Some of the more eye-catching sculptures were fashioned by Sophie Ryder.

In addition to a number of school classes exploring the park at the same time the other noticeable group of lifeforms were the sheep. We were acutely aware of where we were standing and did a pretty decent job of not treading in too many sheep droppings as I recall.

While it was still early in the year there was a little bit of nature on show to catch my attention as well.

This was my first time driving in America and my first time driving on the right hand side of the road making for not the least stressful of journeys but we reached the park without incident and drove along the Skyline Drive stopping frequently at the various lay-bys to take photos. We noticed that we were the only people getting out of our cars to take pictures whereas other visitors (not that there were many) seemed content to drive in, park up, then take pictures from through their car windows.

There was one incident, though.

As we were driving along the winding road we came across an area of roadworks on our side of the road with temporary traffic lights. We duly waited until the light went green then filtered through and around the bend. We reached the end of the roadworks and carried on as before looking out at the views and making appropriate ooh and aah sounds. Several minutes and a couple of miles later I suddenly realised I’d not switched lane back to the right hand side and had been driving on the wrong side of the road up and down hills and around sharp bends for quite some time. A quick tug on the steering wheel and some innocent whistling ensued.

A processed image of one of the spectacular views of Shenandoah National Park from the Skyline Drive.

The park was opened in 1983, created artificially as a requirement on the back of extensive mining in the area that had been undertaken over the previous decade. The lake was filled with clean water and nearly half a million plants and trees were put in.

After meeting up by the lake with our friends and one of their friends we all set off along one of the trails in the area. We picked the sculpture trail as it was one of the shorter ones and we were mindful of still a long drive back home to follow on. The trail through the country park was nice, taking us up some reasonably easy-to-climb hills and granting us views of the Rother Valley from their heights. Along the way, as the name implies, we happened upon the sculptures, these being wooden posts with various carvings in their faces.

As the photos from along the sculpture trail show, the landscapes were lovely, bringing to mind imagery of a Windows XP desktop background.

There was also a church in the park although we never did find out what its name was or the religion to which it was bound (although Lutheran would be my guess).

The bright colours, twisting paths, and odd architecture in the park reminded me of a warped Portmeirion. The views over Barcelona were lovely and gave us a feel for just how far we would still have to go to take in the rest of the sights of the Spanish city. Park Güell is well worth a visit, especially if the weather holds off. We got lucky in that it was bright but just overcast enough to not leave us sweltering under the glare of the sun.

La Carreta is a national monument made from bronze and takes the form of oxen pulling a wagon. Its location is atop a small hill behind a pond. A path runs up behind the monument so you can get pretty close but the monument itself has plenty of signs around in numerous languages indicating that it is out of bounds to visitors. In addition a guard of sorts (possibly a volunteer) stands nearby to make sure that nobody gets close to the monument. We’d also been told by our guide as we got close to Parque Batlle that we could take pictures from in front and from the path but that we couldn’t get close to the monument. Why am I telling you that the monument is out of bounds and that people are not allowed near the monument and that this information is clearly posted around and that the guide had told us not to get near the monument and that a local Uruguayan person was close by making sure nobody got near the monument? Because some people who go on cruises seem to believe that rules are for other people and that they’re entitled to do whatever they want when they’re abroad. Suffice it to say that some shouting from the monument’s guardian in the direction of a handful of our fellow passengers on two occasions took place while I grabbed some photos of it.

We had plenty of time as it was still early so decided to take a circular route back to the harbour area of La Rochelle through the nearby park as much just to take a stroll that would provide shade from the increasingly warm day as to see whether it had anything to offer. Leaving the Tour de la Lanterne we continued west a short way, passing through a doorway set into the remains of the city wall called the Porte Des Deux Moulins (Door/Gate of the Two Mills, though I couldn’t tell you why). In the photo now above you can see that gate on the left side if you follow the line of the walls.

This took us to a short bridge over a narrow river or stream coming out of the park and into the sea. The numerous drainage ditches and canals of the park itself are fed by two rivers, Lafond and Fétilly, though which one of these we were crossing I can’t say. What I can say, though, is that it reeked to high heavens here. The water was not exactly fresh and the reason for this becomes clear with a little more of the history of the park, coming up soon.

