photography – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

Taking the camera for a walk

Saturday 13 January 2018 – London.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2018. Year six in my two years away from New Zealand. Day some number of thousands in the blog that probably wouldn’t last past the first day. I cannot believe I am still here, and that I get viewers on a daily basis, thanks 🙂

El was off to the football this afternoon, she now has a season ticket to the club that will not be named by an Arsenal supporter. She also had some work to do this morning and I didn’t (well I did but meh) so I decided to take the camera out for a walk. My plan was to catch the train into the city, find St Dunstan’s Church, walk up to The Photographers Gallery in the west-end to see the Wim Wenders exhibition, buy some new walking shoes, then go home. I am trying to do more exercise than I have been, taking a camera with me meant a meandering two or three hour walk.

Now I had decided to visit St Dunstan’s Church I felt I needed to take the Canon 5d MK 1 rather than the smaller, lighter point and shoot. I keep thinking I need to replace the 5d, it is 13 years old; which in technology terms is ancient, there is a MK 4 version now. It is heavy, unwieldy, and unfashionable, and the view screen is terrible. However, every time I take it out for a walk I just love the images that pop out of my computer screen when I get home. It just seems to suit the way I take pictures. In my bag it went, with a wide angle and a 50mm lens.

On a previous walk with El I had failed to find St Dunstan’s, poor research. Today I at least memorised the address. It is easy to find.

The church has a long history, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many time since its creation in 1100. The ruined version that remains now has a Christopher Wren designed tower built in 1701 that still stands and a pile of ruins, courtesy of Nazi Germany, from 1821.

I always wanted to visit over a weekend, as it is a popular lunch and contemplation spot for city workers during the week. At the weekend it is just busy with photographers. It is a very cool spot.

The trick is take a photo that shows off the ruined church; the vines, the moss and mould, but hide the newer post-war buildings that surround it. Avoiding the fashion photographers and their detritus was far harder.

Leaving St Dunstans I started a very meandary path towards the west. I wanted to stay off the main roads and explore the smaller, less known streets, avoiding the worst of the people and finding things I have never seen before. Like St Mary Abchurch.

The churchyard led me up to the intersection at ‘Bank’,

where I headed off bank down the lanes towards the north bank of the Thames.

Walking towards St Pauls I found this rather forlorn looking closed outdoor cafe area outside a church.

There is an interesting mix of old and new buildings along Queen Victoria St, this used to be my ‘patch’ when I was a courier driver for DHL back in the 1980s, not a lot of has changed since then.

I headed back up into the lanes around St Pauls, passing the lovely St Andrews of the Wardrobe church, hidden away from the worst of the rush.

I stopped for a light lunch, coffee and a rest in a cafe on Blackfriars Rd, before crossing over, finally heading down to Thames side.

Though soon after I was back up off the main road and strolling through the peace and quiet of ‘Temple’ , one of my favourite weekend places in the central city. It is pretty much deserted at the weekend, most of the entrances are closed and unless you know how to get in, and more importantly out you would never know it is there. I was looking for some of the small flower gardens, but it is the wrong time of the year for flowers, and the few that were there were blowing around in the quite strong wind. I decided to find the exit on to Fleet St, which is not as easy as it sounds on a weekend as a lot of the place is locked up.

One of the great aspects of London, that does go a bit unremarked upon, is the vast number of trees scattered all over the central city, trees both ancient and new, near buildings both ancient and new.

Crossing back down to the river again I came across No 2 Temple Place. The building is slightly off the Thames and I must have passed nearby without actually spotting it before. It is a gallery though it was not open when I was there. I had been planning on taking a few photos using a very shallow depth of field of any flowers I found, not having found anything suitable I decided to experiment with these two small statues marking the entrance to the gallery. I liked them both.

I took the stairs up to the top of Waterloo Bridge.

Making my way through a very crowded Chinatown and Soho, I went to The Photographers Gallery to see the Wim Wenders Polaroid exhibition, which I very much enjoyed. It was quite busy as well.

My final mission for the day was to buy myself a new pair of trainers for walking the streets, I have worn out another pair with all my walking around, mainly, London. I was surprised to find this a successful, and not too stressful event. I headed home with purchases, and a what I hoped was a bunch of photos I would be happy with.

One of the things that I love about, and am frustrated with, when using the old 5d is that it is so old it is does not have an active rear screen. There is a screen and I can see the image I have taken, but the screen is small, has a very low resolution, is a bit worn and quite faded. I do not get much of an appreciation of the image I have taken. I sort of like this as it means I do not ‘pixel-peep’ every shot I take, so I tend to take less shots and use the camera almost like it is loaded with film. The downside is I have no idea how good, bad or indifferent my photos are until I get them loaded on to my computer.

I am going to say I was pretty pleased with what I got today. Going on a photo walk was a really good idea. I need to do it a lot more!

A brief moment of solitude – Beachy Head.

Saturday 23 December 2017 – Eastbourne and Beachy Head.

Not having had a weekend away on my own for months I booked a couple of nights in a bed and breakfast in the coastal town of Cromer in Norfolk. I had a full day of photography planned; sunrise at Cromer Pier, some nice ruins scattered around the county, sunset back at the pier, followed by some long exposures of the sea and clouds. A drive and walk on my own. Sea air to clear the head and a couple of days with my own thoughts; not having to speak to anyone, unless I was ordering food or drink.

It was a good plan. A shame it did not happen!

To reduce the stress of travelling on what was being billed as the busiest travel day of the year I had taken Friday off work. A bit of a lie in and then on the road for mid morning, allowing myself plenty of time to get to Cromer. There were a couple of interesting places on the way I was going to stop at to take some pictures.

I loaded up the car and headed off just before 11:00. I made it approximately 100 feet up the road before stopping at the top of the hill to change a flat tyre. Bugger! Not the stress free start I planned.

Luckily the spare was not flat and all the tyre changing bits were in the boot, it was my first flat in this car and I had brief moment of panic when I could not find the jack. Tyre changed and I was on the way. The car felt fine, even at 70 on the M11 it was running straight and true. However, as I approached the inevitable tailback at the junction with the M25 I tapped the brake pedal to shave a bit of speed off and the steering wheel kicked and bucked like a wild beast. Brake off and it was fine, back on and wildness. It was too unsafe to drive any distance, so reluctantly I turned round and headed home.

The weekend was over before lunch on Friday. Not admitting defeat I spent the rest of Friday sulking at home. I did, however, book myself a return to ticket to Eastbourne for the following day. Today.

