London touristing 26/10/18

Today we walked a bit.  I turned on my watch to track a little while after we left home, and after we had done all the walking in and around the St Johns museum. It still recorded our distance as 11.5km!! This was more ambling than walking, with lots of stops to look and read etc.

First stop (after breakfast and cup of tea) was St Johns museum where we happened to arrive a few minutes before the commencement of a free tour. We were able to see many other parts of their holdings in the area, and were amazed by the history and also by the treasures held there (quite casually). A conservator's paradise I suspect.

We took a detour past a narrow church front (St Ethelreda's)  after quite a few interesting little alley walkways, but couldn't get a look at the largest stained glass window in England due to a service being in progress. This one  amazingly survived the Great fire of London, the reformation, (Henry the 111V) and any direct hits in the blitz and is the oldest Roman Catholic church in the country (from the period of Edward 1). We did get to stick our heads into the lower chapel (crypt) which appears to be used for functions sometimes.

From here we wound our way through to St Paul's , where we enjoyed a stroll in the grounds, but decided not to pay the best part of $70 Aus to go inside and see the architecture. Even from the outside very impressive. This, along with many other buildings has been built on the site of another earlier church. It is incredible to see how many feet the ground level has moved (at least 6 foot) over the years since some of these buildings were erected.

Lunch was found (essential ) before we strolled past the Old Bailey

We marvelled at a garden in a church (bombed out and left as a garden, with some walls representing the site)

and an interesting clock - donated by the clockmakers of London

Then down to the Thames past a display of huge "Harry Potter" wands, memorial to history of scientific discovery and amazing modern sundial

before a detour around the path beside the Thames - which just happened to take us past an incredible mosaic, which depicted the history of London from 0AD to present day.

Then we walked back up to see where John Wesley once lived, and wandered through the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, which has apparently been there for about 1000 years,  and holds the graves of the like of John Bunyan  along many others.  This area would have been about 200 metres wide and the same long at least, and has so many gravestones packed in amongst falling autumn leaves, towering trees, wandering squirrels and hordes of pigeons. quite beautiful.

Home to our room for a nice relaxing cup of tea, before heading out to find some food.
Tomorrow we head for Italy and more adventures.

The tube is an excellent way to get around London.

Adelaide to Singapore 24/10/18

It has been a fairly long day, but interesting.

Dad picked us up just before 7.30am and dropped us at the airport.

We had been unable to do an on-line checkin and it became apparent that this was because Singapore Airlines were practicing their "old fashioned" process just in case the systems go down and they need to know how to do it.  This involves hand written baggage labels etc.  It took ages to get to the head of the line, just in time for them to go live with the electronic version again!!

We had time to finish the cryptic crossword before the flight was called.

The flight went over the top of Australia diagonally (south-east to north-west) and we looked down about 3.5 hours into the flight to see the far north west tip of Oz fading away underneath us.

We spent a bit of time eating (including Maggie Beer icecreams) and watching movies (Hitch and Hugo for me, Solo and Incredibles 2 for Trev)

It was raining and 30C in Singapore, but the taxi ride only took about 15 minutes and cost less than that in dollars (about $12). If the taxi driver had actually dropped us where we wanted to be it would have saved us quite a walk, but we had a chance to explore a little as we walked out way around to the water park resort where we are staying.

After checking in and finding our room (overlooking the water park) we went out exploring, stopping to admire the recycled materials decorating one of the lounge areas.

The place is fronted by the Pasir Ris Park - a huge green belt area, which is obviously popular with the locals for use as a jogging circuit. There are camping areas, mangroves (with mud lobsters)

and otters in the fast flowing waters of the outlet. There is also a closely planted maze, which was scary enough to have us doing just a little and happy to emerge before dark.

After a few km of walking in the park (including stopping by the "eco pond" to watch the many fish, turtles, and various bugs all working away furiously, and the photographers lined up with their massive lenses waiting to catch a shot of a kingfisher diving for his dinner) , we decided it was time to find some dinner of our own. 


The local mall offered a myriad of choices and we opted for noodle dishes, and then waffles with chocolate filling (all very healthy).  Then a bit more walking to try to find milk (rather reminiscent of our trip to China).

