Photos below anyway.

We had the whole of the old station building to ourselves. This is the main waiting room building which had the kitchen, main room, a bathroom and one bedroom in:

And here’s Iain getting in the way of it:

There was also the second building which was the station master’s house (I believe), with two more bedrooms, bathrooms and a sitting room:

The tracks had long since gone and the line was now a footpath, and the station made a handy seating spot:

This is the end of the waiting room building, and also an excellent spot for barbecues:

And from the far end of the platform:

As it was a footpath we did get a fair amount of passing traffic (foot, horse and bike) but no unwelcome visitors in the waiting room itself which had apparently happened in the past when walkers think it’s a tea-room. The private sign may help, but then again not many people read them:

The station from the opposite platform, which was well overgrown now. I’d always watched post-apocalyptic films and didn’t think the plants would take over deserted buildings as quickly as they show, but the growth on the abandoned station shows that maybe the set designers are right:

Both station buildings together:

The station master’s house had a balcony, and here’s Ann on it:

The canopy on the front of the waiting room which was a good place for consuming the previously mentioned barbecue, as long as the temperature held up in the early evening. It was also a great place for mosquitoe spotting as there were a few patches of standing water in front of the platform:

Another shot of the station master’s house:

And from the front:

As mentioned, the path was used by walkers, cyclists and riders alike:

We walked along the path to the next village, Oakamoor where there’s a weir:

… and flowers:

Also the pubs weren’t bad there in Oakamoor. The walk wasn’t too far as even the unfit (Kerry) and the pensioners made it:

Using a load of Kerry’s Nectar or some other reward points we had free entry to Trentham Gardens, which was a bit like a National Trust property except there was music playing in the cafes just to lower the tone:

Weeping Angel alert:

And finally some wildlife. The slope up to the road was one big maze of rabbit warrens and there were rabbits a-plenty:

The station was a fine place to stay. The closest we got to experiencing Alton Towers was watching the coachloads of people going up and down the main road from down on our quiet platform. The weather could have been better, but it had cleared a lot from the weeks before – and we don’t expect much from July in England anyway. Having now stayed in the station, Ingestre Pavilion and Tixall Gatehouse (which is highly recommended) we may have exhausted the Landmark Trust’s Stafforshire offerings, though.

What Works

As expected, just using the tablet as a web browser and email device worked just fine. Other reviews cover the merits of the device in this respect compared to other tablets so I wont go into any details. But as far as I’m concerned it does what I wanted of it.

Particularly relevant to me was the ability to run Flash. Although Flash is much maligned (and often rightly) on tablets, playing videos from the BBC News website is virtually an essential in my opinion. Embedded clips seem to be screened out and only display as static images, which is probably the website itself auto-detecting that I’m on a mobile device, but longer clips and live news both play perfectly.

What doesn’t work (or needs some help)

Charging

The most basic of things: the Fire comes with a US plug and it didn’t appear to charge very quickly from the PC. – after about 8 hours it was at 76%. The mains-to-mini-USB cable from my phone seems to work, though.

Streaming Movies and Music from Amazon

Somewhat surprisingly, while I was still in the US the streaming videosxworked fine. As the Fire comes with an Amazon Prime trial I managed to get some content for free – despite having UK payment and address details. Unsurprisingly this stopped working beck in the UK, meaning the checks must be based on IP address. I know there are services by which I could send neteork traffic so that it appears that I’m still stateside, but given that it’s streaming content I’m not sure the performance will be good enough. And frankly, there are easier ways to get videos or music.

Installing Apps

More surprising was that the Amazon app store wouldn’t work for installing apps, even whilst in the US. I think the requirements here are both an American credit card and address. This was true even when I tried to download free apps – my details were still checked. Any attempt to install an app from the Google Market saw the Amazon App Store intercept the request, andcthen tell me the store isn’t available.

There are two workarounds. One is to root the device and you can install what you like. The other, which is what I’ve done, is to backup apps from my Android phone, copy them onto the PC, and then copy onto the Kindle and install. I had to install a file browser from a slightly dodgy source, but from there on in it was simple enough. A few apps didn’t work (Google docs), but for the most part this workaround does the trick.

Amongst the apps I had success with were: YouTube, BBC iPlayer, WordPress, eBay, Angry Birds. The iPlayer appeared to work well.

