Struth! The world's most expensive wobbly bridge

 

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that within hours of the Queen in June of 2000 officially opening the first bridge across London's River Thames since the Tower Bridge in 1894, and naming it the London Millennium Bridge, locals had instantly re-dubbed it the Wibbly Wobbly Bridge – that's stuck to this day.

 

Because so wibbly wobbly was it back in 2000, that just two days after opening, the 325m long and GBP18.2m (AU$32m) structure was closed for two years for "sway dampeners" to be fitted to stop an unexpected and disconcerting lateral sway.

 

Linking the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern Museum on one side of the Thames and St Paul's Cathedral on the other, the pedestrian-only bridge quickly showed it could get up a sway whenever big numbers were crossing on it. And as these crowds would step from side to side in unison to adjust to the sway, that sway simply got bigger, and bigger and bigger…

 

After being closed for two years the Millennium Bridge is used safely and sway-free today by as many as 2000 people at any one time.

 

THEY SAID IT: "WHEN a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car – or a new wife." (Prince Philip)

Henry Ford's cargo ship house

HOUSE WOULD SUIT HENRY FORD TO A T

David Ellis

WE'VE written over the years about some pretty strange things that have become people's somewhat bizarre homes, holiday retreats and even offices, amongst them a few converted passenger jets, plenty of churches, lighthouses, a couple of one-time houses of ill repute – even an ice-works and a former funeral parlour or two.

But one that got our attention in North America recently was probably the best yet in one-offs: the complete forecastle of pilot house (bridge) and the owner's and captain's quarters, as well as the deck and bow, from a-once Ford Motor Company cargo ship, and which now sits atop a little promontory on Lake Erie as the ultimate in cool-idea holiday homes.

The ship from which it came was the coal and iron-ore carrier Benson Ford, named after a grandson of the company's founder, Henry. It did sterling service across North America's Great Lakes for some 57 years – and although running aground on a couple of occasions, never suffered any major harm.

Henry Ford loved the ship as a relaxing way of visiting his factories around the Great Lakes, and to ensure his absolute in creature comforts, designed much of the vessel's walnut-lined Owner's Quarters himself, as well as a main Guests' Lounge and Bedroom, all to a degree that would do a luxury liner proud.

So grand, in fact, that local newspapers quickly defined it as "the most modern ship on the Great Lakes."

But by 1981 her days were up, and the Benson Ford was decommissioned so her name could be given to a newer ship of the Ford fleet; the hull was then re-named John Dykstra II, after the Hollywood special effects and computer genius whom George Lucas recruited to make such blockbusters as Star Wars and Spider-Man 2.

But she sailed ne'er a single nautical mile under her new name, instead languishing dockside for four years until being unexpectedly rescued by an Ohio couple – who to the surprise and bemusement of many, oxy'd-off the entire forecastle, deck and bow, and floated this strange sight 100km by barge to Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie's South Bass Island.

There the 4-storey, 20m by 20m structure was lifted by cranes to the top of a low promontory protruding into the lake, allowing its new owners to take-in the most wondrous views from their bizarre-looking new home. And by carefully positioning it with a part of the bow sticking jauntily over the promontory's edge, it gave them and their guests the impression of being aboard a ship at sea.

In 1992, six years after moving in, they applied to the local Zoning Board for permission to register their towering "shiphouse" as a Bed and Breakfast, a request that resulted in a long and costly legal battle, and which they eventually lost.

After finally conceding defeat, the couple put the place to auction in 1999, with an amazing 128 bidders from ten American States and Canada registering interest. The successful bidders were an Ohio father and son, Jerry and Bryan Kasper who've turned it today into a holiday retreat most of us could only fantasise about.

For wanting to maintain the original Henry Ford ambience, they've recreated much of the lavishness of the Ford era, the polished walnut panels glowing once-more, and rich button-stitched leather and other elaborate furnishings of his time its highlights throughout.

