Category Archives: Picture of the day

Escaped!

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by in Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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For the first time since lockdown began the pair of us made it out of West Yorkshire today – albeit only for a drive of a few hours. Having done various chores and some shopping we decided to see where the roads took us and went exploring to places we’d never been. Having headed over to Wainstalls, Mount Tabor and Ogden we found ourselves out on Ovenden Moor before ending up in Oxenhope. Another throw of the dice found us passing through Stanbury before crossing the border into Lancashire and skirting the edge of Colne. The weather was miserable, with low cloud and lots of showers. Even so, it was lovely to be out exploring places we never knew existed, like Trawden and Widdop, before we re-entered Calderdale and familiar names like Hebden Bridge. I was amazed by how little you have to travel from urban areas before you’re out in the middle of nowhere. It makes me realise that the folks who complain that the UK is becoming increasingly urban and built on really do need to get out more.

Once back home we settled in for the evening as the weather wasn’t going to play ball and be conducive to evening strolls. Whilst Dawn practiced her culinary magic I spent a couple of hours in the office sorting out a glitch on my Zenfolio website that meant people couldn’t buy prints of pictures, then fulfilled more eBay purchases to get them off to buyers before settling down to eat. Dawn had baked a quiche for us to take on a picnic tomorrow whilst also preparing tonight’s repast – Mushrooms risoniotto, made with Orzo pasta. It’s gorgeous!

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Right, it’s time to knock off for the evening and spend some quality time together, so here’s the picture of the day, which I took at sunset on the 16th January 2004 from Eriyadoo Island in the Maldives. I don’t want to knock West Yorkshire, but it certainly puts what we’re seeing here tonight into perspective!

17285. Sunset. Eriyadoo Island. Maldives. 16.1.2004.crop

 

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17th July: More musings and a picture of the day…

17 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Indonesia, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Uncategorized

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I’ve not had time to blog for the past few days as I’ve been busy wading through entries in the ‘It’s your station’ category for the annual Community Rail Awards. I have to say, there’s some excellent entries and the standards are high. It’s also great to see that groups haven’t let the fact they’ve not been allowed near stations to dent their spirit or work with the wider community.

I’ve also been busy with something new. My first listings on ebay have borne fruit so I’ve been learning the ins and outs of online selling and posting out dozens of old slides and railway memorabilia to the winning bidders.  Here’s a sample of what’s still available. I’ve hundreds more old slides to list as well as all sorts of ephemera from the post-privatisation era.

With the way the weather’s been it’s been a good time to be stuck at home, as this shot from one of my daily perambulations shows.

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I do love the Pennine skies. You never quite know what to expect and they’re constantly changing. Talking of changing, it seems the Government has finally twigged that their ‘stay off public transport’ message has been crippling the railways. Passenger levels are around 16% of normal, whilst car use is almost back to normal and road freight has surpassed norms.

This means that I’ll soon be returning to the rails. Although many events in my diary have been cancelled I have a backlog of jobs to do. 2020 is also the year for my bi-annual trips around the network for RAIL magazine. We’re currently working out when that’s going to be scheduled and where I’m going to go. The trip will certainly be different this year!

In the meantime I’ve a trio of articles to write in the next week as well as finishing the first sift of station judging. It’s going to be a busy time! Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with some blogging too!

OK, enough of words, lets move on to the picture of the day, which was taken at the Orang-Utan sanctuary at Bukit Lawang, Sumatra in 1998.

T7665. Orang-Utans. Bukit Lawang. Sumatra. Indonesia. 1992.crop

I was lucky enough to catch this shot of female and her baby out in the jungle. Nowadays, in the digital era, such a shot would be easy as you’d just ramp up the ISO. This was taken on 100asa slide film which was a hell of a challenge!

 

 

14th July picture of the day…

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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Today’s activities at Bigland Towers have been confined to the odd walk to take a break from staring at computer screens and spreadsheets as I sift through and mark the 46 entries to the ‘It’s your station’ category of this years Community Rail Awards. To be honest, there’s some wonderful entries and inspiring work there but Covid has made the process a little dry and distant this year.

So, without further ado I’m going straight to the picture of the day. Today’s was was taken In Nungwi, Zanzibar on the 30th May 2001.