I was up early, fed and on the tube to Victoria by 8. ‘Early’ Saturday morning is an eye (nose?) opener on the tube, the carriage stank of booze, there was a dozing rough sleeper and a well dressed woman conversing loudly with her invisible friend. A fully immersive experience.

I dislike Victoria Station, it is my least favourite of London’s mainline stations. With two concourses it is big and confusing and always seems to be manically busier than the other stations, even, like this morning when it is half empty. Drunk youths staggering around on their way home to provincial towns after a night out in the city mixed with wealthy looking tourists lugging heavy cases looking for trains to the airport. Everyone looked dazed and confused, I just felt it.

The ride to Eastbourne was uneventful. I read, listened to music, drank the coffee and ate the sausage sandwich I bought as I waited for the train. It was overcast, but was not supposed to be too cold, too windy or to rain, I was only moderately prepared for all three of those things.

A five minute walk from the station got me to the waterfront. Christmas is approaching and the shopping streets were busy. The town is nicer than I expected, and that niceness is reflected in the property prices I noted when I got home, it is more expensive than its neighbours to the north.

I took a quick look at the pier, I thought about walking to the end, but the winter days are short and I had a bit of a walk planned, so I moved on.

I have been wanting to come here and walk the South Downs, past Beachy Head Lighthouse and on to Burling Gap for quite a long time, but never managed to get around to it. The walk along the front is really nice, and it was surprisingly busy this morning. The hills of the Downs were looking a little murky, and slightly intimidating under that low cloud.

Arriving at the foot of the cliffs I found a sign pointing to the South Downs Way and its 100 miles to Winchester. I wish I had the time, fitness and the will to do a long distance walk. I fill my head with so many ideas and plans, some get started, most do not. I blame time and work, needing money to do things, my age and my sometimes aching body. Maybe I should fill my head with only one idea and see it through to completion. I still have 500 or so miles of the Southwest coast path to do, I should not be thinking about other walks.

I started up the short, steep grassy climb, glad I had worn proper walking shoes, it was pretty slippery after all the rain. A teenage break means my left ankle hates these steep climbs, if I do not stretch it, which naturally I don’t, then it loses its full range of movement after a few weeks. I struggled up, knowing tomorrow it will ache like hell.

It was windy and quite cool, very damp, and there was limited view out to sea, but what there was was glorious. There are a lot of bent and twisted hawthorn trees, providing a clear indication of the direction of the prevailing wind.

Ahead it was looking a little less enticing and as I walked I wondered if that was going to be the end of the view for the day. I was quite surprised by the amount of scrub and wildness on this stretch, in mind the walk from town to Burling Gap was almost manicured lawn, the result of mis-seen photos. Those photos led me to believe it was always sunny here too. Maybe just mis-remembered.

After walking through the edge of a scrubby wood I was out on the cliff tops and the first view of Beachy Head Lighthouse. I took a lot of photos from various angles, so if you hate lighthouses, and Beachy Head in particular you should look away now. It is a spectacular piece of coast so your turning away would just be wrong.

The chalk cliffs look amazing in any light, though they seem dirtier than they were in older photos. At this point, which is roughly the highest, the cliff top is 162 metres above the sea. Given the cliff edge and the popularity of the area, I am surprised there are few fences, only where there have been slips is the edge closed to the public. I guess you cannot fence off the entire coast. I now see there are two people ahead of me. It almost seems a shame that I appear to not be alone, that I have passed through the dull low, damp mist and can see and hear further; and that people now occupy that new space.

Further out of the cloud I can see Belle Toute Lighthouse in the distance, at least there does not appear to be any more people than when I emerged, nor am I catching up on those ahead.

From Belle Toute I looked back up the cliff line towards Beachy Head.

There are more people here, even though Belle Toute is a privately owned B and B, it attracts visitors from the car park at the bottom of the short climb on the east side and a lot more from Burling Gap on the west. I was really looking forward to seeing the tiny community of Burling Gap. It features in numerous images of the area, though none of the ones I have seen feature a large orange crane and a large car park. I was a little disappointed!

There is a National Trust Cafe and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was open. It was a good excuse to stop for lunch and a coffee, though I did not linger as it was after 1 pm and I had taken almost two hours to do the 90 minute walk. If I took the same to return after eating it would be almost dark by the time I arrived. The view along the chalk white cliffed coast is breathtaking and I will certainly be back to walk more of it, perhaps on one of those blue sky days I see on the post cards.

The walk up to Belle Toute was the busiest it had been all day.

I want to know what this is!! Why is there hatch with a padlock? There are other concrete pads where I am guessing lookouts, gun emplacements and other wartime things were located. Though this was the only one I saw that appears to have something underneath. Are there tunnels?

I took a few more photos of the lighthouse on the way back to Eastbourne, and I saved my favourite photo to share last.

The walk back was a lot quicker, the cloud seemed lower, though with the wind in my back it was not as cold and mist no longer formed on my camera lens. I did walk a more direct route, further away from the edges, though the mist was never that thick to be unsafe. I ventured almost alone back into the cloud. There was a walker behind me and I caught glimpses of him as I walked, seeing him for the last time on the train back to London.

As the light was so dim I decided to experiment with a bit of intentional camera movement (ICM) photography, something I did a lot of back in NZ in 2008/09. I have dabbled with it a little in the past couple of months. I am trying to achieve an impressionist painter effect; a work in progress.

As I returned to the top of the hill overlooking Eastbourne I could see the sun trying to work its way through the cloud, though it never quite managed to.

I made it back with plenty of time before darkness started to arrive, so took a round about way to the waterfront, strolling through the gloomy Italian Gardens,

before heading back down the beach. I love the way that over the years (decades?) the tide has finally overcome the steps, and every other set of steps along the front. I really want to know how deep they are and when the council gave up resisting the relentless move of the shoreline.

The waterfront was even busier than late morning, there were a lot of family groups out walking and a lot of older folk walking dogs. In fact there are a lot of dogs here, mainly small dogs. A heck of a lot of small dogs. So many I took no pictures of them. I did take a picture of a large building, a hotel I am guessing; and a street light.

As I said before, I really liked Eastbourne, the waterfront is decaying less than many of the other coastal towns, especially in the south east. It is clean and tidy and most of the shops are open and active. There seemed to be a pretty good feel in the air, though so many bloody smokers!

It does have damn good pier !

