A Snowy Trip to Newcastle

Wednesday 23 February 2005. It was a snowy but bright day heading over to Newcastle for a meeting of the Jisc Advisory Services. Besides Jisc infoNet that I worked for, there were Jisc Legal, Jisc TechDis, Jisc Netskills and a few staff from Jisc's central offices too.

As far as I remember, this was a meeting over two days, starting after lunch on the 23rd and ending after lunch on the 24th. It was 140 miles each way journey for me. Some had travelled from London and Bristol. On the way to Newcastle the A66 was looking a bit wintry and I was glad to get over the Pennines safely and onto the A1M. I stopped to take a quick photo of the Angel of the North in snow.

Thursday 24 February 2005. Overnight the snow caught up to Newcastle. This was the view from my bedroom that morning, looking towards Newcastle railway station with a GNER train pulling out on its journey south to York and beyond. The train is on a raised viaduct that now divides the castle keep from its barbican, the Black Gate.

There has been a fortress here since Roman times, guarding the crossing of the River Tyne at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The son of William the Conqueror, Robert Curthose built a motte and bailey castle here in 1080, being a mound of earth with a wooden pallisade and the current Keep, seen today was built by King Henry II from 1172 to 1177 with the Black Gate being added during Henry III's reign between 1247-1250.

Heading homeward again later that afternoon, the snow was falling heavily on the A66.

The road was still open but there wasn't much traffic attempting it and I knew I had a few exposed roads to come even once I left the A66.

On the West Yorkshire moors the wind was blowing hard, turning the snow into a whirling blizzard and starting to cover the road. At times I had no idea where the edges of the road were but luckily there was always a bit of clear tarmac so that I could see enough to avoid any risk of driving off on one side or the other.

By the time I was approaching Kirby Stephen, the hills were white but the road was reassuringly visible again!

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The Isle of Wight

Tuesday, 20 February 1996. You will remember (if you read my account of yesterday's wanderings - or you were alive at the time and have an extremely good memory) that the weather forecast for the week had said wintry weather was moving towards us from the east.

Well it arrived overnight! This was our early morning view when we opened the curtains to gaze bleary-eyed at the new day from our Southsea hotel.

As I drew the curtains back a couple of ships were just coming into Portsmouth and I grabbed the camera to take the shots here. We decided that seeing as it had snowed and the worst weather was supposed to be to the east, we would not travel towards Dover as we had planned but would instead take the ferry over to the Isle of Wight. It was our last night at the Glendower Hotel so we gathered bags, had breakfast and set off for the ferry terminal.

The pic shows us in lane 10 of the ferry queue. Once in, there there's not a lot of chance of changing your mind and you don't find out the charges until you are in the queue and go to book. No such thing as Internet on the go back in those days!

Staying in your car is not allowed and most people went into the lounge deck but we were made of sterner - oh well... stupider - stuff! We stood on the top deck and watched as Portsmouth slipped out of sight behind us. The open deck was the equivalent of being on the roof of a three storey building. The wind could be described as icy! We stayed on the deck, watching the officers in the bridge and watching the few craft that passed us on the 35 minute journey. We saw a few other ferries and one hovercraft - which turned out to be the only one of the day crossing the Solent.

Having got to the Isle of Wight we decided to drive around the coast road in an anti-clockwise direction. We had to miss out Cowes due to roadworks which took us down almost to the centre of the island and we eventually made it back to the coast road, calling at Yarmouth just in time for lunch which we had in the Gossips Cafe at the head of the small pier.

The wind here was absolutely ferocious. Sitting in the cafe, we were over the beach and although the tide wasn't properly in, the wind whipped up the waves enough for them to cover the beach and crash up the sea wall behind us. A collection of yachts and boats were piled on the beach, in danger one would think of being dragged unmanned into the sea. The whistling sound of the wind through their rigging made conversation next to impossible.

Despite the wind we clung onto each other in an attempt to stay upright and had a short - a very short - wander. The carved plaque was on the window of the Town Hall.

Due to the extreme weather we were back in the car after 15 minutes look round and heading west towards The Needles. Snow was in the air. By the time we got to the Needles it was in the air, on the ground, floating on the sea and blowing in the wind. Especially blowing in the wind...

I wasn't going all that way in freezing temperatures to come away without some sort of record of the attempt, so I braved three inches of snow at The Needles in order to get the photos. Snow slipped down the inside of my shoe to confirm how stupid I was...

We drove all the way round the island stopping every time we found something interesting - that would be twice then... Not that the Isle of Wight doesn't have lots of lovely places to visit and fabulous views, it does. But we were sticking to the coastal road and therefore missing places like Carisbrook Castle and any other inland attractions such as gardens and amusement parks which were quite understandably closed in February anyway. Views out to sea were limited to a few yards of swirling snowflakes. You get the idea. The first place we stopped was at a pearl shop where I bought Miss Franny a few grains of grit that some oyster had vomitted over - or whatever it is they do. The second place was here where the sun came out briefly, the sheer novelty of which made us stop and get out of the car long enough for the blood to freeze in our veins, forcing us back into the car again. I have no idea where this is.

And so by mid afternoon we were almost back at our starting point and admiring the hovercraft parked up at Ryde. We could have looked for accomodation in Ryde, but it was just as cold there as it had been at Yarmouth and not really fit for wandering about on foot.

