Chelsea Physic Garden

Website: http://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk

Today ABJ and I visited the Chelsea Physic Garden. We'd tried to go once before but had ended up mistakenly in the "Royal Hospital Chelsea" down the road. This time we were successful.

The entry fee for students is a mere £5 for which you get two information sheets, a map, hand-held audio-guide and the opportunity to follow a guided tour around the gardens. We decided to skip the guided tour and rely on the audio-guide instead to aid our visit to the 3.8 acre site:We found a bench near the centre of the gardens, sat and read the information sheets and then keyed in "1" and "Play" on our audio wands. It turns out the garden was founded in 1673 by a group of apothecaries who wanted to grow plants for use in their medicines as well as teach their apprentices how to care for the plants they needed. In the course of history the site was acquired by Dr Hans Sloane (after whom Sloane Square is named) and the rent for the site was fixed forever at £5 (which is still paid to an Earl of Somewhere).

The long history means that many important plants were introduced to Britain first in the Chelsea Physic Garden. The garden went through lots of ups and downs and in 1983 was threatened with closure. This forced them to set up a charity to run it and open the gardens to the public.

We watched the mixture of local residents who were there for the tranquillity and tourists who were there for the history. All the tourists sat listening to their audio-guides (us included) while the locals reclined in their benches looking snooty - compare left and right here:We set off from our bench and walked to the Pond Rockery. This was the oldest rockery in Europe and a listed "building". Amongst the rocks were volcanic basalt brought back as ballast by explorers from Iceland as well as masonry from the Tower of London:
It was an excellent rockery.

We then wandered the planted beds and saw rare plants and vegetables. Apparently it's now no longer possible to by 90% of the seed varieties you could buy at the start of the 20th century. That doesn't sound good does it? This area of the garden was part of their attempt to preserve these unusual varieties of onions, potatoes etc.

In our walking we came across the oldest outdoor olive tree in Britain (which still gives a good harvest of green olives every year - these must be picked before the pigeons eat them):
We then entered the glasshouses to the north of the gardens. Here we saw lots of tropical plants:
including vanilla:and chillis:After passing the Poison Plot where they keep all the poisonous (but sometimes medicinally useful) plants we found ourselves at the cafe. It served tea and homemade cakes and was packed by posh Chelsea people:We had a quick look at some carnivourous plants:and some really impressive plants that have evolved to camouflage themselves like pebbles:
Next stop was the Cool Fernery (that's its actual name by the way):and some secluded walks through the undergrowth. We arrived at a big gate that led out to the Thames Embankment which is "used only for Royalty and manure":Next we saw the giant compost heaps: the study centre (complete with a "which plants grow best on roofs" experiment):
and the garden's beehives: They sell honey from the bees which is in such demand it's limited to 1 jar per person.

We stopped for a while at Fortune's Tank Pond and watched the wildlife (including the other visitors) before going out through the shop and buying a Purple Basil plant on the way.

Summary: A great day out in good weather.

Cycling in Richmond Park

Website: http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/richmond_park

Last Sunday I spent a fun afternoon cycling around Richmond Park with ML and VB. We had spent the morning and early afternoon cycling through suburbia and, after some tea at Morden Hall Park, we cycled to Richmond Park. We visited some very fancy neighbourhoods on the way and passed the mansion where Dwight Eisenhower lived during World War II!

I imagine that cycling around the park is not much fun in the pouring rain but luckily for us the weather was very pleasant. We plotted our route around the park on one of the maps and set off. We planned (like the polite cyclists we are) to stick to the cycling trails that criss-cross the park but, since we'd been cycling for over 2 hours, our first stop was a nice bench. It was there that I read out a letter from ABJ while VB and ML sat down in their matching bike helmets, bike trousers and fluorescent yellow jackets.

After we'd cooled off we hopped back on our bikes and set off again. We kept to the edge of the park and, according to ML at least, cycled right past Andrew Marr who was out jogging. We eventually turned towards the centre of the park and set off on a cycle trail. I was disappointed to see that the "true cyclists" (men who have thighs like tree trunks and ride carbon-fibre bikes) cycled on the road amongst the cars rather than on the paths amongst the toddlers.

We slowly made out way into the middle of the park and enjoyed the scenery. We saw people flying kites and riding horses (though not at the same time):
We saw a huge herd of young deer:We saw opportunities for arty photos:
After the exploration we were all really tired and free-wheeled down into Richmond for some beer, food and a film.

Summary: Worth a trip round on a bike even if you do have to stay away from the more exciting areas. Credit goes to ML for suggesting we go there and to VB for taking the photos.

London Wetland Centre

Websites:
http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit/wetlandcentre
http://www.londonwetlandcentre.co.uk

I've wanted to visit the London Wetland Centre for years. It's a massive expanse of "wetland" conservation area located next to the river Thames in west London. Today ABJ and I finally gave it a visit.

