On our trip ‘up north’ one of the things we did was to follow a tour recommended by Motorcycle News to visit some of England’s biggest things. It makes for a great ‘Month in Numbers’! I am linking up with Julie at Notes on Paper.
Here are some of the things we saw/visited:
Cardington Airship Hangars
The largest hangars in England, at 812 feet in length, 180 feet wide, and 157 feet high. They were built in 1915, and were home to the ill fated R101 airship.
Humber Bridge – The largest single span suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1981. It is now the 7th longest bridge of it’s type.
It has a span of 1410m (Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco 1280m)
It contains 480,000 tonnes of concrete, with a weight of over 87,000 african bull elephants
The distance between towers at top is 36mm more at top than bottom to allow for curvature of earth.
The centre of bridge is designed to swing 4m in high winds!
The Angel of the North
The tallest statue in England, at 20m (66 feet) high and a wingspan of 54m (177 feet). It was designed by Anthony Gormley and made out of weathered steel. It is said that it is the most viewed statue in England, as it lies in view of travellers on the busy roads, A1 and A167 and the busy East Coast train line.
High Force Waterfall
at 21m can’t be the highest waterfall we have to offer can it? According to Wikipedia there are in fact 2 higher waterfalls in England. We had fun trying out different camera settings:
Aperture f29, Speed 1/2 sec (balanced camera on ground, hence it is not very straight!)
Aperture: f4.5, Speed: 1/250sec
We seemed to be forever walking up and down steps on this holiday! One memorable staircase was inside Durham Cathedral – 325 steps to the top, for splendid views across the town.
The North East coast is famous for it’s castles, mostly built in defence from the marauding Vikings from Scandinavia. We visited 2 castles, Durham and Lindesfarne, but saw another 5 from the outside:
Bamburgh, Barnard Castle, Raby, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh.
We were surprised to find out that the sun rose 20 minutes earlier and set 30 minutes later in early July in Durham as compared to down south, here in Worthing! We really noticed how much lighter it was in the evenings.
We had a fabulous trip, really packed in things to do and overall clocked up 1,070 miles on the motorbike.
9 comments:
Definitely a holiday made for documenting with a Month in Numbers post! What an interesting angle to take - hunting out the biggest things! [You'll have to balance it out with the smallest next year!]
I love all the statistics you've collected and such great photos too! [And I bet you took *lots* more!!]
And I fee l safe from marauding Vikings now I know how well fortified we are up here. ;-)
Your July is pinned to the Month in Numbers board with those from all the other numerical list-makers now: http://pinterest.com/notesonpaper/my-month-in-numbers/
Here's to a happy-August!
Julie :-)
p.s: good to see you got to meet the Angel!
Wow - it looks like it was a wonderful trip & definitely provided a great post for numbers!!
What wonderful photos (and numbers)! My mind can never quite wrap around how bridges are made and those numbers are pretty astonishing. But most of all I love the waterfall. Wishing you a happy August.
Wow, that's lots of big things you got to see on your holiday. I would love to visit that area some day, I love castles and cathedrals and we don't have much of either here.
Hi Linda! This made for incredibly BIG reading . . . what fun! And your photos are wonderful. BTW, you were one of the recipients of a postcard from me here in Utah, USA. So glad to meet you! All the best, Hazel
I remember climbing up the tower of Durham Cathedral back in 1987. It was a splendid sunny day and I really enjoyed my day in Durham. Your photos brought back happy memories.
I really enjoyed your touristic post and all the big numbers! :) Sounds and looks like a fabulous holiday!
What a lot of numbers in your trip 'up north'! It was well worth the climb at Durham Cathedral to see the views. The airship hangers are fascinating, we have some hiding here in Somerset near the coast.
The hangers at Cardington are only about 10miles from where we live so somewhere we pass quite often. Several blockbuster movies have been filmed in them including Batman Begins. In April there were lots of youngsters gathered outside them on the roadside because One Direction practiced for their world tour inside one of them.
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