Back home, back to the grey and gloom of a northern December, the everyday of the train journey to Manchester (here at Littleborough). It had to happen. LIke the birds speckled across this shot, let’s just live with it.
It’s nice to travel, but it’s also welcome to come home. Mr Steve Grey makes at least his 10th appearance on this blog.
The flight home. The Sahara looked astonishing: this was a day when I wish I could break my own rules and post more than one photo. The River Niger certainly was worth seeing, a braid of blue and green running through a sandy wasteland. We must have crossed that somewhere in Mali.
But instead I will go with this shot; for much of the three hours it took to cross the desert I was thinking, hmmm, well it’s certainly barren, but more rocky than sandy. But then came this sea, this ocean of dunes, tinged by the setting sun. This must be far enough north to be somewhere in Algeria. Not that national boundaries really mean a lot here. If anything this is Arrakis. Had a gigantic sandworm crested out of this stuff with Fremen on its back, I would not have been surprised.
I seem to have made it to the last day in St Helena without a Napoleon reference — so here’s one, a vague one anyway. Not that this shot has anything to do with the man himself, for whom, having heard the stories of his time here, I now feel a little sorry. Anyway: there will be more to come of this place. But it’s time to head home.
There are three pubs in Jamestown, but The Standard is the only one that seems to be reliably open. This was my penultimate full day in St Helena and while, in some ways, I am looking forward to getting back home, I see Paranoia has broken out again in a big way…
Jonathan is a giant tortoise, originally from the Seychelles but resident at Plantation House in St Helena since the 1880s. It is not known exactly how old he is but there is good documentation that he is at least 189 years old, and possibly older. This makes him the oldest land animal on the whole planet, at least among those for which there is evidence.
I was thinking at first, it’s a shame that he doesn’t know he’s a record breaker. But — you know — he looks like such a cool dude, that I think he probably does.
The spectacular scenery of St Helena is enhanced by the fact that the pattern of vegetation one sees in the UK is reversed. It is the coast, the lower levels, that is rocky and barren, and the mountains which are covered in lush vegetation: all down to the fact that the rain falls high up, but not low down. This is taken from the Blue Hill area, looking down to Sandy Bay, past the basalt pillar known as ‘Lot’ (and his wife is somewhere over to the right of this image).
Jamestown is one of the very few places in St Helena where you can actually get down to sea level, and that, plus its place on the leeward side of what can be a rather windy island, is why the town is there. There’s no actual harbour, though. The boats and yachts congregate out to sea, and this evening, caught a few rays.
I have to move into different accommodation for the last few days of my stay and am unlikely to get internet access for the remaining time here; so the next few days probably won’t be uploaded until I get home on December 2nd. See you then.
Until the 1500s St Helena was covered in forest. Then humanity arrived, and even if people didn’t cut down the trees themselves, they released goats onto the island, which munched away at any new shoots for the subsequent half-millennium. Although some recovery has been made recently, in places, a lot of the lower parts of the island look like this as a result. It’s attractive, in its way, but it’s also dead land. Only about 21% of the island is cultivated with another 11% afforested. 54% is classed as ‘barren’. Two years ago today I was in Java, another steep volcanic island; but one festooned with terraces, every inch used to support the population. The contrast is notable.
Tammy is clearly the driving force behind St Helena’s radio station, Saint FM (I could give you the frequencies, but you’re not going to be able to pick it up right now unless you are on a boat somewhere in the nearby South Atlantic). I was an interviewee not just once, but twice today — the first very early, so apologies to Saint listeners if I sounded a bit fazed.
Being 42 