Tag Archives: travel

Padstow Lifeboat Station

While staying in Padstow, we drove out to Trevone and took a circular walk around the headland. The last leg of the walk brought us down past the lifeboat station for the Padstow lifeboat. They have been doing some work on the structure so it has been unavailable for visitors for a while so I couldn’t visit. Given the location and the steps required to get down there, I won’t complain about this at all!

However, I could walk along the clifftop to get to a location that overlooked the station. Looking down on it and across the bay back towards Padstow provided a very photogenic location. On a sunny day with calm sees, it looked tranquil. A launch in bad weather would be a very different story. We continued south along the coast and there was a view back towards the station that appeared as we went which showed off the slipway and the backdrop nicely.

Stargazer’s Special Mods

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The last of the Pegasus missions has now been flown. Built to carry the Pegasus (and later Pegasus XL) air launched orbital booster, it was a conversion of a Lockheed L-1011. For a while now, it has been the only airworthy example of this classic airliner. I saw it at Mojave many years ago and it came to the Edwards AFB air show that I went to a few years back. At that point, they were still conducting training flights to retain currency for upcoming missions. I took a bunch of images during the show that looked at the details of the exterior changes for the launcher mission.

Now that the last booster has been launched, I imagine there is no further use for the airframe and it will be retired. Sadly, the launch, while successful, carried a payload that was not operational in its intended role. Such a shame to end that way. Will the aircraft go somewhere else – a museum for example – or will it be stored at Mojave until it is broken down?

The Smithsonian’s Blackbird

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As you enter the NASM building at Dulles, you are greeted by an SR-71 Blackbird. It is in the centre of the building facing the entrance and the elevated position of the entrance gives you a view down on it. It was in the same place on my previous visit so, on this trip, I didn’t give it as much attention as I might otherwise do. So many things to see so I did rather skip by. However, I wasn’t going to fail to photograph it at all!

The Better Way to Get to Padstow

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We had a holiday in Cornwall which included a few days in Padstow. I was in our room when I heard a helicopter. I figured it wasn’t going to be too visible so, rather than grab the camera, I just walked to the window to look out. As it happened, an A109 was descending across the harbour to land just out of sight to my right. The light was rather lovely on the airframe as it passed in front of me. I was rather annoyed that I hadn’t grabbed the camera.

However, I figured that it was likely either dropping someone off or picking someone up so was unlikely to be staying on the ground. Would it come back out the way it had come, or would it depart in a direction I couldn’t see? Only one way to find out. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long. They were retracing their route back out over the water so came nicely in range. Sadly, the light had faded a touch, but it was still pretty good. I had driven for a number of hours to get to Padstow. This looks like a far more convenient way to make the trip.

Unusual German WWII Planes

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The Steve Udvar-Hazy Center has aircraft from across the world and eras but does have some very unusual Second World War aircraft. The US acquired a variety of types at the end of the war from the German programmes which were taken home to evaluate. Some of these ended up in the hands of the Smithsonian when they were no longer needed. Two interesting examples are now on display at Dulles. These include a jet powered bomber and a puss-pull fighter.

The Arado AR234 Blitz is a conventional looking plane if you set aside the engine pods under the wings. To a modern eye, it looks very tame, but I imagine it was something special at the time. Next to it is the Dornier DO335 Pfeil – a push-pull configuration piston engined fighter. This was not a unique design idea for Germany. The US had a similar concept – an example of which I saw in Kalamazoo. So much innovative aerospace concepts were developed in the heat of war and these two are very rare examples of what was underway at that time.

Dawlish Seafront

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The beginning of our holiday to Cornwall and Devon included a stop in Exeter for lunch and then, since we were so close to Dawlish, I decided to take a diversion down there. I had seen numerous pictures of Dawlish over the years with waves crashing against the wall and spray covering passing trains. Seemed a no-brainer to check it out – admittedly on a rather calmer day. We parked up along the seafront and took one of the footbridges over the tracks to the walkway along the shore. This whole area had a significant rebuild in recent years as a result of some storm damage. The tide was out and people were down walking on the beach.

I was a little surprised to find that, beyond the station, the fencing ended and there was quite a drop off the edge of the path down to the beach. I guess people just take care. I was trying to work out what some of the shapes of concrete were on the beach. At first, I thought they might be the remains of previous structures but, after looking at them further, I decided that they were sewer drainage pipes. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.

After walking for a while, we backtracked at went under the tracks at the station. Time to grab an ice cream because were were on holiday. Then we sat on a bench along the river as it comes into the shore. Apparently, Dawlish has an association with black swans and there were several down in the river. Not sure of the story on that one. It was only a brief stop, but it was nice to see this place for myself after all of these years.

L’Eixample

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On one of our days in Barcelona, we took a trip to a neighbourhood called L’Eixample. Nancy had read about the geometry of the blocks in the area with the buildings in a grid but with each block shaped like an octagon. This makes each intersection more like a square (although the roads through disrupt the idea a bit). While the buildings are in the same layout, the architecture of each structure is individual so there is plenty of variety to see.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time to play with, but we did manage to walk through quite a few of the streets and I was taken with the patterns that the balconies made on the walls. If I had planned a photo trip, I would have gone with a wider-angle lens to allow me to bring more of the shapes into the image. Instead, I worked with the phone to see what I could get. It was a really interesting area, and it is nice to know that such interesting architecture can survive without redevelopment taking it down.

The Iconic Main Terminal Building at IAD

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First thing is to apologise for an issue with an image in here. How about that for a compelling way to start a post. However, it was impossible to avoid reflections in some of the shots I took here and, unfortunately, the reflection removal tool in Lightroom continues to underperform in my experience. I do think they did something to make it worse because my initial experience was good. Anyway, for some of these I was shooting through two panes of glass that had a few metres between them, which meant I couldn’t avoid reflections.

Our trip to the US for a family event took us through Dulles airport. The iconic terminal at Dulles now sits at the heart of a bunch of terminal buildings which are far less interesting architecturally. However, the swooping shape is still in use and that is where we checked in. Inside the roofline is equally impressive. When at our departure gate, we had a good view back across and this is where the reflections have been unavoidable. I first saw this airport in 1993, and it still catches my eye when I see it now.

Finding a Sprite in the Strangest Places

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The Austin Healey Sprite is an old British sports car which you don’t often see around. One place I was definitely not expecting to come across one was Warrenton in Virginia. Sure, Northern Virginia is near to the DC metro area so probably has a fair few people that might be interested in an old car like this and have the cash to restore one, but Warrenton is some way out. But there it was as we went to have some lunch. It looked in great condition.

Cruising Along the North Kent Coast

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I posted about the charity ride I did in September. The first day took us along the north Kent coast and a healthy tailwind pushed us along nicely. We went through some places that I have been to and plenty that I haven’t. Margate was last visited when I was in college! I had never been to Broadstairs (that I know of). I grabbed a few pictures of the coastline, castles and beaches so here are some of the places we saw along the way. The end of this day included a long climb up to the top of St Margarets with a brutal headwind, so it wasn’t all easy (and my rear tyre was deflating during that climb too!)