New Forest

The final post from yesterday shows some of the wild horses abounding in the New Forest. The horses and traffic do not mix well be motorists are supposed to give way to the animals who frequently stray on to the roads, and long queues result. The first picture shows some horses using the road under a railway bridge as a temporary shelter (or stable) to escape the sun! Although technically a forest, the NF has extensive areas of grassland. And the second is a nice picture of mother and foal.

AS

Horseyculture

Shows wouldn't be shows without horses, but the New Forest show blew me away with the variety of horse events on offer. There was the usual dressage and show jumping, along with competitive events for pony clubs, as shown in the first three photos. I even imagined Rebecca on one of the ponies.

However, the competition between the 'stage' coaches pulled by teams of four horses was stunning! Have a look at the next three pictures which focus on just 3 of the nine entries. All the horsemen and passengers were dressed up for the occasion, the horses were immaculately groomed (and mostly matching), and vehicles were beautifully maintained or restored! The first shows the London - Brighton carriage - I've always done the journey by car or train. The next picture will amuse Emily. It's a Wells Fargo stage coach! She banks with Wells Fargo in Santa Clara, and I'm going to send her the full-scale picture to show her bank in Califorrnia. The final picture shows a beautiful Welsh (?) carriage! The guy in his red coat was blowing his post-horn vigorously!

The final two pictures come from an equally interesting display of carthorses - equally well presented. The first team of four were Shire horses and the second were Persherons.

AS

One Day in Brockenhurst

Summer finally arrived in the south of England yesterday and, on a lovely sunny day, Phillip and I headed for the New Forest and Hampshire County Show in Brockenhurst. He'd aquired a membership pass for the show society and I had a guest pass, both of wich entitled us to use the members' facilities at the show-ground and the comfort of the grand-stands to watch events. The occasion was like a scaled-up version of Australia's small town country shows that we are used to, as this and the next posting will show. Since the population in the vicinity of Brockenhurst may be a couple of million people, plus south coast holiday makers, the show was a major draw-card and the show-ground was almost impossibly crowded. This patronage probably enabled some of the more spectacular events we saw. This post just says something general about the show; the next post will deal with horseyculture.

I said it was crowded, and the first picture shows one of the innumerable 'streets' lined with merchants selling all kinds of goods. The second, taken from the relative calm of the members' area, looks towards the crowds outside of the display enclosure.

Like most shows, there were lots of things for families and children to do or watch, and the next picture sees a member of stunt riding duo barely holding on to his machine high above the ground. By the way, the bike is not square on to the landing ramp either, but he landed safely!

Then there were machinery displays like the one pictured. Much of the equipment was, however, smaller scale than what we are used to, and we saw little in the way of grain harvesting implements.

Like all country shows, there was an emphasis on livestock of just about every kind: cattle, sheep, goats, alpacas, chooks, pigs, and even an intresting display of honey bees. Many of the cattle and sheep breeds were new to me like the British White cattle pictured here and the countless different breeds of sheep. I show the Boreray and Portland sheep on the next two pictures, but there were different breeds from just about every island in the Hebrides! The Borerays were billed as rarer than the Giant Panda, with only 2-300 in existence, while the Portland hail from Dorset. The range of sheep made the Australian countryside look boring.

AS

Compton Acres, Poole

And so, after a lengthy trip from Winnipeg via Toronto and Reykjavik I arrived in London for some brief R & R. It's nice here in Poole, but I seem to have done a lot of work producing conference papers (three in all) and fielding inquiries concerning our REP CRC project. Still, on Saturday morning, I met up with long-time friend Richard and his wife Jean, and after the usual chatter we headed off for lunch at Compton Acres, a lovely garden just 'round the corner' so to speak. The garden is stunning, and beautifully maintained. I simplify my task by posting lovely photographs with a small dash of commentary.

This is a view of the Roman Garden, complete with columns, statues, reflecting pool containing carp, and a fountain or two.

Footpaths wind across water features and among stately trees full of flowering shrubs.

There are lots of sculptures and other art-work dotted in the landscape. This is a sculpture by an Australian artist in a water lily pond.

More of the same, only given over to variegated shades of green.

The site is high up and has lovely views over Poole towards the harbour and Brownsea Island just showing at the right of the picture.

And finally we came to a lovely Japanese garden as the pictures above and below testify.

AS

Wasagaming

On our return from Duck Mountain to Winnipeg last Tuesday, we took a trip through the Riding Mountain National Park and stopped off at Wasagaming on the southern side for a spot of Lunch. Unlike Australian National Parks, which have little in the way of human habitation, this park was teeming with human life and incorporated an entire settlement, Wasagaming, which was the park's headquarters and tourist magnet.

The headquarters even had a flower bed in front in the form of E II R. The main street was clogged with shops selling everything needed for a stay and there were loads of restaurants. We chose, inappropriately?, the White House! There was also a lot of tourist accommodation to suit all pockets and the place was crowded at the start of the summer holiday season.

And the township is draped around  lovely Clear Lake with its beaches and marina. These are shown on the next couple of slides and they were also crowded on a hot day.

Nice spot! I could have spent longer there but for the trip to Neepawa, self-proclaimed lily capital of the world. The festival appeared to be the following week, but we did see a lily farm which gave credence to the claim.