I arrived in the small station about 40 minutes before the train I had booked was schedule to leave. I was going to sit in a pub over a quiet pint, but found there was a train leaving sooner, so I grabbed a bag of crisps and a small bottle of red wine and got on the earlier train.

The ride back to London was good, I read a book and then relaxed in my seat, Mogwai playing in my headphones and reflected on what was a really pleasant day out on my own.

The Taj Mahal.

Sunday 13 November 2016 – Agra, India – Part 1.

This post is all about the Taj Mahal, which I visited this morning before catching a train to Delhi, where I will stay the night near the airport before flying up to see my daughter, Meliesha in McLeod Ganj in the morning.

Well that was the plan when I wrote that sentence this morning in between visiting the Taj Mahal and the ‘Baby Taj’ and then leaving town. Though it did not turn out that way! More about the that in the next post…

It is a quiet day in Agra, I believe it is a holiday, but not sure what for. I was up earlyish after a pretty average night. I wanted to get to the Taj Mahal reasonably early. I selected this home stay because it is half way between Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal, the two main things I wanted to see in Agra, both are a walkable distance. The home stay owner, Faiz gave me a lift on his motorbike to the entrance which was nice, he is a good host!

The queue to get in was tiny, but quite maddening, lots of Indian men waiting by the foreigners queue asking foreigners to change their small notes for big ones, as the ticket counter was taking the big notes. There has been changes made to money this week which is causing chaos in India, this will feature a lot in my day today. I did swap 1000 rupees in small notes with one of the guys and used his 1000 rupee note to pay the entrance fee. This made him very happy. It took about 15 minutes to process the two people in front of me.

Like yesterday at the fort Faiz had told me I would not be allowed to take a bag into the site, and they were a lot stricter here than at the fort. No-one had large bags, there is also a lot of armed security about as well. Again, I just took the small camera and a bottle of water. I have been looking forward to visiting here, it is one of those must see places that adorn the list of anyone who likes to travel.

The Taj Mahal was completed in 1653 and is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, the favourite wife of the Mhughal Emperor Shah Jahan. It took 10 years to build and is the centre building in a fairly large site that also includes a guest house and a mosque.

The Taj Mahal site is a lot bigger than I expected, and not quite as crowded as I expected it to be at 8:00 am – it opens at sunrise, which this morning was around 6:15. I had pondered arriving for sunrise but the air is so thick that from a light perspective there would be no point, so I stayed in bed. I suspect it was busier then than it was when I arrived. It got very busy later in the day.

The great gate from the outside.

The first view of the building is pretty breathtaking, and everyone stops just inside the great gate to take their first picture – and a hell of a lot of selfies…

I didn’t bother stopping, I knew I was going to take a lot of photos, I also knew I was going to try and take this one, the classic reflection shot. I was very lucky to grab one without anyone in the way.

I was not really in the mood I must admit, so my roaming of the site was a bit listless. I am very worried about my finances, or complete lack thereof. Spending 1000 rupees on the entry fee alone seems to be a lot, when I am not sure if I can get to my next destination, however I am here to see things, and the Taj Mahal is THE thing. This place is the sort of place you need to visit with someone to share the experience with.

I spent a couple of hours walking around, I took a lot of photos as you would expect. There were some very helpful gentlemen there who pointed me to the exact spot to get reflections etc, for a tip of 10 rupees, I am quite surprised that others did not take up their offer. I was very happy with their recommendations. I would not have gotten the photos I did without them. I didn’t manage to get another one without people standing in the way !

The great gate from the inside.

The mosque.

The view of the River Yamuna, overlooking a bit of where I was yesterday evening.

The building is covered in inscriptions and motifs on the walls, though I did not capture any of the detail, part of my listlessness I guess. There is also renovation work going on on the sunrise side of the mausoleum.

There were the ubiquitous monkeys everywhere, I think this is going to end badly!

The crowds had really ramped up when I left, I think I picked the perfect time of day to visit… I enjoyed my time there, though I wish I had been in a better frame of mind as I would have appreciated this wonder of the world a lot more than I did. Glad I went though!

I walked back to the homestay. I think to the bemusement of some of the locals, I had lots of hellos and waves from people on bikes and on tuk tuks, I don’t think they get many westerners walking the streets.

Forts, frustrations and a first glimpse of the Taj.

Saturday 12 November 2016 – Agra, India.

The day did not start off brilliantly. My throat is really sore and the air is foul, I can taste the pollution, it is very unpleasant. I have no money, I have a head cold and the wifi is complete pants I think I am the only person in this home stay as well, which this morning is compounding my misery. I hate travel mornings like this.

Over breakfast in the home stay, thankfully complementary due to my finances, I talked to Faiz, the owner. He was telling me how bad the past couple of days had been in his little part of Agra. The ATM has not been uploaded and as no-one is accepting the 500 and 1000 rupee bills all the small businesses are starting to suffer, and those who are willing to take the old money cannot give change as the change is all disappearing. The price of staples like sugar and salt are going up as the small shop owners need to get an income somehow. I am surprised at how calm it has all been.

There is an official tourist money changer at Agra Fort so Faiz is going to loan me 4000 rupees in now unusable, 1000 rupee bills (about 50 pounds), which I will need to change. I am then going to pay him for the board and lodgings and the 4000 via bank transfer from my NZ account. |The 4000 will be my living and touristing money. Like all small businesses, he does not have access to taking credit card payments. As it is I do not have enough money to pay him for the board and as there is no ATM and I cannot get any cash, this is a win/win for both us and a very nice gesture.

Faiz dropped me at the fort, it is about 1.5 kms away from his home stay, and at the craziest junction in Agra. The entry fee is 550 rupees. The fort accepted one 500 rupee note – for the 500 part, but would not accept a second for the 50 part. I had to use one of my few precious 100 rupee notes. I almost got into argument with the ticket man. Just one of the many ridiculous bureaucratic frustrations of this lovely but annoying country. There is no arguing with a government man.

I walked in to Agra Fort in a hump. Faiz had also told me I could not take my camera bag as large bags were not allowed in the fort or the Taj Mahal. I just took the G16 camera and a bottle of water. As I was going in I saw some people were allowed to take massive back packs in and others were told to leave them in a secure room. It seemed entirely inconsistent. Though not as futile as everyone walking through an airport scanner that beeped everybody, though everyone was waived though regardless. More bureaucratic nonsense.

This did not help my early enjoyment of the place. There is not a lot to see when you first walk in, a big empty space with lots of people in it a large square surrounded by large red walls. I yawned. Definitely not as good as the fort in Jodhpur. I did see a squirrel that did not run away immediately. I took a photo.