There are also Ford-era mementoes, curios and photographs, as well as antiques that are a nod to the inventiveness of Ford's good friend Thomas Edison, who once sailed with him aboard the Benson Ford.

The Kasper's have also renovated dining and sleeping areas including creating a yester-year family room, put full-size baths into ensuites attached to each of five refurbished guest bedrooms, added a bar adjacent to the refurbished dining-  and living-room, and a library… and as their only concession to the 21st century, modernised the kitchen to state-of-the-art.

And while many of these areas take-in expansive views of Lake Erie, it's from the pilot house atop the four-storey forecastle that the Kasper's and personal guests can take-in wondrous million-dollar sunset views across the lake, and their shore-side surrounds below them.

And they've returned the name Benson Ford to the bow: were he around today, it would doubtless suit old Henry to a T.

                                                            ……………………

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

 

[] ONE of the more unusual in holiday retreats, a complete cargo ship's forecastle. (Jerry Kasper)

[] THE Benson Ford as she originally sailed on America's Great Lakes for the Ford Motor Company. (Ford Motor Company)

[] FROM ashore you can see how the complete forecastle was cut off and relocated.  (Jerry Kasper)

[] THE luxurious leather and walnut lounge. (Jerry Kasper)

[] HOME comforts of the spacious master bedroom as originally designed by Henry Ford. (Jerry Kasper)

[] HENRY Ford at the wheel of his twenty millionth vehicle, a Model A in April 1931. It is now on display at the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn, Michigan. (Henry Ford Museum)

   

 

Bowral Tulip Time a bloomin' success

TIP-TOE-ING BOWRAL'S 100,000 TULIPS

David Ellis



ADA Corbett would doubtless get a kick out of seeing what's become today of a one-time paddock in the Southern Highlands of NSW that she wrote of in 1929 as "a tip for old tins, dead cats and a blot on Bowral..."

For that old paddock is now a Southern Highlands' showpiece public park – and home to this month's annual Tulip Time Festival that's grown into one of Australia's most successful gardening events.

So successful that in the two weeks between this September 16th and 28th some 35,000-plus visitors will flock into the Southern Highlands for this now-renowned Festival with its centre-piece 100,000 flowering tulips and 25,000 specially-planted flowering annuals.

The wife of a Royal Navy Commander who spent long periods away from home, Ada Corbett was a feisty lady who never took No for an answer, peppering the press and politicians – in particular the-then Minister for Lands – with proposals from the early 1900's for that disused paddock to be turned into a "carpet square of beauty, a recreation resort and garden, and with a bandstand in its centre…"

And even though the Lands Minister had several times told her that there was no purpose in him visiting Bowral, when Ada finally brow-beat him into doing so in 1911, he confided to she and her hard-working supporters, that he was, in fact, "very favourably impressed."

So much so that on his return to Sydney, he decided that if Ada's committee could raise the first 150 then-pounds of the 410 pounds required to buy the paddock, his Department would fund the balance – a major departure from the government norm of pound-for-pound raised publicly.

After a feverish campaign to get that 150 pounds, Ada finally in late 1911 led the work herself on clearing the paddock of its straggly trees, native weeds and grasses… and those old tins and cat carcases. She also talked the Sydney Botanical Gardens into donating scores of shrubs for the new park, which she suggested be named "The King's Park" or "Edward Park" after the late King.

And while greatly admired by most for her physical involvement, as well as being secretary of the park committee, Ada Corbett's feisty nature made her many an enemy also. Some complained openly of a lack of public consultation over plans for the park after the public had put so much money into it, while others alluded to Ada being somewhat tardy in her book-keeping practices…

And when the park was finally opened in December 1914 – 100 years ago this year – local MLA Mr F.A. Badgery officially opening and naming it "Corbett Gardens," it sent some of Ada's critics into near-apoplexy.

