Category: Herman van Bon Photography

From the Shoebox: Salisbury and Stonehenge (4 pictures)

In 1970 I visited the UK for the first time on an ‘Easy Rider’ like motorbike. Since then I’ve been there several times; I even lived in Bath for a couple of years (with intervals) between 1974 and 1978.

The last times I was in Brexit-country was in 1998 and 1999. Anyway: Salisbury and surrounds have always attracted me and virtually every time I was in England I detoured.

The Salisbury cathedral is one of the most beautiful ones in the world; especially from an architectural point of view.

 

The cathedral is in the town centre but from the park in front you walk between meadows into a forest along a creek to the old water mill.

 

 

Stonehenge has intrigued me from the first time I was there but has become too much of a touristic attraction with all kinds of (understandable) restrictions. South African born Noeline Smith lives in this area and she makes the most wonderful pictures.

These scanned pictures are from the nineties and although kept cool and dry the original print quality detoriated.

 

Jessica

Jessica, a Class 19D locomotive, number 3321, was built in England in 1948 and one of the 235 of its type  built for the South African Railways between 1937 and 1949 in the UK, East Europe and Germany. The steam locomotive was restored by the Ceres Rail Company which, at the moment is undertaking two more restorations of Class 19B and Class 26 locomotives. Ceres Rail Company organizes trips and events which brings in the money for preserve and promote South African Rail Heritage, which, according to their website, involves restoring and refurbishing old locomotives and coaches.

The trip that turned out to be life changing

See previous posting for the story behind.

Photo’s in this follow up are scanned and digitalized; the original prints, although kept dry, were detoriated.

Art Gallery Santa Fe
Downtown Denver 1
Downtown Denver 2
Downtown Denver 3
La Hacienda Grande in Bernalilli; best accommodation ever
Landscape in New Mexico has similarities with the landscape we live in nowadays
Adobe house
Anno 1996 they were very far sighted regarding the future of the USA anno 2017 … 😉

Good memories

21 Years ago, to be more precise March/April 1996, I was for some weeks in Colorado and New Mexico. I was there for several features for a range of magazines; from farming to catering and travel. I stayed one week in Denver where I interviewed amongst others representatives of the meat industry and the best delicatesse maker in the USA in Aurora (suburb of Denver). On my way to New Mexico I stayed on night in Colorado Springs where I interviewed one of the four most forestanding pig breeders in the world – seemed I was the first (photo-)journo who got access in their premises; most probably they read my article about a competitor in Australia 😉 – and at the end I reached Bernalillio, a town between Santa Fe and Alburquerque. I stayed there in the best accommodation ever; a restored and refurbished adobe house of a few hundred years old with courtyard. Stayed there for a couple of weeks (USD 84.00 per night including breakfast).

Why am I writing this?

I come to that; be patient.

I did a lot from there; visited Santa Fe, canoed on the Rio Grande, interviewed several cattle and crop farmers and I visited the hospital for a feature about their restaurant for a catering magazine. That was funny in a way; Saw a 30 ton tank trailer filling up one of the silos with ketchup; “happens every week”, they told me. What I also experienced (as in other places in the USA) that the best restaurants are found in unexpected places like in an industrial area or off the beaten track in some rural part in the country side. Good honest food I ate in New Mexico.

And now to the point: During one of my trips I was in Los Alamos and I remember standing there on a mountain and seeing other mountain tips and I imaged; “I stand here in the West of The Netherlands and I see there the far South/East and to my left the far North/East and somewhere in between is where I live”. It was for me, at the time living in an overpopulated part of the world, an overwhelming experience of space and sound. Only the sound of nature and no one to see .. At that moment I made the decision that sooner or later I would emigrate from The Netherlands to where ever. Four years later we moved to South Africa but I still have fond memories of New Mexico. In the picture: wind chime I bought locally in Bernalillio 21 years ago. BTW I also still have a sweater with ‘Colorado’ printed on it and occasionally I wear it although the colors have faded quite a bit.