Cornwall 2023 – 2: Fort Picklecombe

Continuing my mini-series about my long weekend in Cornwall with a close look at Fort Picklecombe.

I am finally in position to continue my mini-series about my long weekend in Cornwall. Between a busy Sunday, not getting home until almost 8PM on the Monday and work yesterday I have not had much opportunity for blogging. Following on from my post about the journey to Cornwall I now look at Fort Picklecombe, my base for the weekend.

AN OVER REACTION

Lord Palmerston ordered the building of a number of fortifications of various kinds in southwestern England during the mid 19th century, in the mistaken belief that the French intended to invade. Fort Picklecombe was one such, and to make it even more curious the landholder only allowed it to be built if it was made to resemble Warwick Castle. These days it is home to about 100 apartments, one of which, tucked away on the fourth floor of the outer wall, with a glorious view out over the sea, is my parents home.

A CLOSER VIEW OF THE FORT

There are two complete circuits of this part of the fort available, on the third floor, and in the basement, which is also home to a carpark where everyone has a space. My parent’s flat also has a marked outside parking place where a vehicle can be left for up to 24 hours, which is readily accessible from the ground floor. The basement passages are quite narrow, and unlit until someone actually enters one (and even then the level of illumination is not great), but there is the compensating advantage that this ring of passageways is also home to the fort’s library (I did not make use of it this visit but have done in the past). The third floor walkway is much pleasanter in summer, though I can imagine it being horrible on a windy winter’s day. The lifts are among the slowest in the western world and come with recorded announcements that feature high in the ‘statement of the bleeding obvious’ category, e.g. “Fourth floor, lift going down”. What? You mean it is not going ‘up and out’?!

The fort has its own small harbour, and at low tide a number of rocks are exposed, and used by birds as perches. At high tide the smaller harbour wall gets a lot of water over it, while the larger one stays dry.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is a gallery comprised of photos taken either while in the fort or while waling around the harbour…

A pictorial map of the Nile between Alexandria and Aswan (Syene in ancient times).

Lake District 2023 6: Boats of Windermere

A look at the number and variety of boats to be seen on Windermere.

Welcome to the next post in the series about my holiday in the Lake District. All the photographs I took are now edited and ready for use. Today, having begun my coverage of cruising on Windermere yesterday I am focussing specifically on the boats that were on show.

BOATS ON WINDERMERE

We were blessed with excellent weather for the entirety of our stay in the Lake District, which meant that all manner of boats were out and about from tiny one person crafts to the cruise boats that we travelled on. While Windermere operates strict speed limits the variety of boats is not so limited, as the photo gallery below shows…

Lake District 2023 5: Cruising on Windermere: Ambleside to Bowness

A look at the first part of the lake cruising experience that occupied most of Monday. This post focusses on Ambleside to Bowness.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. This post commences coverage of the first major activity of the holiday, cruising on the lake. We did two separate cruises on the Monday, and this post deals with the first part of the first cruise. the journey from Ambleside to Bowness.

GETTING TO THE PIER

Ambleside Pier (known as Waterhead) is slightly separate from then town itself, and the route to it poses one question: take the main road or divert down a side road. On the Monday morning my parents stuck to the main road while I went the other way. The main road is possibly the quicker route, but the other is undoubtedly pleasanter walking, reflected in the fact that we all went back to our cottage in the evening by that route. We were at the pier in good time and able to take good seats on the boat for the journey.

THE CRUISING EXPERIENCE

In spite of the shocking behaviour of the local water company Windermere remains a very scenic lake, and we benefitted from very pleasant weather, which meant the journey was smooth. There are lots of things to see while travelling on the lake, and I kept my camera busy for most of the day.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Even with many photographs filed elsewhere and this being only one part of the first cruise there is a generous gallery to finish this post…

Lake District 2023 4: Exploring Ambleside

A look at Ambleside, as I get into the meat of my series about my holiday in the Lake District.

I am back from my short holiday in the Lake District, though I still have quite a lot of photos to edit. This post (see here for the earlier ones, posted while I was there).

AMBLESIDE

On the Saturday evening we did a small amount of exploring the town, including consuming beers at the bar of the cinema (we had gone the wrong way from the cottage we were staying in, and missed the pubs which we then saw on our walk back). The following day we visited the pier to find out details about lake cruises, and decided to do that on the Monday. We walked round the lakeside as far as a place called Low Wood Bay, a small resort for the seriously well heeled, and got a bus back into Ambleside. After the Monday we took one more boat ride on Tuesday morning, but thereafter focussed our attentions on the excellent bus network as a way to get from place to place. Ambleside Bus Interchange proved very well located for our purposes, a very short walk from the cottage in which we were staying.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the first set of Ambleside pictures (there will be at least one further pure Ambleside post), which include a few pointers to what else will be coming up later in the series…

A map of Ambleside – click to view at full size.

An Epic Backlog of Images

Some hints of what is to come on this blog when I have edited all the pictures I have from my holiday in the Lake District.

After yesterday’s boat trips around Windermere and today’s visits to Brockholes, Grasmere (“The Grasmere Grudge” for my fellow Tope fans) and Keswick (where in Tope’s lake mysteries series main protagonists Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown’s other half Christopher Henderson works as an auctioneer) I have a huge number of images to edit and prep for showing on this blog. However, I though this was a good moment to signpost some of the many forthcoming posts about this holiday.

AMBLESIDE GENERALLY

Ambleside is a fine little town in its own right, and since every trip starts with a walk to some part of Ambleside or other (my parents car has remained parked just below the cottage in which we are staying since our arrival on Saturday and will do so until Thursday morning when my journey home begins) opportunities for taking photographs in and around Ambleside have abounded.