What do I think?

This is my first tablet. Not the first I’ve used, but the first I’ve owned. It’s pretty much fulfilling the role I had in mind for it i.e as an instant-on web browser that’s bigger than my phone. However, I don’t think I’d recommend that others import one and “make do” with it’s half-walled-garden Android system unless a) you’re a cheapskate like me and b) you’re happy to tinker at a tech level to get more apps on.

Just to add to the “how does it fare for what it’s supposed to do”, which is to stream movies and music, I’m not sure I’d want it for that anyway as a) the speakers are weirdly placed if you watch anything in landscape mode, and also aren’t that good, and b) it’s heavier than I thought it would be. Oh, and c) I just don’t think the screen is big enough for anything long-form such as a movie, especially not if you want to watch it with someone else.

But to add a more general opinion, I’m very happy with it for my unique cheapskate-android-freak-techie needs, but for anything more mainstream I don’t think it does anything quite well enough. If anyone else is thinking of buying one in the US and then bringing it over I would think as to whether you’d be better served just splashing out on a more expensive and full-featured tablet.

So, with a booking through Far and Ride, off we went.

Day 1: Arrival and a hotel in Amman

We arrived early evening and had a driver waiting who transferred us to our hotel in Amman. All went seamlessly and we met some of the others on our tour, as well as having a decent-enough buffet meal. There was no time to see any of Amman as we were setting off to Petra at 8:30 the next morning.

Day 2: Petra

The day started with only a moderately nerve-wracking drive to Petra. There were no incidents, but I got the feeling that road markings were a new, and somewhat unwelcome, development for the Jordanian road system. We spent most of our time straddling whichever set of white lines were painted on the road, be they for a dual carriageway or to separate oncoming traffic.

The view over Wadi Musa, the town where the entrance to Petra is located.

We turned out to be a group of fourteen (I think), consisting of thirteen women and me. I wasn’t expecting 50/50 on a riding holiday, but being the only guy did surprise me a bit… luckily there was no wood that needed chopping, or at the times when there was there was nothing to chop it with, so my duties weren’t too arduous.

To get our riding off to an early start some decided to take the short horseback journey down into Petra itself. I just walked, thinking that the upcoming six days in the saddle would probably be enough.

The entrance to Petra is down through a narrow canyon which not only makes it very dramatic but also served as a good defence.

About twenty minutes walk later you come to the money shot – quite literally (okay, not quite) – which is the famous Treasury, so called because it didn’t contain any treasure. Or at least not treasure that we’d consider treasure as it was used as a tomb, albeit a rather important one at the time. It’s also one of the best preserved buildings as one of the last to be carved, by which time the Nabataeans (who lived there) had worked out that the rock had about as much solidity as butter on a summer’s day and so they’d carving the facade into a recess to protected it from the elements, which is why the rock overhangs here.

There were also a large number of smaller tombs that seemed to surround the town centre. I’m not sure I’d have liked the idea of living in the middle of a graveyard but the Nabataeans seemed to be happy with it.

Note the erosion in the aforementioned butter-hard rock.

There was also an amphitheatre.

The whole place was a lot bigger than I expected, and apparently had something like thirty thousand people in it in its heyday – sometime around 100 AD, before the Romans finally managed to conquer the place.

As you can see, the city was surrounded by a mountain range which is why the Romans took so long about getting in. Petra was a trade hub and was eventually broken by the Romans pushing trade routes elsewhere and then marching in once everyone inside had lost the will to put up a fight.

Petra also supplied my first sight of camels, outside of a zoo, so I took photos of them. Little was I to know that the desert was littered with the things, although the novelty never quite wore off anyway.

One of our group rode a camel. I abstained, mainly because I just wanted to walk back more slowly, although I have to admit to being tempted.

We only had an afternoon in Petra – nowhere near enough and one of the only scheduling issues we had with the entire tour (although I believe this is being reconsidered now to give a full day there).

Days 3 to 8: The Wadi Rum

The next day we set off from Wadi Musa across the mountains on our trusty steeds (aka horses). We were going to be six days in the desert, without showers or running water, but well looked after by two trucks carrying our bags, the horse’s food, and the team that cooked some excellent food for us. We had hot meals twice a day and plenty of bottled water and other drinks, so to say that we were doing anything approaching the hardship of living in the desert would be a complete lie. However, we were away from the rest of civilisation and surrounded by sand, sun, wind and rock for the six days, which really is the only way to experience the place.

