Finally - Placa San Juan De Gaztelugatxe

At 9:45am we left penagos, and drove 60 miles north to the coast and the town of Berango. I had checked park4night and apparently this place had everything we needed for a resupply.
First stop was the repsol garage where we refilled with LPG and the helpful attendant told us about the repsol app called waylet that shows us where all there LPG stations are. Then it was round the corner to the erksil supermarket where they have a self service laundrette and while the washing was on we stocked up on fresh food. Then while the washing was drying we put the food away and 15 minutes later we were back on the road heading 30 miles north to the town of Bakio.
This town has a major draw factor for me, and I specifically plotted this route to get to this place at this time of year as I missed it 2 years ago in our France trip and because it is so far over in the map I doubt I’ll ever get to come back, so to me getting here and getting this shot is a big deal.
We arrived in Bakio around 2pm, stopped for a quick coffee as we’re the only ones in the top car park and Ellie done some research on our location.
Placa San Juan De Gaztelugatxe is what I’ve come to shoot, but I had specific angles and locations I wanted to shoot from, now Ellie starts the research only to tell me it’s closed, and it’s been closed since January 2021 because of a landslide. But we could still get to a viewpoint. I was gutted, but I hadn’t looked yet to see what the angle was like so off we went, down a huge hill with a very steep incline and there was the viewpoint.
It wasn’t quite the angle I was after but I got a few shots and if I get down further I might be in luck. Off we went, down a steeper hill and I could see the second viewpoint I wanted and then as we got to the bottom of the hill we were greeted with security fencing and couldn’t go any further. I was completely gutted, but I started scheming on the way back up to Wanda to see if there were any other secret paths or tracks on google maps and I thought I saw one up the top near Wanda, so that’s where we went.
When we got there the track was 400ft up and although it did go down it was only about 8 inches wide and went down the sheer face of the cliff. If I was on my own I probably would have got my camera gear and chanced it for the shot I wanted but Ellie was with and she said no chance, but why don’t you try the drone?
I’ve never dropped the drone lower than me before, I didn’t know what would happen. Obviously when the drone leaves me it’s at ground level, so what would happen when I flew it over the edge of the cliff, would it reassess ground level? Would it already be above the 400ft legal limit if it did reassess and drop down below? Or would I fall into negative ground level?
I decided to risk it because, like I said this is possibly a once in a lifetime shot.
I set the drone off, flew it out over the trees, angled the camera down to see what was underneath and then started descending, the drone fell into negative numbers. I kept on dropping until I was at the height I wanted (almost ground level), positioned the drone and camera angle where I wanted and then started shooting.
The drone had no problems, infact I even sent it out to sea some 600ft up while I had the chance and shot some different angles. Getting it back in was a bit of a challenge guiding it inbetween the trees back to me at the edge of the cliff, but my pilots training kicked in, I knew what I needed to do and just done everything really slowly and without panicking.
Getting back to Wanda and reviewing the images I was really pleased with the drone and myself for getting the shots and I can finally tick this place of my photography list once and for all.
Then, we sat down for a chicken salad dinner and watched the sunset into the sea from our free camp spot on the top of the hill.Read more