Tag Archives: travel

A Surviving Shot Tower

I had an overnight in Chester as part of a work trip to the region. The hotel I was staying in was just outside the centre of the city and alongside the canal. A short distance away was a shot tower and I figured I had to take a look. Shot towers were used to make shot – who’d have thought? In order to get “perfect” spheres for the shot, the molten metal was pushed through fine mesh at the top of the tower, and the drops of metal would fall. They would form a sphere as they free fell and would also cool as they fell through the air. They would have solidified by the time they reached the bottom, and you would have your shot.

Production techniques evolved over time and towers like this became redundant. Fortunately, this one has not been demolished and now it looks over the new apartment developments along the canal. The inside is illuminated and, while there is a window looking in, there is not much to be seen. I hope it is well looked after and will remain for many years to come.

Flow Viz on a Hornet

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A long time ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away), I had a visit to the naval air station at Fallon. The weather was not ideal for the visit, and we had a bit of a disappointing result when it came to flying jets. I did spend some time on the ramp, though. A Super Hornet was marked up in squadron colours, and this was what initially caught my attention. However, as I looked at the jet more closely, I was fascinated by the dirt streaks emanating from the fasteners on the rear fuselage panels. These marks clearly showed the path the flow takes across this part of the airframe.

Stratford Upon Avon

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We have a work location not far from Stratford and I have had a couple of times when I stayed the night in the town. Stratford is a very picturesque location, and the Shakespeare connection makes it a very popular tourist destination. This can make hotels a bit pricy! One of the stays was in the summer so it didn’t get dark until late. That allowed me plenty of time to wander along the river on one side and then back up the other.

The river itself is a nice place to be and then the town centre has a selection of buildings that go back to Tudor times. These have taken on all sorts of shapes as they have settled over the years. One was a nice pub that I stopped in for something to eat. The plan is to return for a personal visit at some point so I can have a more leisurely time to check the place out and Nancy can see it again. She was last there in the late 90s!

Shaw Vipers When They Were Yes or No

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Go back a long time and I find myself at Red Flag at Nellis AFB and in the fortunate position of being able to take a tanker ride to refuel some of the participants. I won’t go into the details of the flight itself since that is a tale of its own. Instead, I will focus on some F-16s. Most Red Flag exercises seem to include participation by Shaw AFB F-16s. They operate in the Wild Weasel role, and I guess there aren’t many SEAD units, so they get to come most of the time.

Red Flag media events were always a guessing game as to what would be allowable to photograph. Sometimes the Shaw jets were in and sometimes they were out. Sometimes you would only find out afterwards that they were out. On our tanker trip we had F-22s and Shaw F-16s. It wasn’t clear whether they would be allowed or not.

In the end, we shot the planes as they came up for fuel and the USAF team then took all of our cards to decide what we could have and what we couldn’t. This could involve things on the ground that couldn’t be photographed that we had accidentally caught as well as the planes themselves. In this case, the Shaw Vipers were okay, so our cards came back with them included (or at least most of them with some deletions along the way. Here are some of the shots from that day.

St Peter’s Pump

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Sometimes your perspective can get you tricked into something you hadn’t intended. There is a trail north of the grounds at Stourhead that leads up to St Peter’s Pump. I had seen this on the map of Stourhead that they hand out and was interested in heading up there. When we walked out to the path, we could see the structure in the distance. It didn’t look too far away so we decided to head up. Nancy wasn’t sure about going the whole way but, as we got walking, she decided why not.

Neither of us had really judged it well. The route was a lot longer than it looked. As much as we kept walking, we never seemed to be getting any closer. Of course, eventually we did get there. The memorial was quite interesting and the hill beyond it looked rather steep, so we were quite happy that we had achieved our goal. The return walk was downhill and did seem to pass a lot quicker than the trip up. Maybe familiarity made it better or perhaps not staring at something that never feels like it gets closer was a benefit. As to why it is called St Peter’s Pump, I have no idea!