The other side of the bridge saw a small café area with some seating and some street art adorning its rear; not the best example but I always try to capture photos of local artistry wherever I go. It might be useful to know that you can get some food and drink at the southern end of the park, though, if you’re visiting La Rochelle.

This brought us to the park itself. No fences surround it, it’s open all year long and free to wander through at your leisure. The history of the park is fairly interesting. Originally, the land that now forms Le Parc Charruyer was marshland (hence that smell) and given over to military forces most of the time, stationed outside the city walls. In the late nineteenth century, Marie-Adèle Charruyer, the daughter of a local, wealthy shipowner, Étienne Charruyer, and heiress to the family fortune, bequeathed 100,000 francs to the city in her will to establish a public park at the exit of the city. The land didn’t actually belong to the family but after her death it was this area that was subsequently cleared, drained, cleaned up, and transformed close to how it appears today.

The park was very peaceful; the abundance of foliage on the trees soaked up any external noise nicely and the dappled shade as we followed a path along a river’s edge dropped the temperature to something very pleasant indeed. Cycling routes through the park have been added in more recent times and Le Parc Charruyer covers an area of around 40 hectares, providing a pleasant walk of around two kilometres across its full length. We only walked about half this distance electing to turn back towards the city roughly in line with La Rochelle’s cathedral a little after we’d passed under a bridge with some graffiti of questionable quality (and yet still I took some photos (oh, me!))

If you’ve got the time when you’re in La Rochelle and fancy some peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the city then the park is a lovely little place to just absorb a touch of nature while you’re there.

Out of the park we headed back towards the waterfront area of La Rochelle. The direction we mostly wanted to head was southwards but the brightness of the sun directly ahead and the contrast from the cool surroundings we’d been in to the heat trap of the dry streets and stone-fronted buildings left us taking a zig-zag route to where we needed to be in order to jump into the shade of buildings or take a break from squinting at every opportunity. There wasn’t a huge variety in the architecture of the buildings we saw but the general style was very nice.

We eventually came out by the harbour at the Porte de la Grosse-Horloge, an attractive tower and gateway we’d seen across the marina when we’d first arrived in La Rochelle. A small square nearby with a number of attractive shops and a large mass of people shopping and just admiring the sights also sported a statue adorned with traffic cones, something statues appear to do worldwide.

The next thing we wanted to see – and the next post – would be La Rochelle’s aquarium, south of where we’d been dropped off at in the city. We braved the direct sunlight for a little longer and headed past the harbour towards it.

With no trip booked we could afford a leisurely breakfast and a quick nose at the mainland and island areas of Hong Kong from the port side of the ship afterwards. Like that from our balcony this was a dull affair but the humidity that formed those clouds was palpable and the forecast was for the sun to burn off the cover over the city as the day progressed. Anchored off the port side of Diamond Princess was the Starry Metropolis, a 1976-built, 650-passenger capacity entertainment venue for locals looking for dining and entertainment on the water without ever going very far. Its nightclub looks awesome.

We only had a general idea of things we wanted to do in Hong Kong having visited the city for a couple of days ten years earlier and having done the obvious tourist attractions then such as ascending Victoria Peak. We decided that we’d take advantage of the shuttle bus to a Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) stop then head towards the south of the mainland to see if anything grabbed our attention and possibly do some jade shopping before ferrying across the harbour to the island for a nose around there too. We had toyed with the idea of heading over to Lantau Island but chose something a little closer as we’re not the most confident users of foreign public transport and we were keen to see if we recognised any of the buildings we’d spotted on our first trip.

We’d been told that there were two shuttle buses running from Kai Tak terminal: one would drop passengers off at Diamond Hill MTR station and one would drop passengers off at Kwun Tong MTR station. The former was more in the direction we wanted to go but as we wandered to the buses we discovered we’d have to wait an hour to go there whereas the shuttle to the latter station would leave in just a few minutes. As both stations were on the same line it didn’t make a huge difference so we opted for the earlier bus.

