Mike, John and Saorsa... Thank you for your advice, feedback and pointers.
Mike, I think your right somehow I've become fixated on photographing mountain scenes during the golden hour. It's not working and it has turned into a month long exercise on post-processing for me, very much needed and I've learned a lot but I think I need a little break from landscapes. Perhaps I will just photograph landscapes whenever I see a scene that I fancy when I'm out taking photos of wildlife etc and see what evolves, even if it means progressing at a slower rate. By the way, I can see the haze whereas I couldn't before... thank you for that.
Following are my processed images... In trying to crop and focus in on the point of interest I can see that I was too far from the mountains which means I have to crop too much and/or I'm trying to photograph scenes that are too large for my ability. In post processing I followed all the tips offered but I couldn't manage to brighten the shadows on the mountains with any finesse.
Edit 1 (with the problem shadow)
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The uncropped version which shows where I tried to lighten the clouds, as per John's advice
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The one I like best which shows me I needed to be closer, ie; poor quality but I like the scene
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John, Mike and Richard... Thank you so much for all your post-processing tips. I really feel like I've learned a lot about post processing this month and it is due to your feedback and patience.
PS Richard... I now understand what you mean about focusing in on part of a scene. Thank you to Frank for helping me with that.