Tag Archives: travel

Sunrise over the Beach

The sunsets at Tofino were beautiful and I included some shots of those in this post. Sunrise was also pretty impressive. Winter means the sun is pretty far south so the position it comes up is not so far off that in which it sets. It does provide a very different light to things with some of the headlands that we could see from the hotel now having nice light on them. When you wake up to a view like this out of your hotel window, you know you are a lucky guy and are likely to have a good day!

Gathering of Cowboys

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Quite a while back I posted some shots from the Fort Worth Stockyards. In that post, I mentioned that there was a gathering of cowboys taking place but I have been a bit lax in following up with a post about that. Many of the cowboys were dressed pretty much as you might imagine a cowboy would be. A couple looked a little more unusual. One guy was wandering around in a very large and heavy looking fur coat. I don’t know what type of fur it was and I didn’t get a good shot of him because I didn’t want to look too obvious.

I may have lived in the US a long time but there are still plenty of things that catch me off guard. Dressing as cowboys is one of them. It is something that I don’t often think of as being a current thing. It feels like people dressing up rather than dressing as they always do for their lifestyle. It is no different to any other form of dress but it still catches me out. I was once in Las Vegas for some meetings and the hotel I was staying in had a lot of people there for a large rodeo competition. I was amazed by how similarly everyone was dressed. That is what happens with many styles of clothing but it did seem strange to me at the time. Anyway, here are some of the cowboys at their gathering.

Rain Might Not Be Ideal But It Is Good For Reverse Thrust

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I was a bit annoyed that my one spare day in Tokyo was a rainy one. I didn’t have any great plans for the day other than getting adjusted to the time but, when I knew it was raining, I almost didn’t even bother with Haneda. However, in the absence of another plan, I decided to go. The thing I liked about it was that, with the rain falling, the runway was wet. This resulted in a lot of moisture being thrown up in the air by the jets as they reversed thrust. Some went for minimum reverse but others went for a bunch of throttle as they aimed to stop in time for the exit they were aiming for.

The Old Ferry is a Substitute

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On our trip to Tofino, we were on an older ferry from BC Ferries. The Queen of New Vancouver was our ride in both directions. I am not an expert on BC Ferries but this boat clearly looked a lot older than the majority of the fleet. That’s because she is. All of her sister ships have been scrapped but she was refitted around 2007 for another ten to fifteen years. (Wikipedia is my friend.). I guess that means her days are numbered. I am not sure whether she is used regularly but I did hear that another ship was in maintenance. Maybe that is why she was in use. Anyway, here is the old girl. We rode on one of the newer ships a while later and they are definitely better equipped for the passengers. Maybe she still has some time to go though.

Japanese Garden at Butchart

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Our visit to Butchart Gardens was focused on the lights but we got their before the sun went down and explored the Japanese garden. It was closed for the lights event so this was the only time to check it out. The gardens as a whole were quite quiet so it was peaceful wandering around the plants, across the bridges and around the water features.

There was a device for scaring wild boar. It was a water clock which would gradually fill with running water at which point it would overbalance, tip out the water and then fall back making a noise designed to startle any passing wild boar. I was particularly interested in some branches for one of the plants that were twisted into some bizarre patterns. I couldn’t make out whether this was natural or not but, if it is, I do wonder what the purpose would be.

Cliff Fall and Rock Strata

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While staying in Norfolk, we took a walk along the beach at Hunstanton. We parked up on the top of the cliffs and walked down the path to the beach. Once down there, we were able to see the cliff rocks and they were pretty interesting. The rocks had been laid down in strata are a gentle angle and looked really cool. I guess they were eroding since we came upon what looked like a recent rockfall. Of course, rocks do things in a lot slower time than us so it is entirely possible that these rocks had been lying there for ages but they did look pretty recent.

Avro York

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The Avro Lancaster is a very famous bomber from the Second World War but its transportation derivative is a lot less well known. Outside the aviation community, it is probably totally unknown. It is the Avro York (War of the Roses comments are welcome) and it takes the flying surfaces and power plants of the Lancaster and mates them to a larger fuselage for transporting people. It was an important type in the latter stages of the war and immediately afterwards. This example is in the main hangar at the IWM Duxford.

Old Encounter with an Elephant

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In the late 90s, I made a very brief trip to South Africa for work. I had one day spare while I was there and so took a trip to Pilanesburg National Park, a wildlife reserve. I spent a day driving around looking at various different wild animals, mostly at a great distance. Since it was the middle of the day, lots of the interesting stuff was out of sight. Near the end of my time there, I took a drive down a side road to a watering hole that was supposed to be popular with hippos. I find hippos fascinating so was hoping to see some. No such luck.

As I drove back up towards the main road and started contemplating a return to Johannesburg, I saw a bunch of cars on the main road that had stopped. I slowed down, figuring that they had seen something off to one side so I started looking. Sure enough, they had. An elephant was wandering through the trees and coming straight for me. I sat watching it approach. It didn’t seem bothered that I was there and came straight for the car. When I realized that it was going to come right through me, I put the car in reverse and quickly got out of the way – grabbing a close up shot as I did so. It came on to the road and turned away from me walking towards a camper van. The van soon came to the same conclusion that I had. The elephant wasn’t interested in stopping or going around them so they had to reverse up the road as the elephant paced them appropriately. Finally it turned off and I imagine they breathed a sigh of relief.

Lavenham

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We went to a bunch of villages in East Anglia that were picturesque but one was almost too much to be real. I have been to Lavenham before – I went in the early 90s when visiting a friend who was living in the area at the time – but I have to admit I didn’t recall much about it and when we got there, I wondered how I could have forgotten. It seems that the entire village is made up of buildings that were constructed by a film set designer.

Half timbered building abound. They are all really old but well maintained. Multiple colors are used to decorate the walls which I assume are probably made of some vintage materials. Building construction in those days used to use a lot of straw mixed with “binding agents” of a less than delightful origin. You don’t know that once they are done and I assume any more modern repairs make use of more pleasant ingredients. The age of the buildings also shows in the way that there doesn’t appear to be a right angle in the place. Everything is at odd angles. It really is something special.

It is not hard to understand why tourists will visit the place. It is just what someone from overseas would imagine an English village to be. I certainly won’t so easily forget it this time. Not sure how I did before!

San Francisco Waterfront

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The waterfront at the Embarcadero is a very attractive place to wander around. What I have rarely had a good view of, though, is the view from above. Fortunately, a friend of ours works down there and, when we visited, he took us up to have a look at the view. We stopped in at the end of the work day so it was still daylight. The view of the Ferry Building and across the Bay Bridge was very nice.

We did stop in again after dinner since the night view is a great one too. San Francisco on a sunny evening is a fun place to be with old friends. It does have its quirks though!