Eva and I decided to hit the old English countryside for a little trip to visit her friends and to escape the big smoke.
It is amazing that you can be an hour from London and find yourself driving down country roads barely bigger than the car your driving, especially when your car has been upgraded to a larger vehicle (Eva was not impressed!) but i digress.
Hes a photo gallery of our trip as well as a log of our journey. Might post some further thoughts about Essex a bit later but for now i just wanted to get the photos up.
Essex Map
Every time I hear someone talk about Amsterdam, it’s normally about the coffee shops and the Red Light district, while drug tourism is certainly one of the attractions that brings people to the city and there is no shortage of those who’s goal is to experience such taboo’s, But the drug tourism aside Amsterdam is a beautiful city with many hidden sides.
The canals most people will know about, which are a result of conscious city planning from the 17th century, with 150 canals crossing the city and 1,200 bridges and are an ever present vista as you wander around the inner city, Not surprising since the city is 4m below sea level! There are also many canal boats for tourists traveling around the city, though locals do have their own boats, their use are normally reserved for pleasure trips rather than a purposeful means of transport, You’ll even find many house boats, there is even one called the Poezenboot which is a house boat for stray cats!
Amsterdam also has a rich cafe culture, not to be confused with coffee houses which is the name given to the places you can smoke marijuana, with many french styled cafe’s you can away find a place to sit and enjoy a beer or hot drink.
By far the most enjoyable part of my trip was our dinner at De Kas a restaurant that boasts its own greenhouses and garden, where they grow their own ingredients, and what they can’t grow themselves either in the restaurant or their land 10km outside of Amsterdam they source from local and sustainable, the restaurant itself is situated in parkland in a lovely old greenhouse that dates back to 1926 where it use to be Amsterdam’s Municipal Nursery.
Eva and I were lucky enough to get the chefs table, our table was situated in a booth inside the kitchen where we could see all the culinary art taking place, this is where we would sample 10 courses of what ever the head chief had on hand today from the gardens and suppliers to produce his menu from, he also hand picked wines for us to accompany our food.
Every course he would take the time to come over and explain to us what the course was, where the ingredients had come from and how they had prepared it for us as well as the wine that had been chosen for us.
It felt like a uniquely personalized experience focusing on creating a intimate dining experience, and all i can say is wow! Such a wonderful dining experience.
Anyway enough of me ranting about this wonderful city i give it two big thumbs up and here are some picture of the wonderful city.
Most people would say the idea of spending 2 weeks in one of the harshest environments the world has to offer is probably not a good idea, the sane would even say its even down right crazy, Lucky we don’t have the burden of sanity on our side.
While in most deserts have some semblance of life, The Black Rock Desert, has none, zip, Nada, yet every year 40,000+ people flock to this out of the way part of Nevada for a festival that by nature will push you to your limits, both physically and mentally.
Which is why this years theme “Evolution” amused me so much, here we are in a vast inhospitable region, which without the sheer amount of resources, time and force of will thrown at it by the vast majority of participants, would kill us in a matter of days, yet people came together to express their thoughts and ideas on what evolution can mean… In a place that basically kicks evolution in its teeth. Ironic no?
Anyway here are the pictures, Further thoughts and ramblings to come.
This is the Trip we took up to "Allcom Point" on the Wednesday pre-event
35 Photos
Pictures from the actual event, running from Tuesday pre-event to the Tuesday post event.
98 Photos
I do love the Random conversations had with friends
(11:08:34 AM) Mort: you’re still a nutbar
(11:08:58 AM) Tuatha: yeah, but hey, who wants to spend their life being normal
(11:09:15 AM) Tuatha: i will be THAT mad professor.
(11:09:23 AM) Mort: no danger of that
(11:09:49 AM) Tuatha: plus, if i can get my hands on the LHC 
(11:10:18 AM) Mort: Right, I’ve just gotta send a quick war… email
to CERN, gimme a sec
(11:11:09 AM) Mort: How do you spell “catastrophic doomplosion”?
