Clear Guidelines

Those thoughtful people who gave us the generous expansive footpath that I posted the other day just can't seem to control their urge to keep us yellow stick figures within our limits. These, though rather cute and silly, are not the daftest markings I've spotted in this town; that honour goes to this piece of barminess.

Keep to the straight and narrow

Not much chance of doing anything else on this footpath from Albert Dock.

Perch

The weekend in black and white is here

Any colour you like as long as it's orange

A veritable fleet of gas platform supply vessels was filling up the usually empty Albert Dock the other day. These belong to a company called Sealion Shipping and clearly they have a favourite colour and they're sticking to it. It's like a hi-vis jacket for boats.

Distant Bridge

I mentioned yesterday that they'd built a big bridge up the road from the ferry terminus, well 'up the road' is really five miles as the crows flies. Mind you, if you can fly like a crow then you don't really need a bridge ... It's not allowed to be dull in Hull, we have gloom instead.

Stable door

Albert Dock at high tide

As the horse goes clip-clopping down the street those who ought to have known better have come to the astonishing conclusion that the stable door was open all along. Oh yes, they say in what is called an official investigation into the floods of last year, the Albert Dock defenses were the lowest in the city and yes, they couldn't lock the gates because the tidal force would have buckled the gates but the flood would have happened any way as there was too much water. So to close the stable door temporary flood defenses are been piled up along the dock and a permanent fix has been brought forward by two years [ 1 ]. Let's hope old man river will wait that long.

Weakest Link

Exceptional conditions show up the vulnerable spots in any defense. So it was earlier this month when the highest tide ever recorded breached Hull's defenses at this spot by the Albert Dock. There's local dispute as to whether or not the dock gates failed but what is known is that the dock quay was overtopped by a couple of feet and water rushed across town as far as Ferensway. There's another predicted spring tide round about New Year's Day, let's hope there's no low pressure system wandering down the North Sea at that time.

Skyline

Here the high rise delights of Anlaby Road's hinterland punctuate the sky with a gentle toxic glow in the evening sunshine. From this distance it doesn't look too bad but this is probably as close as you'd want to get. It's rumoured people pay rent and taxes for the privilege of living in these places I find that difficult to believe. The über observant amongst you will have noticed that the boat in the foreground is HMS Explorer which I posted about before.

More Gloom

A nice bit of gloom over Albert Dock. Those with good vision will be able to pick out the Humber Bridge stretching away in the distance. The small bridge in the centre carries the public footpath up and along the top of the buildings on the left as I mentioned in a previous post here.

P & O x 2

Did you know that over a million passengers use the port of Hull every year? No, nor did I. P & O have ferries to Zeebrugge and Rotterdam. The ferry terminal is way over in east Hull so everyone has to go through the city to get where they want to be.
Here's two totally different shots of roughly the same scene.

A not so dull day in Hull

Wind! Hull is set on making a living out of wind power. The council earlier this week gave planning permission for a massive wind turbine construction site on a disused dock. If Siemens actually do what they say they want to do then this will greatly change Hull's prospects [ 1 ]. There's talk of thousands of jobs, many of them skilled engineering jobs. But so far it's still just talk and with the way things stand in Europe at the moment it's probably wiser not to plan too far ahead.

Here, however, is something more tangible. Here's a support platform for the Lincs Wind Farm being built off the Lincolnshire coast. It's being fitted up at the Albert dock. I showed you this on that dull day in Hull. Pure ignorance on my part to call it a drilling rig.

More Lifeboats

Another view of the oilrig training facilty on Albert Dock.  

Red and Black

Here the business end of a dockside crane neatly frames the tower of Holy Trinity church.

Lifeboats

Here's what is claimed to be the "finest dockside training facility in the UK" and who am I to argue? These colourful lifeboats are used to practice getting off offshore rigs and drilling platforms as quickly as possible. If you're interested in having a go the company has a website here.

Up on the roof

There's been a path along the banks of the Humber for hundreds possibly thousands of years so when a warehouse was built on the foreshore at Albert Dock there was only place for the path to go: up on the roof. Whilst it can be a bit nerve wracking if you suffer from vertigo or if there's strong wind blowing the uninterrupted view of Hull and the Humber makes it all worthwhile.

Click to enlarge

Docked

Here the Albert Dock stretches away towards the Humber Bridge.

Progress from Albert Dock, Hull

 Running along the Humber to the west of the River Hull is the Albert Dock. It was built between 1863 and 1869 and named after Prince Albert; Victoria Dock was built earlier on the east side of the Hull (sickening the sycophancy of our ancestors). It was extended in 1880 by the addition of the William Wright Dock (he was chairman of the Dock Company). It's the best part of a mile long. Surprisingly (well it's a surprise to me) the dock is still in use for general cargo and a few fishing boats. There's also a training place for the North Sea oil rigs. Far off in the background you can just make out the Humber Bridge.

Below is the view eastwards through the dock gates showing (just) the P&O ferry to  Zeebrugge and Rotterdam in King George dock (another dock, another royal).

 Finally here's the wide brown Humber that the dock leads into. The name Humber might come from an ancient , pre-celtic word meaning river, or it might be, as  Geoffrey of Monmouth has it, named after Humber the Hun. Whatever the history, it's a wide old stream and now a very important waterway with the modern docks of Hull and North Lincolnshire being some of the busiest in Europe.