A little bit of history of the Summer Palace because everyone likes a little bit of history just before they see all the pretty pictures and get some good old-fashioned wanderlust coursing through their veins.

The Summer Palace can date its origins back to the middle of the twelfth century although at that time it was simply the site of some minor palaces and temples taking advantage of the natural springs and lakes nearby for pleasing views. It wasn’t until the Qing dynasty and late into the eighteenth century that serious expansion of the lakes to improve water supply to the city took place and the transformation of the area into a collection of imperial gardens, palaces, and temples as the Summer Palace was completed. The design of the palace grounds was grounded in Chinese mythology with dragons and mountains represented, but maintenance of the complex was high and it soon fell into disrepair.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century French and British forces looted the palace during the Second Opium War. The nearby Old Summer Palace was burned down at this time on the orders of Lord Elgin (son of the other Lord Elgin, famous (infamous if you’re Greek) for his appropriation of the Elgin Marbles for the British government) in retaliation for the Chinese torturing and murdering European and Indian prisoners. The twentieth century saw the Boxer Rebellion cause serious damage to the palace (although it was restored soon after) and, after the Last Emperor (you might have seen him in the movie of the same name) abdicated, the Summer Palace became first private property and then a public park. For a short period after the Second World War the Summer Palace housed the Central Party School for the Communist Party.

The history lesson is over.

We arrived on the eastern side of the Summer Palace and our visit of a few hours was only enough to take in a very small section of the area. You could easily spend over half a day here if you were staying in Beijing. We started off with a visit to the Renshoudian. Also known as the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity this was a collection of buildings – temple, palace, halls with ancient artifacts – around a courtyard garden area filled with bronze sculptures and large rocks called Taihu Stones.

The Taihu Stones and their distinctive shapes are formed by the action of pebbles constantly rubbing on larger rocks through rushing water action creating holes in the larger structure, and were considered lucky. Many were brought to the Summer Palace at great expense.

A prominent bronze sculpture caught many of the tourists’ attentions. This was a Qilin. Often translated as “unicorn” the Qilin clearly isn’t one because I’ve got the ability to count horns and can reach the number two with consummate ease.

You’d be hard-pressed to tour an ancient Chinese site and not see some motif or relief work representing dragons and we weren’t disappointed with some of the stone decorations on show in this first section of the Summer Palace that we visited.

From the Renshoudian we headed roughly southwest towards the lake that makes up most of the Summer Palace landscape. This took us through the Wenchang Pavilion, constructed like a huge city gate and with a nearby hall containing more artifacts.

We didn’t stop at the pavilion as Kunming Lake was our destination. It’s possible to hire boats for personal use, either pedal or electric-powered ones, but there are larger vessels that can take groups of tourists on circuits of the lake too and it was the latter option that our Princess Cruises-organised tour directed us to.

A quick apology here for the state of the photographs of Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace. Beijing is well-known for its smog, although our 2008 visit to China not long after the Olympics meant that pollution levels were pretty low during our three days there. However, with this being November and the sun setting reasonably early in the evening and there still being some smog, even if it wasn’t particularly noticeable to us at the time, a lot of the pictures taken before and during our boat ride around the lake ended up shooting into the low sun coming through smog and reflecting off water. The result is what you’ll see below for a lot of shots: washed-out colours heavily leaning towards the yellow and orange hues, and very little dark detail. As the saying goes, it is what it is.

We boarded a boat not far from Wenchang Pavilion on the east side of Kunming Lake. Looking to the north we could see a large buddhist temple. South there was a long bridge with numerous arches, and we would soon be sailing past both of them.

Our pleasant, gentle circuit of the shallow, artificial lake took place in an anti-clockwise direction so the first sight we passed was the towering complex on the northern shore. This was Foxiang Ge (Tower of Buddhist Incense, or Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha). This building was one of those burned down by Anglo-French forces but later rebuilt and presently comprises three, eight-sided storeys on a twenty-metre-deep stone base. The temple houses a statue of the thousand-handed Guanshiyin Buddha.

West of the buddhist temple was a very unusual sight. This was the Marble Boat (also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease). Serving as a tea house with fabulous views over Kunming Lake now, this was originally a wooden structure on a stone base but like much in the area was destroyed by arson during the Second Opium War. Its reconstruction took place under the instruction of Empress Dowager Cixi and was likely through funds originally earmarked for rebuilding the navy. Despite its appearance and name, the Marble Boat is still made from wood but is now painted convincingly to resemble stone. It incorporates clever drainage systems that funnel rainwater through hollow columns.

The lake with three islands is important symbology in China and as we continued our scenic boat ride around the lake we saw numerous bridges connecting those islands. Interestingly, each bridge was very different in design. Of the smaller bridges that we saw the one that stood out most was Yudai, known as the Jade Belt Bridge. Made from marble, its shape is designed to resemble the simple bridges of the southern Chinese countryside but its unusually high clearance was a deliberate feature to allow the Qianlong Emperor to pass under it on his dragon boat.

The largest of the bridges on Kunming Lake is visible from pretty much any point along the lake’s shoreline. Shiqi Kong Qiao gets its name from its design, the literal translation being Seventeen-Arch Bridge. The bridge is one hundred and fifty metres long, making it the longest bridge in any Chinese imperial garden, and it connects the mainland to Nanhu Island. The railings on the bridge incorporate five hundred stone lions in different poses. A variety of halls, temples, and towers dotted the small island, each filling a scenic location on the landmass in which to enjoy the views of the Summer Palace in every direction, and as we gently motored past Nanhu on its north side we passed Hanxu Hall which directly faces the Buddhist tower on the shore of the lake.

Stepping ashore we had time to see one more interesting item before departing. The Kunlun Stone Tablet is inscribed with a poem written by the Qianlong Emperor and describes how the shores of the lakes changed during his years of coming to the Summer Palace and especially enjoying his time on and around Kunming Lake.

And that brought our time visiting the Summer Palace in Beijing to a close with just a short wait outside the main entrance while we waited for our bus to find us. It was a short visit of only a couple of hours that really barely scratched the surface of what there is to see at this tourist spot. If I were returning now then I’d like to have spent more time in the buildings looking at the artifacts on display and a look inside the imposing Buddhist temple would be a must too, but as a taster of what to see and as part of a combination of historical trips in one day in the pre-cruise package hosted by Princess Cruises then this was a fantastic trip.

We would have just one more day in Beijing before our cruise on Diamond Princess but it would be a very full one indeed.

There wasn’t a huge amount to see as the ruins of Threave Castle itself are quite small although its location and views were pretty good even under not the prettiest of skies.

The main thing for us, though, was that Threave Castle was on an island. We’d guessed there would be a bridge to it but we soon discovered it could only be reached by boat. As a fun element to the visit the boatman would only come to ferry you across when you rang a bell so we duly did that before our trip to the castle’s keep. After we’d returned to the mainland and explored the garden areas for a bit we passed the pontoon to get across to the island again and saw a group of people standing there, waiting, looking across the water to the boatman who was simply looking back. They hadn’t realised the bell needed ringing. Luckily for them my wife walked down, struck the bell, and we wandered off as we heard the boat finally start up and head towards the sheepish-looking visitors.

The bus from alongside Crown Princess took us initially up to Loen, a small village which these days includes a skylift as a popular tourist attraction for those who don’t want to stray too far from where the cruise ships dock. Travelling eastwards from there we drove along the Loelva, the river that connects the Nordfjorden to Lovatnet, a glacier-fed lake, and that would be the first stop on this organised trip.

Our cruise excursion would involve three parts: the first would be a boat trip on the Lovatnet with a snack at the end of that; this would be followed by a visit to a nearby glacier; the day’s activities would conclude with a bus ride back and a stop at a spot with traditional Norwegian buildings. Our boat hadn’t arrived at the lake when we arrived, though, so we had ten or more minutes to stand around and admire the gorgeous scenery in this part of the world.

With the sound of our boat approaching, all of the other passengers on this excursion started to wander back from where they’d been taking a look around. This whole taking a trip abroad thing was still pretty virgin territory for us at the time (there’d been such a long period between our first cruise and this one that we’d effectively reset the clock on it) so we’d stayed close to the bulk of fellow tourists during the wait, not wanting to be those people who stroll off and get lost or cause delays, and even sidled to where we knew the boat would have to stop in order to ensure we couldn’t possibly miss it.

We could see that the boat had seating inside and on top, and with me being the sort of person who likes to take photos of everything (it’s true) I mentioned to my wife that I’d like to head up top for uninterrupted views of the landscape. However, a couple of things scuppered this plan: firstly, there are a lot of selfish people in the world and, without wanting to dip my toes into the waters of stereotyping but being unable to avoid it, the older and whiter and richer American cruising demographic seems to have more than its fair share of them; secondly, I’m introverted (all the time) and polite (when I’m sober). This combination of factors saw our prime position near where the boat was about to tie up get overrun by jostling, careless, more experienced arseholes, and the pair of us shoved away to the back of the queue. We ended up sitting inside.

As it turned out, sitting inside the boat proved to be a positive thing. We could see the people who’d rushed forward and grabbed the outside seating were suffering quite badly with cold, lake spray, and the edge to the temperature in the exposed environment (it wasn’t very windy at all but it wasn’t warm by any means either) was forcing everyone to wrap up as much as possible and bury hands in pockets. It didn’t seem like the best place to take some photographs after all.

Our location in the boat put us close to the water level of the lake and with a window that could be slid open I was able to get some lovely shots of the view ahead and to the starboard side of the vessel.

Our boat trip took around forty minutes and as is the way with excursions we had not only the views to take in but also a running commentary to listen to. This covered geological and historical aspects of the location, and in this particular lake’s case those two aspects were firmly linked. Lovatnet is a glacier-fed lake (actually fed by two glaciers, one of which we’d be visiting next) which accounts for the turquoise colouring, and the surrounding mountainscapes have been prone to landslides in the past.

In 1905 a rockfall triggered tsunamis over forty metres high to travel along the length of Lovatnet. Two villages along the southern shore – Bødal and Nesdal – were hit with the loss of sixty houses, over seventy boats, hundreds of animals, a bridge, and half the population (over sixty deaths). One boat ended up being found three hundred metres inland. A monument was built to honour the dead.

Geologists concluded that such an event was unlikely to happen again so the villages were rebuilt and repopulated but in 1936 a far larger landslide occurred. The tsunamis this time reached a height of over seventy metres, washing away sixteen farms, destroying a hundred houses and other buildings, bridges, a power station, and all the boats. The boat that had previously been deposited three hundred metres inland was moved by the tsunami another one hundred and fifty metres. The 1905 monument was also destroyed, seventy four people lost their lives this time around, and the area was subsequently abandoned.

Our Lovatnet lake boat trip terminated at the southeastern end where a restaurant, Kjenndalstova, was located. This was an opportunity for those who needed to use the restrooms to do so and for everyone to enjoy some waffles. The restaurant itself offers a lot more than just waffles, including trout from the lake, and it’s possible to hire boats to head out and do your own fishing if that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.

After our snack stop we made our way outside to wait for the bus to arrive and take us on to the next part of the day’s excursion. From Kjenndalstova it’s possible to look across Lovatnet lake and see a pretty impressive waterfall, Ramnefjellsfossen. While its height isn’t known exactly it’s currently considered to be the eleventh highest waterfall in the world.

Time then for the second part of our excursion and the main reason we’d picked this trip, but first an apology.

