Oslo: The Kon-Tiki Museum

After lunch at the National Maritime Museum (and a quick look round) it was time for the last of the big three museums on the Bygdøy peninsular, Oslo.

The Kon-Tiki Museum, as you might have guessed, covers the expeditions by Thor Heyerdahl, in particular:

Kon-Tiki (above): from Peru across the Pacific to Raroia, Tuamotus in 1947

Ra II (below): from Morocco across the Atlantic to the Barbados in 1970.

It was interesting to see both of these boats up close - bigger than expected, rafts with sails that could go down wind/current.

Heyerdahl's  idea was that seafarers in ancient times could have crossed these vast distances with the technology of the day.

Before visiting I had the view that though the evidence was that they could have made these voyages, there was little evidence e.g. in the DNA, that they actually had. However it appears that more recent analysis suggested that while the majority of the Easter Islanders did indeed come from the rest of Poynesia, a small minority of 8% was Native American.

While measurement from a small sample, the fact that it was non-zero does suggest some form of contact, which makes these voyages more significant.

At this point was suffering a bit of boat-history-museum-history-heat overload, so decided to call it a day and go for a swim.

The water was very refreshing!

Oslo: The Fram Museum

It was a totally inappropriate day to visit this brilliant museum.

This museum celebrates polar exploration and contains two legendary ships, the Fram (above) and the Gjoa (below):

As well as these two ships, this museum is a treasure trove of all things related to high latitude exploration, of both the Arctic and Antarctic.

To get the full experience it should really be chilled like a freezer, requiring multiple layers of wool to enter. Alas on the baking day I was there it felt more equatorial than polar, the two triangular buildings housing the two ships trapping heat within:

But it was totally worth it as it was probably the best museum of high latitude exploration anywhere in the world, filled with objects and stories of interest.

The two main boats, for those that want a refresher, were indeed historic:

Fram: this was built for Fridtjof Nansen with sufficient strength to allow it to be frozen into the polar ice cap where it then was allowed to drift over the Arctic in 1893. Later it was taken by Amundsen to the south pole, allowing it to claim to have sailed further north and south than any other wooden ship.

Gjoa: this was the first vessel to transmit the Northwest Passage in the Roald Amundsen expedition of 1903- 1904.

There was an impressive surround sound + video installation around the Fram (below and top) that gave the impression it (and hence the visitor too) was exploring stormy seas dotted with icebergs.... somewhat spoiled by the temperature of course:

There was also a useful 12 minute film that gave an introduction to polar exploration.

As someone heading up north to Svalbard the museum was packed with useful information, such as the Norge airship expedition, the mooring pole of which we'd later see at Ny Alesund. Many stories had a similar theme which was: the Brits had a go, made a complete mess of things, then the Norwegians did it right (e.g. NW passage, race to south pole etc).

For me it was the top museum in Oslo and I really can't recommend it highly enough for anyone with an interest in high latitude exploration.

Even so, there came a point where my legs became tired and a break from yet-another-expedition's-story fatigue hit the point where lunch seemed a good idea, so I left and headed for the Norwegian National Maritime Museum which has a good canteen (but to be honest, not a lot else).

Oslo: The Viking Ship Museum

The first museum went to in Oslo was the Viking Ship Museum. I chose to go here first as was afraid it would be over-run with tourists (or to be honest, other tourists) and indeed it was, with a car park full of big coaches from a visiting cruise-ship.

However it was pretty spectacular, with three Viking ships: Oseberg (above & below, built around 820 AD), Gokstad (built about 900 AD) and Tune (not so well preserved).

The Oseberg and Gokstad were buried as graves and a lot of objects found from those and other graves were on display, including these animal head posts from the Oseberg find:

It was all fascinating and there was also a interactive film of the Vikings life which was fun though it was weird to hear about the raids on Britain from the Norwegian side. We, after all, were remembering those that killed the innocent, burning homes and monasteries, looting and raping their way across the North Sea.

History as seen by the other side - how very topical!

There was also a film about Viking navigation, but it was one of two films and the audio alternated between English and Norwegian which meant would have to wait half an hour to hear it in full so left for the next maritime related museum...

