Currently...

Currently have this view...



...as I type, from 25 floors up.

(Ab)Normal service will be resumed here in September. For goings-on in August, see the other side of the world.

OZ -6 (HK -3): Wired up...

I am in the process of not-quite-packing.

This is a procedure which involves gathering together things which might be necessary for my holiday without actually packing them into anything. The suitcase is still in the loft.

It's a very useful phase of the proceedings as I am also getting a number of other jobs done as a by-product. For instance, sorting out my "home file" (a product I swore I would never possess) while trying to find my passport in it. This involved a trip into town to purchase A4 filing wallets (or "slippy dippies" © Chris Kilby 1990s). These were cheap, which is good, because I could have just lifted some "used" ones from work... This led to several hours sorting out contents of aforementioned boxfile and categorising and shredding and wondering why, in the light of the advice I give my Dad, I still have the receipt for a printer I bought in 2001 and threw away in 2002.

Anyway, here is the collection of electronicage I have to take abroad...



USB cable, another USB cable with slightly different end (in white), camera batteries (why it can't take ordinary batteries, that you buy in a shop, I don't know...), charger for camera batteries, earphones for iPod, memory card for camera, USB stick to back up photos to avoid what happened to Tina's Australia photos, socket adapters to turn safe, earthed three-pin plugs into wonkily angled, two-pin, flimsy death-trap plugs, phone charger...

That's the luggage allowance gone then.

Trainspotting...

I'm not sure if this is classed as one of the Great Railway Journeys of the World, but me and my Dad went on the Settle -Carlisle Line on Friday. Didn't get much time in Carlisle (probably enough...), but that wasn't the point.

The line is now more widely used than it was when it was under the threat of closure in the 80s. This is mainly to do with the fact that it's been well marketed as a tourist attraction. It's a great way to see the western Yorkshire Dales...

This map shows the stations all the way from Leeds as captured by GPS along the route... (Just got geeky new phone which does that...)



The journey takes about three hours, heading up the Ribble Valley to Ribblehead where the famous viaduct is...



..and where we stopped for a look round. There's a great restored station with a very knowledgable live-in railway enthusiast station master. You can buy a postcard and other paraphernalia...

The viaduct is really huge. You only get how huge it is if you're standing underneath it, or when you see a train going over the top...



The line then goes to through Blea Moor Tunnel, into Cumbria and to Dent Station, which is at the head of Dentdale and the highest mainland station in England, and then past Ais Gill, which is the highest point on the line.

As you might expect, the views are spectacular all the way... the three peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside, many more viaducts other than (but none as big as) Ribblehead, beautiful dales and villages, plunging waterfalls and raging rivers, and the forests in the Eden Valley.

And then you get to see the other side on the way home!

I might become a trainspotter yet.