Category Archives: Landscape

Feb 13 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Thames at Brentford

Sunday 12th February 2023, 9.35am (day 4,189)

Thames at Brentford, 12/2/23

Despite having come to London regularly over the years there are still parts of this massive city that I have not yet explored. The western suburbs were amongst them, but this time I am staying in Brentford, giving me the chance to take a Sunday morning walk down the banks of the Thames to Chiswick and Barnes, all desirable spots. The river looks narrow here but that’s because over there is an eyot, or river island, which splits the flow in two at this point. What the old concrete post was, no idea — but the birds like to perch on it.

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Feb 08 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Early moon

Wednesday 8th February 2023, 7.30am (day 4,185)

Sunrise moon, 8/2/23

Having had an interruption to the normal procession of sunrise times, since I came back from St Helena it’s clear that things are getting noticeably lighter in the mornings — or, rather, becoming lighter earlier. This is welcome. Spring is on its way…. eventually.

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Feb 06 2023
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Landscape

Home, from 15,000 feet (approx.)

Sunday 5th February 2023, 12.30pm (day 4,182)

Hebden Bridge from above, 5/2/23

From leaving Gareth’s place in St Helena on Saturday morning, to arriving back in Hebden Bridge at about 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon, was a 28-hour journey. Had the pilot of the third aircraft felt like it, I could have been dropped off three hours earlier: but I probably wouldn’t have survived that experience. Nevertheless, here we are, directly over home, with my house just about visible to the bottom right of this image. Centre bottom is Heptonstall and up the valley curves to Midgehole and the woods of Hardcastle Crags. I don’t know whether we were actually at 15,000 feet here, but it’s a reasonable guess — if it looks lower, I did use a certain amount of zoom.

No more flights for a while now: there’s work to do at home. Well, at least until I go away again.

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Feb 05 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Namib Desert, revisited

Saturday 4th February 2023, 5.50pm (day 4,181)

Namib Desert, 4/2/23

Tried to resist the temptation to put up another shot taken while flying over Namibia, and failed. The Namib Desert is apparently the world’s oldest, and runs straight down to the sea, making it look like a gargantuan beach, stretching hundreds of miles in every direction. You wouldn’t want to come here for a holiday however. No water anywhere, and combined with thick sea fogs and strong currents which can make it impossible to launch again, this is probably the most dangerous coast in the world for seafarers. Little wonder it has been termed the ‘Skeleton Coast’. Personally I think it appears as Mars might. Perhaps contrarily (but I’m like that), I find myself now quite wanting to visit this country properly. Maybe next year.

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Feb 04 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Mount Pleasant, and Lot

Friday 3rd February 2023, 8.20am (day 4,180)

Mount Pleasant and Lot, 3/2/23

My last full day on St Helena — this time. There will be at least one more, though as yet I don’t know how it’ll be paid for. But considering that this was the view that opened up when I was on my way to my morning meeting — there are reasons to put in the effort it’ll take to return. The basalt column of Lot, behind the house, makes his second appearance on the blog (see this shot from my first visit); and that’s his wife, who never seems to credit a name of her own, over to the right.

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Feb 02 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

James Bay sunset

Wednesday 1st February 2023, 6.55pm (day 4,178)

James Bay sunset, 1/2/23

Wednesday night is Taco Night at the St Helena Yacht Club, probably the busiest single social gathering I have yet attended on the island, and in full swing behind me as I took this picture. But the outlook is west, across James Bay: the next land in that direction is Brazil.

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Feb 01 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Rollers

Tuesday 31st January 2023, 11.50am (day 4,177)

Roller waves, 31/1/23

At this time of year, big swells move down the Atlantic all the way from Canada and crash into the first land they meet, which at this point in the ocean, is the north-east coast of St Helena. The locals call them ‘rollers’. They were certainly rolling today, against the sea wall in Jamestown. In one year in the 1800s they were big enough to take out half the town. Surfers would like them, I imagine — although surfing is not a sport that seems to have yet reached St Helena.

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Jan 25 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Two Stone Tops

Wednesday 25th January 2023, 11.05am (day 4,171)

Two Stone Tops, 25/1/23

You didn’t think I had come all the way out to St Helena just to work, did you? Not a chance, not when there is some great walking to be done. Like the hike out to Great Stone Top, here on the right — and its smaller (but less accessible) brother, Little Stone Top as well. (More detail and photos on my other blog.)

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Jan 22 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

On the descent into Walvis Bay

Saturday 21st January 2023, 10.05am (day 4,167)

Near Walvis Bay, 21/1/23

Random African country, 2/2, although unlike Ethiopia, this one — Namibia — was on the original schedule. Walvis Bay is where the Johannesburg to St Helena flight stops to refuel. On the approach, over miles of utterly barren desert, it is inconceivable that there could, or should, be a town of over 60,000 people here, but it seems that Walvis Bay is the one natural harbour for hundreds of miles in either direction, and so is the principal port for the whole country, not to mention handling traffic for landlocked Botswana and Zimbabwe as well. What the construction visible on this shot is, I have no idea for sure, but it might be the top of an artesian well, as almost all the water supply for the town comes from underground.

That’s it for my 3-day perambulation around two continents, and six airports (Manchester, Geneva, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Walvis Bay and St Helena). Two weeks on St Helena will now follow.

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Jan 20 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Addis Ababa (unexpectedly)

Friday 20th January 2023, 7.05am (day 4,166)

Addis Ababa, 20/1/23

Until late morning yesterday, if you’d have suggested this blog might feature the capital of Ethiopia at some point in the near future, I would not have treated you seriously, but it’s amazing where one ends up (at 7 in the morning) when airlines are obliged to work out alternative routes of travel for passengers let down by non-optimal handling of local weather conditions (see yesterday). In fact I have always quite wanted to go to Ethiopia, it’s definitely on the bucket list — but a 90-minute stopover in Addis Ababa airport won’t really count when I come to sum up the itinerary of my life at some future date. It looked good from the plane, though, and one day I might come back. I like the flash of sunlight off the building to the right. Always get a window seat — always.

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