News: He who travels has stories to tell (part 2)

(SNN - Simon's News Network - special report) Your editor was again on travel, yes, he was indeed. And the journey was for private matters to meet his love Sarah, who lives in England, while Simon - as known - lives in Austria.

This time we decided to finally meet in England. Sarah, knowing and driving narrow boats since her childhood, wanted to show me wonderful parts of her England from a narrow boat on the Canals, obviously I was assigned to do the locks and Sarah would steer the boat (but hinted I might get to do some of the steering, too). One of the most challening flights of locks, the Bingley Five Rise Locks should become the highlight of the trip.

All was set, the narrow boat was paid for, the trip to the boatyard was organized, I set off to depart for England, arrived in England a few days before our trip was set to start. I had my phone setup to receive all the news about the Canals and their status we were intending to use, mainly the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. The day before we were to start our trip to the boatyard to take the boat on the following day, we received a "stoppage" note stating, that all of our route was closed now due to lack of water supplies. To make matters worse, any other way out of the boatyard was closed as well. Sarah, with bleeding heart, cancelled our narrow boat trip. To honour the boatyard, they were fully cooperative and refunded our pre-payment in full.

Now, what should we do? Two weeks, meant to be spent on the boat, were ahead with no alternate plan yet laid out. We discussed our options. Sarah believed, given that the lake district near Salzburg with its high mountains (that we had toured around Christmas, the only time Sarah could make it to Salzburg due to her obligations in England), the lake district in northern England would have no appeal to me, but of course I was interested. And so the plan developed within a few hours. As our trip to the boatyard had already involved a Travelodge near Sheffield to spend the night before taking our boat, we kept that booking and added step by step additional bookings to other Travelodges around England and Wales being satisfied, that they did offer WiFi which permitted to true VPN (Virtual Private Network) into my office, so that I could continue to work on AVH in the mornings and evenings (for a total of about 3 hours each day as had been agreed also for last year's journey, see News: He who travels has stories to tell) after our day trips.

Sarah turned out to be a really good tourguide knowing many if not most of the highlights all around England and Wales. I can't even try to list all the sightseeing highlights Sarah showed me, so I'll limit myself to a few noteworthy ones ...

What would a visit to England be without reference to Robin Hood? Nothing, right? Well, Sarah took me to the Robin Hood Bay, and we took the steep descent from the village on the cliff top down to the beach (no road available). However, what the bay has to do with Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest and Locksley in Nottinghamshire did not get explained. In any case, we did quite some good exercise and got an impression of the rocky English coast.

We went to see St. Mary's Lighthouse on Saint Mary's Island near Whitley Bay being lucky to arrive at low tide, so we were able to walk across to the Island maintaining dry feet. We got to talk to some local on that Island and learned that a couple not too long ago had managed to miss the proper time to return to the mainland and were trapped at the Island when the high tide came in, with everything closed up on the Island. The couple eventually called the coast guard. Of course, Sarah and I made sure to return to the mainland in time. Shortly afterwards we went through Tynemouth looking at the historic priory and castle but found the real highlight of the day right at the Front Street Car Park, a traffic sign "New Road Layout for Social Distancing". And finally, while heading towards our next accomodation we decided, we wanted to have a look at the Newcastle Airport. Never has a hot chocolate been that expensive as on this airport! When we entered the car park we took a wrong turn and passed a barrier indicating this was for mini- and busses only. Well, we connected to the normal car park, walked into the terminal to see whether we might have an observation platform or cafe there to watch aircraft with no luck, decided to have some hot chocolate in the cafe in the departure hall, and then headed off to our hotel. When paying the parking fee, we were charged like a bus rather than a car having us laughing in stitches about that expensive hot chocolate we just had and how many cans of water the car would need to grow to become a bus.

Sarah had us dive even more into English history, step by step. Dunstanburgh Castle was our next destination and required another loooong walk from the next village. I learned that this castle was quite decisive in the war of the roses, featured its own harbour and thus had also been an anchoring point for an entire fleet of battleships in the medieval times. Ever since, still no roads around at all! We talked to the attendant at the ticket shop (for entry into the castle), and got into quite a good discussion. At some stage, when the state of the ruins was discussed, I remarked, no wonder that the proud castle fell into ruins, no roads around to service the castle!

But we were not yet into all the earliest history that Sarah wanted to point out to me, so we went to see the ancient Roman Fortress Vercovicium near Housesteads. Another steep climb from the parking place to the actual fortress and quite some impressions of how the Romans lived during the times of Hadrian.

We switched from the east coast to the west coast now, entering England's Lake District via Maryport. Sarah had been most afraid I might be "underwhelmed" by the lakes and was hesitant before committing to our round trip until I assured Sarah, that I'd be definitely interested in the lakes in England, too. So we now went to see the west coast at Maryport, Maryport Lighthouse as well as the Marina there while having a first look around the Lake District in our drive there . Then we went to Keswick in the middle of the Lake District, where we went to see the Lake and the village, finding a working theater there. A lot of people around, obviously, but somehow we didn't bring the right weather for taking a swim though, and well, we are pretty late in the afternoon already.