(11:12:36 AM) Tuatha: what are you worried about its only France
(11:13:06 AM) Mort: Yeah, but it’s quite close to Belgium and Germany
(11:13:19 AM) Tuatha: your worried about the beer? ;P
(11:13:37 AM) Mort: Far too much good beer there to risk blowing a
hole to the upper mantle
(11:14:08 AM) Tuatha: only the upper mantle… you do not do me justice
(11:14:43 AM) Mort: if you hit the lower mantle, we’ve got bigger
problems than your ego
(11:15:46 AM) Tuatha: mort we both know there is nothing bigger than my ego
(11:16:15 AM) Mort: Not until they name the crater
[image title="Dawn Service" size="medium" id="76" align="right" alt="Dawn Service at Hyde Park corner." ]
They waited neither for orders nor for the boats to reach the beach, but, springing out into the sea, they waded ashore, and, forming some sort of rough line, rushed straight on the flashes of the enemy’s rifles.
“The dawn of the legend: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett”
After on hell of a night at the Mad Hatter tea party on the Golden Hinde it was off for a couple of hours sleep before being up again for Anzac Day dawn service, The smart thing would have to probably just not slept, but im not exactly known for doing “the smart thing”.
So rolling out of bed at 4am stumbling around in the dark groggy, only doing partial damage to my toes on the end of the bed, and out the door to make my way across London into the still dark streets, honestly this must have been what jack the ripper felt like, stalking lonely dark streets of London, one thing that struck me was just how empty the streets were, I’ve walked this path many a time, but rather than the thousand or so people i would normally pass,I encountered maybe 2 souls the whole way.
Dawn service was interesting, on one hand it was good to see so many Australians and New Zealanders paying their respect, the only thing that spoiled it for me, were the handful of people that thought it would be great to continue their drinking there after the late night clubs closed, there where three individuals beside me that smelled of stale beer, Fosters cans in hand, uncertain if their feet could continue to stabilize their precarious sense of balance, they looked as though they could of toppled face first into the grass at any moment.
Oh well, it was a worthwhile early morning outing that im happy that i attended, next time i might mainline some coffee first though.
Sunday has rolled around far too quickly especially after spending Friday hungover and Saturday geeking. Getting outdoors seems like the thing to do, so after a morning of monkeying with this website and some study, it’s off to meet Eva at Green Park for a spot of rollerblading in the sun.
For those that have never had the pleasure of enjoying London green spaces (of which there are 20 km²) Green Park is located just north of Buckingham Palace, with St James park to it’s south east and Hyde park to it’s north west, All former royal hunting grounds that have been opened to the public making up a green area that half encloses Buckingham Palace Grounds, In fact the area of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park combined(2.5 km²) are larger than the Principality of Monaco (1.96km²)
London is not known for it’s weather so when the sun does come out you’ll find londonites flocking en mass to every Green space in london to take advantage of the fine weather while it lasts, on a beautiful day some of the spaces feeling like your trying to walk Oxford Street in sale season.
Fun Facts
- Near Speakers corner/Marble Arch was the site of the village of Tyburn, this village became famous for its use of the “Tyburn tree” in 1571, a distinctive three legged version of the gallows, it was so popular aprentices were given the day off to see the public hangings, it remained in use until 1783.
- There are Government offices and corridors, linking the nearby Royal palaces, beneath the east side of Green Park and continue to run to the south. These are clearly visible on the edges of Green Park and St. James Park, with the glass roofs just below ground level. The rooms are thought to be conversions of some of the tunnels built as part of the Cabinet War Rooms from the Second World War.
- St. James Park has a group of pelicans which are fed daily at 2.30pm, though the pelicans have been known to snack on other things from time to time, like this poor pigeon (LINK,Though be warned)
(Map: LINK)
I’ve settled on some photogallery software so next bit of work is to upload all my old photo galleries and sort them and make them all nice, next step is to get out and do more photography out and about to post here
Ok, So somehow in the process of finding new photo gallery software (Ok so i might of broken the old one…) ive found myself running a blog, God knows why i dont exactly expect anyone to read it, but ill try and keep this updating with random links and cool stuff i happen to find along the way.
Watch this space.