Public transport everywhere in Hong Kong is very cheap. At Kwun Tong MTR station we admired the easy-to-understand screens and ticket machines and duly picked our destination only to discover that the machines had a minimum spend to use and that due to those low prices we’d need to queue up at a booth and talk to a human instead. The horror! That minor irritation aside, using the MTR was dead simple and the train itself, though crowded, provided a very handy lit-up display indicating current station, direction of travel, and upcoming stations.

We alighted at Yau Ma Tei as a tiny bit of investigation online had shown that this would be closest to some jade shops and my wife was after a piece of white jade in white gold that she couldn’t afford when we’d previously visited on our honeymoon.

It was fabulous to be walking the streets among the tall buildings of Hong Kong. I’m drawn to repetitive patterns in architecture so modern buildings always appeal photographically but there’s something extra joyous about being in a city that’s clearly grown and had sections replaced over the years almost organically so that each of those individual blocks of patterns is often sandwiched between completely different styles and colours; that patchwork quilt of buildings rather than a planned, matching set feels so much more warm and alive and welcoming. Add to that the grime of activity and the stuck-on signs of human life you tend to find in Asian countries such as air conditioning units and drying clothing both dripping onto the streets, the bamboo scaffolding, and the banners exhorting the saleability or rental status of anything and everything and I’m in my element in city locations like this.

So, we’d done a little bit of homework and knew where the jade shops were but if we’d just done a little bit more we’d have realised that most of them wouldn’t open for another hour after we were in the area. We found a few we could browse within but the choices on offer were understandably small and, disappointed and already starting to really feel the claustrophobic heat bearing down from above and reflecting off every surface, we had a small rest in the relatively tranquil Yau Ma Tei Community Centre Rest Garden next to a number of temples in order to check the map and make new semi-plans.

We wanted to hit the southern coast of the mainland where the Star Ferry terminals were which was only one or two MTR stops away depending on which station we might pick to head that way. But, one or two stops sounded a lot like walking distance to us because we weren’t paying attention to map scales well enough and were assuming distances were similar to London Underground distances. They’re not, as you’ve no doubt already surmised. We’d also spotted a large area of greenery about halfway to where we wanted to go which seemed like a sensible landmark to aim for.

This ended up being a lot longer walk than we had expected not just because the blocks were larger than we’d accounted for but also partly because we started zig-zagging through the city in order to seek out shade from the rising sun directly ahead of us for much of the walk.

Kowloon Park

That large area of greenery turned out to be Kowloon Park, a former-British Army barracks demolished in 1970 for the purpose, and the entrance we chose to explore this 33-acre public park was decorated with artwork on the steps leading up to it and the Avenue Of Comic Stars just inside. I won’t pretend to know who any of the comic stars actually were but if this is something you’ve got an interest in then there are plenty of opportunities to pose beside the sometimes-larger-than-life-size sculptures dotted around.

The shade from trees and the cooling effect of the proximity to water called out to us and heading roughly southwest through Kowloon Park we next stumbled upon a lake with sheltered areas on and around it (we happened upon quite a few locals sleeping on the benches, though as something they were just doing to rest rather than from being homeless). More importantly as far as my wife was concerned was the presence of a large number of turtles on logs and in the water; she’s always had a thing for turtles.

Beyond the lake, its pagoda, and surrounding buildings there was an area of Kowloon Park given over to modern art sculptures by different artists in a number of different materials. We spent a pleasant few minutes wandering amongst the stylish forms to see how they appeared from different angles. Some worked better against the trees nearby whilst others were lost a little to the background of skyscrapers in Hong Kong but it was a nice little area in the park.

With a short break to use the public toilets and admire a high-shooting fountain we soon after reached the southern end of the park which contained a couple of mostly-enclosed, lawned areas containing signs warning about fines and arrests for people feeding the pigeons. We saw a woman feeding pigeons there but decided not to photograph her because we are all for little rebellious acts.

In the next post we’ll continue our walk towards Tsim Sha Tsui and the Star Ferry crossing across to Hong Kong Island.