One Saturday morning, I was on my way from Exeter (I’d been there for work) to spend some quality time with the red cliffs just along the coast at Dawlish. When the train went past the Warren, I took this atmospheric photo through the train window. Dawlish Warren is really important for its coastal geomorphology, by the way, so it has a good Earth science interest in its own right.
Looks idyllic, doesn't it? It’s what the photo doesn’t show
that comes to mind when I look at it. Out of the window on the other
side of the carriage, the sky was black. Not just grey, but
black-with-menaces. The sort of black that a daytime sky has no
business being.
As we rounded the curve toward the small town and seafront
station of Dawlish,* the heavens opened. As those of us who were
getting off the train there did just that, and those who weren’t getting off
looked smug, we were lashed by horizontal rain, salt spray and rather stiff
winds. The passengers who had a particular destination in Dawlish
made a run for it, but I just took shelter in the station, wondering whether my
trip was in vain.
Luckily, the storm was fairly short-lived and although I did
watch several more squalls going past out to sea during the morning, I did get
my quality time with the cliffs (Permian sandstone; desert dunes and
flash-flooded wadis full of rocky debris, seeing as you ask). I took far too
many photos of the cliffs and of the rip-rap - blocks of stone used for coastal
defence - as I walked back along to the Warren and to the station there.
If they will use interesting rock for defences, what do they expect? They
will get geologists poring over them making cooing noises and exclaiming
delightedly!
All this was followed by a long but comfy journey back to
the Flatlands, tired but happy. That said, it will be a long time before
I forget that storm! It will be an equally long time before I stop smilng wryly when I look ath this photo.
------------------------------------------------
*Dawlish is famous nowadays for the railway line being
washed away there in a later, rather more massive storm, and equally famous for
the Herculean work of the 'Orange Army' who repaired it.
Comments
Post a Comment