Bletchley Park

Cribbing from Wikipedia: 

Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry.

We had talked a few times about visiting Bletchley as it is within our sphere of interest and finally got around to it on the way home from an air show weekend. The place is indeed very interesting giving the history of code breaking activities, initially within the mansion but then into numerous huts built in the grounds. The people that worked here were sworn to secrecy and many died without ever speaking of their wartime activities, not even to their families. First hand stories and displays, in many original huts, now recount what went on at Bletchley and how it helped the Allied war effort and, ultimately, led to the first real computer. Certainly worth a visit.

Westwood car show

This is a small event at a local shopping centre that I also went to last year. There weren't so many cars in attendance but the on off threat of rain showers probably didn't help. Any way, here are a few of those attending. threre were more but I have snapped some of the others in the past.

Arthur's Pass Day

Staying with our trip to New Zealand a few weeks ago, from our stop over in Christchurch we took a drive in to the southern alps specifically to Arthur's Pass which is the highest pass through the southern alps. It was a couple of hours or so out of Christchurch and particularly once we neared the mountains it was very picturesque. We stopped briefly at Castle Hill on the way through, catching a rainbow from a down pour moments earlier and then headed to Arthur's Pass village. The village is primarily a base for walking and we headed off to the Devi's Punchbowl waterfalls which were very impressive but throwing spray all over making picture taking very difficult.

We stopped for a bite to eat in the cafe at Arthur's Pass store and then headed on a little further to admire the views and road building but with no alternative route we then did an about turn and headed back the way we came to Christchurch. Here is some of what we saw: