Back to the UK after 50 years

OZDUCK · 2026-10-29T18:39:47+1100

That evening we had a more formal meal. Cambridge is a vey walkable city. Most of the venues were only 4 or 5 km away so we walked there.

Kings College Chapel from another angle at dusk. Looking across the Cam River.

St John's College Gate

Clare College

Kings College Gate

The meal was held at an old mill

The pond in front

There was still an operative water wheel inside

Again not really an occasion for photos to put on here.

My wife had bought a lot of packets of Caramello Koalas from Australia so everyone got a taste of an Oz treat. One of the attendees was about 9 and he spent a bit of time finding any that had not been claimed.

The meal was just ok

Choice of soup or salad nicoise

Then choice of various roasts with Yorkshire pudding or Steak & Ale Pie. We both chose Beef thinking it was the traditional English one to go with. The meat was tender but with absolutely no taste. It was a bit like if 'roast beef' from the Coles deli counter had been warmed up.

Nice sticky toffee pudding to finish

OZDUCK · 2026-10-29T20:03:03+1100

For the final morning we had a mass punting expedition with four punts chartered. I had been disinclined to do this anyway because of my suspect knees. But after I had injured my back early on there was no way I could sit down in one or more importantly get up without much screaming. Even getting out of bed was a big effort. Once I was on my feet I was able to walk all day but lowering to or rising from a low place was incredibly painful.

On the way there we came across a 'fun run'. we were starting from Silver St bridge but pedestrian traffic was allowed.

The starting point

Not exactly raised seating

Some of our travellers. Luckily the weather was pretty much perfect that day

OZDUCK · 2026-10-29T20:58:36+1100

My wife took plenty of photos from her punt. It looked to have been a really nice trip.

Not much headroom under some of the bridges

The Bridge of Sighs. Linking parts of St Johns College. It is so named because of its perceived resemblance to the one in Venice.

Bridge of Sighs - St John's College, Cambridge

www.joh.cam.ac.uk

With a traffic jam

The Mathematical Bridge Queens College. Originally built in 1749. But is a type of Ship of Theseus as - "It has subsequently been repaired in 1866 and rebuilt to the same design in 1905."

Although it appears to be an arch, it is composed entirely of straight timbers built to an unusually sophisticated engineering design, hence the name.

The design is a minor triumph of mid-18th century engineering, for which credit must go to James King (d. 1744);
The bridge spans a 50-foot river using multiple shorter lengths of timber: for instance, the horizontal element which appears to span the entire river is made of six shorter timbers jointed end-to-end;
The design is an implementation in timber of a voussoir arch bridge, in which the individual elements are held in a state of compression by the action of gravity on the whole structure: a voussoir bridge requires strong abutments to balance the compressive forces at the springing of the arch;

Ship of Theseus - Wikipedia