If you’ve read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before then you’ll already know this and I can only apologise even further for repeating myself. Then again, the likelihood of you having read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before is microscopic because people don’t use the web the way they used to so I feel fully justified in saying this again. Just prior to taking this Norwegian fjords cruise I’d made an impulse buy on the web for some cheap, graduated, neutral density filters as I thought they’d be ideal for getting properly-exposed photos of dark mountains against bright skies. A great theory flawed by not factoring in jagged mountain shapes and choosing the cheapest of cheap options from eBay. The result was dreadfully-exposed pictures with mountains half-under and half-over-exposed, and magenta tones flooding the highlights and shadows. It was also impossible to mount the filter on the lens without leaving a thumbprint somewhere so problems that already existed with a dirty sensor had extra imperfections added to the mix. Anyway, all this is to say that I’m sorry that the photos aren’t better here; I’ve cleaned them up as best I could in limited time and I’ve tried to desaturate the wrong colouring but to do a proper job would take months and the effort’s not worth the result. I’ll just have to go back and take better shots some other day.

Kjenndal Glacier – our destination – is an arm of Jostedal Glacier, which just happens to be the largest glacier in continental Europe. It was also the first glacier we’d ever seen (which, considering this was only our second trip abroad and the first had been to Asia, shouldn’t be that big a surprise). We’ve seen a few more glaciers since then.

There’s not a lot to say about Kjenndalsbreen (its Norwegian name) that you probably can’t guess or that you won’t get told if you see almost any other glacier in the world. The ice is retreating because the world is warming up so if you want to experience glaciers at their most impressive then you need to do it sooner rather than later. Kjenndal’s glacier is actually maintained by snowfall rather than low temperature but that means that any change in climate that alters snow conditions could affect this glacier more quickly than a gradual heat rise over time.

From the point where the bus dropped us off to where we allowed to walk to (we couldn’t get too close to the glacier because the risk of rockfall in the area was too great and the Norwegian authorities sensibly want to keep people a reasonable distance away from natural wonders that are susceptible to tourism damage) was little more than five minutes’ walk and our time in total at this picturesque spot was about forty minutes. This gave us plenty of time to take plenty of photos of the Kjenndal Glacier and the nearby waterfalls cascading over the egdes of the mountains but photography was tricky because the sun was behind the glacier for the most part. Dark rock in the foreground, blue-white ice on the peak, and sunshine diffused through hazy cloud behind was quite a challenge to work with and if you’re keen on taking some great pictures in this part of Norway then take some time to consider where the sunlight’s coming from at the time of day you’re visiting.

You can really get a sense of the difficulty in taking pictures in this video near Kjenndalsbreen, and you’ll also be able to get a sense for how the wind was being funnelled down the canyon leading to the foot of the glacier.

The walk back to the bus took us along a glacial stream. As has already been mentioned, Lovatnet lake is fed by two main glaciers; Jostedal (and its arm here at Kjenndal) being one of them.

While the Ramnefjellsfossen waterfall on Lovatnet had been remarkable because of its height I found the waterfall thundering off the northern face of the rocks near Kjenndal Glacier far more impressive.

With everyone back at the bus on time we then left Kjenndal Glacier behind and started on our return towards Olden where Crown Princess was waiting for us. We wouldn’t be taking the boat along Lovatnet for this as we’d be stopping in a small village along the way and that will be covered in the next post in this cruise travelogue series.

I don’t know whether we arrived a day early or left a day late but on the day we turned up we were docked in the commercial dock area of the city – at Kwai Chung Container Terminal III by my reckoning of landmarks – which meant our first view of Hong Kong was somewhat industrial. Cranes and containers surrounded us and only the more distant sights were of the skyscrapers we’d been expecting to see. Still, the weather was gorgeous and there’s a type of beauty even in these commercial ports, especially when you’re on the other side of the world and experiencing them for the first time. I suspect that’s a minority view but it suits my contrarian nature.

