Back towards Wales...

Only two weeks after Newport is was heading there again. I had spent one night in Luxemburg (the country, not the province of Belgium), but for the rest i was actually home for a while. Most important thing to do around that period was a lot of administration since i had just bought a house in Ghent.

Before i actually arrived in Newport, i planned to follow a 3-day course on Underwater Archeology, at Stoney Cove, Leicestershire, England. It is a quarry, rather a big one, maximum depth only 36 meters, but with great facilities. In 2000 a new diveshop annex classroom and swimming pool facility was built and it is magnificent! In the picture below, you can see the big building in the background where classrooms, swimming pool and shop were located. The picture was taken from the pub/restaurant Nemo's at the far end of the quarry, so it gives an idea of the size of the quarry (as compared to the ones in Belgium).


I went there together with Jan Bruggeman.
The course was organised by NAS : Nautical Archeological Society.

The main focus of the course was on 2D and 3D survey techniques. That included 3 dives in the quarry to actually do measurments and survey a archeological site. The site was of course put there by the people of NAS. The conditions in the quarry were good: 17 degrees water temperature and some 6 to 7 meters visibility. We didn't go deeper than 6 meters, which gave us excellent conditions for doing the survey. In the picture below you see me busy writing down measurements.


It was all in all an international group, with two guys from Spain present, one girl from Hawaii and the two belgian guys of course, believe me they will remember us, i think we made most of the suggestions, interruptions and posed most of the questions :-) Sue who co-presented the course with Ian made a remark when i said goodbye that i "really enlivened the course a lot" (i took it as a compliment :-) ).
Most of the people had a diving background, although there were some who approached it more from a pure archeological approach.
I hope to keep some contact with some of the people since they also possess a great knowledge and experience of diving in the UK.

I drove towards Newport a bit more coming form the North and went through an area that had suffered from the flooding that was going on during my stay in Stoney Cove (so that was were all that rain was going to!).

The week in Newport was quiet. But one special occasion should be added here. While sitting in an Italian restaurant in Cardiff, i decided to become a vegetarian. Not a full blown one from the beginning, but a pesco-vegetarian as they call it (still eating fish). Hope to first settle on a diet including fish, later i can still think about removing that from my diet as well, we'll see.

On the journey back, i didn't stop at any special places, since i was rather keen on seeing whether i would be going home on saturday. During my stay in Newport, there was a fire in the Chunnel, so there nobody getting through at that time. Luckely, everyone who had already booked with the Eurotunnel, got a ticket on the ferry. In the end, it was a nice experience. All and all it doesn't take that long from Dover to Calais. And seeing the white cliffs again was nice. And i was early on the main deck, rushed towards to bar at the front and took up seat with a nice view, enjoying the trip. In the tunnel, you don't exactly see a lot :-)

Newport here we come...

The first in a series of trips to Newport, in Wales, UK. Mostly internal people from Alcatel-Lucent UK that have to get an full ISAM operator course.
Even though i arrived on saturday 16th of August from my trip to Marseille, i had to leave the next day towards Great Britain. I had decided to go by means of my own car. I was curious to see the environment of southern England, that i had to pass through. And i wasn't dissapointed.

Started of early on sunday, driving from my hometown of Ghent towards Calais, where i took the Eurotunnel towards Folkstone. First time on the Chunnel, and i was amazed at how fast it went. I think you are only underground for 25 minutes, which means they must be going at an incredible speed.

The moment is started driving away from the eurotunnel terminal the beautiful, green and hilly landscape appeared. I was lucky, it was a sunny day.
From Folkstone i followed the coastline. I stopped to have a look at the
Sea Wall, built to protect against attacks from the mainland.
I stopped to have a look:And continued up to Hastings, where i found my way to the little villag called Battle (see picture below).

There, on the exact spot where king Harold died during the famous Battle of Hastings, in 1066, William The Conqueror built the Battle Abbey, which was to become one of the richest abbeys in the British Isles. The first picture shows the impressive gatehouse of the abbey. The whole abbey was protected by a stone wall, most of it has now dissapeared.


Most of the church has fallen into ruines because of bad management over the centuries (especially with the dissolution, when King Henry VIII gave large clerical properties to friends, among others Battle Abbey, who didn't always treat them with a lot of respect)

The Abbey still overlooks the battlefield where the Battle of Hastings was fought. In the first picture you see on the left side the main building, which was used as a private house after the dissolution, and was hence preserved and on the right side you see the ruines of the main church.

The second picture shows more how these two buildings overlook a big piece of land, where the actual battle was fought and which the abbey later used to grow crops, hold pigs and fish in the nearby lake. It is a great walk by the way (see also the picture at the beginning of this post).


From Battle i went up north, just until Sevenoaks, but instead of jumping on the M25 i followed it for a while via a little parallel road. Driving through the small towns I noticed that all have one or more Inns along the main road. And most of them have one of the following words in their name: King, Horse, Crown or Rose. These words appear in easily 75% of all the "Free Houses".
Then i did take the M25, to exit from it again onto the M3, which took me, using the A303 towards Stonehenge.
All in all Stonehenge was a bit of a dissapointment. Don't get me wrong, i am very happy to have seen it, since it was something that i was curious about for a long long time. But the fact that the monument is sandwiched between two roads and the fact it is visited en masse by busloads of tourists, does remove most of the mystical idea that surrounded it in my mind. So don't be mislead by the pictures above, it is hard to get a view of the monument without people or cars on it.

From there i passed through Bath. It's on the world heritage list, and you can see why when you pass through it, its houses in stone are absolutly beautifull and the hilly surroundings while you are driving stunning.
I joined the M4 to go the south Wales and passed the southern of the two impressive bridges over the Severn: toll needs to be payed, but only when you drive towards Wales, asking the group in my class why that was so, an English guy replied that most people are racing so fast to get out of Wales that you can't expect them to actually slow down and stop to pay the toll, which prompted one of the Welsh guys in the class to no longer wanting to talk to him, luckely all in good humour :-)

I spend the week in Newport at the Alcatel-Lucent University site. It is cosy there, enjoyable to be there.
Since i wasn't feeling very well (bit of stomach ache), i didn't really visit anything during the week.
On saturday morning is left again, back to Belgium.

I passed by the nearby Chepstow quarry, where a lot of (technical) diving is going on. The facilities look very nice. Price is a bit steeper than in the quarries of Belgium (15 pounds for the day), but it is hard to compare the two. For one thing the quarry in Chepstow is huge and very deep, up to 84m, and it is actually allowed to go that deep (provided you have to correct certificate, since you need to use trimix gas mixture for this kind of depth).


I then followed the banks of the Severn, instead of crossing it toward Celthenham and onwards via a lovely road towards Oxford.
Oxford itself is magnificient! Always wanted to go there, and was glad to spend 2 hours walking around (couldn't afford more, since i had to get home the same day). The buildings in the city centre are so beautiful.

The picuter below is outside Christ Church (no not the one in New Zealand, the original one :-), where among others theology is given)
After Oxford, i took the shortest route towards the M25 and went straight for Folkstone, where i was able to took a earlier train towards Calais. After an hour i was in Loppem where is stayed the night at my parents place.