And here I am, with my trusty steed – named Rania. A very responsive yet also very calm horse that really was the perfect horse to get me started off on. (By “started off” I mean in comparison to some of the other Arabic horses. Rania was possibly the most forward-going horse I’ve ridden whilst still being easy to control.)

We rode for about two and a half hours each half day, with a reasonable-sized break at lunchtime when the supply truck turned up with all our bags. It looked completely overstacked at the time but after a few days I don’t think any of us thought twice about the way it was loaded.

Although I’ve mentioned the food already, the quality of what we were given for lunch really was excellent. I think I enjoyed every meal we had in the desert more than any of the three or four we had in the hotel stays at the start and end of our trip.

We were responsible for tacking and untacking our horses (or horsing and dehorsing them, as I like to call it). Tacking up was something I’d never done before and with some help from others I made progress in being able to successfully shove metal into a horse’s face by the end of the week.

The horses also loved their nosebags. Ann’s starting horse, Nabi, was definitely a grumpier character than Rania, although he was quite calm in most other ways. (We swapped horses after a couple of days.)

The views across the mountains were quite spectacular. The sun was warm but the air had a bit of a bite to it, which actually suits me very well. I could also see it’s better to stay covered up, even in the sun – not because it was so strong (although it was strong enough for pasty white folk like me) but it actually felt cooler to stay covered. The evenings were a bit on the chill side it has to be said, but with a fire and a couple of layers on we were fine.

Rami, the stable owner, also owned six dogs. This one surprised him by going with the leading group and then following us for the entire six days.

Our first evening’s camp. Tents were optional and although I didn’t mind the idea of sleeping under the stars, I knew the excellent sleeping bags we’d borrowed were best if you didn’t wear clothes inside and so staying inside the tent seemed the right option; it took me 15 minutes to get undressed in tent as it was. We were early to bed (before 9) and rose as soon as the sun hit the tents in any case.

Ann riding her horse, Nabi.

The same, but with dog accompaniment.

Sarah from Far and Ride was on the tour and hard at work here.

The horses had quite a bit more life in them than the ones we’re used to, and that was absolutely fine by me. Nabi was an endurance specialist and was in training for a 120km ride just a few days after our trip – something that he was expected to do in around six hours.

As we descended from the mountains the terrain became more recongisable as a desert.

Mohamed, our other guide, on a horse that would never walk anywhere but would pretty much canter on the spot. He also tended to dress as a bandit.

Ann on Nabi. We were in the Wadi Rum here, but outside the protected area – hence the electricity pylons in the distance.

Me on my horse for the first couple of days, called Rania (or at least I think that’s how it’s spelt).

The desert sunsets were also pretty spectacular.

The view from another of our evening camp spots.

Ann with fellow travellers Sarah and Emma, also from the UK.

It wasn’t just Petra that was made of butter-like rock. This rock was known for being mushroom-shaped. Mmmmm… buttery mushrooms….

Emma (left) and Sarah (right), raring to go… kind of.

Some more dramatic rock formations. I never got tired of looking at them.

We were encouraged to have solo cantering runs, where Rami would ride off to a point and then one-by-one we’d canter to him at whatever speed we felt comfortable. Initially I was happy just to get there as it was by far the longest continuous canter I’d ever done, and others had pure rocket-propelled Arabic horses and covered the distance at a gallop. Being able to take it as you wanted worked really well and I certainly picked up the speed over the week and now feel comfortable going full-whack on horseback.

Another natural rock formation: a stone arch.

More desert.

Yes, even in November the sky is very blue in Jordan. I had to take a photo just to prove it.

Ann riding Rania after our switcheroo.

Dramatic cliffs that enveloped another of our camps.

We were given headscarfs by Rami, which proved to be remarkably useful. I think almost everyone wore theirs at one point or another either as a neck scarf or, as demonstrated by Ann here, tied in a semi-Jordanian fashion.

One evening we spotted a flock of birds quite high up. I’ve no idea what they were or where they were going but I’m guessing by the formation there was some migrating going on. They may have been geese of some kind as they seemed fairly large.

As we headed deeper into Wadi Rum it started to look even more desert-like, complete with sand dunes.