The video below was shot from the top deck of Diamond Princess looking first eastwards then crossing over and looking westwards to show the views from this part of Hong Kong. What’s of slight interest (very slight; like so slight you might not even spot there’s any interest at all; we’re talking a sliver of slightness that practically disappears if you look at it edge on) is that you’ll be able to see that the Stonecutters Bridge wasn’t quite complete when we visited; there’s a gap in the centre of the award-winning bridge’s span over the Rambler Channel.

We’d booked a Hong Kong Island highlights excursion for our day in the city so it was just a case of waiting until we were due to head off – that usual gathering in the theatre with your tickets and assigned tour group number while watching people try to sit at the ends of the rows, causing chaos, or leaving before their row is due, out of some utter desperation to get on the bus first and mark them out to their fellow passengers as selfish tits – then trundling off the ship and to our designated means of transportation.

Victoria Peak

Our bus took us from the Hong Kong mainland onto the island and dropped us off at the station ready for a funicular train ride to the viewing platforms on Victoria Peak. It was incredibly crowded and quite chaotic waiting to board and I’m not convinced that everyone in our tour group managed to get onto the same train going up, but I’m sure we all made it eventually because there was no panicked stare in the ship’s representative’s eyes when taking head-counts during the remainder of the excursion’s activities.

A sculpture of local legend Jackie Chan caught our eye and it wouldn’t be the only time he would appear in some form on our two days in Hong Kong, with our tour guide pointing out his house as we drove past it later in the day, and with us seeing his star on the walk of fame the day after.

 The view from Victoria Peak was the classic one that everyone knows from looking for pictures of Hong Kong online, even if the haze from heat or pollution made the skyline photography a lot less than ideal. Some skyscraper landmarks we had pointed out to us included the Bank of China Tower (designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei) and Central Plaza, but you can also see in the photos and video from Victoria Peak below that there was a building under construction across the water, on the mainland, and that was the International Commerce Centre, the tallest building in Hong Kong.

Stanley Market

The next stop on our Hong Kong excursion was to the southern side of the island and a shopping trip at Stanley Market. We were assured that this was a great place to get good quality, cheap souvenirs and clothing, and that actually turned out to be true. We’re not shoppers when we travel but we did have some local currency on us – we like to spend when we’re ashore, helping the local economy in some small way, and we’ll judge you if you don’t do the same – so ducked into a side alley and were encouraged into a shop selling silk shirts by the owner there. He looked me up and down then reached back into a pile of shirts and pulled out a short-sleeved, dark blue, silk number, threw it into a bag, and asked for a very reasonable sum of money. We took a chance on not being handed something polyester, nine sizes too small, and I’m glad we did. It fit me like a glove, it felt divine, and I still have it now, even if it’s a little snugger around the waist these days.

Aberdeen

Our penultimate stop on this guided tour was Aberdeen, named for the 4th Earl of Aberdeen and former mid-nineteenth century Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon. The original name of Aberdeen was actually Hong Kong but foreigners mistook it for the whole island and by the time this was realised the misunderstanding had stuck. The locals now call Aberdeen Hong Kong Tsai which can be translated as Son of Hong Kong.

Aberdeen is famous for its floating village and restaurants and it was to a famous one of the latter that we had a quick bite for lunch. The floating village houses many boats and is home to the Tanka people, historically associated with fishing in Hong Kong harbour and with prostitution, though that is partly ethnic stereotyping of people seen as low caste across much of Asia.

Once our short stop for food was complete we then boarded boats for a ride around the Aberdeen waterfront.

The final stop was to see some artistic workmanship in a jeweller’s workshop. As always with these kinds of stops on these cruise ship-organised excursions there’s a push to buy merchandise too, and while we didn’t there were some in our tour group who did, which was good to see. It always helps when you’ve got plenty of wealthy Americans in your group.

