Llandudno, Wales, 9/3/2017, National Geographic Orion
Aboard the
National Geographic Orion
Europe aboard NG Orion
Today we visited the very picturesque town of Llandudno and its surroundings. It was our first port of call in Wales and we were the first expedition cruise ship to ever visit. We went on outings to 13th-century Conwy Castle, Conwy Nature Reserve and Bodnant botanic gardens. Some of us explored Llandudno itself.
Jim hails from the seaside town of Cobh in the south of Ireland. He is a highly respected ornithologist and ecologist with more than 40 years of birding experience in Ireland, Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Antarctic, and the Arctic. Be...
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The Channel Islands lie to the south of the area that geographers used to call the British Isles and which we might, with less fear of offending Irish sensibilities, better refer to the East Atlantic Archipelago. Those islands, like the Isle of Man, do not form part of the United Kingdom but are Crown Dependencies. From Alderney, we sailed overnight north-east across the English Channel to arrive at Portsmouth, the main naval port of the UK. Geographically, it is superbly situated, sheltered by the Isle of Wight. The body of water between the island and the mainland is known as The Solent and is busy with traffic. Naval vessels and cross-channel ferries operate in and out of Portsmouth, and container vessels and cruise ships use Southampton to the west. We berthed in Portsmouth with a choice of two options: a visit to the Historic Naval Dockyard or an ornithological field trip to visit the nature reserve at Titchfield Haven. The Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth is home to the iconic vessel, HMS Victory , flagship of the British fleet in the Napoleonic Wars. It was commanded by the national hero Horatio Nelson, who died in battle at Trafalgar knowing that his brilliant tactics had defeated the numerically superior French fleet. We had a private tour of the vessel before the official opening time followed by time for personal exploration. For many of us, a highlight was the new exhibition of the Mary Rose , a Tudor warship that sank in The Solent in 1545 and lay undiscovered until 1971. It has taken years for marine archaeologists to recover the vessel and its extraordinary contents are now displayed at the Historic Dockyard. At Titchfield Haven, there were plentiful wetland birds. Notable species observed included a pectoral sandpiper that had arrived from North America, the black-tailed Godwit, and the secretive water rail.
Alderney, the northernmost Channel Island, greeted us with puffs of clouds chasing one another across a blue sky. A grey tower of rain clouds soon descended behind the town of Braye however, providing dramatic contrast for those with their cameras on guided photo walks—and prompting those on the nature hike to hastily dig through their packs for rain gear! But for a short sprinkle, though, the skies smiled on us, as we explored this historic and well-fortified island, which lies about ten miles from the Normandy coast of France. In the afternoon we sailed to Sark, another Channel Island. Sark welcomed us with its charming public transportation: the Toaster, as it is called, one of the tractors that transport people, goods, and equipment up and down from the harbors, throughout the small island, and across the land bridge between Big Sark and Little Sark. It was a cheerful afternoon, exploring Sark on a walking tour, by bicycle, or in a horse-drawn carriage.
The dramatically concealed entrance to Dartmouth harbour is always a delight to navigate and conditions this morning as we made our approach just before breakfast were ideal, with calm seas and a dawn sky that augured well for our day of exploration in Devon, a county equally famous for its seafaring traditions and cream teas. The geology here is the eponymous Devonian Old Red Sandstone and the River Dart which cuts through it has been inundated by the sea as a consequence of post-glacial isostatic rebound, a phenomenon that is causing gradual sinking in the south-west and a corresponding rise in north-eastern coastline of Britain . (The Isles of Scilly, where we had failed to make landing the previous day, are a drowned landscape that has formed in historic times the shape of the existing archipelago, not assuming its current form till the end of the fifteenth century). Just inside the harbour entrance at Dartmouth is the attractive little church dedicated to St Petrox, a Celtic saint based in Cornwall who died before Augustine had arrived in Canterbury by papal command to convert the English. Further upstream in the historic centre of Dartmouth is the Norman church of St Saviour’s that contains impressive evidence of the religious history of England since Norman times: a rare survival of a Catholic rood screen and a beautifully carved pulpit from the Tudor period. Not far from the imposing Anglican church is Bayard’s Cove, the town wharf in Dartmouth from which the Pilgrim Fathers departed for America on 20 August 1620 aboard Mayflower and Speedwell . Much of this history was covered in the walking tour of the town offered to several groups on both the morning afternoon tours. Other options taken up during the day included boat transfers—downstream to visit the castle defending the harbour entrance, or upstream to visit the recently opened (by the National Trust) home of the crime writer Agatha Christie at Greenway. As well as being an extraordinarily prodigious author we soon learned that she and her archaeologist husband were compulsive collectors, with fine examples of Nantgarw and Coalport pottery on display. There were nature walks at Slapton Leigh, a National Nature Reserve noted for rare birds and flowers while at nearby Slapton Sands another group paid their respects to American servicemen involved in a dress rehearsal for the D-Day landings in Normandy at the close of the Second World War. Another group visited Coleton Fishacre, another National Trust property, famed for its connections with the D’Oyly Carte family who were the patrons of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. After dinner, we were treated to a lively on-board performance by the West Country musicians Sam Kelly and the Lost Boys, before slipping our moorings and sailing out into the English Channel.