I walked about aimlessly for a while – should have taken that damn audio guide again, teach me to have the hump. I liked these arches.

And this balcony, which I am assuming someone high and mighty spoke and waved to the peasants from.

Eventually i found my way though a doorway into what I guess would have been the inner castle if this was in England, much better! Lots more things to see.

The fort was built in stages throughout most of the 16^th century, and under a variety of rulers. In the early 17^th century the white marble sections were added under the rule of Shah Jahan, the Muslim Mughal ruler. He also oversaw the building of the Taj Mahal and some other sites in Agra. More on them later.

The Taj Mhal is 2.5 kms away in a straight line, but I could hardly see it through the haze, this photo has been sharpened massively to get it to stand out at all. The air is so thick. You can barely see the River Yamuna which the Taj sits beside.

I liked the buildings, there is not a lot to see in them, some detail in the structures, but no museum like at Jodhpur. I did like the mix of the original red stone and the later white marble. The marble allowed a lot more detail to be inlaid in the source material.

There is still some renovation work to be done, and the way it has just sort of ended was sort of cool. There were two armed guards/policemen here, not really encouraging much exploration. Stick to the good bits Phil!

I left at the right time as a lot of people were arriving as I walked out the door and got into the queue for the money changer. Quite bit of patience went into getting those photos, largely free of other tourists. I know I could have just included them, but hey !

I almost got into an argument with an armed policeman in the money change queue. When I arrived there was no queue, and two windows open. A Spanish couple were being served in one window so I waited at the other, in the meantime a large melee/queue started to form and was eventually guided back alongside the Spanish couple. It turned out the guy behind my window didn’t actually serve people, he just sat there. When the Spanish couple finished and I went to stick my form and passport through the hole in the window, the policeman said I had to go to the back of the queue. I politely told him I had been there since before the queue, he knew this as he had been there as well. He put his hand on my shoulder and I refused to move. It was hot, this is India and serving the two Spanish customers seemed to take about 10 minutes and I was not willing to quit my position. It was a tense couple of seconds and eventually his attention was taken up by someone else and I got my way. Whew.

I had a grumpy, but financially happy walk back to the home stay, where I had a very nice lunch., food seems so much nicer when you know you can eat again the next day. Miraculously the internet was brilliant (for about 20 minutes) so I had a quick and pleasant Skype with El. Always makes me feel better.

Late afternoon I left the home stay with Faiz and he organised a decent price with a tuk tuk driver on the main road to take me to the Black Taj.

The Black Taj does not actually exist, there are some foundation ruins left on the ground, but that is it. The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal. As we all know the Taj is a glorious glowing white and is built on the banks of the River Yamuna. It is rumoured that he also built a jet black Taj on the opposite banks for himself. This has never been proven, though the foundations show something was built there.

It does have a great view of the Taj Mahal, and is supposed to be the place to go for sunset photos and a good reflection in the river; except you are not allowed near the river anymore due to security concerns, so it is all fenced off. The smog has not done the sunset any good either…

However, those things aside, it is a great place to see the Taj Mahal from. Though, naturally you have to pay to enter the site, I didn’t mind this as it meant I was left alone and no hawkers and beggars were there to follow me around. As I arrived about an hour and a half before sunset I was almost the only one there for quite a long time.

Peace, in India – a rare and beautiful thing.

As is the Taj Mahal, I know that we all know it well, too well probably, but that first sight is still utterly breathtaking. It is one of those places that you just have to see in the flesh. And viewed through a manicured lawn with virtually no-one else in sight; magnificent.

Though even from this close it was still really hazy. I was shooting with that wonderfully crisp Canon 70-200mm lens, and even that had issues with the auto-focus grabbing on to anything.

I had a bit of a walk around, there was quite a wait till sunset. This was the sort of scene I wanted to see in India, which I won’t see much of as I am staying for such a short time and just hitting the big tourist things. Ruins, disheveled, run down, surrounded by trees, animals about; waiting to be investigated, clambered around. The old romantic adventurer view. A fantasy world that is not my current reality sadly.

But anyway, stop dreaming Phil. There is the Taj Manal – and its thousands of tourists, just next door, not something that most people will see, you are a lucky man.

I was waiting for quite a while for the sunset, the air seemed to clear as the day disappeared, and birds…. quick, something interesting, take a photo.

Back to waiting…. There was a brief moment of excitement when a couple of eagles started to dive bomb the crows nests in the trees behind me, there was a massive kerfuffle, screeching and fighting amongst the milling birds. I tried to take a photo but it was impossible, but it was good to watch the crows join together to fight the two massive eagles.

One of the victorious crows decided to pose for me and I took my last photo of the day. The sunset never happened so I left early as the crowds started to line my side of the river bank, the peace was finally over, a pleasant end to the day. (If I blank the chaotic and stinky tuk tuk ride out).

Bath and The Roman Baths

Friday 29 July 2016 – Bath.

Thursday morning was a bit grey and damp and the renovation work in the flat above us had started by 8:30 so we decided to leave one day early and stop in Bath on the way home for a night. We have been talking about going to Bath for ages, but there is always somewhere else to go. As we had to drive past it on the way home it just seemed like the right thing to do. We booked a hotel online, packed the car and drove off. Into the rain…

We arrived in Bath just before lunch time, the room in the hotel was not quite ready so we decided to dump the bags and go for a short walk. As we stepped outside it absolutely poured with rain, very un-English like rain as well, proper rain rain… We went back inside and had lunch until the room was available. Luckily that was the end of the rain for the day, the forecast was correct and we had a pretty good afternoon and evening.

I selected a hotel that was outside the immediate centre of town, I didn’t want to have to faff too much with the car, and a lot of the central hotels had no car parking. We were only a 10 minute walk from the centre, and it was a nice walk in.Like many Roman and medieval towns Bath is located on the side of a river, in this case the River Avon. We were staying on the far side of the river.

Bath is famous for two things, famous in my mind anyway. The Roman Baths and the Royal Crescent, and we visited both. On the way to the Royal Crescent we passed through The Circus, a roundabout surrounded by wonderful Georgian Terraces. I suspect that some of the pictures I have seen on the internet purporting to be the Royal Crescent, were actually taken here. I much preferred this to the nearby Royal. Crescent. The circus was built between 17544 and 1768 and the buildings are 318 feet from the centre of the circus – the same as Stonehenge. John Wood (the elder), the designer believed that ancient Bath was a centre for Druidism. I really like knowing (and then forgetting) these little snippets of local history!