Even though Diamond Princess would be in Hong Kong for another day, everyone had to be back on board by early evening as the cruise ship needed to move to an anchoring spot in Junk Bay. The timing of the ship’s repositioning to its new location in Hong Kong Harbour would mean we’d get to watch the famous Hong Kong Harbour Light Show from the water.

You don’t fly half way around the world to then skip out on a nighttime exploration of Hong Kong in favour of on board entertainment so we had some food early then headed down to the tender boats. A large group of people were waiting which was what we’d expected but they suddenly turned and parted as one to let us through; it turned out that everyone there was a member of the crew and passengers had priority. It also turned out that hardly any passengers from the ship got off at all. So much for not passing up the opportunity to explore Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Night Adventure

We took the boat across to Hong Kong Island, then jumped on a ferry to head across to the mainland where, after a bit of a wander around, we headed to the Temple Street night market. It was here that I was looking to get a new lens for my camera. At the time I wasn’t that experienced with photography and all I had was a kit lens on a Canon 350D. We entered an open-fronted store and sat down with a group of Chinese men who initially laughed at my lens, told me not to get the EF-S wide angle lens I was after, then recommended a wide angle EF-mount by Tokina instead as it would be compatible with a better camera body if I upgraded. To be honest we were starting to feel intimidated but the lens was tested and worked nicely and the price was right so we bought it and left. Outside, we had planned to walk through the market a bit more but my wife suddenly became aware that one of the men from the shop was behind us. Because he’d seen where I was keeping my wallet me wife placed herself in the way and mentioned it to me; we became worried and decided to “throw off our tail” by turning left three times. This worked – probably because there was a totally innocent explanation and the guy was simply heading the same way as us – but we decided we’d had enough and wanted to get back to the cruise ship.

We headed down to where the Hong Kong ferry had dropped us off… only to discover they stopped running after midnight. Nobody had mentioned that to us. We needed to get back to the tender boats on the island and were considering having to get a taxi to take us through the tunnel when we bumped into a Dutch family who could obviously see we looked worried. They handed us one of their maps and told us to follow them because there was a last train running shortly. Thus it was that my wife and I ended up running through the streets of Hong Kong in the early hours of the morning, following a Dutch family, heading to the train station. We worked out how to use the ticket machine just in time for the train, boarded, took it to the island, walked down to the tender boat point, then gradually tried to return to a normal temperature as we waited for the boat. Back on board we had to shower and took advantage of room service to get some bourbon, coke, and sandwiches. A stressful night, but an experience I’m glad we had.

Day 2

I started the day by trying out the new lens with pictures of Hong Kong harbour from the ship.

This was my first time using a wide angle lens and I think I couldn’t have had a more lovely day or fascinating place in which to try it out.

My wife and I decided to take the tender boat to the island and the Hong Kong ferry across to the mainland for the second time in not many hours.

We’d elected to explore the place on our own rather than taking up the offer of an organised excursion. We found out that a lot of people had chosen to hit the market but, of course, we’d done that overnight. Instead we headed down to the Hong Kong Space Museum (cheap entry, lots of fun things to examine and even play with; we enjoyed this a lot) and then walked along the Avenue of Stars, which included stars of people we’d heard of – Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Sammo Hung, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan – and a large number of ones we hadn’t.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time in Hong Kong because of our late night adventure and subsequent late (for us) getting up so we wandered around a bit more on foot, enjoying the gloriously clear skies before making our way back to the Diamond Princess in plenty of time for its departure.

This is an abbreviated post of the New York walk with a small number of photos (for me) and with the original image processing when uploaded to Flickr. More in-depth posts covering the full walk along with refreshed photo processing will come along at some future point.

We were staying in a central location on Manhattan Island so decided to walk west towards the Hudson River, then follow the island shoreline as much as possible to the south initially.

We ended up passing through the financial area where the twin towers had come down and in which the Freedom Tower was under construction.