Sarah’s horse was always chewing its bit, unless she gave it a foot to try to bite.

We stopped for lunch one day at what must be called an oasis on the edge of a town, complete with a small water reservoir and numerous leaky irrigation pipes. And where there was water, there was greenery and creatures including birds, plants, hornets (or just giant wasps) and dragonfly.

Just one of the many small herds of camels we saw in the desert.

More dramatic rocks.

Everyone ends up drawing what they can see, and the Bedouins had been doodling camels into the rocks for a long time.

One of the steepest dunes seemingly formed by wind pushing sand up from the rocky desert floor from both directions.

There were also some permanent camps inside Wadi Rum, and this one even looked like it might have hot water – something we hadn’t felt for a few days by this point. We didn’t break in, but it was tempting.

Ann on Rania with more of our group around. We were a slightly-too-large group and most of the time we split into two rides of about eight or nine each, but for this section we rode as one.

Lawrence of Arabia’s house. Not as impressive as one might have hoped, but I suppose we had to see it while we were in the area. On the whole, the desert experience itself was much more impressive than any of the tourist sights we saw.

Ann did a fair amount of cantering too.

Rami had a particularly powerful-looking horse – a mare which Sarah rode for the last day. It was interesting to watch how he handled the very headstrong horses and that, in contrast to the controlling way we are taught at the riding school, often he would “give in” and let the horse burn some energy with a run and then bring it back. Obviously that’s more practical in the expanse of the desert than, say, the bridle paths of England, but it showed just how much the horses needed to release some energy every now and then.

Another of the famous stone bridges. This one you could walk across, although we didn’t have time to hang around.

As ever, the scenery itself was the most impressive thing.

There were some things growing in the desert and a few stones around a flower marked out a back garden for our tent one night.

The four Brits. From left to right: Emma, Ann, Sarah and me.

Another natural bridge/arch.

The dog kept up the whole time, even with our extended periods of trotting and cantering, but was always looking for a place to fall asleep in the half-shade.

A final sunset before we set off for an afternoon at the Dead Sea.

Night 8: The Oasis Desert Camp

We didn’t camp after our last night’s ride but instead stayed in the Oasis Desert Camp, which is one of the closest places you can stay to the protected part of Wadi Rum and still have access to facilities like running water. It was a slightly strange experience and, although the showers were in an abysmal state and barely dispensed any water, and that which it did was warm at best, the relative cleanliness we felt after one poor shower was so good that we were grateful for it. It also puts into perspective the difference in expectations of Western tourists versus Jordanian ones, who I think felt very well-served by the facilities in the camp. After almost a week in the desert our perspectives were also changed as the Oasis Desert Camp, which frankly looked to be a complete tip by the videos and photos on the website, really felt like a refreshing oasis by this point.

We also said goodbye to our horses. They’d served us well for the six days and covered something like a hundred miles or so with us on their backs without breaking into a sweat. It’s going to be hard to recreate the feeling of instant speed on other horses; a bit like going back to a moped after riding a superbike.

Day 9: The Dead Sea

We drove to the Marriot hotel on the Dead Sea, of which I took no photos whatsoever, and I discovered that even I float if the water is a 30% concentration saline solution. It was short-lived entertainment as the salty water is too irritating to stay in for long, but “floating in the Dead Sea” is a box to tick at least. The hotel was slightly incongruous for our group, given that none of us really showed much interest in the trappings of five star “luxury”, but it turned out to be quite a good thing to do as a group wind-down. Also, it had showers, and despite the guilt of using what was probably the annual supply of water for the regular Jordanian it was great to feel clean again.

We hit the bar at happy hour. I’d had virtually no alchohol for the past week, which I think might be the longest I’ve gone for about a dozen years or so, and the first beers were very welcome indeed. A soft bed also seemed like it should feel good, but somehow I think most of us had the worst night’s sleep we’d had for quite a few days. Maybe it was the 5:30am ride to the airport, and then back to Heathrow, that stopped us from sleeping well.

Things I Learnt

• Galloping on a horse is fun
• When the air is dry, going without a shower for six days isn’t as bad as you’d think
• Sand didn’t get in our food, which was a surprise
• Jordanian people really don’t have much water
• There’s much more to look at in the desert than I’d have expected
• Arabic horses are a bit mental in the head, but in a good way (mostly)

If you want to come to a meetup then sign up on the London On Board meetup page. It’s free and excellent board gaming fun.

But I did get to see a couple of shows:

Kevin Eldon: Titting About

I’m probably as close as it gets to being a  Kevin Eldon fan, based on his many appearances is some quality TV comedies over the years and most exceptionally for his role as the Evil Hypnotist in one Big Train sketch. So, I enjoyed his first stand-up show in a tiny club (holding about 100 people). It was a mixture of character comedy and straight stand-up, with the former being by far the strongest. “My CDs Jump” (a song) was one of the highlights.

Reginald D Hunter: Trophy Nigga

The show started half hour late, apparently because Reg had set his alarm clock wrong. It seemed a believable explanation anyway. All pretty entertaining, though, and his delivery and command of the audience is so natural it’s hard not to enjoy – hence the size of the venue. Not exactly a classic, but certainly well worth it.

Pitch and Putt

Okay, this wasn’t a show, but I did play some pitch and putt for the first time in about 15 years. I wasn’t any worse than I remembered, but then I wasn’t any better either.

For anyone who’s not familiar with the Stack Exchange model, you gain reputation by asking (good) questions, and answering them such that other people vote for your answers. For freelance developers and consultants having a high reputation can even help to bring work in. While the site’s in an early stage (“bootstrap mode”) it’s easier to gain points too, so there’s some benefit in getting in there now (hint, hint).

It’s intended to be dev-centred, but there’s no reason why it can’t cover most of the practicalities of “how do I set up a Facebook Page” etc, so feel free to create questions you know the answer to and even answer them yourself. The great thing about the system is that since it’s community moderated, and questions are tagged rather than put into categories, then the definition of “what can I ask?” is fairly broad.

For anyone keeping track, this post is a follow-on from the previous trip to Aegina.

The Acropolis is definitely the centrepiece of Athens and you catch glimpses of it from numerous streets and allleyways. It’s saved from being completely swamped by the sprawl of Athens around it by virtue of the huge rock it sits on:

The Acropolis as it looks from the approaching road:

On the way up to the Acropolis you catch glimpses of the most famous of the buildings there, the Parthenon. It’s “one of those buildings” that has to be on every architecture student’s pilgrimage route at some point:

The entrance to the Acropolis complex, which does a good job of only offering you partial views of the temples above:

And here’s the same view, but with Ann providing scale. (Hands up if you thought the doorway was really that big):

A view of the temple of Hierocles, and the surrounds of Athens, that you get from the entrance:

The steps leading up to the temples. “Steep” was a word that came to mind:

The Propylea in the Acropolis itself:

Ann enjoying the obligatory scaffolding:

The Propylea, with scaffolding. They always know when I’m visiting somewhere and scaffold it up specially. I’d be disappointed if it was any other way:

The Parthenon gets cranes as well as scaffolding. Although this is otherwise a pretty classic view, and we were lucky enough for it to be fairly empty – the benefits of a fairly early morning in December (when it was still warm):

Some pieces of Parthenon frieze that they leave around the place until they can work out how to put the 3D jigsaw back together again:

The Erechtheum:

More Erechtheum. Athens definitely excelled at blue skies too:

From inside the Erechtheum looking out. I bet the original builders never thought “this is going to look great when it falls down”, but it does:

The Erectheum entrance porch:

An arty shot of an Erechtheum column:

The ceiling of the Erechtheum porch:

The Erechtheum as a whole:

The east side of the Parthenon itself:

And the whole east front of the Parthenon:

Some of the frieze sculptures that us Brits decided weren’t worth carrying back to the British Museum. (Travel hint: don’t make that joke in Greece. They don’t like it.)

Some more Parthenon:

You can see some of the wall sections of the Parthenon behind the columns. It seems strange to think of it being a solid box inside now that we’re used to seeing it as ruins:

More frieze sculptures:

Turn the scaffolding up to 11:

The classic shot (albeit with scaffolding still):

The hill outside the Acropolis where some famous Christain bloke did some preaching. (Apparently his name was Paul, but no idea what his surname was.) It’s well dangerous up there, as you can see by Ann being frozen with fear:

A tree that had managed to grow itself out of the rocks:

And this is how the Acropolis looks at night. It’s worth finding a cafe or restaurant with a view for a few hours at least: