Travelling Diary: An incredible night spend on stargaze

My friend, Sam where we work together during the weekend told me that he was spending the night on Monday to watch the shooting stars. Never in my life have I ever see a shooting star before. Sam crammed with reports of the weather which will be lousy day on Sunday, raining all day and cloudy. So Sunday was out and Monday will also be raining and cloudy if we were lucky we will able to see some shooting stars.

Been told that we will be able to watch this shooting stars for 4 days, which from Sunday to Wednesday. Unfortunately, we need to go down to Manchester to sign some legal documents and not sure we will be back in time to join Sam and his friends.

Luckily, we finished our business in Manchester around 12.45 p.m. due to I am sick all way to Manchester and spent the 2 hours in the car to rest. Then went to the China Town to get some fresh vegetables and pot noodles and we were ready to go back home. My husband drove us back and on the way saw the sign of Tatton Park so he stop here for me to take some photos.

We left this park around 6.30 p.m. and went home. Reached home around 8.00p.m. and cooked some dinner for the children. My husband was not tired and quite happily to drive me to meet Sam to watch the shooting stars. I am so happy to be able to join Sam. So packed our sleeping beds, one pot of hot tea, a bottle of drink, plenty of fruits and some crisps. We had been told to wear warm clothing due to the weather will be cold.

Unfortunately, I told Sam I might unable to go with him so I was unable to contact Sam. Thank god, he was not on his way to the Fazeley Park yet. Been told he went to shop in local shop to get some foods and drinks and will meet us at the car park of the restaurant.

Reached the restaurant car park around 11.45 p.m. and around 15 to 20 minutes they were back and we pack all their stuffs and drove about 5 minutes to the Fazeley Park. Fazeley park is a natural reserve park for wild life with a man-made lake which link to Coventry Canal. Parked our car in some residential parking lot and walk to the park.

Due to it had been raining some time during the day so the wooden platform was quite wet. Spread our sleeping bed on the wooden platform and we set our camera and other equipments ready for the shooting stars.

Sam's friends Jo and Rui came packed with their camera and software of reading the star locations in the sky. I am not an expert so my interest solely just to see a shooting star. The sky was covered by clouds and around half an hour the clouds started to clear.

To see the shooting stars clearly was facing NorthEast and hopefully my camera will be able to capture some of the stars. Unfortunately, facing north was too bright with traffic lights and east south was also bright with traffic lights. So this reserve was too bright for our camera to take any of the shooting stars but at least we still manage to take one or two photos of the stars, as we are only amateur photographers and the results came out as what we expected as this is our first time trail in taking shooting stars.

Oh! more friends from the restaurant joined us, Jimmy and Dickson. Jimmy came with his sleeping bag and Dickson cycle down to join us to see the stars also. About 2 hours we saw 3 shooting stars which were bright and long passing in front of us. There were also some smaller ones but I missed them all.

After another hour the sky was covered with clouds again and we spend some time trying take photos by using the hand touchs making lights and spend another happy hours taking photos. Around 3.00 a.m. Dickson went back to the restaurant and we were left with enjoying our snacks and getting to know each other. Lying in our sleeping beds enjoying watching the sky and hopefully we will be able to see more. Thank goodness, I saw my fourth shooting stars.

Around 3.45 a.m. suddenly the surrounding around the reserve were covered by mist and all our bags and cameras were covered in mist. It was totally magical and spiritually surrounded with mist everywhere. We all got up and start snapping our cameras hopefully we will be able to capture some of these magical moments. The mist stay around the reserve for about an hour.

Around 4.45 a.m. the sky on the north turn to red clouds and on the east the morning sun started to come out with a light pink.

Wow, all of us were speechless with the mother nature performing their magic. This nature reserve became a music to our eyes with its changing colors and it keep changing with every hour. We were getting more excited than tired, busy to capture all these magical moments in our camera.

Finally, the sun was up and about half an hour to 45 minutes then the sun became a round white circle without any sunlight. It is amazing sight and we were totally attracted by all these changes which mother nature was performing in front of our eyes. We spend another 2 hours busy taking photos.

By 6.30 a.m. before we were ready to head back home, we took some group photos for this memory night. Just a normal natural reserve but we totally enjoy every minutes of the night not by just watching the shooting stars but magical mist and the early morning sunrise.