North to Svalbard: Oslo

It's a cold, wet, windy November evening: time to go through the photo album and post some memories of the travels this summer.

To get to Svalbard had to take not one but three flights, the first one was to Oslo and rather than connecting directly on to Tromso decided to spend two nights there. I really liked this city but, as with so many places this summer, it was suffering from heatwave conditions so often wilted a bit and had to recover with something this:

At the heart is the harbour and fort as can be seen in the top photo and the fort was a good place to explore, get good views over the harbour and dehydrate:

It was also a good place to watch the sunset, but this is 2018 so rather than showing a sunset photo (how 2017!), here is a "taking a sunset time-lapse" photo:

Very IG.

Around the harbour you could see lots of boats (like, duh!) but also various sculptures:

All very cool.

You could get this ferry out to see three of the museums, and these were tops, so each requires a separate post:

• The Viking Ship Museum
• The Fram Museum
• The Kon-Tiki Museum

The Wey Navigation: West Byfleet Loop

After a book about canal boats, back to the summer's canal walks and a non-canal canal-walk.

Key facts:

• Start: West Byfleet train station
• End: West Byfleet train station
• Distance: 10.9 km

This walk was amazingly picturesque and only short train journey from Clapham Junction to West Byfleet, the start and end point. While it could have been walked in this case I took the bike to make the getting to/from the Navigation easier.

The Wey Navigation goes all the way back to 1653 when the river was made navigable all the way from the Thames to Guildford. While going through Surrey, a county not know for wilderness, it feels remote and unspoilt and is an absolute gem.

Those that follow the TV series "Great Canal Journeys" in which husband and wife Timothy West and Prunella Scales explore the canal and rivers of Britain and Europe will recognise this parts of this from the Series 3 episode "London's Lost Route to the Sea".

That programme impressed me in its almost iconic representation of rural England, yet started on the Thames within the loop of the M25 - indeed I'd visited that end as part of the Ferries of London project.

And, golly, wasn't it just so pretty:

The segment I was exploring included the ruins of Newark Priory:

Yup, decided it was a good place to practice flying the drone:

What a place to have a boat to potter in, where Ratty and Mole could just messing about all day on the water:

These boaters, like so many I encountered, were heading off for a picnic: there was some sort of wedding going on in Windsor that day....

Book Review: Narrow Dog To Carcassonne by Terry Darlington

Like Estuary (reviewed earlier) I sort of enjoyed this book, but there were significant qualifications.

This book tells how the author, his wife Monica and dog Jim took their narrow boat Phyllis May down the English canal system from Stone to the Thames, across the Channel, through the French, Belgium and then French again canal systems all the way to Carcassonne.

It's described (as can be seen from the cover above) with words like "classic" and "comic" on the lines (I guess) of Three Men in a Boat or Bill Bryson's travel books, and some reviews are 5 star raves.

But I had a few issues. The word "comic" was one as I didn't really find it that funny. Recently I've been re-watching some old episodes of Cheers and each one has a proper laugh-out-loud moment:



Now Cheers is funny, this book less so. All too often it reverts to Daily Mail stereotypes of aren't the French odd, do lets remember the war, bash the EU and complain about not getting beer in pint glasses.

Then there's the writing style: this should be an easy read, yet too often it isn't, with prose like poetry (or poetry like prose), fantasies and at one point switching to the current tense.

Take one story about low flying fighter planes: the first description had them just 6 inches above the Rhone. This sounds like bar-room tall story, exaggeration, but then a second time round it changes to them and their boat being attacked by fighter-bombers - are the tall stories getting taller? - before a fuller description comes out, namely that they were fire-fighting planes picking up water.

Ok, so the author has to create tension but this just makes following what is going on harder.

My recommendation is if you're interested, maybe a canal boat owner, then try out the first couple of paragraphs or maybe even chapters and see how much you enjoy the viewpoint and writing style.

Book Review: Arthur Ransome under sail by Roger Wardale

Arthur Ransome's love of sailing can be read in every line of his Swallows and Amazon's series of books that went on to inspire many sailors.

In real life he spent a lot of his time afloat in a variety of boats, as described in this book. And there were quite a few of them, including Swallow, Racundra, Nancy Blackett, Lottie Blossom, Peter Duck and Selina King.

The voyages on Racundra he wrote up in two books, the first and third cruises of that yacht, which alas I discovered were all too boring.

This book has the advantages that a) it summarises those cruising recollections (i.e. its author, Roger Wardale, read those books so we don't have to) and b) it points out similarities between events in Arthur Ransome's life that might have been re-used in his stories.

For example:

• The safety in sailing offshore in Racundra was similar to John's predicament in We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea
• Ransome and Evgenia were helped to sail by Captain Sehmel, who was to become Peter Duck (both had sailed on the Thermopylae)
• Going ashore on deserted islands in the Baltics was a bit like Titty and Bill going ashore in Peter Duck
• The great frost of 1895, when Ransome was in the Lake District as a child, was re-imagined in Winter Holiday
• Ransome also met the Norwegian polar explorer Nansen while in Riga
• The yacht Goblin from We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea was a faithful copy of Ransome's Nancy Blackett
• Research for that book included a trip by Ransome over to Holland
• Sailing friends of Ransome on the East Coast had a yacht called Lapwing...which was included in Secret Water
• Ransome also explored The Naze aka the secret water when living at Pin Mill (which was the Swallows base for two stories)
• He also went sailing with friends on the Norfolk Broads, which were used in the stories of the Coots

And that's to say nothing of the countless connections with Ransome's life to the Lake District sailing stories.

I also learnt how Ransome was instrumental in forming the Cruising Association, where I've been for a couple of really interesting talks with good food.

The first half of the book was the best for me, the second had two flaws:

1. It didn't make so much sense to me to describe retrospective literary connections i.e. when Ransome's sailing reflected his books (rather than his books coming from his experiences)
2. Ransome kept on commissioning yachts and after a while it becomes yet another boat project

All in all, though, a very good read for anyone with an interest in finding out more about Arthur Ransome, the man behind some of our favourite children's books.

Note that Roger Wardale is a bit of a Ransome expert and there are two other books that might be of interest:

• In Search of Swallows and Amazons: Arthur Ransome's Lakeland (focusing on the Lake District, as described here)
• Arthur Ransom on the Broads (as reviewed here)

Updated: Racundra (as per here) or Recundra (as per front page)?

Book Review: The History of the Port of London by Peter Stone

This book describes itself as "The History of the Port of London" and it does just what it says on the tin. I was a bit worried it might be dry but was pleasantly surprised as it's both informative and well written. As someone with living in London and by the Thames it was a subject I was really interested in and I learnt a lot.

From the very early days of the Romans the port of London grew slowly at first and then faster in medieval times, exporting first wool then cloth to the low countries. Very early on, London became a place where boats would arrive with sailors from countries far away, a mix of cultures and ideas that continues to this day.

It was then to explode with the Empire, docks dedicated to destinations such as far off India (for the East India Company) and more and more docks built, mile after mile, along with warehouses for storage.

The port of London became a city within a city, where thousands worked behind tall walls that protect the valuable wares within, sometimes in import duty limbo. But in the 20th Century competition drove some docks to bankruptcy and they merged together to form the Port of London Authority (PLA) in December 1908.

The PLA "inherited almost 3,000 acres of estate" with 32 miles of quays as well as 17 London County Council passenger piers and the Thames from Teddington to the estuary.

It reached its peak in the 1930s where around 100,000 men either worked there or were dependent upon its operations which accounted for 38% of the UK's trade. In a typical year there'd be:

• 50,000 ocean going ships arriving
• 15,000 round trips in coasters
• 250 tugs working
• 10,000 lighters
• 1,000 sailing barges.

The port survived the blitz, just, but was to be swept away by the container revolution. A theme through-out the final century was continual battles between dock owners and works, between starvation wages (literally) and insolvency.

Now the docks have gone - or at least from London, though not the Thames, for there are still the docks down Tilbury way. It's hard to imagine how it would have been in its peak, though this photo (from here) gives an idea:

You'd need a good imagination to visualise this now as these docks were Canary Wharf, so this area is now all banks and beyond there is the O2 Arena.

An invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the subject.