A life changing trip

I took this picture of the boarding gate for the Concorde service at Heathrow, another thing that has passed into history.

Life changing is an overused term, but this trip merited it. It was my first experience travelling for that long and still the longest I have been on the road. I marvel at my youthful audacity for embarking on such a prolonged trip. I had seen wonderful sights and met so many kind people.

This is not the plane I boarded, it was a Thai Airways flight as I recall.

It's difficult to reimagine the person I was; this retrospective commentary cannot recapture the way I thought and felt then. But I haven't lost that sense of curiosity about the world and its people.

My horizons were expanded. I decided that I enjoyed travel and would do more. In the years to come I would appreciate the truth of this quote: The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

London 5

I wish I remember how I felt in those last few days before the return flight. Was I wistful for home? Did I regret that my long vacation was coming to an end? I probably didn't worry about a job because I had been promised an interview with the same company that had given me the business contact who took me on a day trip to Lulworth Cove. All that is lost after 30+ years because I didn't keep a travel diary.

This is The Serpentine in Hyde Park.

The Orangery is in Kew Gardens. In 1875 Henry Wickham smuggled rubber tree seeds out of Brazil. They were germinated in Kew Gardens and sent to Britain's Asian colonies. Rubber contributed significantly to the development and wealth of Malaya. I reflected that I would not exist and be visiting the former colonial master country were it not for this history.

The most likely reason that I allocated a disproportionate amount of time to UK compared to continental Europe was simply one of familiarity with Anglo culture. I only had a smattering of other European languages at that time, and I knew more about British history than those of the other European nations.

A pleasant walk in the gardens with autumn around the corner.

Some feathered residents of the park.

A built up area for a change. I probably did have a wander inside Harrods but of course the prices would have been too high for me.

I think this might be Covent Garden Markets. It seems that it's changed a lot, making it problematic to match to current images.

Did I attend one last concert or play in the vicinity? Possibly.

Bath

I took a day trip to Bath, which is about a couple of hours west of London by train. The city, which the Romans named Aquae Sulis, takes its present day name from the Roman baths that were built there. This is the only picture I took there, of Bath Abbey.

I don't remember much of my day trip, unfortunately.

Cambridge

Colleagues of mine from Sydney who were in London during my visit suggested visiting an old classmate who was doing his post-graduate research in Cambridge. So we went there for a day trip. He gave us a tour of the buildings. This is St. John's College.

And this is Trinity College.

I don't remember much of the visit. One incident that stands out is that as we passed an appeal box, our colleague told us not to bother as Cambridge was well-endowed already.

London 4

Continuing my round up of the remaining sights in London, I paid a visit to Greenwich where there is an observatory and the prime meridian. (Trivia notes from the future: People like to jump back and forth across the meridian but more accurate measurements have located the 0° longitude somewhat to the east of the metal strip. So all the old maps of Britain are just that little bit off. The French refused to acknowledge GMT for many years, instead calling it Paris Time diminished by 9 minutes and 21 seconds. GMT has been replaced by UTC which is neither an English nor a French acronym, offending both nations equally.)

I guess I didn't find the observatory photogenic so instead I took a picture of Cutty Sark, the famous clipper.

The Tower of London. It's not a familiar view because I took it from across a busy road. I didn't visit; I'm not into gloomy fortresses.

Probably a bank of the Thames. The long shadows and joggers suggest an early morning visit.

The Tower Bridge of course.

I can't make out which Tube station this is. A friend thinks it's Bank. I probably just wanted a picture of a station so it doesn't matter. A Tube aficionado would probably identify it in a heartbeat.

London 3

I spent a few more days in London before the return flight so I'll break the rest of the photos across a few posts.

Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. Many of the listeners were visitors like me there to observe this quaint British tradition.

Marble Arch, just a stone's throw away from Speakers' Corner.

Portobello Road Markets. Incidentally my guess to the date of the photo is either spot on or a week off since the antiques and clothing market is on Saturdays.

Another scene from the markets.

Carlisle and Newcastle

After Keswick I went to nearby Carlisle, which is near the border with Scotland. Hadrian's Wall is also nearby, and marked the extent of Roman settlement in ancient Britain. I see from descriptions that you have to go a bit out of Carlisle to see the wall so I think it's not in my pictures.

I took a couple of pictures of the city to record my passage.

I had decided to take a west to east train service to Newcastle-on-Tyne just to be able to say I had been there, before returning to London. I can't even be certain that these photos are from Newcastle, but I remember it the hour was in the late afternoon so the gloom fits. I remember the train service was slow because it was a cross-country route and not a major north-south route.

Presumably this is a pedestrian street in Newcastle. It doesn't look like a London scene. I also don't remember whether I overnighted in Newcastle or took a night train back to London. Probably the former. So really the detour was to avoid retracing my outbound route from London to the Lake District.

Lake District

Well yes, I know I'm already in the Lake District but I have to find a general title for the places I visited. One thing I'm sure of is that I stayed at a series of YHA hostels. So based on the hostel locations, my guess is that I stayed at Windermere, backtracked north to Derwent Water, and ended up in Keswick. I probably caught a bus for the longer stretches and walked between hostels otherwise. The Lake District is fairly compact and you could make a walking holiday of your sojourn.

The lakes are in valleys so a short walk will get you to higher ground where you can survey the lovely lakescape.

I think the subject of this photo was the mill over the stream. From the bluish cast either the photo was underexposed, or it was a gloomy moment.

My walk took me past small farms. At one field a friendly horse came up to the fence as I approached, hoping for a lump of sugar or similar. Alas I didn't have anything but some pats for it. I also remember petting a friendly farm cat. Out of the city, farm animals are less fearful of humans.