Sarah now jokes I fell nearly backwards when I was told the highest mountain in entire England, located in the Lake District, was just about 3000 feet (less than 1000 meters). She had been climbing that mountain in the past and had fond memories of that hike. Yet, we didn't even try to entertain a hike up there. Instead we went - passing Sellafield having a view from the roads onto the industrial district - to take a trip on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway and enjoyed a wonderful day taking a lot of photos and a video of that railroad with their wonderful steam engine on the manually operated turn table while the engine positioned to take the train back. What a beautiful little machine this is! Sarah had eyed up a nice little country inn for dinner, and we drove through rural roads becoming narrower and narrower until the hedges both sides nearly touched the mirrors of our car. Sarah commented she was mentally preparing for what to do if we hit traffic in opposite direction. Fortunately, our TCAS remained clear and no Traffic Advisory occurred. Finally the roads opened and we reached the Inn. We walked in and asked whether food was available, the waiter apologized telling us, that they had had no water all day and therefore food was not available, he also believed we wouldn't find any open pub or inn around as all had been hit by the lack of water. We took another glance on our options and decided to take a trip to Windermere where we found a nice restaurant and finally could satisfy our tummies.

So far our stays in the Travelodges were uneventful and satisfactory, but Workington - where we stayed for a few nights while touring the region including Maryport - had a negative surprise for us. I couldn't VPN into my office, so no work could be done. The Travelodge referred me to Virginmedia, who do the WiFi for the Travelodges. I instantly called them, was told VPN access was blocked for safety reasons, the lady on the phone was very apologetic when I explained that they were cutting both their customers as well as Travelodges' customers off customer's work servers and their work places, she realized that but said, she couldn't do anything. My suspicion, based on the observation that all Travelodges so far had provided no problem in (true) VPN, that just the router at this particular Travelodge may be misconfigured, didn't change anything. I wanted to talk to her superior and was told, he would be in only the next morning, and promised he'd call me by 10:00 the next morning. In the meantime Sarah came to my rescue - I couldn't use my mobile phone as as Austrian I was on very expensive roaming -, offered her mobile phone as hotspot for the datatraffic, so I was able to log into my network and work via Sarah's mobile phone. The promised return call never came, by noon the next day I called their hotline again and now was connected to a guy who again assured me, that it was all for safety reasons, my question of how this would serve the safety of Travelodge or Virginmedia he said (obviously referring to Webproxy services calling erroneously themselves VPN too) it would prevent obfuscation of IP addresses and liability issues. He found no records of my call the previous evening. He also mentioned that the setting was forced upon them by policies set by Travelodge. When I again requested to talk to his superior, he said, the superior was in a meeting and not available, and anyway, it had been for years that way, they have had plenty of complaints in the 1000s, and nothing has ever changed. I tried again to explain what kind of true VPN (IPSEC) they were blocking, UDP ports 500 and 4500, but again the guy didn't understand at all obviously not knowing what I was talking about just like the lady the night before. I sent press inquiries to both Travelodge and Virginmedia on Aug 20th 2022 asking for clarification and review as well as a statement for my trip report, no statement arrived from either Travelodge or Virginmedia ever since (two weeks later). Needless to say, while VPN remained blocked at Workington, the next Travelodges again posed no problem on VPN until end of my trip re-confirming my view, that the router at Workington had been misconfigured and was blocking IPSEC most likely unintentionally and not in line with the policies set by the Travelodges.

While our general direction had been more or less north so far, Our general direction now turned towards the south. We paid a visit to Arnside Knott, and yes, we climbed the top of it. Well, if one can call a climb of about 150 meters vertical, less than half the vertical separation of aircraft, a climb indeed. But the round view was breathtaking, to say the least. After we had finally descended back to the coast, we were greeted by sirens indicating the tide was coming in again. Sarah told me about the fate of over 20 cockle pickers who had been out in the sea nearby while the tide was low, and didn't make it back ashore when the tide came back in and drowned, obviously leading to these additional warnings. Somehow, the sirens prompted feelings like a Tsunami was about to come in. A young parent couple taking care of their kids went to a safe observation platform telling their kids, a huge wave would now come in. We didn't wait to see how patient the kids were to wait for that wave ... Subsequently we found out that 21 men had died in the "Morecambe Disaster" in Morecambe Bay in 2004 Sarah had mentioned earlier.

Our way now lead us to Blackpool, where Sarah wanted to attack the glass floor of the Tower. So we took the elevator up to the visitor's platform, and while I couldn't convince myself to set foot onto the glass floor, Sarah did and was entirely proud of herself. Dinner followed in a steak house near the Tower where we had quite a mouthful of wonderful food, Sarah shaking her head at me when I decided to go for the T-Bone Steak there. A photo showing me satisfactorily stuffed causes even me lauging in stitches (but I refrain to include it below). Sarah remarked, I must have been feeling "elegant sufficiency" and I replied that was rather inelegant sufficiency.

