For far too many years I have had a desire to visit some of the museums in London, however, I have a big disliking of the place (London that is). Several months ago whilst traveling daily up to Madia Vale I vowed I would make the effort to make the trip as a tourist and visit these wonderful places. Yesterday I succeeded and made a brief trip to both the Natural History and the Science Museums. Very glad I did. I didn’t get to see much of either (school holidays are not the best of times to visit such places) but it gave me more than enough to whet my appetite. I can see several more visits in the coming months. As can be expected to see the exhibits properly will take day’s if not weeks, so a couple of hours in each barely scratched the surface.
This going to be largely a pictorial guide of my visit. Clicking on an image will open up the image to it’s full size.
We started with the Natural History Museum located on the Cromwell Road, on arrival, with our naivety we were shocked to see a large queue of people outside waiting to gain entry. Once inside, after a quick look around the impressive hall, pictured below , we headed straight for the restaurant for lunch as it was just before twelve, moderately priced and good food.
After Eating we then headed off to see some of the exhibits.
First that caught my eye was the proverbial Dodo. Would be interesting to know if there are any real exhibits around the world in existence or are they all like this one – a model/life size reconstruction.
Update: The first recorded sighting of a Dodo was in 1598 and the last credible one was in 1662. No intact specimen survives anywhere. For further information please click here Dodo
Having enlarged my images I can make out a few of the names, plus a couple from memory. Nearest in the nest is the Humming bird , then no. 8 is the Gold-Crest then the Little Owl , behind that is the Domestic chicken . 5 and 4 behind that is unknown, the third one from the far end is the Ostrich , the second from end I now believe is from the Moa (thanks Shane) and the furthest and largest is from the Elephant bird .
This bird caught my eye, a Female Ascension Frigate Bird. It was very hard to get usable shots due to the lighting, reflections and sheer volume of people. All photos were hand held (obviously no tripods allowed) and ambient light – no flash.
As it was now getting rather hot and stuffy we decided to move onto another area, so we headed towards the Energy exhibits. After working my way through the displays we saw these insulators, which is the first time I’ve seen one up close before – they are normally hanging from the power network distribution pylons. Sad, but as a sparks I find this sort of thing interesting.
I’ve included the people in the shot to give a sense of scale as to the size of the insulators. These insulators ensure the 400,000 volt cables that are suspended from them are kept well segregated from the steel pylons.
After admiring these works we decided to head up the escalator and on into the Earths Sculpture.
Looking back from whence we came from.
Then onto a new floor and new discoveries.
This detail is from a bowl on the top floor entrance shown in the looking back image.
Part 2 of this should follow in the next day or so – and will be my quick take on the Science Museum. It is likely that I will add a comment or 2 on here in the next few days as well.
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