The Funicular Collection Continues and One That Isn’t Anymore

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I do not travel around looking for funicular railways (yet!), but I do seem to come across them on my regular travels. My visit to Scarborough has already shown up on this blog as a result of the shots I got while there on my cycling trip. However, I had excluded the funiculars. I say funiculars because I saw two although only one was operational – well, it would have been but not at the time I was there.

The working railway takes you down the cliffs from the town to the waterfront. Not a long run but I imagine it gets a few customers when the peak season is underway. I paid it a bit of attention as I walked around the town first thing in the morning. Then, I walked along the shore towards the spa and saw another track. This one has clearly been deactivated but the core infrastructure was still visible. I don’t know when it was taken out of service. This got me wondering whether there were even more in Scarborough when it was at its peak of popularity.

Morning in Scarborough

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In a previous post I showed Scarborough as I arrived after the second leg of the ride from Liverpool. I was feeling some pain after that section and was not sure whether I would be able to ride the next day. First thing in the morning, I got up and went out for a walk. Partly, this was to explore Scarborough and mostly it was to see how my knees felt and test them on the climb back to the hotel in order to decide whether to try the last day. (The answer was not great.)

The early morning in Scarborough means the light is coming off the water so the waterfront is illuminated. The Grand Hotel is the dominant feature of the skyline, and it was nicely lit. I am told the outside is better than the inside and was happy to stay out here.

There is also a bridge that connects the upper part of the town with the spa further along the front. This bridge did look impressive in the morning glow. I spent a little time walking around and having the place pretty much to myself. Not many people out at that time of the morning so a tranquil experience too. Then I headed back to the hotel to meet up with the team and wish them well on their leg while I grabbed my stuff to go in the van.

Hearst Castle/Mansion

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In a recent post, I had images of Hurst Castle. A friend of mine in the US mentioned the similarly named location on the California coast near the city of Cambria. Before we moved to the US, Nancy and I had made a trip to California during which we did a tour of the place. Built by William Randolph Hearst, this place is a combination of so many influences. Much of the decoration was accrued during travels around the world. You have elements of ancient buildings, parts of monasteries, designs influenced by other places and random designs that appealed.

From what I can gather, visitors now get fleeced by having the tours broken down into smaller sections, so you have to pay for each one. When we were there, it was more of an overall tour, and we got to see a lot of the collection. This was the days of film photography which means some of the shots didn’t work and I didn’t realise until long afterwards combined with a lot less pictures being taken overall. Film was also daylight balanced so the colours when inside could be quite sketchy. A little processing now tries to improve them but there is only so much you can do and only so much effort that is really justified for a holiday photo.

These images are a brief summary of what we saw during that visit. Some grandiose elements and some looted goods. Not my assessment – our tour guide was quite clear that the methods by which Hearst got hold of these artefacts was not always ethical. I believe a visit now will cost you a bunch. However, if you are already on the coast near Cambria, I would suggest you have already gone far enough to justify making the effort to visit.

The World’s Oldest Working Railway Bridge!

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The Ride the Route charity bike ride ended in Darlington. This is the location of the first passenger railway in the world and the route from Stockton to Darlington crossed the river in Darlington on this bridge. The railway still runs across the bridge and so it is listed as the oldest working railway bridge in the world. No idea whether this is undisputed or not and I don’t really care! It’s 200 years old and that’s not nothing.

Ferry Across Windermere

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Our Lake District trip included reliving some of the things we used to do a lot when we lived up that way. After lunch at an old haunt, we headed to Hawkshead. One way to get there is to take the ferry across Lake Windermere. I have many happy memories of making this crossing in the past and was glad to do it again. The ferry is connected to a cable that spans the lake. It is a bit like the chain ferry between Cowes and East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, but I don’t know whether the cable is just a guide or used to pull the ferry across. It is certainly smoother than a chain!

I had hoped to get some photos of the ferry coming in but, it was already approaching when we pulled up so a quick grab of a shot was all I could manage. Then the short crossing meant time to take some more photos of the area and the ferry before we arrived on the other shore to see the many people waiting to make the opposite journey. Fun to check off another one of those memory items.