T11229. Dhows on the beach. Nungwi. Zanzibar. Tanzania. Africa. 30.05.01crop

I was out in Africa with Lynn, who was attending Actionaid’s Africa regional conference . After the conference we headed out from Dar-es-Salaam to visit Actionaid projects in the villages for a week. It was an amazing experience which gave me a real insight into the fantastic work the charity is doing with communities there. Afterwards, the pair of us had arranged to take a holiday and Zanzibar was the obvious destination. These dhows were pulled up on the beach just down from where we were staying and I loved the contrast between their sails and the sky. If you want to see more pictures from the trip you can find them here.

 

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13th July picture of the day…

13 Monday Jul 2020

Posted by in Musings, Picture of the day, Railways, Sowerby Bridge, Travel

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For various reasons I took the weekend off from blogging, but now I’m back in a busy week with a heck of a lot going on, despite me staying away from the railway. Well, almost…

Although I’ve not been on a train since the end of March I did pop down to our local station in Sowerby Bridge on Saturday just to get a railway fix and remind myself what the modern railway looks like. It was quite eerie. As it’s the height of the summer season you’d expect the trains to be packed along with the station car-parks. Instead, this was the sight that greeted me.

DG342505crop

This is despite the latest update from the Department of Transport that says cars on the roads have already returned to 83% of pre-Covid levels. Government policy is still to discourage rail travel even though rail operators (now directly managed by the Government) have increased the frequency of trains to 80% plus of normal service levels – yet passenger numbers have actually declined in the past week to around 15% of pre-Covid levels! It’s madness, but typical of the confused and mixed messages this Government has been sending out.

Ok, on to the main reason for this blog – the picture of the day. Today’s comes from my travels in Laos. It was taken in the town of Luang Prabang in the 9th January 2009.

TD09205. Old bomb new use. Luang Prabang. Laos. 9.1.09.crop

The detritus of conflict in Laos is commonplace. During the Vietnam war the USA secretly bombed the hell out of the place. It’s estimated that eight bombs a minute were dropped on average during the Vietnam war between 1964 and 1973 – more than the amount used during the whole of World War Two. Unexploded ordnance is still killing Laotians today. In the finest tradition of swords into ploughshares, here’s a family that’s found a new use for the tailfin of one of the millions of bombs dropped during the war.

 

 

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10th July picture of the day…

10 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Nepal, Picture of the day, Travel

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I won’t bore you with the minutiae of my day today, instead I’ll go straight to the chosen (random) picture from my archive.

This was taken in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1992. The event was ‘Holi’ the Hindu ‘festival of colours’. Looking back via the internet I’m told this was the 19th March so I’d already been travelling solo for nearly five months. I was staying in the Thamel district of Kathmandu at the time which got a bit riotous out on the streets. So much so that some Westerners who were unused to Asia didn’t want to venture out. Myself and the young lady I’m posing with – whose name completely escapes me now – did – and we had a ball! Ok, we came back looking like this – but what the hell. You never wear your ‘bezzies’ to go out at Holi anyway…

The photo was taken on the roof of the hotel where we continued the festivities as we had battles with all the surrounding buildings as they threw coloured powders at us and we throw ours at them – and woe betide anyone walking past in the street as it was ‘bombs away’! As usual – there’s slides of those days that I’ve yet to get around to scanning. One day…

It was whilst I was staying here that I heard an album being played that’s defined that time ever since. Every time I hear it it transports me straight back to that that rooftop and those times in Kathmandu. The album? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Full Moon Fever. When I got to Bangkok I bought a (bootleg) tape of it to go with my Sony Walkman (remember those?) in the Khao San Rd and it’s an album that’s become the soundtrack to my life and travels ever since. Thank you Tom – your music’s meant so much to me for many, many years. 

 

 

 

July 9th picture of the day…

09 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Malaysia, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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This is going to be a short blog as there’s been bugger-all of interest happening here today. I’ve been busy with work so didn’t even accompany Dawn on the weekly ‘escape from the valley’ shopping trip to Huddersfield. Instead I’ve been glued to a screen all day – apart from venturing out in the drizzle and murk to get the bare minimum of exercise and venture into Sowerby Bridge to stock up on coffee.