We knew we could use the Staten Island Ferry for free and that it purportedly gave one of the better views of the Statue of Liberty. This seemed to be true but I was more interested in the people on the ferry itself, each lost in their own world, none more so than one girl who danced to the tunes playing through her headphones as if nobody was watching.

After returning to Manhattan we walked more directly back in the direction of our hotel. With New York’s grid structure of busy roads this provided plenty of chances to take photos of not just the feel of the city’s roads and shops…

…but also some of its architecture…

…and the many people of New York going about their business.

We had to leave New York early the next morning (a Monday). It was here that we discovered that the so-called “city that never sleeps” does, actually, as none of the stores we wanted to visit before catching our bus were open. On top of that it was raining. Still, I very much enjoyed New York; the ability to lose yourself as a tourist among the crowds of a major city makes for great street photography.

I always like being on or near the water (hence my love of cruises). Taking a river boat, even one through a city you know or have been through, gives a completely different outlook on the place. We found it interesting to see the opulence of the temples contrasting with the apparent poverty of some of the houses along the side of the Chao Phraya river

As you can see from the photos, it would be fair to say that I’ve seen clearer rivers than this one in Bangkok. When you see water this shade of brown your first thought is that it’s dirty and that may indeed be true but it’s also possible that the problem was one of a generally shallow basin and a lot of disturbed riverbed either along the stretch we cruised or farther upstream, or potentially run-off from dirt banks due to recent rain. I confess to not being an expert on rivers at this point and if you’ve found this page while looking for an analysis of the Chao Phraya in Thailand then I can only apologise for a wasted journey.

Our guided trip down Bangkok’s river took us initially southwards from where we’d embarked before turning around and heading north.

We stopped by a shrine at one point where bread was thrown into the river for the fish. This was something undertaken not just by us but by other boats too and was to bring luck. Or get rid of stale bread. The size of the fish showed that despite its murky colour the Chao Phraya seemed fairly healthy or the mud was full of growth hormones. Never rule anything out.

Our disembarkation point from our river boat ride was just on the north side of the Rama VIII bridge in Bangkok (that we had to travel under) which was fairly distinctive in appearance – and attractive to me – due to an asymmetrical design.

It was a constant battle to keep the camera lens clean of drops of either spitty rain driven in by the wind or by spray from the boat. My advice to keen photographers and videographers partaking in an excursion down the Beagle Channel would be to get a decent hood for your camera if you can and keep a cleaning cloth in your hand at all times to check and wipe the front of the lens every couple of shots. I did my best to keep on top of the difficult photography conditions but there are still noticeable soft spots in the photos where water drops got in the way.

Speaking of hoods, you’ll want to wear one. I wore a hoodie, a woollen hat, and had a hooded waterproof jacket on as well. Also: gloves and two pairs of socks on. It was incredibly cold on the deck of the boat taking us down the Beagle Channel. Many people stayed inside except for when we stopped to look at the local wildlife more closely – my wife amongst them – or ventured out only occasionally until the temperature sent them scurrying back inside for comfort. Only one person on the cruise down the channel remained outside for the entirety of the nearly two and a half hours. That person was me. I figure if you’re going to die of exposure somewhere you may as well make it somewhere beautiful like the end of the world.

Owing to the sheer number of photos I took of the Beagle Channel this excursion will be split into a number of parts.

While under power the boat was quite bumpy and for those of us up top it was difficult to keep our balance often. I took most of my photos while leaning against railings for support, one hand ducking into my pocket frequently to pull out my lens cloth in an attempt (not wholly successful) to keep the lens clear of spray and occasional rain.

You can see the previous images here:

• Beagle Channel Cruise (Part 1)
• Beagle Channel Cruise (Part 2)

The boat would periodically switch off its engines and drift, especially when near some of the more interesting rocky islands that were dotted throughout the Beagle Channel straits.