Early start heading for London tomorrow morning so wish us luck ("sleeping" in one bed together tonight!!)

Checking out the Torrens to Torrens road project 23/9/18

 Today we went and took advantage of the "one time only" opportunity to investigate the T2T project on foot.

This felt like a unique opportunity that we should take advantage of (like the time when we walked through the tunnels of the freeway before it opened)

Trev had noticed in the paper that we would have a chance to walk the new lowered section this morning and he was prepared to get out of his sick bed to do it.

There was pretty sketchy info available, and things went a bit astray initially.

We followed instructions and parked at the Entertainment centre and waited for the shuttle bus.... and waited, and waited.  After 20 minutes it was clear that there was no one else waiting and there was no shuttle bus at the moment, so we paid for our carpark(!!!) and drove down to a street close to Susan St, which was the start of the walking route.  Then we walked from there. It was about 6km return trip.

Our track

We were able walk pretty much the whole length of the works in the hour or so that we had remaining of time allocated before vehicles would be allowed on the roadway. 

We were interested to see the difference in the section which used to have a big kink in it near Torrens road. Now there is some drainage area which we assume will be landscaped.  They must have reclaimed quite a few homes to make the changes.   Here is the map section from out old UBD of the same area. 

We did see a few vehicles, but these were there preparing for the big celebration with free sausage sizzle etc which was starting from 1130. We assume that the crowds and the shuttle buses were going to be in place for that event (not the walk) 

We also ran into our friend Bob Smith, who was trying out the track on his bike.  

Trev with Bob

We disregarded this sign today

Bridge carrying piping for power etc across the road. 

Why are these poles not aligned straight? All the OCD people in Adelaide will cringe as they go past them. 

Display of machinery 

Walking track over the road

Parents and kids were out enjoying a beautiful day.

One big group of bike riders

signage just for us. 

Inspection plates in the road already!!!

Why do we have so many of these in Adelaide?? And why are they in the roads in random places?

Yes - we are on a road with roadsigns.

The difference between the smooth surface of the off ramp (left) and the more open surface of the lowered road surface (on the right) . It almost looked porous. 

Food trucks ready for the onslaught at 1100

Stage and tables and chairs ready for fancy guests??

Trevor and I finished our walk and then headed across to Love On cafe at Mile End for juice and a yummy brunch.  Our son Ben was working there so we got to say Hi to him and to Rashed, the owner of this fabulous establishment. 

They gave us a quiet corner table so that Trev wouldn't spread his germs too much.

Our Ben at work.

Myponga Orchid walk - 5th September

Trevor saw a facebook post offering a free walk at Myponga to look at native orchids.
Since we don't really know the first thing about orchids and we had a bit of time that day we thought we might sign up and go along.
The walk was run by the Normanville Natural Resource Centre along with others that week.

The 20 Acre Nixon Skinner CP was gifted in 1948 by Mrs Lucy Page in honour of her two grandfathers.  We saw the stone in the park commemorating the gift of the land.

location of the park

We turned up to Nixon Skinner Conservation Park, met some other people and wandered down the track looking for orchids.
None of us were experts, but some were more experienced than others.
We found out about a book "Start with the leaves" written by Robert Lawrence which identifies common orchids in the area and that is just what we did.
We started looking for the heart shaped leaves on the ground which give away some of the orchids, but also found the ones with the upright stems and no leaves on the ground.
Here are some of the orchids we found:

Nodding Greenhood - Pterostylis nutans

Maroon-hood - Pterostylis pedunculata

Fire Orchid - Pyrorchis nigricans
Apparently these flowers turn black when flowering is finished but keep their form. The  flower is supposed to only come after fire and pollinator is unknown.

Spotted Donkey Orchid- Diuris pardina
These were plentiful at the time and we got good at seeing them.

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Mayfly Orchid - Acianthus causatus 

Winter Gnat Orchid - Cyrtostylis robusta (I think) 

I'm trying to learn the names, so I have bored you with the botanicals as well as the common names. 

We found this exercise very interesting and were keen to go out orchid spotting again soon.

Luckily the following week we had a walk planned in Hardy's Scrub (near Blewitt Springs) , which yielded more of the same plus a couple of new ones for us.