Arriving at about 2pm we bought our £6 student tickets at the entrance and set off into the courtyard. Immediately we were greeted by a friendly woman who orientated us on the map and explained the different areas of the wetland. There are two main sides to the site: one has endangered species and one does not.

We began with the endangered species side. This started with "World Wetlands" and was home to wetlands and birds from all around the world. The wetlands included Asian rice paddies, North American pine forests, Islands, Arctic Tundra etc. The different areas are fenced off from each other so the birds can't go between them (presumably the birds wings are clipped!).

The first stop, Artic Tundra, was one of the liveliest wetlands because there were so many different types of birds and no fence to keep them off the paths. The ducks and birds all squarked and flapped their wings at each other and at us. We watched different types of birds sticking together in close groups - each group trying to dominate the others.
Dotted throughout the center there were also lots of bird-photographers with enormous zoom lenses:The birds in the centre included an impressive variety of species. There were "red-breasted geese", "black swans", "chiloe wigeons" and hundreds of others I can't remember the names of:
I can identify this one... a Black Swan:Some "Red-crested Pochards":The wetlands certainly lived up to their name. There were paths passing between the rushes and lakes. The place was very well sign-posted and each area had a different name and welcoming illustrations:Dotted around the centre were also lots of hides. From inside you could watch the birds without them knowing:There were lots of signs saying "Please keep quiet in the hides. Birds have ears too." ABJ and I didn't have any binoculars so the hides unfortunately didn't offer us the chance to get spectacularly close to any of the birds.

We spent a long time enjoying the different areas, the hides and the birds before eventually returning to the courtyard where we began.

Here we tried out the "Discovery centre" which, along with an informative display in one of the hides, educated us about what a wetland is and why they're important. The definition of a wetland is very wide (e.g it includes the Thames estuary as well as coral reefs) but an important thing, apparently, is that the water is less than 6ft deep. The Discovery centre had a fun walk-through display in which you walked through different environments and had to decide if they counted as wetlands (e.g. a coral reef, a flooded forest etc). Unsurprisingly perhaps most of the environments were wetlands.

After the walk-through there was a very fun display about what wetlands do and why they're important. The display was set up like an old-fashioned fairground with games and shows. To give you an idea there was one game called "Shoot your poo":
The aim of the game was to get small plastic balls (i.e. your poo) into holes by firing them through air guns. This illustrated the powerful way in which wetlands can process waste.

Another game involves firing water guns into pipes to illustrate that life needs water. There was a game whose opening premise was "You're a planning officer". Not very inspiring but it made a good point. You had to decide how to build flood defences and where to build houses on a scaled down model. The model had a mountain at one end and a flood plain at the other and periodically the mountain would be heavily rained on and a wall of water would deluge the flood plains. There were lego bricks available to build defences to save the foam houses. Very eduational.

After ABJ thought I'd had enough of the games we continued on our way to the other side of the centre - the non-endangered species side. This was good although less spectacular - mainly because it seemed the birds on this side didn't have their wings clipped (since they were non-endangered). That meant the birds had flown away and a lot fewer were on display in the lakes and marshes.

We journeyed on and visited a few more hides, watched a few birds flying around, watched a few jumbo jets flying overhead towards Heathrow airport. Dusk fell and we were tired from all our walking. We visited the gift shop and bought a few things to support the centre. To get back home we decided to take the number 283 bus, a.k.a "the Duck Bus". This left conveniently from a stop at the centre and off we went.

Summary: Well worth a visit. The birds at the centre change at different times of the year so it's worth going again during a different season.

Camley Street Natural Park

Today we take a trip to Camley Street Natural Park. Located on Camley Street in the middle of the industrial sprawl behind St Pancras station this is a hidden gem I came across a few months ago.

The park sits unassumingly on the bank of Regent's Canal amongst train tracks, derelict land and gasometers. Today - with wonderfully sunny weather - I took ABJ to explore it. It's free to enter and, sneaking off down a path, our first impression was one thing: GREEN. The park is a breath of fresh air (literally!) from the streets of London. There are meadows of grass, flowers, trees, animals and insects which are criss-crossed with secluded paths. We followed a few of these and were led away into the undergrowth.

There's a few "Willow Domes" laid out around the park - living, still growing shelters where you can rest your feet:

We were the only ones on the paths we followed and felt a million miles away from the bustling London metropolis. There was a pond, some rabbits and a laid-back seating area. On our exploration we even got to see some local wildlife: two amorous ladybirds and a baby rat:
We couldn't linger as long as we'd have liked as we had to leave to meet ABJ's mother. As we left we passed the thorough-looking activity centres/visitor info huts. I'm fairly sure there's nature trails threaded through the park which, if you get an information guide from the huts, you can follow.

Summary: Well worth a visit to get away from the city atmosphere. There's fun activities for all the family too!