searching for poppy fields

Convinced that it would most certainly be my last chance to photograph a giant field of blooming poppies, a friend and I made plans that we absolutely had to find them last weekend. The weather had been volatile all week, cold and rainy one day, blazing sunshine the next. Every weather website or app we had predicted different forecasts for the weekend; 60% chance of rain or just partly sunny? It would have to be a game-day decision. By Friday night, I was already depressed at the thought that I might not get to see any poppies that weekend.

On Saturday morning I woke up around 8am and saw that it was sort of sunny, and I charged my camera battery and readied all of my photography paraphernalia. We had agreed to call each other at 9am, so I (anxiously) waited and hoped the skies wouldn’t get any darker. About an hour later it was decided; now or never (although, in reality, we might still have a few more weeks). We called a cab right away and drove toward Ala Archa, which seemed like our best bet for happening upon a poppy field. This was a serious mission; I didn’t even grab breakfast because I was so focused on getting out of the house as quickly as possible before any inclement weather rolled in.

We passed by several sparse patches, telling ourselves, okay, if we don’t find anything else, we could always come back to these. It was part hopeful, if these are blooming then there must be more, but part disappointing, is this all there is? But we kept going. We could see off in the distance there were distinct swathes of red coating a certain altitude on the forthcoming mountains, but with storm clouds hanging around the peaks and being entirely unprepared for any strenuous hiking, we just had to hope that a more convenient patch would show up.

And wouldn’t you know it, one did. It even came complete with idyllic cows and horses grazing in the background. Our cab driver was accommodating to our poppy-hunt and even hung out with us while we took photos. He suggested that Darwin would look best photographed in a patch of daisies (psh, please, I didn’t dress him in a red onesie to photograph him around white daisies).

I’m so ridiculously excited that we were able to get out of the city for a little while and find this field, and I’m so thankful to Jade for taking some really great photos of Darwin and me! This knocks another activity off of the Ticket List, what should I move onto next?