Urban countryside

I went down into Jesmond Dene today, which is a little patch of countryside in the middle of the city. It's basically a park with a stream (the dene) running through it, but was originially Lord Armstrong's garden before he left it to the people of the city in his will. It's lovely down there, and if you look on at the bottom of this page you'll see that one of my favourite places in Newcastle is the big waterfall by the old mill in Jesmond Dene. I went on a photo mission today in an attempt to catch up with some of my OU digital photography course so here are a few photos that I took.

This is the big waterfall. As you can see, it's not enormous, but it's the biggest one in the dene.

This one is of the old mill, which you can I see I've turned into a black and white image. It's only a small ruin, but I like it, and I like that the mill wheel is still there, even if you can't get to it.

On my wander back towards the car the following little scene caught my attention. It's nothing very special, but I thought it pretty.

And then, before reaching the car, I went for a short mooch around the pets corner, where first of all I saw a very friendly and inquisitive love bird ...

... and yes, it was hanging sideways. Then I saw the most beautiful peacock, who was very helpfully sitting up on a perch with his glorious tail feathers tumbling down towards the ground.

This last photo is probably my favourite of the day. Isn't it beautiful?