AS

Rural Recreation

I sometimes wondered what rural people do for recreation, but it's obvious from the slides presented here. Right close to Inglis we came across the Asessippi Provincial Park where we found a ski facility. Given the place's climate that was hardly a surprise, but look at the landscape! Where would one put a ski slop here? Well, what we didn't see at first was a large depression with a lake in the bottom and the entrepreneurial locals had constructed ski runs down the slopes in question, along with a large range of chalets, prairies style and nothing like Phil's and resort facilities which made the site usable in summer.

After a quick look at the development we boarded the bus again to the final leg at Duck Mountain. Two things surprised me. First, we went into the Saskatchewan side of the park, so added yet another Canadian Province to the list of those visited, leaving only Newfoundland left. Secondly, there was no mountain. Duck Mountain is named on a map, but as far as I can see it is only a pimple on the landscape. We headed to Madge Lake and came across what might be Canada's answer to the French Riviera!! The lake's beaches were bursting with visitors from far and wide, mostly staying in the Park's extensive condos, tented areas, cabins, and motor home sections or the central 'motel' style accommodation where I am holed up typing this travelogue. Well, the temperature was a nice 32-34C so I and some other conference delegates headed into the water. This is now becoming an annual ritual. Last year I immersed myself in the Mediterranean and the previous year it was the Adriatic. Madge Lake's water was, however, on the cool side and I dare not stay in too long! Still, it's a great achievement to develop a coastal resort thousands of km from the ocean and in such a severe climate as this one. The season is only about 2 months! The wildlife I've seen only includes one lonely seagull (!) and the cute little chipmunk posted here.

We're heading back to Winnipeg tomorrow after a hot day here (and 41C forecast for Brandon), and I leave Canada, alas, two days from now. Surely I can time things better!

AS

On the Road Again

Yesterday, Sunday, our party left Brandon Manitoba for Duck Mountain national park, which lies astride the Saskatchewan - Manitoba border. I have not said much about the weather, but the day was hot ... maybe 32C. The journey took us NW across the prairies (from the old French praierie, or meadow), an expanse of flat or slightly undulating grassland like that pictured here.

The roads are often dead straight - and incidentally poorly paved as the result of frost damage and passing of heavy trucks full of grain. And periodically the roads are crossed by the transcontinental railroads, CN and CP (see above). The trains, by the way, go on for ever - well, at the most 100 trucks. This doesn't mean the trip was boring because the countryside has a a sort of majestic beauty and there are places of interest en route. For example, we saw yesterday an ethanol plant, a museum lamenting (or celebrating as the case may be (rural life), and a ski run.

I associate the prairies with wheat and other coarse grains - for example barley. Not today, however. They are coloured yellow and I wondered why. The answer is that the Canola (rape seed for the Brits) is input into ethanol plants like the one at Minnedosa pictured here - a large modern facility. Further up the road we came across a line of abandoned grain silos, which are also pictured. These were under restoration as they were among the last locally of a breed dating back 100 years as the railroads extended into the prairies. This group, at Inglis, Mtb, were at the end of a spur railway from Russell and casualties of a contraction in wheat production and/or rationalisation of transport. It was fascinating to walk around the interior of one of the silos seeing how wheat was stored, sorted and dispatched.

AS

Winnipeg 2

This continues the previous post with a few more pictures. First up, there's the Manitoba Provincial Legislature in whose grounds stand a large number of sculptures of polar bears, an animal not found this far south but certainly on the shores of Hudson Bay further north. The legislature also houses a little piece of old England ... among many other displays ... namely a piece of Runnymede!

From the steps of parliament, one looks out over the CBD., which is also shown from near the Forks. In front of the latter is one of the two transcontinental railway lines. We saw a goods train pass by and it must have been all of 2km long. It went on for ages. The last photo shows some of the pleasant residential areas close to the city centre.

Like Montreal, which I visited some time ago, the commercial core is interlinked with enclosed walkways which permit the hardy residents to traverse the CBD without venturing into the ccccold, where maximum temperatures average perhaps -6C in winter.

AS

Winnipeg 1

I'm only now getting around to making a couple of posts on Winnipeg where I arrived earlier this week on Tuesday. Yesterday's posts were out of sequence time-wise. Until the conference began later on Wednesday, I walked with several colleagues around the city taking in the sights. It has possibly 60% of Manitoba's population of a little over 1 million people, which makes a little smaller than most of Australia's capital cities and twice the size of Canberra.

Canberra, however, is a spring chicken compared with Winnipeg, which was first settled in 1738 at The Forks, where a fort was built. The Forks marks the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers - the latter a French name because the original European participants were French fur traders. The Red river, pictured here entering on the left, comes from the USA down south, while the latter comes from Saskatchewan to the west (or right in the picture). The remains of the fort are shown in the second picture.

By the way, if the water looks high and fast flower the reason is simple. The Assiniboine was in flood as the attached pictures show.

Close to the Forks were two interesting features. One is a kind of astronomical obervatory where you stand in the middle and curved pipes direct you to a position in the sky (on a clear night). The nearby walls have a guide to the heavens you're supposed to be watching!

The second is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights ... the first such national facility outside of Ottawa. It will contain a variety of exhibits and one known for certain is a memorial to the Holocaust. It's no small building as you can see and highly sculptured in the modern style.

AS