It’s the first time I’ve been there on foot since the breakdown of lockdown and I don’t know if to laugh or cry. I passed one of the re-opened men’s barbershops where I saw the barber cutting someone’s hair whilst sporting a baseball cap and disposable mask – which he was wearing below his nose! Have the past three months taught people nothing, or is it that some people have the attention-span of a Goldfish?

Needless to say, that’s not one establishment you’ll find me frequenting!

OK, time for something I’ve not seen for several days now sunshine. Let’s see what I can find in the archives…

Here’s the beautiful beach at Coral Bay on the larger of the two Perhentian Islands (off the East Coast of Malaysia) seen in February 2009. Feel free to pull up a sun lounger, only bring your own alcohol from the mainland as booze isn’t regularly available here. But with fantastic beaches, superb swimming and snorkeling and an abundance of sea-life, it’s not much of a hardship…

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Wet Wednesday and the picture of the day…

08 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Australia, Calder Valley, Musings, Picture of the day, Travel

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I’ve had another day where I’ve spent most of my time glued to my desk working on various projects such as writing and judging whilst taking the odd break to get out and stretch my legs. The weather’s hardly been conducive to my perambulations as it’s been  cold, grey and wet. This evening was a re-run of yesterday where the clouds descended, leaving us on the edge of an ethereal world, almost as if we were perched on the edge of a cloud, peering down on the valley below. Funny how these things trigger memories isn’t it? It reminded me of some of the wonderful old books my parents has picked up in salerooms back in the 50s and had stacked away in the attic. I grew up in a big old house in Southport that my parents had bought cheaply after the war and stocked some of the spare rooms with all sorts of stuff they’d picked up in salerooms in an era when many families were downsizing just as fashions were changing. As a kid I’d go exploring and flick through some of these heavyweight tomes. They were the sort of books that would have full page illustrations and a thin paper flysheet that kept them protected and separate from the ordinary pages. They seemed massive to a child of my age. I’m sure there were some classics and I’d love to have them now – happy memories…

Talking of memories – I’ve finally got my eBay account up and running. At the moment there’s not much on it other than old railway slides from 30 years ago. Gradually, when time permits, I’ll be using it to offer for sale all sorts of railway memorabilia that I’ve collected over the years from events and here and there. It’s time to downsize and pass these things on to others rather than letting them sit in drawers or gather dust in the loft.

Here’s a sample. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313140834834

OK, it’s a wet and miserable Wednesday night, so where and when shall I transport you to today? I know, how about Australia, in 1999?

T8622. The Balconies. Grampians. Victoria. Australia. 1999.crop

This is the rocks known as The Balconies (for obvious reasons) in the Grampians, near Halls Gap, Victoria. This was part of my 1997-99 world tour. Lynn and I were staying with a woman called Alison, whom we’d met on our travels in India the previous year. When we arrived in Oz we went to stay with Alison and her kids (Matt and Kim) in Melbourne – a city I’ve always liked since. After Xmas the five of us piled into Alison’s van and spent a couple of weeks on a road trip exploring the Great Ocean Road. This was just one of the places we pitched up in. It’s a bit different from the rocks I regularly sit on just down from us here in West Yorkshire…

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Tuesday musings and the picture of the day…

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Picture of the day, Travel

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I’ve just returned from a long walk at dusk, right as the valley is disappearing into the low clouds and the drizzle accompanying them. It’s a very still night with nary a breeze, but the clouds still managed to appear from somewhere! It may be July but the cold and damp has encouraged folks to stay indoors in the warm. One of the cottages in our row has lazy wisps of white smoke emanating from it to merge into the mist.

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After a day where I’ve been spent mostly glued to a computer and a screen it’s lovely to get out and enjoy the countryside – even if it’s not exactly behaving like the height of summer. The roads and paths are covered in shredded leaves and branches of various sizes as a result of the gales we had last week. The heavy rain’s merely added to the carnage. I’ve not even plucked up the courage to start sorting out the battered front garden yet – but then I’ve not had the time either.

Despite the fact we remain in lockdown it’s a busy time as I’ve several projects on the go. Yesterday I chose the shortlist for the photography competition at the Community Rail awards, with 97 photos whittled down to a handful. Next week I and the other judges will pick the final shortlist via Zoom. Despite Covid and the chaos it’s caused we’ve had no shortage of entries this year. Now i’ve the ‘It’s your station’ category to sift which has also had a record number of entries. Myself and Mark Barker (my fellow judge) are having a busy time going through all the entries before we start talking to the entrants.

