stream can be problematic to cross in wet conditions, but at the moment I can step across it with no real issue. People with shorter legs, your mileage may vary.

Final Approach

Having negotiated the Devil's Ditch outlet stream, I just had a final stretch of somewhat springy moor to cross to reach my destination.

Touchdown at Round Loaf

The view looking West towards Hurst Hill from the summit cairn of Round Loaf.

No Sunset For You!

A wider view from the summit of Round Loaf. A beautiful sunset will not be happening here.

The Mist Rolls

As I sat there, debating whether to hang around for a sunset I wasn't going to see, I noticed the surrounding hills getting fainter.

Adrift In An Ocean of Grey

Before long the surrounding hills and most of the moors had disappeared from view and I was adrift in an ocean of grey. Given how the day had started, I definitely didn't have thick moorland fog on my Summer Solstice Bingo Card this year. Mind you, I didn't mind, it added an extra ethereal quality to the visit. Also surprising was the drop in temperature, from the high 20's when I set out, down to a point where I had to put a jacket on, having fortunately packed a lightweight waterproof just in case.

Into The Mist

Eventually the time for sunset had past and it was time to venture out onto the misty moors. That fog didn't seem to be going anywhere, so I was careful to head back in the direction I'd come as losing my bearing in these conditions would not have been a good idea. This was the view looking back towards Round Loaf shortly after setting off.

Return To Green River

By the time I'd reached the Green River (not its actual name) you could barely see Round Loaf at all. Compare this image to the earlier one in the set.

Emerging From Limestone Brook

The tops of the trees of The Flat appear above the horizon as I emerged from Limestone Brook. This was a little after 10PM and the light was failing, but with the mist acting like a giant softbox, it was still quite easy to see where I was going without digging my torch out.

Skirting The Flat In The Dark

This is a shot looking back towards Limestone Brook as I make my way around The Flat on the right. The mist seems a bit thinner here, but it's getting quite dark at this point, although I still didn't feel like I needed my torch.

Bonus Pikestones Content

Over the past few weeks I've been putting together a short (15 minutes(ish)) video about Pikestones, the remains of a Neolithic stone chambered burial burrow on the Western edge of Anglezarke Moor.

This started life as test footage from a new camera purchase, a Lumix S9, which seem to have plummeted in price here in the UK at the moment. As none of my better video capable cameras have a flip screen, this seemed like a worthwhile purchase purely for shooting vlog style videos, as it's really small and well featured. It has two main flaws, the obvious one for me is the lack of a viewfinder, the other is that due to its small size it's really easy to catch buttons while handling it, to the extent I ended up disabling most of them and just putting everything I needed onto the quick menu. Those two things aside, I think it's great for what I plan to do with it.

Anyway, as an initial test run, I took it up to Pikestones on a nice but ridiculously windy day and filmed a bunch of footage around there. I was happy with the way the results looked, but hadn't got enough coverage to make a coherent video, so later that week, I went back in the evening to shoot some more, including finishing my hike up to nearby Hurst Hill, which I'd had to abort on the previous occasion due to running out of time.

A further trip to Pikestones one evening earlier this week was required to get a bit more B-roll of the stones themselves. On this occasion I took the Z8 as I wasn't planning to appear in any of this footage and I wanted some shallow DOF shots and only have the 20-60 lens that came with S9, so it seemed like the more appropriate choice.

For anyone interested in video production, this was edited in the recently released version 20 of Davinci Resolve and makes good use of a couple of its latest features, specifically "Smooth Cut" and "AI Voice Training".

I was really struggling to find words when I shot the pieces where I'm talking to camera, so even the better takes are full of long pauses, "erms..." and half stuttered words. I trimmed a lot of these out, but that left many jump cuts, but with judicious use of "Smooth Cut" the jump cuts can be effectively hidden.

The AI voice training feature was used when I realised I'd described the ruin as Bronze Age, but it's actually Neolithic. I tried re-recording myself speaking that section and replacing the audio. After a bit of practice, I got the timing right, but I could not make it sound anything like the speech recorded in the rest of that sequence. At which point I decided to try the AI Voice Training and make a model of my own voice from my original clip and then apply that to my overdub audio. Surprisingly I think this works really well. I ended up using the fast model building option, which took a few minutes to analyse the shot clip, the "better" option was quoting me eight hours! Might be a good excuse time for a computer upgrade if I plan to use this feature much.

Mostly, it's shot in 4K log (4:2:2) and graded using the REC709 LUT as a starting point. Some scenes are shot in 6K open gate (4:2:0), The couple of shots from the Z8 are shot in 4K N-Log (4:2:2). Initially, I had difficulty colour matching these to the S9 footage, but I think a lot of that was because they were shot near sunset, so there's an orange cast on them and after a bit of tweaking I think they match reasonably well.

So, if an unfit, overweight, middle aged man wandering the moors while looking at prehistoric ruins is your kind of thing and you've got 15 minutes to spare, this could be the video for you!

It's live now on Youtube as it seemed appropriate to get it published on the Solstice. Apologies if you get adverts on this, there's no monetisation enabled on any of my videos, but I always get copyright claimed on the music even though I have paid licenses to use it and it usually takes a few weeks for the dispute to clear (depending on who the claimant is, some just time out after a month with no response).

youtu.be/pejeKm0qqWQ

A couple of shots of Pikestones, taken during my return visit with the Z8, note the strong colour cast from the approaching sunset...

These are nice, I particularly like the tones and colours in the first one.

Another interesting looking building Chris. I imagine you cut the bottom off because it's cluttered with street furniture but I'm curious what that part looks like?

You have a much nicer looking cactus than the ones I had as a kid. BTW it was good to see you'd been out in the Appenines visiting your tree again the other week, I meant to comment, but it completely slipped my mind.

Very impressive collection - really beautiful writing tools.

And a great macro as well. Not a bad lens that Nikkor 105 mm.

The light in this is spectacular - very well captured!

A couple of shots from shopping yesterday. It's fun having a lens with unique rendering on the camera in these instances. The Enna Correlar 8 cm f/2.9 certainly is one of that kind:

Your lens certainly seems to give a unique result. Apart from the Bokeh, the lens seems to produce silky smooth pictures.

Is all that white stuff bog cotton? Amazing!
We managed to miss the eye of the thunderstorms up in Levens, but heard the rumbles echoing round the distant fells. No sunset for us either.

I think it's coming to the end of its life now, but the cotton grass seems to have lasted a remarkably long time on the moors this year.

I like to track down features like these on hikes. I've long since lost track of the number of burial cairns and barrows I've visited over the years, in may different countries. They bring a sense of place and usually are in locations with spectacualr views.

The misty shots have the best atmosphere in this set I think, especially the one with a pile of stones.