Forty years later in October 1958 Bowral's first "Festival of Flowers" was staged at Corbett Gardens, but foundered just two years later from lack of funds. The local Rotary Club came to its rescue in 1961, donating 500 tulip bulbs that were planted by Rotarians and other service club members in Corbett Gardens, in so-doing launching Bowral's first Tulip Time.

This year's will be the 54th such Festival, with 100,000 tulips in flower in Corbett Gardens and other public areas in Bowral, Moss Vale and Mittagong – after having taken a team of twelve gardeners ten days to plant back in April.

The Festival will also feature a huge supporting program ranging from some near-40 of the Highlands' most extraordinarily spectacular private and institutional gardens open to public viewing (small entry fees go to charities,) a street parade, billy cart derby, street markets, and the Finals Cook-off for the now-famous Battle of the Bangers creative sausage competition.

For a detailed program: www.tuliptime.net.au


FOOTNOTE: Ada Corbett left Bowral in 1912 and never saw her finished park. She died on Norfolk Island in 1943 aged 82 – writing to a Bowral friend some years before her death: "I worked very hard to perfect my idea for the benefit of all of Bowral. Now I am more than repaid (as) my work is appreciated at last; I can forgive all the unkindness, insults and worry. Some day I hope to sit in Corbett Gardens and enjoy an hour there, and think of the time it was the tip for old tins, dead cats and a blot on Bowral..."

Sadly she never realised that hope.




PHOTO CAPTIONS:



[] BOWRAL'S first-time Tulip Festival in Corbett Gardens 1961. (Destination Southern Highlands)

[] STREET parade to celebrate 1961's first-ever Bowral Tulip Time. (Destination Southern Highlands)

[] TULIP Time more recently… (Destination Southern Highlands)

[] CROWDS enjoy the spectacular colours of Tulip Time in Bowral's Corbett Gardens. (Dee Kramer)

[] HISTORIC Milton Park Country House & Spa's gardens dating back to the early 1900s are amongst a near-40 private and institutional open to the public during Tulip Time. (Milton Park Country House & Spa)

[] BOWRAL has come a long way since its settlement in the early 1800s. (Destination Southern Highlands)



FOR WEEK BEGINNING 08 SEPTEMBER 2014

Struth! Is this the world's most remote hotel?

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says those looking to a holiday on which to get away from it all should look no further than Spain's El Hierro Island in the middle of the Atlantic –  long considered "the end of the world" until Christopher Columbus did the unthinkable one day and sailed past it to discover America.

The smallest and most south-western of the Canary Islands, El Hierro is a rocky outcrop regularly shaken by earth tremors and volcanic eruptions, and battered by regular Atlantic storms.

But despite its isolation and weather, more-adventurous tourists flock to it for walking holidays, scuba diving and to enjoy its quietly peaceful crowd-  and traffic-free pleasures, the biggest town having fewer than 2000 residents.

And those who can get in, opt for the tiny Punta Grande Hotel that has just four double rooms (none with phone or TV,) a breakfast room and lounge but no bar. Guests wanting a drink have to walk several hundred metres into town from where the tiny hotel – originally a circa-1800 Customs Office that checked ships arriving from America into Europe – clings to an exposed natural rock breakwater.

And its unusual rustic décor comprises items salvaged largely from shipwrecks over the years: portholes, lanterns, old charts, a diver's suit and hand-operated diver's air-pump, compasses, ships' name-plates and ominously, lifebuoys.

Friendly and welcoming – but just don't expect to sit outside the day you've done your hair.
 
 

PHOTO CAPTION:

[] YOU won't get much more remote than this – the tiny Punta Grande Hotel on the farthest tip of most south-western of the Canary Islands. (Fell-Walker.co.uk)

 

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a London literary time warp.

THEATRE'S TALE WORTHY OF BARD HIMSELF

David Ellis

YOU'D think that London's replica of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre, to which tens of thousands flock annually, would be the result of patriotic fervour absolutely British to its boot-straps.

