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Posted: 05-08-2010 12:33 Post subject:

I've recently purchased a "Past & Present" map of the local area, from Tesco of all places. It has 4 maps covering the same 10x10 mile area, but uses maps from 1834, 1902, 1921 and the present day. The comparison is fascinating for anyone with even a passing interest in local history.

What might be even more fascinating would be to plan a journey using only the roads which existed in 1834. Without being able to use some main roads and bypasses which exist now, I'll bet that most of us would discover whole road networks of which we were previously unaware. I appreciate that this would probably apply most to people living on the edge of towns, with countryside nearby, but almost all of us could discover something new about our area.

So go on - take a look in the "local books" section of your nearest Tesco superstore. It won't be well-advertised, but it'll be well worth the hunt. The maps are by Cassini, and the 4-in-1 Past & Present maps can be seen on Cassini's website.

EDITED to correct mistyped link

Posted: 05-08-2010 12:43 Post subject:

I'm off to London on Sat by bus jet bus train! Attending the CPGB Summer School in New Cross. Assembling goods to trade with Sarf Londoners now.

Posted: 05-08-2010 13:28 Post subject:

Posted: 18-08-2010 22:18 Post subject:

Today I decided to walk from A to B (where a road has been closed due to subsidence over old mine workings) and then onto C, to get a bus home.

Well, I got from A to C alright, but somehow I bypassed B!

I'd studied the map before I set off, and it seemed straightforward. Early on I found a signpost to B, and passed a railway and a stream I expected. Then I came to a T-junction where the road signs gave no clue where B was! I could have checked the map again, but decided to take pot luck. (When I did check the map later I was none the wiser, however. It was only when I got back to the computer and checked a larger scale map online that I was able to retrace my route. The T-junction was very close to B, which was in fact much smaller than other maps suggested.)

Arriving at C, I found I had just 5 minutes wait for the next bus. A woman there was also waiting for it. The traffic in the village was surprisingly heavy both ways (fairly continuous, but stop-start stuff).

This woman kept walking out into the road to see if the bus was coming, much to the consternation of the motorists, some of whom thought she was trying to cross the road! Why I don't know - it wasn't as if the bus could have whizzed past us. But as the bus arrived 15 minutes late, this performance went on for some time!

Still, it was apt to finish a Fortean walk by meeting one of the Strange Folk.. Cool

Posted: 27-09-2010 23:13 Post subject:

I revisited Carn Brea today to take some photos, the weather being good.
The 'experimental' bit came in via my approach: the ascent seemed easier from the south, but this meant catching a (twice-a-day!) bus to the village of Carnkie.

Anyway, that worked OK (apart from a mystery with the bus number - the timetable says it's the 42, but the bus claimed to be a 342...). Got to the summit and took my pics - weather and visibility were excellent - if the Earth wasn't curved, I could have seen Ireland!

The climb down was hard with my arthritic knees, but eventually I found myself in the level and suburban streets of Pool. And here I unexpectedly stumbled across a memorial to Richard Trevithick, the inventor of the steam locomotive!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_0492pb.jpg

(Which was nice! And then I got to a bus stop just a minute before my bus home was due - which was also nice!)

Posted: 02-10-2010 18:51 Post subject:

In general I'm scared to try the bus thing you did, although once I went on a bus to get ten minutes away from my house and missed my stop. I decided to see if the bus would go to any other interesting place so I stayed on for another hour and a half and ended up two towns away from home. It was kind of creepy because when I finally got off the streets were all empty and it was the middle of winter.
edit: I mean it was the middle of winter when I got on too, but you know it was cold and creepy and icy everywhere.

Posted: 14-04-2011 22:38 Post subject:

I need exercise to get my weight down, but my local walks are getting too familiar. I wanted somewhere new, but not too far away, so I looked on the local OS map and found a country road I'd never been down before. From the map it didn't look that interesting, but I wanted the exercise, so I caught a bus to my start point.

The walk was pleasant enough, despite an early threat of rain. Lots of daffodil fields (mainly white ones), and a few distant views.

