Where is this?

[safewalrus]

OOOOoo! the Pretty one is Staithes, Robin Hoods Bay sort of place in Norf Yorkshire, home of one of the greatest Seamen of em all - Capn. James Cook! Bloke what invented most of the soufern Hemisphere! The Other place looks like Newcastle New South Wales but can't be sure (and Newcastle was were the old yorkshire colliers took coal from, and the colliers included one bark Endeavour, which some of you colonial types might know about!)

Any chance of being right with at least one of 'em - and only been to one of 'em and contary to popular belief I did NOT sail with the guy mentioned! Honest!

[Bergalia]

Well done Rus. You're 66 and 2/3rds correct. Pretty pic is Staithes - the North Yorkshire village where James Cook grew up (his dad's cottage is still there - or was when I last visited. 'New' pic shows the wife and I - I'm the horizontal one - just before we left for Australia 20 years since. Taken on the 'hard' centre background of earlier pretty pic.)

Obscure 'diminutive clue' was of course "Harrr - Jim lad"

But the smelly shot is of Botany Bay as it is today.

[safewalrus]

Then I ain't been to any of 'em! Interesting to note that 'er indoors' requires a potion of some sort to enable her to touch 'yer heed jimmy'

Interesting to note that Jim Cooks Dads house is still there, was the old man still living in it when you visited - probably?

[Bergalia]

Cheeky chappie. The missus only drank/drinks 'mineral' water. And as for Jim's dad - not sure, but I might have played darts with him in the 'Cod and Lobster...' Said the young Cook, at the time, was "Off south among the heathens." I thought he meant he was in Cornwall.

[safewalrus]

Ah yes now I remembers, us had a furriner type chappie about then came down from some far northern place telling us how to live and things! Said he wants to be Cook or something so us did (clapped 'im in a pasty us did)! bit salty like but other than that he were 'ansom, proper job!

[Guillermo]

I have to recognize we cannot say the place in the images is reachable by boat or ship at all, but it is closely related with water. I ask for the indulgence of fellow members, but lately this thread has been somewhat slow: perhaps opening it a bit to allow for other places visited by posters, not necessarily boating related, could bring in new interest.

I've been there visiting by car this weekend with family. As said, it has a close relation with water, being the landscape sculptured using it in enormous amounts to literally blow down the hills, in a outstanding and amazing demonstration of ancient hydraulic engineering.

The boy in the tunnel opening (remaining of the nets of tunnels used to crumble the hills) is one of my children.

Anybody knows where it is and what it is?

[Guillermo]

Mmmmm....(Berg, what's your wife doing with that englishman, the actor Wilfrid Hyde-White...?)

[charmc]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

I've been there visiting by car this weekend with family. As said, it has a close relation with water, being the landscape sculptured using it in enormous amounts to literally blow down the hills, in a outstanding and amazing demonstration of ancient hydraulic engineering.

Anybody knows where it is and what it is?

Guillermo,

Perhaps (guessing that you began your journey by car from your home) you visited Las Medulas, near Castile-Leon?

The tunnels are the remains of a site where the Romans did surface mining for gold by washing the ore out of the hills with huge hydraulic streams. Magnificent engineering (by building reservoirs on the top of mountains, Romans often blasted water at pressures of 25 - 30 bar), lousy environmentalism!

[Guillermo]

Yes Charlie, Las Médulas it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_M%C3%A9dulas, a World Heritage.
The Romans moved around 100.000.000 m3 of material to only get around 5 to 6 tons of gold in more or less 250 years (As per the info provided at the site). Water was blasted into the previously digged tunnels inside the hills and it compressed the air there, making the side of the hill literally explode. Ruina Montium, indeed! Atonishing.

[Bergalia]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

..The Romans moved around 100.000.000 m3 of material to only get around 5 to 6 tons of gold in more or less 250 years..

It's always interested me to note that 1 ton of gold (2,000lbs) would only make an 18inch (46cm cube). Something to bear in mind when you see actors in 'Bank Job' films galloping around with a half dozen ingots in their arms.....

[charmc]

Originally Posted by Bergalia

It's always interested me to note that 1 ton of gold (2,000lbs) would only make an 18inch (46cm cube). Something to bear in mind when you see actors in 'Bank Job' films galloping around with a half dozen ingots in their arms.....

Max!! You mean ... gasp ... choke ... action films aren't accurate???

[Bergalia]

Originally Posted by charmc

Max!! You mean ... gasp ... choke ... action films aren't accurate???

Not unless they star Scottish actors....

[artemis]

Originally Posted by Bergalia

It's always interested me to note that 1 ton of gold (2,000lbs) would only make an 18inch (46cm cube). Something to bear in mind when you see actors in 'Bank Job' films galloping around with a half dozen ingots in their arms.....

The Romans measured gold and silver by weight in a unit called a "talent". A talent was the load a man could carry, usually reckoned at about 25 kilos. There were 6,250 denari to a talent, or 25,000 sesterces - the sesterces was the common accounting unit. Average dowry for a well-to-do (but not wealthy) Roman bride to be was usually set at 200 talents and a loaf of bread (on average) cost about 5 sesterces.

[Bergalia]

Originally Posted by artemis

Roman bride to be was usually set at 200 talents and a loaf of bread....

...But two loaves if she was really 'talented...'

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Bergalia

It's always interested me to note that 1 ton of gold (2,000lbs) would only make an 18inch (46cm cube). Something to bear in mind when you see actors in 'Bank Job' films galloping around with a half dozen ingots in their arms.....

What??? Is that true Berg,-- Ive never had quite that much gold but I would find that hard to swallow.