The weekend has come around again, unfortunately the weather forcast is not as good as last weekends adventure up Black Hill at least not for Saturday.  So went for a walk around the town of Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire not far from me in Pershore.

Raven Hotel

Again, my guide was Around Droitwich Spa from the AAs 50 walks in Worcestershire.  I found the Lido carpark and paid £3 for 3 hours parking.  Headed down the high street and found the now empty and abandoned Raven Hotel, which is rapidly falling into disrepair.

Im not sure today Droitwich Spa has the throughfare to keep such a hotel open, I guess the rooms were not cheap, cant see Premier Inn taking it over.  What will become of the Raven hotel in Droitwich Spa?

Droitwich Spa made its fortunes through salt mining, when salt was used to preserve meats etc before they invented refrigeration.  The high street of Droitwich spa has still lots of buildings and history but is being rapidly surrounded by more modern housing estates.

Droitwich Canal

The forcast had clouds for the first half of the day around Droitwich Spa and then rain in the afternoon, but I kept feeling drops of rain and I was not dressed to stay dry even though half this walk included some countryside

I noticed my first rainbow over the Canal of Droitwich Spa, the rainbow was fading rapid but managed to capture a few photos of it over the Droitwich canal.  Impossible to exclude modern manmade structures like paths, street lights and roofs.

Transient lighting

These days where you have intermittent showers the sun pops in and pops out,  give way to what is known in photography as transient lighting.  You have moments to capture a scene that is lit in some exceptional way out of the ordinary like the rainbow above.  What is otherwise a dull scene becomes full of interest but you only have moments to capture it.

Which coincides with a photography book I am reading at the moment called Transient light. So its well worth heading out with your camera on days where the weather is a mixed bag, better with some weatherproof gear as well though.

Westwood Park

The walk headed out of Droitwich Spa and into a more rural setting an area known as Westwood park and then along Monarchs way to Nunnery wood.

The rapeseed is always very eye catching but can cause contrast problems with the camera.  I only had my compact camera with me but experimented taking many shots trying to capture the rapeseed fields.

With great views of the Malvern hills from westwood park, wherever you are in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire you can often see the Malverns in the background.  Where my skills are improving is within Lightroom post processing using the gradient filter tool to both darken the sky and brighten the foreground rapeseed.  Cant fix a physical Grad ND filter to a compact camera, not without difficulty anyway.

The Rapeseed fields of Westwood park Droitwich Spa was probably the most interesting part of the walk through this part of Worcestershire.   The walk continued pass an industrial complex then into Hampton Lovett then back into Droitwich spa via another housing estate. It was a large pork baguette and black coffee in a friendly little cafe along the high street.  Walk done over 6 miles around Droitwich Spa.