But the road headed downhill, and eventually I found a shallow ford. For the benefit of foot travellers, there was a small clapper bridge over the stream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapper_bridge
(Cornwall is not mentioned in this piece, and I'd never heard of this particular example either.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_0618.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_0620.jpg

So, a boring walk for the sake of exercise turned up a little-known local artefact! Very Happy

Posted: 14-04-2011 23:04 Post subject:

Newer bridges:

A little later in the walk, I reached the Carnon valley viaduct, built for the GWR by Brunel (no doubt with his own fair hands! Wink

)

The buttresses in front of the viaduct supported the wooden trestle bridge that was really Brunel's work. The granite viaduct was constructed later, in the 1930s, apparently.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_0621.jpg

Posted: 15-04-2011 09:01 Post subject:

Nice walk! Smile

Posted: 24-04-2011 09:09 Post subject:

New York cabbie picks up $5,000 fare to California

New York taxi driver Mohammed Alam has picked up the fare of a lifetime - $5,000 (£3,000) to drive across the US to Los Angeles.
Investment banker John Belitsky said he and friend Dan Wuebben wanted to do something "magical".
They decided on a cab ride to LA and struck the deal with Mr Alam after finding him at LaGuardia Airport.
The 2,448-mile trip took six days and included a stop in Las Vegas where the friends won $2,000.

Mr Belitsky, of Leonia, New Jersey, and Mr Wuebben, of Queens, New York, haven't yet said how they intend to get back to the East Coast.
But Mr Alam says a friend will help him make the drive back home.

The epic trip has been documented by Mr Belitsky on his Twitter page.
On 22 April, after their winning streak in Las Vegas, he tweeted: "Woke up Alam to a shower of $100 bills at sunrise." Very Happy

New York news blog NYU Local estimated that the trip would have cost $17,000 (£10,000) if the meter had been running for the whole trip

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13179413

Posted: 24-05-2011 23:06 Post subject:

Forecast of wall-to-wall sunshine today, so I had a day out. I had a destination in mind, but then I found I'd have to wait over an hour for a bus connection, so I went to another bus stand to catch the first bus there to anywhere interesting - which turned out to be Veryan. I'd only been there once before (and that was actually back in 2006, I realised later).

The journey was interesting in itself, but Veryan is famed for its Round Houses, which somehow I'd missed before. We passed two going into the village, but I couldn't be bothered to walk back uphill to photograph them.

Instead I walked in the opposite direction, towards the coast, and coincidentally towards a hotel I'd read about on a website just the day before:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotels/ukhotels/8526340/The-Nare-Hotel-Cornwall-hotel-review.html

And blow me if I didn't discover two more Round Houses!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_0654.jpg

(They are round so there aren't any corners for the devil to hide in - allegedly!)

It was a lovely warm day, but my 1940s knees are none too good on 2011 hills, so I decided to turn back before the hotel. But as I did, a lorry stopped by me, and the driver asked if I knew where Nare Head is. I said he'd see it, just around the next corner, but (as he was carrying live sheep) he clearly wasn't looking for a coastal headland! We both had the same OS map, which didn't show any Nare Head Farm, so I left him trying without success to ring a contact number on his mobile. Later he passed me on the way back to Veryan, and gave me a wave.

One thing I missed (checking an online map later) was Veryan Castle, some sort of prehistoric earthwork. Otherwise it was an unplanned but interesting day.

But the sheep lorry made me think - could that have been some weird practical joke, sending the driver to Nare Head? Confused

Posted: 30-06-2011 22:45 Post subject:

Got a bus to Redruth, then caught the first bus away from there, which went to Portreath. Very pleasant, but I've been there several times before. But later, on checking the timetable more carefully, I realised that that bus continued on to Tehidy Park East Lodge...

Now I've never been to Tehidy Park (an old country estate) before, because the bus connections used to be too awkward, but now I realised I was just minutes away, so I decided to catch the next bus there. But when it arrived, the driver was sure he didn't go there! (Admittedly I asked for Tehidy Park East Gate, instead of Lodge, but you'd expect him to make the connection.)

So I passed another hour in Portreath and then caught the next bus to Camborne - which did indeed go past Tehidy Park East Lodge! Evil or Very Mad

Back home, I double-checked the maps and timetables. And that bus route is the only one that does pass Tehidy Park East Lodge! So that pesky driver didn't know his route very well (perhaps he'd never been asked for that stop before, although it is printed in the timetable). I'm making a wax model of him to stick pins in.... Twisted Evil

But the bad news is that the bus connections are still awkward: in theory the Portreath bus leaves Redruth a minute before the Falmouth bus gets in, so it was only luck that I happened to make the connection today.

Well, the forecast is good for tomorrow, so with my newly-updated local knowledge I may try again... Tehidy or bust!

One bonus from today - I took a couple of pics of Portreath from the bus on the hill as it left town, and although I was shooting over my shoulder, one of the pics had a dead-level horizon and was well-focussed! Very Happy

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/Portreath.jpg

Posted: 01-07-2011 00:00 Post subject: