Welsh Rugby Scarf Travel Log in Pictures

**chrisupyonder** · 11th July 11, 07:08 PM

Great pictures. Well done. That hole IS BIG! and looks like ya need some lead shot in the hem of ya kilt!

Chris.

**Jock Scot** · 11th July 11, 08:00 PM

I am just getting round to thinking that I need to sharpen up on my geographical knowledge of America! Super pictures.

**Cygnus** · 11th July 11, 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by Jock Scot

I am just getting round to thinking that I need to sharpen up on my geographical knowledge of America! Super pictures.

Threads like this are a great way to do just that (and for other areas of the world as well)! Like many other places in the US, Utah has been very heavily influenced by Scottish immigrants; in fact, we even have our own Ben Lomond! And I am very proud to say that my third-great grandfather, a native of Scotland, was one of the original directors of the Utah Caledonia Society.

**seanachie** · 11th July 11, 08:51 PM

Originally Posted by Jock Scot

I am just getting round to thinking that I need to sharpen up on my geographical knowledge of America! Super pictures.

Jock my Dad, who is now gone, helped lay the second Atlantic cable and lived in Southhampton for a few years. He sailed back to New York on an ocean liner and loved to tell the story of the Irish nuns he got to know on board who were being posted to America. They told him after landing in New York they were getting on the train and hoped to be in Seattle by tea time. Yes, easy to scoff but coming from Ireland they had no real concept at how big this country is. I have driven from the east border of Texas to the west border with New Mexico (and that was only part of the drive) and it is about 835 miles. I called friends in the UK from west Texas and they were blown away by the distance.

**WillieMacG** · 14th July 11, 07:22 AM

Originally Posted by Jock Scot

I am just getting round to thinking that I need to sharpen up on my geographical knowledge of America! Super pictures.

Hey Jock. Does this help?

**Jock Scot** · 14th July 11, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by WillieMacG

Hey Jock. Does this help?

Oh come on, stop trying to lead me astray!Texas is nowhere near that big----you have to fit all those other States in that red bit you know and even I know that Canada also goes a lot further North than the Great Lake too AND is pink on atlas maps, just like the rest of the British Empire!

Jock now dives for cover.

**WillieMacG** · 14th July 11, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by Jock Scot

Jock now dives for cover.

**TurboKittie** · 14th July 11, 01:25 PM

The scarf has made it to it's next destination! I will go back and look for names to be added to the list and make sure the scarf gets a night on the town here...but not tonight. I do not think scarf is interested in going to midnight showing of Harry Potter and would much prefer to see the proper sights and hoist a pint.

**R.S.L. Kiltwearer** · 14th July 11, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by TurboKittie

I do not think scarf is interested in going to midnight showing of Harry Potter and would much prefer to see the proper sights and hoist a pint.

why cant it do both

even give you a interesting pic to commemorate the midnight showing

**Mike_Oettle** · 14th July 11, 02:01 PM

Like Santa Wally I am going off topic here, but I felt I ought to point out that while the copper mine in the picture might be the largest man-made hole in the world, it has entirely been excavated by machinery.
The largest hand-excavated hole in the world is in South Africa. Known as the Big Hole in Kimberley (capital of the Northern Cape), it is even deeper than it appears, since it is more than half full of water (poisonous, sad to say).
When the diamond diggers first arrived there in 1869, there was a hill standing where the hole is now. Because the first people to dig the diamondiferous kimberlite pipe that made up the peak of the hill came from the town of Colesberg, south of the Orange River, it was called Colesberg Koppie.
The koppie was divided up into individual claims, and each claim was worked separately by its owners. At the height of the individual working, there were hundreds of steel ropes running down from the side of the hole, each to a particular claim.
Because of the difficulty of identifying the separate claims, as well as the great expense of working them deeper into the ground, Cecil John Rhodes bought up the claims and merged them into the De Beers Mining Company.
Many of the first men who developed gold mines on the Witwatersrand (including Rhodes) did so using capital built up at Kimberley.
That became an even more expensive operation, because the gold-bearing reef was far narrower than the kimberlite, and before long ever deeper mines were needed.
Those still operating have levels three kilometres below the surface.
Regards,
Mike

A diagram of the Big Hole.

The Big Hole seen from above.