UK: England and Cornwall Trip

1. Introduction

In 2000, just as the Olympic Games were finishing in Australia, I made a visit to the United Kingdom, travelling around London, England and Cornwall. While I had put some of the Paris photos on-line (live from the Eurostar train), I hadn't done anything with the others. In June 2000 I was cleaning out old backup CD-ROMs, and found the photos. So here are the best of them. As with previous travel reports, and as it says in my book, Net Traveller, this is a technical travelogue.

London

London Eye reflected

One tourist attraction visible from much of London is the London Eye. A Ferris wheel in a city should look out of place, but the London Eye looks like it belongs. I photographed the eye reflected in a window near Waterloo International Station, where the Eurostar train leaves for Paris.

Cornwall

St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount in Cornwall is the twin of Mont Saint Michel in Normandy. Like its namesake it is small rocky island a few kilometers off shore. The chapel is from the 15th-century. You can walk to it along a stone road at low tide.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge looks a lot smaller in reality than in photos. It is 7.5 m high, which I guess is big if you had to drag the stones there.

People

Along the way I visited the then Director of the UK Cabinet Office Central IT Unit, who now heads its Australian equvalent: the Australian Government Information Management Office. Also I gave a seminar at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory, fulfilling a long standing promise to the Director). One person I didn't get to visit, or on a subsequent trip, is Bill Thompson, in Cambridge.