River Notes
The seductive smell of the ocean together with the distant calls of unseen wading birds, bring an air of peace and tranquility to this beach on the outer reaches of the Thames estuary, seen here at low tide.
I was spending an hour or so at Chalkwell station and, in a gap between trains, couldn't resist stepping along the shore for a while to take in the atmosphere.
Thamesport and Tilbury are just a few miles upstream so the deeper channels see a reasonable amount of shipping traffic during a typical day. Across the river can be seen the storage tanks of the UK National Grid's LNG terminal, located on the Isle of Grain. It doesn't look much from here but, during a 12 month period in 2022/23 this, the largest terminal by volume in Europe, unloaded over 100 ships from around the world, and supplied 14% of the nation's natural gas needs.
No surprise it was a pretty dour autumn day, but the backlight on the exposed riverbed provided some nice contrasts which I tried to exploit.
The title is a steal from the excellent book of the same name by author Barry Lopez.
11.35am, 10th October 2024
River Notes
The seductive smell of the ocean together with the distant calls of unseen wading birds, bring an air of peace and tranquility to this beach on the outer reaches of the Thames estuary, seen here at low tide.
I was spending an hour or so at Chalkwell station and, in a gap between trains, couldn't resist stepping along the shore for a while to take in the atmosphere.
Thamesport and Tilbury are just a few miles upstream so the deeper channels see a reasonable amount of shipping traffic during a typical day. Across the river can be seen the storage tanks of the UK National Grid's LNG terminal, located on the Isle of Grain. It doesn't look much from here but, during a 12 month period in 2022/23 this, the largest terminal by volume in Europe, unloaded over 100 ships from around the world, and supplied 14% of the nation's natural gas needs.
No surprise it was a pretty dour autumn day, but the backlight on the exposed riverbed provided some nice contrasts which I tried to exploit.
The title is a steal from the excellent book of the same name by author Barry Lopez.
11.35am, 10th October 2024