A trip to Newcastle

Pasha Bulker Originally uploaded by DavidKeaveny

I'd been planning a trip up to Newcastle for the past few weeks, ever since I heard about this ship running aground during the bad weather we had in early June (finally something to put Newcastle on the world map! The locals must have been coining it from tourists). Well, this weekend I got the opportunity, as we all went up to visit the church in Newcastle. Rather selfishly, I'd been hoping that salvage attempts would continue to fail until we got there, so I was relieved when an attempt during the week failed when several of the tow ropes snapped, then attempts to reattach them could not be completed in time. Fortunately, the team was in no hurry to get the ship afloat again, with several good high tides still to come. From what I've seen in the news, they've now started to make some progress, so we got there in the nick of time. It was freezing cold, mainly from the wind chill, so I didn't take many photos, and even with the tripod, some were rather blurry. This was the best of the bunch.