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May 12, 2012 Aberdeen, Scotland
The very first time I heard about Aberdeen was around July 2009. That was the time I was trying to settling into the fast and busy life of London. For someone like me who prefers a slow and peaceful small place, London was not a preferable choice. That meant browsing through google maps looking into different small places around UK. That’s when I first got to know about Aberdeen. Little did I know that, one and half year later I would be standing outside the Aberdeen airport on a cold winter evening waiting for a taxi. During the interview a month before, I was caught without any answer when my manager asked me, ‘Why of all the places are you coming here?’ referring to the cold weather which had gone down all the way to -16 degree C.
I was all eyes when the flight was landing in the Aberdeen airport, looking out for snow. Having missed snow previous winter, I was disappointed again. Within a month which had seen -16 degrees, all the snow was gone. Nevertheless, I managed to almost get stranded in a snow storm in Aviemore an year later. During these almost 500 days of my stay here, I visited quite a few interesting places, witnessed my first ever airshow, went on a short hike, visited plenty of castles.
After 16 months of my stay here, I flying back home. I am going to miss this place (not the weather though), friends, long walks along the river Don, getting fooled by daylight during summer thinking that its still 6PM eventhough time is past 10PM, the zombie walk back home from work in the dark during the winter days, get togethers with friends, traffic less roads and many more. With office located road across the runway, watching out of the window to see the flights taking off and landing will be missed the most. (Posts to follow on all these trips)
So long and thanks for all the fish.
In search of Nessie monster
Jan 29, 2012 Castle, Photo Essay, Scotland, UK
After two years I visited Loch Ness and Urquhart castle, I was there again. Unlike last time where we drove all the way to the castle, we decided to take the cruise on the dark waters of Loch Ness to reach Urquhart Castle. It was a windy day, but the clear sky and a bit of sunshine made it an enjoyable ride to the castle. Here are few photos taken while searching for the mysterious monster of Loch Ness. :)
Dark blue waters of Loch Ness
Hotel Loch Ness Clansman – starting point of cruise journey
Another view from the cruise
Urquhart Castle, as seen from the boat
Closer look of Urquhart Castle
Catalina, the flying boat
More than the display of Vulcans and F16s at the Luechars airshow, what interested me more was the slowest of all the planes, Catalina. Used widely during World War 2, Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat – capable of land/take off both on land and water. Here are couple of photos of Catalina which I captured during the airshow.
And it took me a while to realise of all the flights, why the slowest one got me interested – it reminded me of the animated series Talespin :)
Leuchars Airshow
Despite staying in Bangalore for a long time I never managed to go to Aero India, a biennial air show held in Yelahanka Air force station, Bangalore. When I got to know about airshow by Royal Air Force at Luechars, I couldn’t stop myself going there besides the bad weather. The day started with rain and visibility of just 100 meters when we started from Aberdeen. But we were fortunate enough as rain gave away. Though the parachute display was cancelled due to bad weather, we had a glimpse of a range of flights – The Red Arrows, Hawk T1 and Tucano T1 – all three from Royal Air Force, F16s from Dutch Air Force, Vulcans, Pitts, Catalina (flying boat) and Dornier Alpha Jet from French Air.
The excitement of witnessing my first airshow made me mess up with my camera settings and on top of that light was against us along with overcast sky. That resulted in very few considerably good photos of the metal birds. A friend mentioned that this RAF Leuchars Airshow was no where close to Aero India which happens every two years in Bangalore (Leuchars airshow is an one day event which happens every year, where as Aero India is a five day event).