A clue as to why the car is not needed once one has arrived in Ambleside – services are frequent.

ON WINDERMERE

The atrocious behaviour of the local water company notwithstanding (they have been polluting Windermere by pumping raw sewage into it) Windermere remains very scenic, and the boat trips I have taken have been exceedingly enjoyable.

BIRDS OF WINDERMERE

Windermere is home to a considerable quantity of birdlife (I have am not close to editing all my bird images yet), and I have managed to capture a not entirely insignificant fraction of it.

BOATS OF WINDERMERE

For very obvious reasons there are tight speed limits on Windermere, but nonetheless a considerable variety of watercraft make use of it.

A STEAM RIDE

One of the boat drop of points for the big Windermere Cruise is called Lakeside, and is one terminus of a heritage railway which follows the line of Windermere’s exit river towards the Irish sea. It travels a short distance to a place called Haverthwaite, and then back to get another boat onwards, and is a fun little journey.

CASTLE WRAY

The last place for which I have any edited images is Castle Wray, which I captured from afar a number of times before we actually landed at it’s boathouse on Monday evening. The close pictures are among the unedited at the moment. It is not a real castle – it was built in the 1840s for a wealthy doctor.

Scotland 2022: The Crossing to Eigg

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with a look at the crossing from Arisaig to Eigg.

I continue my account of my recent Scottish holiday with a look at the boat trip from Arisaig to Eigg. This post picks up where yesterday’s left off.

THE BOAT TRIP TO EIGG

Though not by any means a large craft the boat taking us to Eigg was considerably larger and stouter than the one on which we travelled between Alderney and Guernsey earlier this year. Additionally, the presence of so many islands so tightly clustered together means that the Sound of Arisaig is not by any means as savage as one might expect of sea of the coast of Scotland. Finally, there was very little wind about, which further contributed to the crossing being a smooth one.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the pictures between Arisaig and Eigg…

Channel Islands 15: Homeward Bound

The final post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

This post will conclude my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

A BADLY TIMED FERRY

Our ferry back to England was scheduled to depart at 13:10 (had originally been 11:10, but was put back two hours before we even went on holiday), which was a very inconvenient time in two ways – it meant that I had to travel from Poole to King’s Lynn as a car passenger rather than as I had intended doing so by public transport, and it also meant with a lot of waiting around.

A SMOOTH FERRY JOURNEY AND A SLOW CAR JOURNEY

Once we were aboard the ferry an ensconced in our seats the journey was smooth and comfortable. Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, meaning that there is plenty to be seen as the boat approaches land.

The journey from Poole to King’s Lynn was slow, and it was well past 11PM by the time I got home.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my pictures from that final day…

Channel Islands 10: Farewell to Alderney

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands. This post finishes the Alderney segment.

THE FINAL FULL DAY ON ALDERNEY

The final full day on Alderney ended up being a very quiet one – the events of Wednesday, covered in the seventh and eighth posts in this series, had taken a lot out of me and I was not up to the walk to the nearest point from which I could have looked at the gannet colony.

THE BOAT BACK TO GUERNSEY

Our boat back to Guernsey was leaving at 8AM on the Friday, so we had a taxi booked to pick us up from the fort at 7:30AM that morning. The voyage back was rougher than the voyage out had been, and we were all pretty relieved when we alighted on Guernsey.

I end this post with a final look at Fort Clonque…

Cornish Winter Break 17: National Maritime Museum Cornwall Ground Floor

Starting my coverage of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my latest post about my Cornish Winter Break. In my last post in this series I paved the way for a series of posts about the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. I now commence with the ground floor.

BOATS THROUGH THE AGES

The ground floor of this museum contained a wide variety of boats, with accompanying detail about their history.

Cornwall for Christmas

An account of journey from King’s Lynn to Cornwall for the festive period.

INTRODUCTION

After a very quiet day yesterday, following a day of travelling the day before I am settled at my parents place in Cornwall, where I shall be spending Christmas and the New Year. This post details the journey down, before ending with some photographs.

KINGS LYNN TO CORNWALL

On Friday night it was the sensory friendly Panto performance at the Corn Exchange, King’s Lynn, which was excellent fun. On Saturday morning, with my packing accomplished I got the 9:20AM bus from just opposite my bungalow to the town centre (my baggage was heavy, so walking would have been very tough), arriving in good time to board the 10:13 train to London. Almost precisely two hours later I arrived at King’s Cross, with 45 minutes to get from there to my pre-booked seat from Paddington to Plymouth. The Hammersmith & City line (the district/circle line station is Paddington in name only) played ball for once, and I was at Paddington in good time. There was a warning that all was not necessarily well on the GWR when the platform information for my train did not come up on the departures screen until 10 minutes before it was due to leave. Ensconced in my seat I poured a cup of coffee from my cheapo travelling flask (it proved up the job) and waited for departure…and waited some more, until an announcement came through that our driver had been delayed on an inbound service and that we would be at least 20 minutes late getting underway. At this point I phoned my mother because even with no further delays that was likely to prove enough to prevent me making my connection at Plymouth for an onward journey to St Germans. I therefore arranged to be collected from Plymouth instead. In the event, it was fully 40 minutes after our scheduled departure time that the train finally got moving. We lost no further time on the journey, although the last section between Totnes and Plymouth felt like it was taking a long time. It would have been about eight and a half hours after I had left my bungalow in North Lynn that I finally got to my parents place.

CORNWALL

A combination of tiredness from the previous day’s travelling and some fierce Cornish weather ruled out doing anything much yesterday. However today we will be going to Looe. In the bad old days of rotten boroughs the two villages of East Looe and West Looe were both recognized as parliamentary constituencies, and each returned two MPs. These days it is well known as a seaside resort.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

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