Of course, we couldn't go without a visit to Crosby Beach with the 100 iron men there created by Antony Gormley, which again seemed to remind us of the Morecambe Disaster and almost seemed like a reference even though in fact it has nothing to do with it. Antony had formed all 100 iron sculptures out of a cast of his naked self looking expectantly towards the sea. Sarah digged out another visitor's comment stating "I feel he's been a little over generous on his chopper". While still at the beach looking at one of the iron men we just broke down in laughter about this comment. The commentator is right, however. We observed a large cruise liner carefully make his way into Liverpool Harbour while navigating around a large windmill farm out in the sea and making its way to the harbour between that farm and the coast on a fairway that appeared surprisingly close to the coast.

Of course we followed the oceanliner to Liverpool and ended up in front of the Beatles Museum and the sculptures of the Beatles. Sarah couldn't resist, she wanted a photo of her with the Beatles. Some singer nearby tried to sing Beatles songs but frankly, it was hard to recognize his songs as their songs indeed. Although a lot of people were around, we didn't observe anyone donating even a penny to that poor soul.

The next day belonged to our onwards trip towards Wales and we made an intermediate stop at the local "Chocks Away Cafe" at Hawarden Airport. When we approached the Cafe, we were held up by the barrier at the airport entrance, and Sarah was already reluctant to continue towards the barrier, but we decided we need to at least ask the clerk, and after Sarah submitted her name, the barrier went up and we were permitted onto the airport area with directions how to reach the Cafe. While approaching the Cafe we saw a Mig-29, the glorious days of which had long passed by, and arriving at the Cafe we saw two Whales, yes, Whales. No, not what you think, not those swimming in the seas, but those Belugas flying around Airbus production facilities. They were parked at the apron. We sat down, had some hot chocolates, when we saw one of the Belugas had turned on her position lights and started moving, entirely unexpected. Sarah couldn't believe her "planning", of course, she had entirely planned to have us in the right place to see the Beluga X3, the only extra large in service for now being able to carry two wings, depart Hawarden. We were glued to the fence separating the Cafe from the runway to see her taxi into position, spool up her engines and gracefully accelerate and become airborne climbing out, turning upwind and disappear in the skies.

Drooling over this unexpected wonderful experience at Hawarden we arrived in Llandudno in Wales. However, it became difficult to find dinner in the touristy area, every place seemed to have been booked out. We finally found a nice place at the main road, Forte's. I went for a pizza, when the waiter asked my whether I wanted a regular or large, 10 inches or 12 inches, I thought to myself, well, doesn't sound really much, so I went for the large, Sarah had her eyes wide open. When the pizza arrived it almost looked impossible to finish it, but I managed to get it entirely done. Another inelegant sufficiency was the result however, and a rather broken night followed. The next morning I felt poorer than poorest of poor, but with the help of Sarah I quickly recovered and felt reasonable again later the day. We took the Great Orme Tramway up to the Great Orme summit. On the way up, when the tram coming down met and passed us, the passengers in the downwards tram tried to shock us by shouting and waving towards us, the whole upward tram broke into laughter and waved happily back. Another marvelous round view at the summit, with a weather front on the horizon raining down on another part of the Wales coast, awaited us. We just laid down in the grass at the summit and enjoyed a few quiet hours in the sun before we returned to Llandudno - this time, the tram on its way up was empty, nobody to "shock" in there.

The next day a long drive towards southern Wales followed taking us to our last Travelodge. On the way we passed through Aberystwyth, where Sarah's most favourite sculpture throughout England/Wales is located at the "War Memorial", the "Humanity". Sarah took the position/pose of Humanity and had me take photos of her with Humanity above her. The last day of our round trip was finally dedicated to a visit to St. Davids Cathedral. Again Sarah's planning turned out to be extremely well. When we entered the Cathedral a wonderful choir (Vox Cantab) was just about starting to rehearse their performance in the evening. We lit candles for our dead, and the songs contributed to both Sarah and myself becoming very emotional hugging in the Cathedral. Sarah wanted to explore why the Cathedral's floor was rather lop-sided, she had heard this had been caused by an earthquake in the past. As no-one was available in the Cathedral, we walked over the visitor center at St. David's Bishop's Palace just adjacent and asked the clerk there about the earthquake only to get the reply, she didn't know, the Palace and the Cathedral were entirely different entities and she didn't know anything about the Bishop's Cathedral, only could help with the ruins of Bishop's Palace, which once must have been an impressive place indeed.

Our last road trip during our round trip took us back to Sarah's home. After a few days at Sarah's home I returned to Salzburg on Thursday (Sep 1st).

Photos all by SH (Sarah or Simon):

Robin Hood Bay:

St. Mary's Lighthouse:

The "highlight" of our trip in Tynemouth:

Dunstanburgh Castle:

Ravenglass Steam Engine:

Ravenglass Steam Engine:

Views from the Knott of the coast and Lake District mountains:

Morecambe Sculpture:

Sarah mustering her courage on Blackpool Tower:

Crosby Beach with 100 iron men and ocean liner:

View from the "Chocks Away Cafe" at Hawarden Airport:

The Great Orme Tramway:

The "Humanity" on the War Memorial at Aberystwyth:

Aberystwyth:

St. David's Cathedral:

St. David's Palace: