Tag Archives: harbour

Aug 02 2025
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Daily Post, Landscape

Farewell to Stromness (early)

Saturday 2nd August 2025, 6.40am (day 5,091)

Stromness morning, 2/8/25

Another landscape, but why not. This was the last view seen of Orkney on this trip, as the 6.30am ferry back to Thurso turned itself around and gave its passengers one final chance to admire the photogenic qualities of Stromness, with the hills of Hoy behind. I would come back here with no qualms at all. Orkney is a great place and there should be more like it.

By a total coincidence, the picture taken ten years ago today was also timed as 6:40am. I remember this because it was another rather fine landscape, captured near the summit of Kilimanjaro on 2nd August 2015.

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Jul 26 2025
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Daily Post, Transport

Lybster harbour

Friday 25th July 2025, 5.05pm (day 5,083)

Lybster harbour, 25/7/25

Ever further northward we travel. Only one shot in the near-14 years of this blog has been taken from further north and still been in the UK — that being the one in Thurso on 13/7/25 — but this is a status it will keep only 24 hours. Who cares anyway, Lybster harbour was a tranquil spot on a beautiful evening. Impossible to believe that 150 years ago the herring industry meant this was one of the busiest ports in the country. It isn’t now, for sure.

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Jun 11 2025
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Tayport harbour light (and place no. 500)

Monday 9th June 2025, 3.55pm (day 5,037)

Tayport harbour light, 9/6/25

My counting of different places featured on this blog — see the stats page (and marvel at its anal retentiveness) — is just as personal and subjective as everything else on here. I could, for example, have split up London and the Lake District, designations which cover areas the size of whole counties. Meanwhile, there are at least 50 shots where I’ve been unable to specify a location for one reason or another (like, being taken from aeroplanes, or the back of minibuses after waking up in the middle of nowhere in Tanzania).

However, the fact is that by this ‘official count’, Galashiels yesterday was place number 499, and so this melancholy little harbour (even more morose in the day’s constant drizzle) gives to the town of Tayport, on the other side of the estuary from Dundee, the distinction of becoming number 500. This means nothing at all in the grand scheme of things, but so what.

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Jul 01 2024
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Daily Post, Transport

Portsmouth Harbour

Saturday 29th June 2024, 4.25pm (day 4,692)

Portsmouth harbour, 29/6/24

It’s our silver wedding anniversary this week. “Take me overseas!” the wife demanded, so I said, ‘sure’, and we have headed to the Isle of Wight. Well, you have to cross the sea to get there: starting with Portsmouth Harbour, pictured.

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Mar 08 2023
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Daily Post, Transport

Penzance Harbour

Tuesday 7th March 2023, 8.40am (day 4,212)

Penzance Harbour, 7/3/23

And here’s what more-or-less the same part of the world looks like in the morning — pointing the camera in the opposite direction. Seems an OK place, Penzance — attractive, plenty of pubs — but it’s a long way out, and typical incomes in Cornwall are among the lowest in the whole UK. Being peripheral is not an economic asset these days: but the thing is, in some ways this is the centre of things. More on that tomorrow (if I remember).

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Oct 23 2022
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Daily Post, Landscape

Portsmouth Harbour

Saturday 22nd October 2022, 11.15am (day 4,076)

Portsmouth Harbour, 22/10/22

After not finding much of interest in Southampton, I headed for the next city to the east, Portsmouth — a more agreeable spot. At least, to look at from across its Harbour, one of the greatest natural harbours in the world, and the explanation for why this has always been a naval base. The Spinnaker Tower, seen here, is 560 feet tall. I passed this point on my latest County Top walk, so feel free to look at that other blog for more photos and so on.

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Jul 06 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

View of Esjan, from Reykjavik harbour

Friday 5th July 2019, 11.35am (day 2,871)

Esjan from Reykjavik, 5/7/19

The photography in Iceland up to today had been unspectacular but that’s because the sun hadn’t been shining. Today… it was. This is Esjan, or Mount Esja, seen from Reykjavik across the fjord. The green pimple? No idea, but it’s cute.

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May 31 2019
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Howth harbour

Thursday 30th May 2019, 7.05pm (day 2,835)

Howth harbour, 30/5/19

I am in Ireland for a couple of days. Why? Just because I could, and I needed the head-space, and I like going to new places. I’ve been to Dublin before, but not here, which is Howth (pronounced ‘Hoat’ by the locals, seemingly), sitting on a headland just outside the city. If you’ve heard of it at all it’s probably from the opening lines of Finnegan’s Wake:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Not that anyone’s actually read Finnegan’s Wake of course. Try it, you’ll see why.

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Apr 26 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

69ºN

Wednesday 25th April 2018, 6.00pm (day 2,435)

Tromsø harbour, 25/4/18

At 69ºN, the world’s northernmost city provides boats, sea, birds, snow…. all that jazz. My last day in Tromsø. Hopefully, not the last of all, though as of yet I do not know when I will be back…

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Jun 07 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Early morning moon, Kristiansand

Wednesday 6th June 2012, 4.30am (day 286)

Moon and crane, 6/6/12

Today at 5.45 am (Norwegian time) there was a transit of Venus across the sun, the last such event until 2117. Through a series of lucky events, I did actually get to see it; not many people would a) be up at that time b) be somewhere where the sun was shining (particularly in Norway), c) have sight of it while sat in an airport departure lounge and d) have access to a pair of plastic, cheap children’s binoculars which nevertheless did project an image of the sun onto a whitewashed wall – on which the tiny black dot that was Venus was clearly visible. I did try to take a photo of it, but that proved beyond me, which I was disappointed about until reflecting that I was, after all, trying to take a picture of the dark side of a planet some 20 million miles away with a compact digital camera. So here’s another picture of an impressive astronomical object instead. (Chosen also for the novelty value of the time: one of the earliest shots on the whole blog.)

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