Monty's Trip to Great Britain

The flight out from Chicago was quite uneventful, long, but no problems with security and in fact, I ended up getting to the airport so early that I ended up spending several hours waiting for the plane. Oh well, better early than rushed.

Liz and her fiancee Paul picked me up at Hethrow in London about 9am and we took off right from there for the long drive to Cornwall. That was cool because I had hoped that I could just relax the first couple of days and see the sights in the English countryside. After a night without sleep, doing nothing sounded really cool. Little did I know what a lush tropical experience awaited....

OK, so England in December is not exactly tropical, warmer than it has been back home in Indiana, but still, not exactly warm. However, there is this really cool project going on in Cornwall in Southern England called the Edens Project. An old quarry has been purchased and the world's largest green houses built.

It looks like some sort of science fiction movie. It's only a few months old, but they did an incredible job with the plants, huge plants and not necessarily rare ones. In fact many are just common tropical plants representing the tropical fruit and spices we eat. They also had an arid section of desert plants, many California species that I recognized, but I felt that section was a bit cold and damp to properly represent that climatic zone. It was fun all the same.

Aside from all the plants, they also had quite a lot of sculpture. At this point the only animals they have are some lizards and birds to help control the pest population. This habitat is so large that if not controlled, the insects would have a field day with the plats. Outside some insect traps and such, they are using as natural a means of pest control possible. Certainly a lot better than spraying everything in a closed environment! Anyway, they do plan on getting larger species of animals for display when the project is expanded, but for now they are settling with just the few odd small species and a lot of really innovative sculpture. I especially enjoyed the ones made of driftwood!

Anyway, here are just a few photos I took of the place. Just click on the pictures to seem them bigger.

Our first stop at Edens was the restaurant. None of us had a bite to eat all day and the drive down from Hethrow was anything but a short one. Good food actually, quite good. I also liked the light fixture that ran along the entire ceiling. The restaurant was actually on quite the low level with an elevated walkway above from which I took this photo.

The Arid region was not hot, in fact was a bit cold and I think much too humid. However, it looked very much like southern California, well, for being in England it was not bad ;-)

Lots of sand, lots of rocks and common plants. This is not a museum for rare and endangered species, but a representation of climates totally foreign to Britain. It is a really nice concept because they can have really open habitat where some folks might tread on a plant or two, or maybe pick a leaf here and there and though yes, it ruins the plant, but it is not going to cause them to totally rope areas off or isolate the visitor from the plants. You feel very much part of the environment here.

Speaking of treading on plants, they had these really fun signs about the place.

The larger side of the complex was the tropical zone. Warnings were posted about the excessive heat and humidity. I was a bit concerned about my camera which would not tolerate such temperatures, but I decided to see how it would go and if all else failed, I guess I could have gone back to the car and exchanged my digital for the 'real' camera, a Nikon N80 which is just a backup camera that I took because it is light weight and small. Well, as it turned out I never did get much use of that camera, but I did wish that I had brought along my tripod to this garden as it had become quite dark outside with a heavy overcast. Fortunately I could set the ISO on the camera to 800 and still get pretty good photos so using a 20mm lens which focuses close and allows me to hand hold at very low shutter speeds, we went through the double doors to the Tropical zone.

Well, as it turned out, it was far from anything we typically get anywhere from late April through September in Indiana. It certainly was nothing like a July or August afternoon back home and outside a brief fogging of my lens, the camera was fine.

Moreso than the other side, this area really looked like it was out of some science fiction film. I think it was all the tall trees and lush vegetation. Perhaps too the pond and even a stream and waterfall. They were even growing bananas in there! I wonder if there were any tarantulas to go with those...

The structures housing equipment were nicely blended in. This was the housing for the treatment plant and pumps for the waterfall stream and pond.

Built in a quarry, the green houses were up against the side and used the existing walls and topography so that the trail was all uphill heading out and then a narrow path along the upper wall where you got wonderful views of the structure and of course the plants. Lots of plants.

Walking behind are Liz and her fiancee, Paul, our driver -- which is generally good cause I think I could handle driving on the wrong side of the road, but I do not think I would like to handle the terribly narrow roads and crazy drivers which literally zip along at 90mph. Anyway, we continue to climb the path. Absolutely beautiful view from up here.