favourite photos: summer 2023 (part 1)

I usually post my summer photo collections before heading back to Hong Kong for the winter, but sitting in front of a computer for long periods remains uncomfortable. However, I’ve been back in Hong Kong for more than a week now, and I do want to maintain some semblance of continuity, so here is Part 1 of this summer’s collection. I should point out that all the photos in this latest collection were taken either in June or the first half of July, a period during which I took over 1,200 photos, but being confined to the house for several weeks, followed by severe restrictions on how far I could walk without a rest, meant that I took very few photos in the second half of my latest stay in Penrith. All the photos here are posted in chronological order rather than being grouped according to their subjects.

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My first photo is a view of the bridge that carries the West Coast main line across the M6 motorway a short distance west of Penrith:

The bridge also carries a public footpath, signposted to the village of Stainton, and there is a graffito, not easily seen in this photo, on this side of the bridge. In fact, there are graffiti on all four corners of the bridge.

From the top of our street in Penrith, there is a lane that runs parallel to the railway. When I was growing up, this merely led to a private abattoir and beyond, a nondescript area of open fields. However, this area is now Penrith Industrial Estate, sandwiched between the town and the M6 motorway (which also wasn’t there when I was growing up). There is a footpath linking the end of the lane (Myers Lane) with the industrial estate, and although short, it is quite scenic:

I don’t know the identity of the pink flowers here, and I’ve not seen them anywhere else, but the yellow flowers are Welsh poppies, which are extremely common.

The wooded hill that you can see in the distance in the first photo above is the Beacon, which is inextricably linked to Penrith’s history (the name reflects the practice, until quite recently, of lighting bonfires on the top of the hill to warn the town’s population that yet another Scottish raiding party was on its way south. This is a view from the top of the Beacon, looking west:

Nowadays, the Beacon is a commercially managed forest, but the area immediately surrounding the summit has always been accessible to the public during my lifetime. I took the next two photos on the way back down after taking the previous photo from the top of the hill. This is what happens when you grow trees too close together:

Even the bracken develops attenuated stalks in response to the limited availability of light:

After leaving the Beacon plantation, we always follow the same path, which leads to an area of extensive housing development on the southeast corner of town (all fields when I was growing up). The one surviving field here always seems to contain a few Highland cattle:

However, sheep are probably the most common animal to be seen in the fields around Penrith. This field is located next to the lane connecting Thacka Lane and the Newton Rigg Agricultural College:

On the other hand, horses are also surprisingly common. This photo was taken from Thacka Lane, looking east:

The Beacon is on the skyline on the right of the photo.

We often walk along the banks of the River Eamont, a mile or so south of town, between Eamont Bridge and Brougham. There are plenty of opportunities for scenic photos like these:

Another horsey pic:

…this one was taken west of Penrith. I don’t know why its bridle has been left on.

This view of Penrith was taken a couple of miles west of town:

In fact, most of the town isn’t visible, because if you start in the town centre, whichever direction you choose to drive or cycle in order to leave town, you will have to travel uphill. The faint mountains in the distance are the Pennines, ‘the backbone of England’, and the highest point you can see in the photo is Cross Fell, which is the highest point in England outside the Lake District.

I mentioned Eamont Bridge above. This is the eponymous bridge:

And this is the bridge over the Eamont that carries the public footpath from Sockbridge to Penrith, a couple of miles upstream from Eamont Bridge:

…while this is a ewe and two lambs that I photographed further along the same path towards Penrith:

…and this is the tunnel whereby the same path crosses the railway:

This is a view of the main railway line from a bridge a couple of miles north of Penrith:

Paula and I decided to eat dinner at the North Lakes Hotel, on the western edge of town, to mark our 34th wedding anniversary. We couldn’t help but notice these ‘stick sheep’ in the grounds:

The next photo is of the public footpath between Penrith’s golf course and Beacon Edge, the road that marks the boundary between the Beacon plantation and the town:

The town’s cemetery is on the left, and the plantation is on the right.

I took the next photo, which I believe is of a cluster of wild rose flowers, because of the bee that appears to be drinking nectar:

The next photo shows houses on Folly Lane, which I remember being built in the 1950s because I grew up on the same public housing estate (Scaws):

This is a photo of Brougham Castle, about 1.5 miles southeast of Penrith on the south bank of the River Eamont:

This castle was founded by the Clifford family in the early thirteenth century and is now a ruin. Entry used to be free, but it is currently run by English Heritage, so you have to pay to enter.

And this is a photo of the nearby Brougham Hall:

The gatehouse that you can see in this photo is the oldest part of the hall, dating to the thirteenth century. Although most of the hall is currently in a ruinous condition, it is being renovated by volunteers and is open to visitors.

Finally, how’s this for a door knocker…?

It’s located on a door well to the right of the gatehouse in the previous photo.

Continued in Part 2…

the domain of the tiger

In January this year, I walked downstream along our local river to check out the most spectacular example of a firecracker vine that I’d ever seen, in the village of Fu Tei Au. It didn’t disappoint, but I also discovered an impressive mural with a new year theme and the record, on a stone tablet, of a catastrophic flood that had occurred in 1972, before the river was canalized.

I wanted to show Paula what I’d found, so a few days later we visited the area, and it was Paula who spotted the sign that pointed up a narrow alleyway to a ‘seven colours ancient well’. I wrote about all this in An Educational Excursion.

A few weeks later, we just happened to be walking along Fu Tei Au Road when I noticed some admittedly corny artwork on a building on the south side of the road:

A very short distance further on, this is what we saw:

It appeared to be some kind of museum that reflects the history of the village, but we were unable to go in to take a closer look:

Presumably it was closed because of pandemic restrictions.