The Royal Crescent was designed by John Wood (the younger), the son of the architect who designed The Circus, though it was built just prior. It is still magnificent, but a fair bit of it was covered in scaffold and there were too many cars parked outside to see it in all its glory. There were a lot of tourists here as well.

We took a walk around old Bath after leaving the Royal Crescent. Bath is a very old town, the Romans built their first spa here in 60-70AD but there are hints of a long history prior to the Romans coming to town. It is a World Heritage site and is well preserved and very nice. We would move here tomorrow ! Even though it is a tourist town and quite busy when we visited, there are plenty of places to wander to get away from the business. The centre had a nice feel to it.

One of the things I like about my travels and exploring is finding out little titbits of history, things so minor that they are totally irrelevant to almost everyone, but finding them can make a day. Today I found Sally Lunn’s house – the oldest house in Bath, but more importantly the home of the Sally Lunn bun. I loved Sally Lunns, a few years back I used to have one every day for morning tea from a bakery near work. I never knew they were actually named after a person!

We had booked ourselves an early dinner in a well know vegetarian cafe behind the cathedral so decided to just hang out in and around Bath for the rest of the afternoon, we crossed the Avon behind the train station and found this building with high river marks and dates up its side. There must have been some major floods here in the past, I was standing up right when I took this photo, so those marks are well above my head.

The river was very benevolent today though.

The vegetarian cafe was excellent, an imaginative and different menu and the food was excellent, as was the wine we had with our food. I am glad we had decided to go and visit the Spa after dinner, it gave us a good chance to walk the food off !

The Roman Baths are the main attraction in Bath, I have not been before, though El has visited a couple of times over the years and told me the museum just gets better and better. It is not particularly cheap to enter, but well worth the money. It is excellent – one of, if not, the best local museum I have been to. Even better was that it was open until 10:00pm in summer – which mean for a much smaller crowd early in the evening than the middle of the day.

The baths were built by the Romans between 60 and 70AD, probably on the site of a Celtish site dedicated to the god Sulis, known as Minerva by the Romans. There was a temple to Minerva here as well as the bathing area. The site was redeveloped many times up until the 5th century when the Romans left and the water ways silted up.

Nothing much happened again until the 12^th century when new buildings were erected, there was plenty of further redevelopment up until the 18^th century when the current building shell was finally built by the good old Woods – both father and son involved. I loved it, we both loved it.

As I said earlier, the museum is really good. Well spaced and paced and designed to cater for a lot of people. There are some interesting things to see and plenty of information both visually and through an audio guide. I took a lot of photos!

It really is a terrific place to relax on a relatively quiet evening.

The temple pediment and Gordons head, is a magnificent relic, probably 1^st century and the carving is stunning, remember this is 2000 years old! It was discovered in the 18^th century and no-one really knows what all the related carvings mean, there have been many interpretations over the years.

This gilt bronze head of Sulis Minerva was found in the 18^th century renovations, the statue would have stood in the temple near the baths.

There were a few statues and sculptures in the museum and stupidly I did not make note of the names.

It was mid-evening when we left and took a slow walk back to our hotel, the sun was setting over Great Pulteney St.

Arriving back at the hotel just as the sun was finally going down over the grounds at the front of the hotel.

As expected we really enjoyed Bath. Though we did not linger on Saturday morning, packing up the car and heading back to London. On a gloriously sunny day, of course!

A holiday in Ilfracombe

Thursday 28 July 2016 – Ilfracombe, North Devon.

In a break from tradition I will add a bit of news that is current as of today, 07 August. My short period ‘between jobs’ ends tomorrow when I start a three month contract doing systems analyst and support work for the software house that supplied the package I have been supporting over the past two years. This was anticipated as I left my last job, but as always there was plenty of detail to sort out. I am expecting to only work three or four days a week as well, which of course suits me perfectly.

The three month time frame was what I wanted as I am going to go to Australia and New Zealand in November as my eldest son, and middle child, has a baby due at the end of October. My daughter is going to be in India in November so I may do a two week side trip there as well. Exciting times ahead!

Of course by any standard there has been plenty of exciting times recently, with photography tours to Orford Ness, three days in Valencia with friends and now, two days after returning from Valencia El and I are off to Ilfracombe in North Devon for a week of relaxing.

We chose Ilfracombe as there is not a lot to do there, there are few sights to see or sites to visit, or much else really. The idea was to relax and do as little or as much as we felt like rather than charging around doing touristy things as I tend to do on holiday.

We were not in any particular rush leaving London on Friday, as I was driving I decided to leave it until after the morning rush hour. We had a good run till just before Bristol, this was the first time I have travelled from the M11 to the M4 on the M25 without actually stopping. The journey from Bristol was bad, bad. It took almost three hours to get to Ilfracombe from there, a six and a half hour journey all up. We had organised a really nice flat for ourselves, so something to look forward to when we got there. We were on holiday and not rushing.

The plan for this holiday was not to do much. I wanted to walk up one of the headlands outside Ilfracombe and when El is spending time in a spa in nearby Woolacombe I will walk out to Morte point. Apart from hanging around Ilfracombe we had not much else in mind. Reading, writing, eating and drinking was about it.

The weather forecast for the week was not great, so with a fine morning on Saturday we took the opportunity to walk up the headland we could see from our flat, Hillsborough Hill. I had walked down the headland last July as it is on the South West Coast Path (SWCP). The view back from the top is magnificent, Ilfracombe in all its glory, with Lundy Island in the distance.

As was the view towards the east.

Near the top there was a tiny shrine, almost under a rock, I am not entirely sure who it is for, though it is quite touching and someone was obviously well loved.

It was nice walk, good to be walking up and down some grass hills for a change, though it was warm!

Once down from the hill we took a walk around Ilfracombe and picked up a few groceries. One of the reasons for getting a holiday flat rather than staying in a hotel or a guest house was to be able to cook for ourselves rather than eat out every night. Something we actually achieved!

We did not do a heck of a lot the following day, it was raining so we went into Barnstable for a walk and a coffee and then just mooched for a while. We had a table booked at one of the restaurants in Ilfracombe. We left early so we could stop on the way and see Verity without there being too many people in the way.

Ilfracombe is a small fishing town, now dominated by tourism, with a natural harbour. People having been living here for a very long time. While not quaint in the ‘olde worlde’ way it is a nice little town, and the harbour is very well organised !