But you'd be wrong. When the idea was put to them, the Brits appeared little interested in the concept of a "new Globe," possibly because it was not with a Pom at the helm, but rather with an American – actor and film director Sam Wanamaker who put over 20 years of his life into the project.

Wanamaker spent months precisely locating the site of the original Globe, and when he discovered an abandoned brewery and brothels over it, joyfully offered to buy the eye-sore from the local council, clear it and create a replica Globe Theatre that would revitalise that part of the Thames between Southwark and Blackfriars bridges.

The council, alas, shared none of his enthusiasm: for while it'd ear-marked brewery and brothels for demolition, it planned to replace them with a lovely new garbage transfer depot – a more-obvious attraction Thames-side, and so near to the very heart of London, than a copy-cat of Shakespeare's theatre of 400 years past.

But it had not reckoned on the fact it was dealing with Sam Wanamaker, who had been visiting England for 15 years since going there in 1949 to star in the film Give Us This Day. When making another movie in 1951 he decided to call London home, although he frequently returned to America to act in and direct some 50-plus movies and TV shows there.

With a healthy disposable income and an insatiable passion for Shakespeare's works, Wanamaker set about finding the site of the original Globe, and drawing-up in his mind's eye just how a replica would look on the site of the old.

That first Globe, built in 1599, burned down when a spark from a stage cannon set fire to the thatch roof. When a new Globe opened over its remains, the-then Puritan Parliament closed and demolished it in 1644. Even the foundations were buried to remove any memory "of the ribald behaviour of such a dreadful place," as one MP described the Globe in Parliament House, "one frequented by all manner of vagrants and lewd persons…with the noise of drums and trumpets greatly disturbing Divine Services."

When he found the derelict Bankside Brewery on the site of the original Globe in the 1960s, Sam Wanamaker had excavations done that discovered some of the theatre's remains under an adjacent house. But that house was Heritage Listed, and through sheer bloody-minded persistence he finally persuaded the council to drop its garbage depot plans, and for the site to become home to his "New Globe" theatre – albeit 220m off the actual site of the original.

With no plans of the original and only haphazard historic sketches, Wanamaker and the architect Theo Crosby came up with what they considered the original looked like, even using quotes from Shakespeare himself, such as from Henry V: "Or may we cram within this wooden 'O'…."

Today we know that the old Globe was not a true circular building, but a 20-sided one of 31m diameter (100ft.) And when he wanted to put a thatch roof over part of his replica, just as the original had had, Wanamaker again ran foul of the council: since the Great Fire of London in 1666, thatch-roofed buildings had been banned in the city – but again Wanamaker triumphed…although at the cost of millions of dollars for a sprinkler system.

Originally 3000 patrons would cram into the old Globe, and those who could afford it would be seated under the thatch roof; the remainder (dubbed "groundlings") paid a penny each to stand in open weather in front of the stage.

Today's 3-storey replica Globe has seating and standing for just 1,700, and like the original has not a single bolt in it, the whole held together by mortise and dowel. And as in the original, flags fly above it to indicate the kind of play being currently staged: red for history, white for comedy and black for tragedy.

Sadly Sam Wanamaker was never to see his dream New Globe theatre finished: he died of cancer four years before the Queen officially opened it in 1997.

Visiting and booking: info@shakespearesglobe.com

…………………………


PHOTO CAPTIONS:


[] INSIDE the New Globe Theatre today, replicating largely how it was in The Bard's day. (London Sightseeing Guide)

[] HOW the New Globe looks from the outside today. (Ciaodomenica)

[] SQUEEZED onto the banks of the Thames just 200m from the original, the New Globe appears miniscule amongst its neighbours. (HiddenLondonTours)

[] EARLY sketch of how the original Globe Theatre looked. (British Tourist Authority)

[] THE Bard himself from an early sketch. (WikiMedia)

Struth! Couldn't swing a carafe in world's smallest hotel.

