First of the Month...

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Sunrise over Belfast on New Year's Day

What a wonderfully special date... Like my mum I really love special dates...  My birthday last year fell on one of these wonderful consecutive numbered dates...

This series of SOOC photographs were divided into the pre dawn and sunrise photos shown here and the warmer photographs in the post tomorrow which show the warm colours of the landscape after the sun was in the sky...

At the turn of the millennium 10 years ago, we walked up to the top of Napoleons Nose and sat on cushions, sipping champagne and watched the fireworks going off all over the city... there were a few others watching the view and we shared our bottle with them as well...  The next morning we walked up to the top to watch the sun rise over Belfast for the start of the new millennium...

A decade on, Neil and I decided we would like to get up early and walk to the top of the Cavehill and watch the sunrise over Belfast...  It was a cold day but not bitterly cold...

The sky was grey as the the sun coloured the sky on the horizon...

The colours were beautiful... soft greys and mauves contrasting with the warm colours of the sunrise...

I love the textures and brown tones of the grass and heathers on the top of the hill... in the distance the cloud is partially obscuring Black Mountain and Divis Mountain...

Strangford Lough can be seen on the horizon with the sunrise reflected on the surface of the water...  in the middle ground is Belfast harbour... part of the city and in the foreground the slope of the cavehill...

Looking down the path that we have been walking along...

I loved the sky reflected in the still mountain pool...

The sky was stunning...

I loved the coloured sky above Belfast with the colour reflected in the harbour and Belfast Lough...

Suddenly the sun was up and the soft grey tones started to warm...

The steps curving around the edge of Napoleon's nose... a sheer drop below... an old boundary marker.

A jogger arrived on top of Napoleon's Nose in time to watch the sunrise...

The cliffs have a sheer drop and a pair of ravens nesting... this is the same sort of drop below us from the Napoleon's Nose where we are standing... 

Net work of paths below the caves... When I watched the movie the City of Ember... I loved when they eventually reached the surface from the city and sun rose on an "Eden" which is in fact our beautiful Cavehill... with Napoleon's Nose in the back ground...

The sun is fully up...

The sky is losing its pre dawn grey tones and the blue is showing through...

Napoleon's nose viewed from the Cairn which is at the highest point on Cavehill and from which several of the counties of Ulster can be seen (Antrim, Armagh, Down and a little of Tyrone beyond Lough Neagh on a very clear day)...