Verity is a 20 metre tall statue created by Damien Hirst and erected in 2012. It is a stunning work and completely dominates the small harbour. I found her quite a challenge to photograph.

After a very nice dinner we took a stroll up Capstone Hill, a small hill overlooking the sea. I was hoping for an amazing sunset as it looked like the view to the west would be great from up there, but there was no stunning sunset tonight. The light looking back over town was magic though. ‘Magic hour’ indeed. As I said on my Orford Ness post, I really should get out for this light more often. I do like the look of a town that grows up a hillside.

The statue of Katy remembers the short life of a young Russian girl, Ekaterine who tragically fell to her death walking in the fog when she was studying English here in 2000. The statue has such a lovely smile and I was quite taken by it. I wonder if the shrine on Hillsborough Hill that we found yesterday is related, it was in that area that the accident occurred.

Walking back down the hill I finally got the angle I was looking for to get this image of St Nicholas’s Chapel with Hillsborough Hill behind it. Lovely light.

The following day El had a spa session booked in nearby Woolacombe. I took the opportunity to go for a morning walk from Woolacombe, along the SWCP out to Morte Point. I was hoping to see seals.

Woolacombe is the start of proper sandy beaches on the stretch of coast from North Devon to Lands End. Woolacombe Beach is massive and very popular. Though it was sunny there was quite a strong wind blowing and it was not really a lying on the beach day. Most swimmers were in wet suits!

I had walked around Morte Point last year on my walk, it was at the end of a day of walking from Combe Martin so I was quite looking forward to going back and taking a more leisurely stroll, unencumbered by a large pack.

It took me about 40 minutes from the spa to round the end of the point and the view up the coast. There are no massive and dominate cliffs here, but those rocks are sharp and brutal and it is not called Morte Point for nothing.

I walked along the path for a little bit, looking for and hoping to see some of the seals that are known to frequent the area. For a change I was rewarded with the sight of two seals just off the shore. Without a big lens and not being able to get too close to the edge here, this is a heavily cropped image. But I did see seals, so very happy!

I watched them play for a while before turning round and heading back the way I came, at the end of the point I decided I would head up the rocky spine and get some height and take the upper track back.

From the sea the point must look incredible as its spine is topped by rocky shards pointing out, like a stegosaurus, unusual. As were the plants growing in the rocks.

The view from the top of the point was brilliant, it was cool being able to see the coast path winding in both directions, I was trying to get a photo of both sections of the path with walkers on them, but the timing was never quite right, though there a lot of people walking today.

There were also a lot more people on Woolacombe Beach when I got back there, I love those wind breaks, and how so many people are huddled inside them – and you can buy chips on the beach. Perfect!

Ilfracombe does not have many scenic wonders or tourist attractions. The tunnel beaches are one of them, though I am not sure why. Maybe it was the day was a bit grey, or maybe I am just cynical! But I was not overly excited. Ilfracombe is not really a swimming town, the best beach was cut off from the town by cliffs so in the 1820s Welsh miners cut tunnels through the small hill from the town to the beach.

I must admit I was not stunned by the beach…

The Landmark Theatre is quite a cool building, known as ‘Madonna’s Bra’ by some, for obvious reasons.

It was Eleanor’s birthday while we were away, but the weather did not really play fair. We decided to go to Lynmouth and Lynton for lunch and a look around, we had passed the towns on the way to Ilfracombe and had visiting them as a back-up, rainy day activity.

We parked in Lynton, which is at the top of the cliff, with Lynmouth below. There is a funicular railway between, which we caught both up and down. We only had two hours of parking so with lunch in mind we did not linger in Lynton before heading down. The cloud was quite low.

Lynmouth is a pretty village, very badly damaged when these gentle looking streams were turned into raging torrents after heavy rain back in 1952. We really liked it here and enjoyed the brief time we had wandering about – and eating fish and chips for lunch.

The funicular railway is very cool, not as dramatic as Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, but it is really steep, and is a great piece of engineering. Built in 1890 the two rail cars are water powered. The cars are linked by a cable, the car at the top is loaded up with 700 gallons of water which makes it heavier than the one at the bottom, which is emptied of water. Gravity does the rest. It really is ingenious.

The original plan was to make the short walk from Lynton to the Valley of the Rocks, but as we could only park for two hours we decided to be lazy and drive. It is quite a cool little place to walk with its unusual, castle like rock structures.

And goats…

The weather really started to close in so after a short walk we headed back to the car and back to Ilfracombe.

El and I had another great meal out, a birthday celebration. The evening was nice so we went for another walk around, hoping for a sunset again. I had brought my tiny tripod and we took a couple of selfies on the sea wall below St Nicholas’s Chapel.

With one last snap of Ilfracombe on the way back up to the flat – naturally up a hill overlooking town.

The flat above our one was under renovation, it had been a little bit noisy during the week but not too bad, though as we were heading out for dinner we warned that on Thursday night new carpet was going to be laid and that lots of furniture would be moved around – and it would be noisy.

Thursday turned out to be a bit of a rainy day, so the thought of spending a day inside with noise above was too much and would have ruined what had been a good week. We decided to leave one day early and take a night in Bath on the way home. It was the right decision.

We really enjoyed Ilfracombe, the flat and our holiday. Thankfully, the holiday flat people refunded us for the night we did not stay due to the noise. That was really appreciated!

Three relaxing days in Valencia

Wednesday 20 July 2016 – Valencia, Spain.

Arriving home from my trip to Orford Ness early on Saturday evening it was a quick hello to El and then I was upstairs packing and organising myself for a three day trip to Valencia. I had to be at Gatwick Airport at 7:00 am on Sunday, and it is almost an hour long drive. I was not looking forward to getting up at 5:00 after the very late night and even earlier rise at Orford Ness. It was worth it all though.

Our Valencian house owning friends had invited us over to stay with them and some others for a few days, but El has work and as I am currently not working I decided to pop over for three nights – better than moping around the house during the day! El and I have a week booked in Devon this coming Friday so something for both of us to look forward to.

I arrived at Valencia Airport at mid-day after a pretty good flight on EasyJet. The sky in Valencia was a heck of a lot bluer than the sky in London was. One of the reasons for going was to see some nice blue sky!

I was picked up by Paul and Andy and driven back to the house in Lliria. Paul and Paula, have another couple staying along with various kids and their friends, though the ‘kids’ are all 16 and above, there was seven young ‘uns. Luckily it is a big place!