WORLD'S smallest hotel and coffee shop in Copenhagen's
trendy Stronget district. (Matthew James Harrison)

 IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says owners of Copenhagen's smallest coffee shop have now had their second venture recognised by the Guinness Book of Records – a hotel that's the smallest in the world with just one room.

The Central Hotel & Café comprises the street-level coffee shop that squeezes just five seats indoors and a couple more than that outside (including one regularly set-up on the roadway in-between cars parked at the kerb,) and above that the "hotel" whose sole room measures a mere 2.48 X 3.1 metres (8ft X 10ft.)

But guests are treated surprisingly well in that tiny space: there are fresh flowers, fruit and wine on arrival, it's got a double bed with the best of linens, ensuite with shower, a well-stocked mini-bar, flat screen TV, stereo with iPhone connectivity, and free Wi-Fi.

And breakfast is also included – either at the Granola Café that the Central owns half a block away in Copenhagen's trendy Stronget district, or delivered from there to your room.

The building opened as a private house in 1905 and during WWII was converted to a shoe repairers. Sometime in the 1980s it became the coffee shop downstairs, and a goldsmith occupied the upper room that's now the hotel.

And that one room is currently booked most nights through until end-September at 240€ a night including the café brekkie for two. To enquire contact mail@centralhotelogcafe.dk

Struth! Serious monkey trouble bites Delhi

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says young actors who've played the part of feisty langur monkeys in village stage shows in India, are being retained by the government to play make-believe langurs in capital New Delhi to scare-off red-faced macaque monkeys that have become a major violence and health problem.

Tens of thousands of macaques roam freely in New Delhi, brazenly stealing food from tables, shelves and even refrigerators in homes, shops and restaurants, and in one school yard recently slapping youngsters about their faces and bodies to make off with lunchtime food and drink.

And so aggressive were five macaques that attacked a terrified woman preparing   dinner in her home last month, that police called to rescue her had to beat the animals off with bamboo poles.

Even the capital's Parliament House is not immune from attack, with the macaques snatching files from the hands of politicians and bureaucrats in offices and corridors in the belief they are food.

Now with treatment for monkey bites second-only to dog bites at New Delhi's hospitals, the government has retained 40 young people to lope langur-like amongst the macaques, thrashing their arms and making the shrill sounds of angry langurs – that are the macaque's major natural enemy – in the hope of scaring the little red-faced critters back into the jungle.

If this doesn't work, the next step could be to have park rangers fire-on the macaques with rubber bullets.

STRUTH! Annie get your gun

 IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says it's 154 years this month since Phoebe Ann Moses was born in Darke County, Ohio, going on to become one of the most popular entertainers of 19th and 20th century America.

Who, you are likely asking? Start thinking Annie Oakley, the sharp-shooter extraordinaire who could hit a playing card edge-on from 30 paces, and blast the glowing end off a cigarette held in the lips of husband and fellow American West showman Frank E Butler from the same distance. And who once also shot a cigarette out of the mouth of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II when he saw her show while visiting America – to the heart-stopping horror of all in the Kaiser's entourage.

Annie nonchalantly blasted holes through playing cards thrown over the heads of outdoor audiences across America, could shoot moving targets backwards while aiming through a mirror, and once beat marksman Frank in a highly-publicised charity shooting competition.

And when the 1.52m (5ft) Annie met famous Chief Sitting Bull in 1884 while performing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, he was so impressed with her skills that he bestowed upon her the Native-American name "Little Sure Shot."

Annie Oakley (the Oakley came from a suburb of Cincinnati she once visited) and Frank Butler were married for over half a century. She died on November 3 1926 – and heart-broken husband Frank just 18 days later on November 21. 

 

        

PHOTO CAPTION:

 

[] POSTER promoting sharp-shooting 1.52m (5ft) Annie Oakley as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. (WikiMedia)