I can't locate these pictures precisely but from the similarity to other photos on the Internet, I think they are of or around Derwent Water, between the River Derwent and Keswick.

I remember it also rained at times so I had to use my raincoat.

The English have also kindly provided rest spots along walks and this vantage point featured one.

A closer look at the lake, or more likely, the tarn.

The body of water in the photo is too small to be Derwent Water. Looking at a map it could possibly be Watendlath Tarn reached by a short walk from Derwentwater Hostel. At the time I visited, this was a YHA hostel. I see that they are now an independent hostel.

Not many hostels have a waterfall just behind it. I was so gobsmacked by the sight of a waterfall from the window of my dorm, complete with the hissing sound of falling water.

A typical Lake District country road.

Probably Derwent Water, on the way to Keswick.

At Keswick I visited the Cumberland Pencil Museum. Graphite used to be mined in Cumbria, and pencil making was important at the turn of the 20th century. These days tourism is king of course. The displays were very informative. I remember learning how the pencils are made from two slats of wood with a row of grooves to receive the extruded graphite leads. The slats are sandwiched with glue (you can see the join if you look closely) then individual pencils cut from the sandwich. The pencils are then finished to a hexagonal or circular cross-section.

Ambleside

After Birmingham I went to the Lake District. This is a beautiful rustic area of England that I wouldn't mind visiting again. I started off from the northern head of Lake Windemere at Ambleside. This splendid sunset over the lake was taken from the dining room of the youth hostel.

This is the YHA Ambleside hostel. Since there is a lake in the foreground it would seem that I took a walk across the lake head to the other side of the lake, or a boat cruise. It was a grand establishment, which felt more like a hotel, and I guessed had a history as such. I've just checked the Internet and my surmise is correct, the building dates from 1894. Apparently it was refurbished in 2013 and would be even more attractive now.

The Ambleside pier with water craft for lake cruises.

One of the local residents who didn't need a boat to go onto the lake.

The lake is popular for sailing.

I also took a ramble in the nearby woods where there were waterfalls.

Birmingham

The picture's not very interesting, but how I got there and what I did is a longer story. Wait a moment, you say, what happened to Glasgow, you wrote that you visited it? Well evidently I didn't think it photogenic enough. I have a hazy memory of a less attractive city than Edinburgh. Certainly I don't remember any landmarks.

I had a ticket for a microomputer exhibition given to me by the business contact back in the Lulworth Cove post. I took a sleeper from Glasgow, arriving at the break of dawn, hence the photo. Which reminds me, on London to Edinburgh journey I was asked by the conductor before retiring if I wanted tea for breakfast just before arrival. I hadn't even realised that this was included in the fare. It came in china cup with a couple of biscuits. I'm sure that this custom of yore is long gone and now passengers have to get their own breakfast from the dining car or a vending machine. But you probably get more choice. Such is progress.

Microcomputers were the hottest thing at the time. They were just starting to be put to use in offices. It may have been this exhibition or another where I came across a letter generator. The idea was you gave it a list of names and it printed out form letters with the names in appropriate places. The demo prompted for a name. Being the impish rascal that I am, I typed in Twithead. (My usage predates Twitter, by the way.) The microcomputer obediently printed out: Dear Twithead, Thank you for your enquiry, etc. etc. I made my escape before the booth staff got curious about the hilarity in the area of the microcomputer.

Fort William

From Inverness I went to Fort William on the western coast of Scotland. I don't see a train link so it's quite likely that this route was served by railbus and the photo of Urqhart Castle in the previous post was taken from the bus. Despite being a small settlement of about 10,000 people, Fort William is still the second largest in the Scottish Highlands, after Inverness. That tells you something about Scottish population distribution..

I stayed at the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, which appears to be still there, as the website mentions a history at that site going back to 1933. I probably walked the 3 or 4 km from the town. I remember that it was rainy so I had to take out my raincoat, and also noting from the signs that the same road would take me to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles. I wasn't going to scale the mountain but hoped that I might get a glimpse of it. No such luck.

Fort William could also have been the starting point for destinations further north on the west coast but this was as far as I planned to go. I would be turning south to Glasgow afterwards.

None of the pictures here have sufficient local detail to allow me to easily identify where or when they were taken, so we'll just have to enjoy the scenery.

Inverness and Loch Ness

Inverness (Mouth of the River Ness) is the starting point for exploring Loch Ness and points southwest. It was a pretty place as this photo, probably taken from the slopes of a park, of the river and town shows.

I signed up for a day outing with a local tour company. A cheery Scotsman came around in a people mover van to pick up a bunch of hostellers including me. We drove along the river until it became Loch Ness and stopped a few km down the road to examine the water.

Loch Ness is the largest freshwater body in the Great Glen Fault. It's very plain to see on a map, as if a giant knife had sliced Scotland. The water is very murky and this allows the myth of a Loch Ness Monster to persist. No one in the party really expected to sight Nessie but it gave a little frisson to the outing.

It was a moderately strenuous climb to high ground. The day started off sunny, but it still felt cold due to the wind and our exposed vantage point above the loch.

During the walk our guide regaled us with tales about the loch, information about local flora, and general Scottish history.

At the lunch stop, the guide produced a thermos container holding a haggis, and recited Robert Burns' poem Address To A Haggis before giving each of us a small portion. There was more conventional lunch fare provided in the form of sandwiches and tea.

These are the ruins of Urqhart Castle, probably taken from a moving vehicle as I don't have any recollection of exploring the grounds.