A Turtle Eclipse of the Sun....

Exmouth at last....After a lot of planning and exploring we finally settled on where we would watch the eclipse from... and it turned out to be a winner!

We got up even before the crack of sparrows loaded everything we thought we might need into the cruise mobile and headed around the very tip of the peninsula to Yardie Creek. This was right in the centre of totality giving us the full 62 secs this amazing phenomena was going to last. There was alot of traffic heading the same way and we were concerned because the park officials were restricting access to all the parks to crowd manage and protect wildlife... hence the early start... It paid off by the time we got to the park we were waved through and when we got to Yardie Creek it was already pretty busy. Its a big area so plenty of room for all takers and most people were heading either for the shaded picnic area or walking up the gorge but we headed for the dunes.

Its really useful having a Dr Fred who knows what might happen and why having a slightly elevated spot with expanse of sand and sea around might help to see the shadows and a flat horizon will show up the sky changing. We sat down and waited .....

As the moon moved over the sun we got quite silly taking pictures of our shadows making pinhole images. It was a brilliant spot - beautiful sands and the sea crashing below the dune and a huge turtle swimming around the reef... bobbing up and down while he fished for his lunch.

The whole experience was quite amazing. The Eclipse itself was incredible.... Obviously we all wished it could lasted longer but the sky went quite dark and being next to the sea this was more pronounced... the shadows rippled across the dunes... the wind dropped... the temperature changed quite dramatically and slowly the moon covered the sun. And then Totality! Pictures never work welĺ and the time was so limited so this just gives a flavour

Stunning!! A most beautiful corona... like a halo but with a clear line of red prominences all down the west side. It was fabulous a fitting finale to our amazing trip... because thats how it feels now we are back at camp... we are heading home to the Uk now.

I have loads more to post about this week but we may not have internet access for a few days and I wanted to post Eclipse...

More will follow because we are having a fantastic time here in Exmouth.. al sorts of shenangians.. I've got more pics of eclipse antics and we've done some really interesting stuff..(to us anyway🤣) I'll post as soon as I'm back on line...

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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