Whitehaven Fossils

After our nice walk in the Lakes district last weekend we decided to round out our trip with a bit of fossil pillaging. It just so happened that the town of Whitehaven was nearby and meant to be a good place to find plant fossils. On arrival in the town we immediately made our way to it’s major icon, the Tesco’s carpark, from which we began our search for the legendary fossil rich cliffs. Although these cliffs were in clear view, they were far from easy to get to. At first it seemed like we might need to illegally cross the railway line .. but then we found a dingy rubbish filled tunnel which brought us across. After that it wasn’t hard at all to find a spot where the cliff had collapsed, revealing it’s treasures.
On the discovering fossils website it had said that our find frequency might be “low”, but as it happened we found some nice specimens the moment we arrived. This was pretty good as it served to diffuse any lingering doubts as to whether this was a worthwhile exercise in the first place. Jan was so glad to find fossils she couldn’t help posing with them 🙂