Ekranoplans!

Ekranoplan KM
by heydrich

You can almost imagine Gerry Anderson making these things. Awesome, aint they!

I suppose they could do something to replace conventional aviation. I wonder if such an idea could... take off?

Sorry.

Anyway, the reason I've put this up is because there's one in google earth, on the edge of the Caspian Sea, in a place called Kaspiysk.

42°52'54.88"N, 47°39'24.52"E

Here's a piccie...

European Pollutant Emission Register

Clicking

this link

will add a layer to your google earth application, which details the emissions of over 11,000 european industrial sites. If you're concerned about the environment, this contains some useful figures.

Weirdness

What is this???

My guess is it's either some kind of vehicle test track or a race track. It's in the British Midlands, east and a bit south of Stratford upon Avon.

52°10'57.38"N, 1°30'0.63"W

L etc...

Did I ever tell you about the time I went to a peace camp?

No?

Well I was 16, so it must have been in April 1984. Radical times... Miners were striking. Marchers were marching. And there was something called the STAR march. STAR was an acronym for "Stop The Arms Race". I cycled from Wirral to Chester, then I marched from Chester to Shropshire Then I rode home again. The protest march went on much further, eventually all the way to Greenham Common in Berkshire.

A few days or weeks later (I don't remember exactly) I concieved the idea of cycling to a peace camp, and without telling my mum or dad, I got up before the sun one fine spring morning and went. My route was the A41. This used to be one of the longest roads in Britain, although now it is no longer contiguous. It's become the B4141 in parts, for example, and much of it has now been usurped by various by-passes and motorways, but at one time it ran all the way from Birkenhead to London.

So as a fit 16 year old, I cycled and I cycled and I cycled some more. My route took me from Neston to Chester to Malpas to Whitchurch to a tiny little place called Whixhall Moss, amidst the marshes and bogs of Western Shropshire. There I rested in a field. The next day I continued onwards and as night fell, I was passing through the southern part of the West Midlands conurbation, looking for somewhere to stop and sleep.

I went through Solihull and a Knowle before proceeding further south to banbury and eventually to my goal.

Near Knowle there is an "L" shaped building. Good enough.

52°22'16.73"N, 1°47'56.84"W

South of Knowle the country starts to become more rural. By the time I got to a suitable field, it was very late, I'd been cycling all day, and I was as tired as I've ever been in my life. Too tired to put up a tent. So I just unruilled my sleeping bag and slept in it.

Bloody thing had frost on it the next morning. Jeez it was cold. Got warm though and got going.

The sun shone hot and strong once the early morning mist had burned off, and I got sunburned. This wasn't helped by the lack of panniers or anything. Everything was on my back in a big heavy rucksack. Every time I took it off it would sccrrapppee down my poor burned arms.

Eventually I got to the camp and had a lovely time for a few days, then I cycled all the way home again. Got back in two days. I couldn't do it now.

A couple of months later and I did the same thing again, only this time, an anarchist from Glasgow borrowed my bike and never brought it back.

Wanker.












This is what Upper Heyford looks like these days. 24 years ago there were F1-11's, B52's and C5's. Now it's just a bloody big car park.





The peace camp itself is just a tree lined track. It runs for a couple of hundred yards and then comes to an abrupt halt at a fence. A road to nowhere.

Oh yeah. I nearly forgot.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890

Anglesey

I've been to Newborough today. (well yesterday now really)

It's a small town in the South West corner of Anglesey. To get there, we went through Star and Llandaniel Fab. I think they must have been where Austin Powers went on holiday.

To the south of the town, just by a roundabout, there's a café that sells these brilliant all day vegetarian breakfasts. Mmmmm!

But what I really went for was Llanddwyn Island.

The car park we'd parked in (near the ace café) was miles away. We'd have had to have walked about 10 miles with all the camera gear to get there and back, but the maps showed a closer car park, which we found after a couple of wrong turns.





Llanddwyn is beautiful, windswept, almost deserted. Covered in paths, and lots of signs advising you to stick to them. Church ruins. Old lighthouse. But what really stood out for me were some beautiful rocks in the cove on the southern tip of the island.



The picture doesn't really do the colours justice because the light was very flat. The sun stayed behind a bar of cloud that hovered, almost without moving, just above the horizon. We'd hoped for some sunshine so that we could use the situation towards my wife's university work, and the light was OK, but not brilliant, until right at the end.

We left the island and walked back along the beach, when suddenly we started to cast shadows. The sun had finally fallen beneath the cloud bar, and we got some lovely sunset shots in.

On the beach were trillions of tiny teeny little insects hopping around on the seaweed. I think they get their sustenance from it. Amazing sight, but you might feel a bit itchy if you don't like crawly things.



Llanddywyn is here:

53° 8'19.05"N, 4°24'37.84"W

According to google earth, the entire island has an altitude of 0 metres above sea level. My legs tell a different story.