I was walking around Exeter Quay this weekend, musing on the fact that I hadn’t been down there for many years (in protest against the unforgivable closing of Exeter Maritime Museum) This was, by some way, the best museum in the world, mainly because to a 12 year old boy, a Chinese Junk and reed boats were pretty much the most interesting things I’d ever seen. Anyway I spotted this heron…
Heron at River Exe weir
I was sadly without my telephoto lens - it being a sort of ultra-light mission, so I resolved to creep around to the other side of the river bank to get a better photo. Unfortunately a variety of steel enclosures prevented access to the other bank. Normally that would have been no problem - but a fisherman was watching me. At this point I realized that I was surrounded by a huge flood prevention scheme that I knew nothing at all about. I took a few photos and uploaded them to my school Flickr account for the benefit of my students. I also turned them into a downloadable Google Earth tour of the Exe flood prevention scheme
Google Earth tour
Hopefully this might make a nice case study for some people. Don’t forget to go to Tools / Options / Touring in Google Earth and turn on Show balloon when tour is paused. Also, slow down the tour and fly to speeds for best effect.
Thank you for these Noel, my memories of Exeter are good - visits to the canoe shop, paddling on their weirs [Exe challenge], field visits from Allhallows and orienteering from Uffculme. I remember the time we turned up to run and the meadows had been closed due to an impending flood and they were due to sacrifice the area to water storage! Oh, and of course the double locks on Boxing day …