Saturday, January 23, 2016

new year, new flying season.

Mum and Dad came to visit Maddy and as luck would have it the first weekend was an excellent Marina day.

The west winds blew probably 6 gentle hours.

I few my Freedom, Dad flew the big floaty Tandem glider.

I also got to share the air with this fella, at first I thought Merlin, then regular ol' Kestrel, but after looking at a few different pictures and bird books I think Peregrine Falcon.

Didn't mind getting close at all while it disemboweled its lunch.

It rained a little while later, just a small isolated shower that I flew around. I seem to have been lucky flying over rainbows this year.

Tom came and joined in the fun a little later on his new T2C .

The lighting was spectacular.

It's been a while since I caught a day where the air was good enough to make the jump to Sand City. 

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Bristol and the SS Great Britain

After visiting Bath, we explored Bristol, home of Wallace and Gromit. The studio is right around the corner from this other most excellent museum.

The SS Great Britain museum. Apart from having the boat to look at, you can go inside, and tour almost the entire rescued from ruin boat.

Brunel's ship has a steel hull and a steam powered screw propeller, defying all convention at the time.

The history of the boat, from design, through its amazing life and then its rescue is really well presented. The boat itself has been restored with life as was exhibits, from first class travel, to the cook, on board doctor, vet, cook, and mechaincs.

The boat definitely impresses.

Another unique part of the museum is walking around below the water line outside the boat ! A foot below the surface of the water is a glass ceiling. A cool effect.

Great town and end of our Christmas tour, thanks for putting us up Roy, Midge, Kev & Claire!

Friday, January 1, 2016

Baths' Baths

The Baths of Bath. The History dates back ~2800 years. The latest buildings however are only ~220 years.  Still, enough to make it a UNESCO world heritage site

It is Britains only water hot enough to be called a hot spring. The volume is enough to fill several large pools.

How much more fun would it be to actually go in the water though ;) I wonder how many people have "accidentally" fallen in over the years.

It was interesting to listen to the history as we walked around, quite a bit of the ruined roman construction still exists.

The place itself is quite atmospheric.

Later on we met up with Roy and Midge, we wondered around town dodging the rain storms and seeing a couple more sights.

With all the rain, the Avon had a strong flow under the famous Pulteney Bridge.

This picture of the royal crescent came out pretty funky. So I thought I'd include it for a laugh.