My plan for the three days was to do not much, fit in with everyone else’s plans and very little else, eat some food and drink some cold Spanish lager in the sun. Unwind now I am not working and, hopefully, before I start another job. For the first two days I very much achieved that – it was very enjoyable, I took no photos and did not write one word in my notebook. I did read a lot.

On Tuesday we went into Valencia for a few hours. I left the group once we got off the metro and just went wandering on my own for a while. I have seen the main sites and was quite keen to get lost in the back streets of the old town again and just lose myself for a while. I surprised myself by not really enjoying it, not Valencia’s fault, I was just not feeling it today. Maybe I have gotten too used to spending time on my own in more remote places than the back alleys of small cities. Not that there were a lot of people off the main Valencian thoroughfares. I did see one piece of street art I liked, that I am not sure I saw last time we were here.

I did take a few photos, just not anywhere near as as many as I expected. Valencia is very photogenic, even feeling off and unenthused about taking photos the city compelled me to get the camera out. Maybe after the fun of Orford Ness and using the big old DSLR having the pocket camera was not inspiring enough ?

Eventually I found myself at Torres de Serranos, one of two remaining 14^th century gates into the town of Valencia. Originally there were 12 gates. It was the main entrance into the town so was designed to be more ornamental than the other gates, along with its main purpose of being part of a solid defensive wall. The city walls were pulled down in 1865, though this and the Cuart Towers were left behind as they were being used as prisons after the town prison burnt down.

When we were here back in March the front of the gates was covered in scaffolding so we didn’t have a really good look around. Now it was all clear I decided to head to the top and have a look. There is a 2 Euro fee to get in. Worth it! Just before I went inside I ran into some of the young ‘uns who I am staying with and was informed that this was a meeting point for the rest of the group in a few minutes. Good timing !

There are a lot of steps in the building, they made for some interesting shapes and I started taking a few more photos. I like the cleanliness and symmetry of the lines inside the building, with very little ornamentation left inside the structure itself is allowed to show off.

I made my way up to the roof, and the view was worth the effort of the walk, there were some other folk really struggling to get up to the top, it was fairly warm and fairly humid inside the walls and well there are some unfit people about! The view north east and out of the old centre of Valencia.

I have been developing a ‘thing’ for roofs and sky line images, I quite like the mix of line and shape and colour, a counter to the clean and tidy lines inside the gate towers.

Coming down from the towers I met the rest of the group and we split up again after agreeing to meet later on at a horchateria for a horchata. I was quite keen to go and see inside the cathedral after talking to those who had been earlier in the day.

I set off on a roundabout walk back towards the cathedral, passing this cool little bike shop on the way.

The back of the cathedral had some interesting things, some of the detail on the building was really good, even after seeing so much of this ancient carving on the outside of forts and religious buildings all over the world I am still struck by the level of skill that was required to get that detail. I also like how it has faded over the centuries.

The front of the cathedral is interesting, not a traditional tower with massive doors, but definitely expressing its wealth and power. I liked it a lot.

The interior of the cathedral was OK, it was not the most amazing one I have visited, and it certainly had its highlights. I particularly liked the 14^th century Holy Chalice Chapel and spent a bit of time relaxing in the coolness and semi dark. I also left my hat here 😦

I wandered around the interior until it was almost time to meet everybody else and walked out just as they were passing – great timing!

After a bit of misplacement we eventually found the horchateria and settled inside for a cool drink. The building is lovely inside, tiled and cool and relaxing. Horchata is a milk made from tiger nuts and is a speciality of Valencia. It was quite nice too!

After the sit down and drink we all headed back to the train and on to Lliria, for a cold cold lager and another pleasant evening of chatting in the garden.

The following morning (Wednesday) it was back to Valencia Airport for the flight home to Gatwick.

I really enjoyed my little break in Valencia, it was good to hang out with friends, chat, eat and drink sitting in the sun – with the occasional dip in the pool. Thanks Paul, Paula, Andy and Caroline for having me.

Orford Ness Photography Tour. P3 – in and out of windows.

Saturday 16 July 2016 – Orford Ness, Suffolk.

This will be the final post from the 24 hour photography tour I attended on Orford Ness in Suffolk. For information about the Ness you will need to track back a couple of posts. If you like landscapes that are utterly different to the typical English rolling countryside then I recommend you visit Orford Ness. If you want to get access to the places I have photographed here then you will need to join a tour. Space on these tours is very limited and you will need to book via the National Trust Orford Ness web page. I believe 2016 tours are all booked up.

This last post has some images I took that were frames by windows and doors. I have been experimenting a bit more with the use of framing in my photography, using trees and buildings to frame the centre of the image. The broken windows and window frames in the buildings at Orford Ness allow for some interesting framing opportunities. Next time I will use the tripod and get a bit squarer on the frame – if I can. Using my tripod is a habit I really need to get in to…

Lab 2 from Lab 4

Lab 4 from Lab 5

The aerials of Cobra Mist

As I have mentioned a few times in these three posts, Orford Ness is an amazing place to visit, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in photography, landscapes or the small weird or unusual parts of English History. Thanks National Trust for keeping it open, and thanks to the volunteers who look after this wonderful place.

Orford Ness Photography Tour. P2 – bits and pieces.

Saturday 16 July 2016 – Orford Ness, Suffolk.

This is part two of a three part post of images taken at an overnight photography tour to Orford Ness. I really enjoyed Orford Ness. It is my kind of place; flat, wind exposed, a bit bleak and ‘flat’ coloured, with the added bonus of visually and historically interesting buildings. The photo tour was very enjoyable, I learnt a bit and took more photos in the 24 hours I was there than in any 24 period before.

I particularly enjoyed taking photos of some of the detail inside the buildings, rusty and faded light fittings, old electrical boxes and cables. Not the sort of things I normally take photos of, I am a wide angle lens big sky kind of guy, so this was a new challenge for me.

I was looking for lines and angles, rust and little bits of detail in the decay. There was not a lot to see as most of the buildings have been stripped of saleable material, you can see this in the cut off cables in some of the rooms. It would make for a good movie location. Taking an organised photo tour of the ‘Ness allowed us to access some of the buildings that a day visitor is restricted from entering, or even getting near to.

One of the first rooms we entered had these wonderful switches on the wall, I have no idea what they controlled, the cryptic labelling made them even more interesting.

This rusting out radiator was one of favourite things in the whole ‘Ness and was on the wall below the switches.

As we walked around the various buildings I was looking for straight and clean lines to contrast against the rusty old switches and cables.

