Travel Articles

[coliholic]

Reading Matts post on the cutting room floor and the trials and tribulations of an apprentice hack got me thinking.

It sounds ever so exciting and obviously makes a big difference that he spends half his life in the SofF already and I wondered if we all couldn't have a go featuring areas that we know lots about?

Perhaps they'd ask me to do an article on the Eastern Delights on the River Wissey, or Huntingdon - a Boaters Heaven. All sorts of possibilities and could do it ever so cheap too 'cos I can do my own piccies. Got a new Polaroid so no developing costs either, mind you it's in the bedroom at the moment so I'll have to dig it out.

We could each pick a specialist area and subject, for example

Haydn - Plymouth and the Sounds of Breaking Engines
Byron - The Thames; and How It's Changed Since I've Owned It
Pauline - The Channel and What To Wear
TimE - Powerboating in the Solent - A Prospective Sailors Perspective
DaveS - Ramsgate and All Pubs East and West
NickR - Scotland and Why Would Anyone Want To Visit
Lonjohnsilver - pass another hic beer
JFM - Southampton Water and How To Electronically Navigate It
Barry D - The Delights of Dungeness and How To Make Soup For Four
Oldgit - The Medway and Waypoints I Have Missed

Other specialist subjects?

 

[Guest]

Re: Colin\'s article - in full!

Greensleeves: - how you'll fall over yourself to visit the Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border region


Travelling north the M11 from London through the drab monotony of western Essex , the landscape obediently flattens, and adopts an eerie sameness. This is Cambridgeshire. It's exactly the same if you approach from the north. Or west. Long flat straight stretches of badly-built motorway cut through the efficiently-tilled arable land. Every twenty minutes or so we see new vistas of very similar and very wide areas of more arable land.

There's that fast bit, just around Stansted, and the worrying white marks on the road which give the impression of a nearby speed camera. Yet there are no speed cameras for miles around. Occassional crisp packets in the central reservation add a touch of colour to this post-modern, essentially two-dimensional atmosphere. The scene is reminiscent of Northern France, near Calais, perhaps. But without the distractions of Calais or Boulogne, the sea, the channel, the fast road to Paris, le Touquet or St Omer. Or Berck-sur-mer, or Ardres, or Faquembergues, or the toll booth.

This is the mysterious region described in Dickens's "Great Expectations". Admittedly, that was over to the southeast in suffolk, and only in the boring first bit of the book, altho not much better when he moved to London and Bought A Hat , after which he came back to (near) these flatlands and confronted the nasty chap who nearly did something horrible to him, but didn't, when the book ended drmatically once Pip discovered to his horror that the nearly-dead woman at the beginning of the book was surpirsingly dead, twenty years later.

We've turned off the motorway, and are passing closer to the fields themselves. Some are greenr than others. This one is growing Richmond seed wheat. The next is growing Chatsworth, which is another variety of seed wheat.

At last we arrive at the sign for the river Wissey. A grand spectacle, clear and bold stands before us, proudly reaching skywards above the landscape, man-made. It's a stark contrast with the natural landscape all around. Yes, the sign for the River Wissey is quite unmiskeable, clearly marking the postion of the river Wissey for all to see. It's almost as if the sign is saying to us "Hey there - yes YOU- look over here! You've arrived at the River Wissey!!!"

A mile or so before the River Wissey, and a bit after, there are less impressive signs for The Lesser Ouse, the Great Ouse and Pick Your Own Potatoes. We have to turn back. Soon enough, we find our vessel lying serenely at river bank. Walking along the towpath, we can appreciate how the green fields complement the sight before us. A perfect fenland rivercraft. Green-tinted windows, with simlarly greenish warps, green window frames, greenish bathing platform, and a green-tinted grey canopy, all a-sprinkled with birdshit.

Boating in this region gives one a rare experince of truly peaceful boating. At night there is perfect stillness, unpunctured by bothersome nightlife or so-called " country pubs". Nor are there any noisy neighbours, often a pain elsewhere. Nor any shops, marinas, beaches, restaurants, houses, trees, bushes, flowers, buildings, people or anything else to spoil the tranquilty. Nothing.

Sometimes during the cruise the next day, the river bends slightly, requiring the helmsman to carfully move the wheel to one side, negotiate the turn, and feel the craft beneath respond to the input. Straightening a minute or so later, the whole crew silently recognises that on the return journey to their riverside mooring , the same slight bend in the river will actually require a turn in the opposite direction.

After a day on the river network, and after innumerable cups of tea, it's time to return home. Exhausted from our non-stop diet of parties, more parties, exotic landscapes and all the other other articles that we all read about in that old copy of last years's "Hello" magazine that someone thankfully found in the saloon, it's time to disembark and try finding the car. Not too difficult since ours is the only car for twenty miles. A perfect Weekend. And the Sport section was okay too.

 

[ChrisP]

Re: Love it . NM

 

[longjohnsilver]

Sounds better than Merseilles!! NM

.

 

[BarryD]

Coliholic - whilst Dungerness Soup would be something I could offer, I'd prefer to start on my soon to be famous series "Why it's wrong to get MVII onto the plane at the entrance to Chichester lock"

I note that you missed some other interesting titiles
Colliholic - "5% (1 inch) power seeting is too high!"
PaulineB - "Shoes, boats, booze - my life in a shot glass"
Suzzanne - "Red sweaters - boats, and knee supports"
Matts - "Why 23m is not enough"
ChrisP - "My nice quiet serene life afloat, now all of you JFRO"
KevB - "Great shortcuts and how to steer and drive with the legs up"
JFM - "Col Regs, Nissans and GPS steering - why they don't mix"
DaveS - "Loud, flat and drunk - karokke tuners of the boating world"

Compliments of the season

Barry