Andy Tyndall Photography
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Snowdrops, Welford Park, UK

6/4/2018

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This destination - a carpet of bright, white, delicate snowdrops rolling away under the stark trunks of an English beechwood -  trumps the journey.​

We have taken a chance on the English weather, notorious at the best of times, particularly fickle in February,  placed all our trust in a weather app which foretold a break in the drizzle and set off for Welford Park along the very motorways which inspired Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell.”

English motorways can offer beautiful snapshots of the countryside -  small farms, quaint cottages, quintessential villages, deer, perhaps, grazing on rolling downlands or red kites wheeling high - but not on a day when rain and spray slows traffic and smears views.

So, enough about this journey.

Welford Park, Berkshire, persistently tops the lists of ‘Best Places to see Snowdrops in England’. Snowdrops, a small flower with white bell-like petals, are to the English, the harbinger if not of Spring, then of the light at the end of the long Winter. Clustered in parks, woodlands and roadside banks, the flowers brave snow, slush, mud and frost once the annual call to arms has triggered the bloom.

Welford Park, however, takes the snowdrop bloom game to new levels. It is a private country estate near Newbury, about 1.5 hours from London. By the time we arrive the app’s predictions have proved accurate and we make our way along a disused railway to the estate’s entrance where the first taste of glory awaits us.

A  dense ribbon of white  glistens either side of an avenue of trees. It really is spectacular. Its density and brightness renders tree trunks and bare branches, bushes, buildings and the sky dull. I already understand why visitors flock to Welford Park for the annual spectacular - and I have not even seen the main display yet.

An admission fee (GBP 7.00 ($A 12.50) each)  and some light banter about cameras gets us in and away down trails by rushing streams and waterfalls, past parkland, tumbled grasses and fallen trees ideal for the pheasants which populate the estate.

We come to the beech woods where snowdrops spread as far as we can see. A path around the woodland -  a vague symmetry suggests the trees were once planted in lines long disrupted by nature - allows views from all angles of this magnificent extravaganza. Seats are positioned at several points for those minded to survey the scene in a thick silence interrupted only by the cawing of the rooks scattered haphazardly among skeletal branches of hilltop trees.

But there is more to Welford Park than the dazzling attraction of the snowdrops. The network of paths which weave through the grounds gives us a first hand experience of a working English estate: the view to the ‘big house’ up the sweep of parkland from a rustic bridge crossing the stream, the pheasant pens, the line of gravestones by a stone wall marking the final resting places of a large number of beloved dogs.

It is an experience not easily found in England:  it is not the brash, orchestrated and manicured  museum of English National Trust homes and nor is it a mud-slushy working farm. It’s an unostentatious, delightful mix of family home and farm which welcomes visitors to its cosy tearoom and small gift shop while maintaining a degree of English aloofness: there is no access to the main house as it  is a private residence.

Welford Park plays host to the massively popular UK TV series “Great British Bake Off” but no evidence of the chaos of  a film set spoils the genteel atmosphere. Instead an incongruous cluster of metal giraffe, one peering with surprise over a wall, indicates the faint eccentricity of the English gentry.

A round-towerd church and its attendant graveyard also sport snowdrops - there really is no need for flowers to be placed on graves thanks to the inevitable white clusters around the gravestones and as we leave under darkening skies and a light drizzle, a small two-piece metal installation of - you guessed it - snowdrops reminds us that we have just experienced not just a genuine English country estate, but a unique phenomenon in what must be the snowdrop capital of England.



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Iceland: It’s not all about the Northern Lights.

4/29/2018

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Keep an eye out for Icelands churches. Although most are of similar, simple design, their locations and views can be spectacular. Reykjavik’s Hallgrimskirkja, soars to the skies, dominating the city below and affording spectacular views from its summit, but it is the little ones which have taken our fancy. Small and discreet, they can appear in locations chosen, it seems to catch the eye: by a harbourside in Akranes where it can survey the fishing fleet,  or standing faintly aloof from the rest of the town in Grindavik or on the river bank at Thingvellir, remote from any other habitation except the small row of attendant cottages next to it.


The one that drew me in is the church at Saubaer.


We saw it first as we found our way to our cabin in the snow, a small church lying down by the dark, rippling waters of Hvalforður.


Saubaer Church has been placed away from any immediately visible human habitation. Presumably, like some of our own rural Western Australian churches, it is there as a ´halfway´ spot: a place where everyone can suffer equally to get there.


It is floodlit at night, as if a beacon to a lost local or, perhaps,  a whaler returning to the base of the head of the fjord. So, sitting in our hot tub, surrounded by snow  - as you should, if in Iceland (and, yes, I was sceptical less about the joys of sinking into hot water, but more about picking my way back over ice and snow on the return journey)  - looking for the few strands of gossamer green light which is all we did get to see of Aurora Borealis, we notice a tiny, glorious splash of light on the shoreline.


It must be investigated.


Next afternoon is still: a day of brooding skies and little wind makes for an eerie, silent ambience at the church. A building nearby has a Volvo parked outside. It is, presumably, the caretaker or priest’s residence but there are no signs of activity anywhere. Deafening footprints in the crusty, deep snow mark my journey around the church in the dusk. It is an idyllic setting: built on a small mound, the church has 180 degree views of the fjord and the light that shifts and changes off the opposite hillsides.


But as that light failed that afternoon, something else is revealed to me: the gloom must have reached just the right intensity to set off  the solar sensors in an unexpected array amongst the sombre grey headstones. Quite suddenly lines of crosses are glowing and glittering in the gloaming. It really is very pretty.


Icelandic traditionalists decorate many gravestones with lights in winter. It does not happen in the summer months - with 24 hour daylight, you would not notice them anyway - but around Christmas time graveyards spring into light in the evening, adding a magical, ethereal feel to a normally sombre place. It is not only a positive way to celebrate a loved one’s life but also a small array of welcome lights pinpricked yet defiant in the monochrome of an Icelandic winter dusk.
















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    Author

    Travel has always featured strongly in my photographic work: whether on assignment for a newspaper or on holiday with my family, I have always enjoyed recording the unique scenes and sights appreciated most by eyes fresh to a region. This blog is a small record of some of my travels and experiences - and even some photography tips. Some have been published, some not. Whatever, I hope you enjoy the blog.

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