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Yay - we made it up to McKinnon's Pass.
We have a Milford Track video for those interested in watching our experience of it www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q4-0fGlORI and also a geocaching video on Queenstown www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uRiLN_2dNw
From our deck. One human, and at least one other mammal, probably a squirrel, or possibly a dog.
That snow is almost gone already. There's probably more to come.
Thanks for looking!
Looking inland up the valley of the Gruinard River towards Fisherfield Forest. This estate track leads as far as a boathouse at the near (downstream) end of Loch na Sealga and is one of the best routes into the "Great Wilderness", a wild, roadless area between Little Loch Broom and Loch Maree. The Beinn Deargs can be seen in the distance at right, beyond the rocky hills of Lewisian gneiss.
Amtrak 682 crosses the Charles River and passes a track gang inspecting the switches of the approach to North Station.
A DE30 rushes through the work zone at Forest Hills while a track gang works on one of the out of service mains.
The German Philipp Holzmann company was responsible for the construction on the Taurus-section, part of the Berlin-Baghdad railroad project, some 70 kilometres north of Adana. The most difficult phase of the project was crossing the Belemedik plateau in the Taurus Mountains. To accommodate all necessary personnel, approx. in 1907 a large shanty town was built by the Germans (Holzmann company) at Karapınar railway stop (later called Belemedik) in Pozantı district.
Between 1907 and 1914 estimated 3,500 Germans and Austrians where living here. They were engineers, technicians and railway workers (special railway construction platoon 5, Eisenbahnbau-Sonderkommando 5), often with their families. For the Turks in the vicinity, the shanty town was considered the “German city”. It was designed to meet all the needs of the company’s employees. A hospital was built to the state of the art of those days (employing German doctors and nurses), a German church, a mosque, a German school for the children of the employees, a cinema, waterpipes/drainage system, big stone houses, etc. and even a brothel (about 1 km outside of the city). Belemedik was also one of the first cities in the Ottoman Empire that enjoyed 24h electricity thanks to a power station,
Starting as a village, Belemedik gained the appearance of a regular provincial town. Next to Germans and Austrians, a number of Turkish people were attracted to settle here as well as traders. Holzmann had also employed locally many Greeks, Armenians and Turkishs workers and in addition, the Ottoman government provided prisoners (including Armenians in 1914/15) to work in the tunnels. Hence, there was also a detachment of Turkish soldiers in the small city. From 1916 on, an unknown (to me) number of Allied POWs were based here to support the on-going construction works. As stone houses were not common in that region in those days, they have most likely been accommodated in tents or wooden/shanty houses (of which nothing has remained). At its peak in 1917/18, nearly 35,000 people populated Belemedik.
The railway station Karapınar was opened in 1912. Even by then, the site was called Belemedik. According to one source the name Belemedik is the corrupt form of the Turkish word Bilemedik meaning We couldn't guess. During the railway construction, each tunnel was bored by two teams working at the opposite sides of the tunnel. The teams were required to meet at the mid point. When for any reason, one team failed to accomplish the task, the excuse was the word bilemedik and in German pronunciation it became belemedik. Belemedik was the end of the railway until the completition of the Giaudere (Varda)-viaduct at Hacıkırı in September 1918, the connection to Adana (Durak) was openend in early October 1918 finishing the railway works just before the end of the war. The section is using 37 tunnels with a cumulative length 14.4 km).
Work on the railway was long and hard. In the eight years of construction in the area 41 German citizens people lost their lives (accidents, slides and diseases). In 2005, the German Honorary Consul Dr. Teyfik Kısacık bought land and with the help of German company Pratiker (Metro AG) as well as locals opened in September 30, 2005 a new German cemetery. However, if there are any tombs/graves at all in this ground is doubtful. Probably it is more a memorial ground. The memorial plate which was errected was brought from Hacikiri (those dead were brought to the German central cemetery in Tarabya, Istanbul).
The number of Allied POWs who died here is unknown to me. If you know, pls. leave a comment. Those tombs of POWs which were found after WW1 were transferred to Baghdad North cemetery (most likely for white British and Australian soldiers rather than for British-Indian soldiers who might have been cremated or where just buried anywhere).
The Belemedik station was closed at the end of the First World War. After WW I, Belemedik was occupied by the French army, with its headquarters in Pozantı. The French occupying force used Belemedik as a site for a military hospital in which the commander's wife Mme. Mesnil was working as a nurse. Turkish Nationalists (also called Kemalist) captured Belemedik on 10 April 1920. On 28 May the rest of the French troops also surrendered during the battle of Karboğazı. During the rest of the independence war, the hospital in Belemedik was used by the Turkish Nationalists. In the turmoil which followed, the area was widely abandoned and almost forgotten. Until Atatürk was able to establish the modern Turkey, it was said that bandits were living in the remains of the houses and later locals from the region used Belemedik houses as source for cheap construction material. As result, almost nothing of the “German town” has remained (btw., Holzmann went bankrupt in 2002). Still existing are the fundaments of the generator, the chimney of the German hospital and a few stone houses in different conditions (either ruins or to house animals). Today, there is merely a small hamlet left with friendly and helpful inhabitants.
On the black sand of Urenui Beach - on New Zealand's west coast. The east coast of NZ has white sand.
Well, I think that I am finished with my visit to Howell, Michigan. I guess I'll jump on the next train out of town!
I like the stories of the hoboes who road the rails in the dark days of The Great Depression. Traveling gave them hope. Maybe in the next town I'll find a job, a home, a sweetheart.........
A song from a movie about the romance of the rails is "Wish Me a Rainbow" from the movie, "This Property is Condemned." www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXI14h3NqI
iPhone 8 + Blackie App
A black and white photograph of tire tracks in melted sleet on our neighbor's driveway, with a little bit of shade from the afternoon sun in the top right and bottom left corners of the frame.
At the start of my second trek to the 4922 plateau I had this view of the railroad track leading downstream to the potash mine at Potash, Utah. The trail toward the plateau crosses the track near this point.
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