Tag Archives: travel

Bristol Docks

When I am chatting with my sister, she often mentions her trips to Bristol for work. While talking with her one weekend, I pulled up the map of Bristol to see where the office is that she goes to. As I looked around the area, I realized that the docks area of Bristol looked really interesting and is somewhere that I haven’t explored before. When it seemed that we would have one free day while in the UK and the Bristol was only about 90 minutes away, we decided to pay it a visit.

The weather was not as cooperative as we might have hoped but it was just about okay and we headed off. We parked up right in the middle of the docks area so were able to start exploring straight away. There was a ton to see and there will be more blog posts that cover some of the specific aspects of the area. This is more of an introduction post. The docks are connected to the River Avon but, as I discovered while we walked around, the river is very tidal and the docks are only functional because the access is via locks. This allows the maintenance of a decent water level in the port.

We wandered around the docks for quite a while. There are commercial vessels, some small remaining boatyards, lots of pleasure craft and all of the ancillary businesses that support them. The docks boomed in the 1800s after the construction of the current configuration at the beginning of that century. The docks are along the original Avon course but, once the locks were created to maintain the water level, a new cut was made for the river south of the docks to connect up with the river course upstream. Consequently the river flows normally without the docks being affected.

The housing up on the hills overlooking the docks might be similarly old but they seem to be painted up in a variety of colors to provide quite a cheerful appearance on what would otherwise be rather dull architecture. One thing about Bristol that you can’t ignore is the terrain. There is low lying ground near the river and docks but the hills rising up are steep and you certainly notice it when you start walking around. This means that rows of houses are visible from the docks as they are layered up the side of the hills.

Longparish – Like A Postcard

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The first part of our UK trip in February involved staying in the village of Longparish. This is the combination of a few hamlets into one “long parish”. We had some spare time when we first arrived to wander around the village. It was so picturesque, it was almost like someone had taken the instructions, make a cute English village and done exactly that.

It is situated along the River Test. The river is in multiple branches at this location and they all seem to be running quite fast. There are also streams running through the village that are feeding the main river. Thatched cottages abound and a couple of pubs provide the right village feel. There are a couple of large houses – one at each end of the village – which, presumably, owned the majority of the land in days gone by. They still seem to have a lot of land. The village cricket club finishes things off but, since it was not yet the season, we didn’t get to watch any matches.

Fishes In The Test

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The River Test runs through the grounds of Mottisfont and there is a diverted section of it that runs through a very unnaturally straight section of river near the house. As we walked along the path by this section, we saw a couple of fish in the water. As we moved on, we realized that there were loads of them. To my untrained eye, they looked like they might be trout but I am not an angler or any sort of sim expert. I got some photos of them but video seemed like the best bet so I had a good at that too. Can you identify them?

Osborne House Itself

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I’ve posted a few times about our visit to Osborne House but I have not actually shown anything from inside the house in those previous posts. Finally we have gone inside. When it comes to visiting old houses, I often don’t bother with the inside but this one definitely seemed worth a look since we had come all that way. It is definitely interesting but it is also quite bizarre in places.

Talking to some of the guides in the rooms, we discovered that the whole place was put together rather rapidly. Things that look like marble columns are in fact plaster or concrete and painted to look like marble. I think some of that speedy construction means that there is a lot to do in maintaining things. When Victoria died, the house was handed over the country and was used as a place for sailors recovering – presumably from wounds sustained. Bits of the house were locked off from them including her old bedroom which was treated like a shrine by the family. Only in later years did the place start to get preserved and restored in parts.

There is plenty of art scattered around although I think quite a lot of it is replicas of originals which are elsewhere in the royal collection. Grandiose displays abound but then other areas are a lot more practical. The rooms for the kids (of which they had plenty) are very busy. No individual rooms for the youngsters it seems.

The tour takes you on a route through the building and the final section includes the Durbar Room. This is a seriously over the top space. Decorated in styles reminiscent of India, it is an example of what Britain controlled at the time and could easily been considered gaudy. I was both amazed at it and also rather put off. If you give someone free rein to design something, don’t be surprised if they overdo it!

The house itself is Italianate in design but the interior is a combination of all sorts of things be it traditional English, Indian, Greek or anything else that came to mind. It is an interesting thing to see but not a place that I could ever imagine spending a lot of time.

Unusual Shaped Buildings in Vancouver

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There area few buildings in Vancouver where the architects have been a little adventurous. Some of them are visible from the shore as you walk around Stanley Park and I grabbed some photos from a distance. There is one that is near the bridge as you drive towards Granville Island. You can see part of it from the Island but a good view is on the road as you drive by. I asked Nancy to try getting some shots as I was driving. The tapered edge makes the building feel like it is hanging over the road. Very interesting engineering!

Gull’s Crab Lunch Under Threat

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As we walked along the shore trail in Stanley Park, we came up on a gull that had just caught a crab. The gull was intent on eating the crab, as well you might imagine. However, its lunch had also caught the attention of a bunch of crows (could hardly call them a murder). Consequently, the gull was trying to find a way to avoid the crows and eat its food. It was not going to escape them, of course. Instead, it had to do the best it could and accept that they were going to get a few scraps.

One Of The Oldest Tornados

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The Tornado was entering service in big numbers with the RAF at the same time that I was getting seriously into aviation. I always felt it was the plane I knew the best. When I ended up working on them, it felt like a continuation of my youthful enthusiasm. The Tornado GR1 was my jet. After I moved on to other projects, MLU came along and that became the GR4. Somehow, the GR4 never felt like it was mine. I was a GR1 kid.

When I went to the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum, there was a Tornado at one end of the hangar. It was a GR1 that had never been updated. Better than that, is was one of the earliest production jets that the RAF received. Some of the test jets at Warton were from this batch so this one really felt like one of the originals for me. The Tornado is long gone from RAF service but, for me, to see one of these earlier jets was really a treat. Camo with black radomes is how the Tornado should look!

A Chilly Place To Be Lying In The Water!

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The grounds at Stourhead include some grottos. One of them has a statue of a woman lying in some water. It was not too warm when we were there and, once you go inside the grottos, they are decidedly cold and damp. The idea of lying in water in those conditions does not sound too appealing. However, she was clearly a hardy soul as she has been there for quite a while.

HMS Severn

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The Royal Navy has a bunch of coastal patrol vessels that are named after rivers around the UK. From what I have read, HMS Severn is one of the first batch of vessels and it is less capable than the later batch. Although originally planned for retirement, it has been kept in service patrolling the UK coastal region. It was heading out of Portsmouth when I saw it. I think it was originally painted grey when it was commissioned but it currently has more of a camo scheme applied. It made me think of the disruptive camouflage used during the First World War. I actually shot a pano of it as it headed out taking advantage of the lack of an immediate background to avoid any issues with the movement between shots.

Osborne House Gardens

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We made our visit to Osborne House in October of 2022 and the gardens have since made the news in the UK. One of the older trees fell in some bad weather so, while I don’t know which tree it was, it is possible I got a photo of it shortly before it met its demise. Always a shame when an old tree falls but such is the nature of things. We wandered around the grounds prior to going into the house. It wasn’t clear whether the weather was going to deteriorate so we figured we would do the outside stuff first while we knew it was okay.

It isn’t hard to see how Victoria liked the place. The grounds run down to the sea and the views from the house are really nice. There are trees and plants of all sorts of varieties so, if you know more about that sort of thing, I could quite imagine that you would have much to study. I just like looking at them so a simpler proposition for me.

We took one of the trails down to Osborne Bay. There was a little café down there so we could stop off and have a snack and some refreshments. It wasn’t that warm, but you can always find time for an ice cream if you want to! From the café, it was a straight walk back up to the house. There are some large planters along the path. Not sure how big something could be and survive in one of them, but I imagine a moderately sized tree would be fine!

Once you get close to the house itself, you get to the ornamental gardens. These were actually quite nicely laid out. That sort of thing doesn’t always do it for me, but I quite liked Osborne. However, there were some really odd sculptures scattered around near the house. Not sure what sort of imagery the sculptures of the day had in their heads but the hybrids of various animals and humans that they sculpted were very weird. They also suffered from the same thing of a lot of sculptures of their day- they had never seen the animals that they were recreating. There was a lion that looked more like a goofy character from a comedy based in a high school! We might have laughed at that one for a while!