As if that isn’t enough I’ve got several articles in the pipeline, including another one which has come about as the result of my last blog on the impressive progress with the new High Speed 2 railway.

All this means that I’m going to be glued to a desk and screen pretty much all of this month. Then I’ve household stuff to sort out – and an eBay account I’ve set up which I’m slowly loading with various railway goodies before I spring it on an unsuspecting world. Trust me – I’ll let you know when I do. To make time for everything else I’m taking a break from the time-consuming job of scanning old slides. After all, they’ve been waiting 20-30 years to see the light of day, another month isn’t going to matter!

OK, let’s head over to todays picture of the day, which (this time) comes from glorious Greece in 2001. It’s a place Lynn and used to visit regularly, especially when she ended up managing Actionaid’s Athens office for several months back in 2004.

I love Greek island hopping by ferry and here’s one place that’s very impressive when you arrive by sea – Santorini. This is the view from Fira town, with a couple of cruise ships moored in the flooded caldera of the original volcano, whilst tourists relax by one of the swimming pools built into the crater sides.

T11902. Swimming pool and crater. Santorini. Cyclades. Greece. 26.9.01crop

I must admit, on a damp July day like today, I’d love to be right here, right now…

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6th July picture of the day…

06 Monday Jul 2020

Posted by in Indonesia, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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I took today’s picture in Indonesia in July 1992.

T3933. Craters and mist at Mt Bromo. Java. Indonesia. July 1992crop

This unearthly landscape is Mount Bromo which is in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java. The picture shows Mount Bromo crater, Mount Batok, and Semeru. It was taken from the edge of Segara Wedi (the “Sea of Sands”) atop Mount Penanjakan. You can walk here in a few hours from the nearby village of Cemoro Lawang, which is where most people stay overnight as you get up very early to make your way to the crater edge for sunrise. It’s one of the most surreal landscapes I’ve seen as – at first you’ve no idea what you’re going to see as it’s dark – but it’s certainly worth the trip.

The volcanoes here are still very active and have erupted several times recently in 2004, 2010, 2011 and 2015.

I was here travelling on my own and I have to say I rather fell in love with Indonesia. I’d arrived in Java by ferry from Sumatra, then made my way overland by bus and train from Jakarta via several stops before catching the ferry to Bali, where I stayed for a few weeks before making my way by ferry and bus through the islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Komodo and finally to Kupang, Timor before flying out to Darwin, Australia. It was an epic trip which one day I’ll get around to writing about. I doubt very many people still travel that route nowadays due to visa restrictions and cheap flights!

If you want to see more of my pictures from Indonesia, just click on this link.

 

 

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5th July picture of the day…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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OK, this one combines railways and travel.

Back in 2011 Dawn and I visited Vietnam as a side trip from time in Thailand. It’s a country I’d always wanted to visit so we made it happen. Sadly, I took my eye off the ball somewhat as I’d got a lot going on at the time, which meant I didn’t do the research I should have. We flew into Bangkok and had a great time in balmy temperatures. Knowing we’d be coming back, we left a lot of our clothes in a hotel storage room. Big mistake..

We flew out of Bangkok and arrived in Hanoi to a real shock. The weather was bloody freezing. Hanoi was more like the UK in January than Thailand and we’d not brought the right clothing and I’d only brought sandals! We were so cold we ended up sleeping in our clothes for several days. It was so bad I had to go out and buy some enclosed shoes. As I didn’t want to waste any money (I’d only need them for a couple of weeks) I bought the cheapest pair of trainers I could find. They were shiny white plastic of the sort you’d expect to see a pimp wear – but who cares? Well, at least they gave Dawn a laugh!

Whilst we were in Hanoi I took this picture. Talk about ‘the railroad runs through the middle of the house…

DG72015. D19 E-921. Hanoi. Vietnam. 8.1.11.crop

I have to chortle when I remember stuff like this, then think about the Nimbys in the UK who’re objecting to the fact our new rail line (HS2) will ‘ruin their lives’ by passing 100s of metres away! If you want to see the rest of the pictures from our trip. You can find them in this gallery.

 

 

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