The switches themselves were interesting too. What did they do?

Most of the cabinetry had been removed, though there were the odd one left here and there. I like the birds nest in this one.

The last building we visited was the old Navy, Army, Air Force Institute ‘NAAFI’ building. It is being turned into a museum, and is not yet open to the public, but it did have one of the old high speed cameras they used to record explosions and other experiments.

I will finish this post with another one of the lovely of radiators.

There will be one last set of images after this one. Things taken through windows and doors.

Orford Ness Photography Tour. P1

Saturday 16 July 2016 – Orford Ness, Suffolk.

Steve and I were meeting the rest of the group and the tour leaders at 5:00pm at the National Trust office on the pier in Orford. We left Leiston Abbey with what seemed like plenty of time, but only arrived a few minutes early. One of the other group members was waiting when we got there, I think most people were impacted a bit by traffic, one guy was really late, traffic ruined his day.

There were eight of us on the tour, two photo guides and six punters, all middle aged blokes :). This photo is by Steve.

National Trust run one overnight tour to Orford Ness a year, though a number of photography and other groups can book private trips. This is the only way to see the area after hours and the only way to get access to some of the closed off sections. To enter the buildings that were open to us we all had to wear hard hats. Once inside you can see why, a number of the buildings had material dangling loosely from their open and exposed roofs. As these buildings get more and more run down and dangerous they will slowly close and one day there will be no access at all.

For more about Orford Ness, check out my last visit here.

This was to be a 24 hour stay, it was a photography based tour, and the aim was to make as much of the available light, and dark, as possible. We were out and about from soon after we arrived and had been briefed what we will be doing until a late dinner about 9:30pm, back out again till midnight and up again at 4:30 for sunrise. I took more photos in those 24 hours then in any previous 24 hour period. I am not a prolific photographer – my habit is to take one, maybe two images of something and then move on. I took about 350 photos, an extraordinary amount for me. There was a lot to see and do! I am going to split the tour into two or three posts, I will see how I go. This first post will be a general overview of the 24 hours.

After finding bunks and unpacking our kit we jumped into a National Trust Land Rover and an electric buggy and headed off on a tour of the site. Other than the guides I was the only person who had been here before. The first place we visited was through the no-entry for the public gate and up to the far end of the Advanced Weapons Research Areas (AWRE) to labs 4 and 5, the ‘pagodas’ and the places I wanted to see the most – I was very excited to know we were going to be able to see inside these places.

The pagodas were built in the 1950s to test components used in nuclear weapons, mainly the triggers and detonators. There was never any acknowledgement that any fissionable material was ever on the Ness, but of course, what secrets the M.O.D. have will not be revealed for a long time yet. The roof was designed to collapse and seal the room below in the event of an explosion, I think they look very mysterious. Brutalism in the architectural and the real sense.

There is very little left to see inside any of the structures, when the M.O.D. left in the 1970s the site was savaged by metal collectors and scavengers and most things of value was stripped out. There are still a few bits and pieces and this made it quite interesting from a photographic point of view. I took a lot of pictures of the fittings that remained and these will make up my next post.

We spent a few minutes looking around one of the pagodas before heading off to the far end of the site to the north of the light house to have a look around one of the more desolate areas, and to check out a good location for tomorrow’s sunrise. I was just taken with the flatness of the land and the big, big expansive sky above it – a sky filled with lovely clouds.

As it drew closer to the end of the day we headed back to the hut and took some photos back towards Orford and its castle. The sunset was not particularly brilliant to start with, though there was some late flare that lit the sky as we were eating our evening meal.

I am not often out in the ‘golden hour’, that period of time around sunset and sunrise, when the light is mellow and filtered. It is the landscape photographers best light, and I never use it. Don’t ask me why – perhaps now I am not working and have a car I could nip out to the forest in the evening?

Once it had gotten dark we headed out again to take some long exposure night images, there was a bit too much cloud around to get much moonlight – or any star trails. This is a one minute exposure towards the lights of Harwich. I haven’t done any night photography for ages and really enjoyed it, though it was very windy so not the best of conditions, even with a fairly sturdy tripod.

It was past midnight when we headed back to the hut for some ‘sleep’ before a 4:30am start, coffee and then back out for the sunrise. Like the sunset the night before it was not a great glowing light fest, though it was good to be out in the early morning light.

This photo of me is by John, one of the tutors, I was probably taking the above photo.

After breakfast we went back up to the AWRE area for a more detailed explore of the buildings. We were split into two groups making it easier for us all to get time in each location and look for images. Being on a tour means we could ignore the signs and enter some of these spaces, some were deemed too unsafe to enter.

I love these buildings, I love their shape, and the harsh design and build and I love their location on this flat, desolate and ancient area.

I spent a lot of time picking out the small details, the photos will make up the bulk of the next post. I was looking for industrial shapes, and of course a bit of decay! Like this extractor pipe.

Most of the day was spent out and about, the light wasn’t brilliant, it was a bit bright for my taste, I would have preferred more dark cloud – but at least it was not uber bright and sunny.

Though we were looking for a patch of bright sun to get the shadows from the failing roof structures in the back of laboratory 1. Luck was briefly on our side! You can see why you need a hard hat to enter these places. We were not allowed into the main space as those ducts are hanging quite precariously. Interestingly; that ground looks like it is a flat floor, but on the far side is a 12 foot deep pathway about a yard wide. It is impossible to see, only old photos of the site reveal it. If you wandered over there you would disappear into the mire, possibly to never be seen again.

The interior of this building was excellent for photos, there was a surprisingly large amount of ‘stuff’ left inside. We spent a lot of time discussing what it was for. The shell of the centrifuge was quite obvious, but what it was for is unknown.

Another of the buildings we visited had a centrifuge we could see in to. It is all so interesting, yet so little is publicly known about what actually happened in these buildings. We know that many things were invented or tested on Orford Ness, that experiments with things like high speed cameras, radar, weapon systems and explosive triggers for nuclear bombs happened here. But what really went on ? One day we will know.

All too soon it was mid-afternoon and time to pack up and head homeward. Steve and I left with the early group, some of the others continued on to see things like the lighthouse, which I had visited before. I was keen to get back to London as I have to be up at 5:00am tomorrow to go to Spain. I needed some sleep 🙂

It was a very enjoyable and educational trip, the guides/tutors were great and my fellow photographers were a good bunch to hang out with and I look forward to seeing some of the photos that other have made, and how they may have seen Orford Ness.

I might go next year!