However, last month I thought that it might be worth checking to see whether it was now open. And it was:

This photo was taken from inside the gate, and you can see more artwork to the left of the building adorned by the ‘tiger’. Incidentally, ‘Fu Tei’ means ‘domain of the tiger’, and the name relates to a tiger that was killed in the area in 1915 (the last tiger in Hong Kong wasn’t killed until the mid-1920s). Hence the ‘tiger’ painting on the building.

In my earlier report, I expressed surprise that the collection of houses in the vicinity of the ‘colourful well’ were designated a village, because there were no houses built under the terms of the so-called small house policy introduced by the British administration in 1972. However, this village was established by refugees from the Chinese civil war, which ended in 1949, and the small house policy applied only to villagers who could trace their ancestry to a male in their village before 1898, when the British took over the New Territories. I also cited the absence of a public toilet, but I’ve since discovered that the Fu Tei Au Public Toilet is located on the north side of the junction between Fu Tei Au Road and Man Kam To Road. In fact, the entire area circumscribed by Fu Tei Au Road, Man Kam To Road and the Ng Tung River appears to be part of Fu Tei Au.

The ’tiger building’ houses a small museum that details the history of the domain of the tiger, and among other things I learned, the Lo Wu Brick Company obtained leases to parts of this area in 1921, and its workers dug the ‘colourful well’ to ensure a supply of potable water. The well was lined with concrete made from locally sourced, brightly coloured gravel, hence the name, although no sign of this colour now exists, which is why, in my earlier report, I’d conjectured that the colour was due to sunlight being refracted by water vapour.

What follows are some of the highlights of the museum, starting with these photographs:

Clockwise from the top left, the titles read ‘Pond of Flower Field’; ‘Habitat of Egrets’; ‘Habitat of Fireflies’; and ‘Ng Tung River’.

These photos reflect the cultural life of the village:

And these models are of features of interest:

The ‘stilt house’ can still be seen, but I don’t think the ‘ponds house’ exists now.

However, it is the artwork on the various huts that I found especially interesting. I didn’t write up an account of this fascinating location after our earlier visit, because I neglected to take a photo of the hut in the next photo, first because there were other visitors, and I couldn’t get a clear shot, then, when we were leaving, I convinced myself that I’d already taken a photo of it. We went back yesterday, and I took this photo:

I included a photo of the miniature brick-arch bridge in An Educational Excursion, and the ponds on each side are still filled with water hyacinths, although you would be extremely lucky to see them flowering. The bird depicted on the right is a red-crowned crane, although I’ve never seen this species in this area. There are egrets flying overhead.

There are more birds on the wall of the building to the right:

Incidentally, the ornaments hanging down are soft-drink cans that have been slit vertically multiple times. I saw the same decorations when I first visited ghost alley.

This is the building to the left:

This is actually a bathroom. Yes! It does have a bath in addition to a toilet bowl. I know because I had to use it yesterday. I don’t think that any of the butterfly images represent any of the more than 200 species that have been recorded in Hong Kong.

And this is the left-hand side of the first building:

The brickwork continues around the corner:

…and this is the fourth side of the building:

…while this is the side of the ‘butterfly bathroom’:

If you walk through the gap seen in the last photo and look left, this is what you will see:

This is also a bathroom (I know because I had to close the door in order to take the photo).

And this is the view straight ahead:

To the right of the building in the previous photo is a building comparable in size to the ‘tiger building’, and it is adorned with perhaps the most detailed artwork here:

The flowers are lotus, and there are kingfishers on the left.

The inscription relates that when wind and rain come at the right time, the harvest is optimized. The mountain in the background is Peach Blossom Mountain (peaches are a symbol of longevity in Chinese culture).

Directly opposite the artwork in the previous two photos is a canvas suspended high above the ground:

This is a general view of the open area that I’ve just walked through:

Meanwhile, there is more artwork on the large building around the corner to the right:

…and a large well:

The inscription advises you to know the source of your water. I don’t know whether this is a real well or yet another piece of artwork.

The building to the right of the one with the first artwork I featured above has a small room (on the right) filled with artefacts from a bygone age:

Exhibits include a sit-up-and-beg bicycle, a treadle-operated sewing machine, a cathode ray tube television and, on the far wall, a range of primitive farming implements:

It was only when I looked at the photos that I realized that each exhibit had a label, presumably explaining what each exhibit represents.

This painting is on the opposite wall to that with the tiger (above):

The child on the right is praying for peace, happiness and prosperity. His prayer appears to have been answered.

As you enter this site, there is a line of wooden pallets on the left with artwork painted on them. While I’d been walking around, Paula had engaged in a long conversation with a young man from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (ChineseU) who was working on the site. She learned that although the artwork on the buildings was done using commercial paints, that on the pallets had been done using traditional pigments, so they have faded quite badly. I’ve therefore included just one photo of this work:

In fact, I believe that all the artwork here was done by ChineseU students, and during the course of her conversation, Paula learned that architecture students from the university had planned to develop an ‘eco-park’ in the area, but funding for the project will end in February next year, and so, presumably will the project.

As we were leaving, I noticed this confrontation between a pig and a rooster from the road:

It wasn’t there when we visited last month.

Finally, here are two maps of the area. I photographed the first in the ‘tiger building’, and the second is a more conventional map:

The red circle indicates the approximate location of the ‘colourful well’, while the blue circle shows the location of this fascinating site. I can’t say that it’s unique, but it’s certainly unusual.