We caught the four o'clock ferry back to the mainland and drove westwards until we reached Bournemouth, where we found somewhere to stay for the night.

Return to England South Coast, 1996 Index Page

Austria Winter Holiday, 2002

A series of articles about our one and only winter holiday actually hoping to see snow, as we head for the Austrian Tyrol for a nine day trip with Leger Coaches. Two days at each end will be spent travelling but we will try to fit in as much as possible on the other five days!

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the articles for each day. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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Up a Big Hill in Kitzbühel

Tuesday 29 January 2002. We are swanning around the Austrian Alps on a Leger Holidays coach tour. We have left a rather solid lake at Zell-am-See behind and are heading for Kitzbühel.

It's a glorious day, if somewhat parky (cold... my editor - that's me aswell - has just told me not to assume everyone knows my northwest English!) We arrive at Kitzbühel and Jock parks the coach in a part of the town we don't remember.

We head off to look for the cable car as we all fancy a look at the ski slopes. First we stop for a bite of lunch at a cafe and then find a cable car that, from the bottom station, seems to go a very long way up. Count us in!

Miss Franny and Sheila ignore any feelings of vertigo as we climb rapidly up the side of the mountain. They are facing backwards to the direction of travel and the mountain we are going up is in shadow.

We keep going up and the town becomes a toy in the distance below us. To the side the view is glorious.

We approach the top and somebody decides we would have to jump out quick because the car wouldn't stop so we all dive out like silly beggars, killing ourselves laughing and setting the car rocking away! There are a couple of shops for skiers and presumably some equipment for hire too. People are sunbathing on the bar terrace. To the right of the photo a tiny fence with just one or two cross bars stands between the level ground and a lo-o-o-ong drop. I wondered why it was so small but when I looked there were another three cross bars under the snow...

Photo for posterity - look folks, we are here! Me with Sheila and Diane. A constant stream of skiers came up and poled away. A couple of snowboarders were trying the gentler slopes. I was quite content to stand and watch.

It does look an exhilarating way of spending an afternoon, though up here at the top you don't see the ones who come to grief halfway down, spread-eagled with their ski tracks one each side of a careless tree...

Here James Bond makes a break for it, whilst an Eastern Bloc border guard chases him. Just to the front of us a snowboarder is tentatively falling down a gentle three-foot high slope towards the shops and bar complex. He slithers to a halt where a passing yeti dusts him off and takes him for lunch...

The view facing away from the bar and shops. The sun flares through clouds of ice crystals. Despite the height and all the snow it feels quite warm.

We watch the skiers for quite a while and then head back towards the cable car for the journey back down. They've done it again! Fran and Sheila get in a car that is just about to disappear throught the barrier and Diane and I have to run and dive in at the last moment! There's a real feeling of regret on starting the journey downwards. This afternoon would be thought the best of the holiday by most people on the coach.

Well, here we are at the bottom again. It cost us €14 (euros) for the round trip, each way taking approx ten minutes. The euro had only been adopted at the begnining of January and there was still a lot of confusion amongst the Austrians and Germans, never mind us Brits!

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Zell-am-See to Kitzbühel

Tuesday 29 January 2002. It's a new day and it's a sunny day! Jock and George have the coach all nicely warm as we set off for a first stop in Zell-am-See, where we spent a wonderful and memorable week two years previously in 2000.

That had been a summer holiday and the only snow we saw was high in the mountains. This time around there is absolutely no chance of getting up to the glacier at Grossglockner without a snowmobile. But today at least there is snow a-plenty for us to ooh and aah at.

There's a bit of mist but it lies in a layer of cloud, sometimes above and sometimes below us. Now, this is the sort of scenery we were hoping for from this holiday!

I recognise that burnt bacon! We're in Zell-am-See with some time off the coach to explore, but it's a little colder than the last time we were here! In the summer there had been plenty of these stands selling smoked joints of bacon outside the shops in town. There had also been stands with sunglasses, yodelling teddy bears, Tyrolean mountain cow bells and all sorts of souvenirs. Today there are deserted streets and snow and ice... Lots of ice...

In fact the entire lake is a vast sheet of ice! People were swimming in this lake the last time we were here. Now there are adverts posted saying you could take horse-drawn sleigh rides across the lake! If so the horses had refused to come out, pointing to the stable thermometer and complaining it was too cold.

Steve and the lads were playing cricket on the lake with lumps of ice. We ventured out a little way but in the same way I've never been for strapping planks to my feet on snow, I'm not one for strapping thin bits of metal on either and trying to balance on ice. We had hiking boots on and they weren't helping us to stay upright too much...

We moved back into the rather tenuous shelter of town. A few ice sculptures were cordoned off in the square, though they looked a bit in progress rather than finished works.

We bought a bread board that had a designed burned into it. We still use it some 21 years later. The design has worn faint and the board certainly has a few gouges in it but it is still serviceable and better than chopping up the work surfaces in the kitchen!

There's another wall of cuckoo clocks, all ticking away merrily. They stay there, on the wall. Let someone else buy one...

Then it's back to the coach and we set off towards Kitzbühel. Here the road has climbed above the mist which hangs below us in the valley like a fluffy carpet. Ooh... coming over all poetic there for a moment...

We are starting to see a few ski lifts and ski runs as we pass. We are getting higher up. Then we start to drop again as we approach Kitzbühel. The road straightens out and we come to the buildings of the outskirts of the town. The coach stops. Out we get. To be continued...

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