Jurassic Maze

Recreation (that is "re-creation") of a prehistoric creature finding the centre of a stone maze!

This stone maze is doubtless in reality a recent structure. It is in the great amphitheatre of a disused quarry that has been turned into an excellent nature reserve.

This place is Kirtlington Quarry. It turns out that the quarry is the richest mammal-bearing locality of Middle Jurassic age known anywhere in the world, and there are fossils all around.

As it happens, there is a great deal of wild flora (and presumably fauna) in the reserve. This teazle caught my eye as a rather photogenic object!

We visited this quiet place for the very first time today, and did not even know of its existence until Thursday. Yet we have lived within a few miles of it for 46 years... Shocking ignorance!

My Blipfoto entry for Thursday shows that we went for a walk along the Oxford Canal. We started at bridge 206 (Heyford Wharf) and today I photographed the bridge (bridge 213) at the place where we left the canal (Pigeon Lock) on that walk. Here is a peaceful scene on the canal near Pigeon Lock this morning.

As we were approaching Pigeon Lock on Thursday, we saw opposite us first some steps in a wood, a bench to sit on, and various rather attractive glades on the opposite bank. We wondered what it could all be, and our curiosity led us here today!

Later, we tried to access the canal at a different point (by bridge 210). This looked to be the only place between Heyford Wharf and Pigeon Lock that one could get over the railway and the River Cherwell. Indeed, one can cross both, as we found out, but the final bridge (our bridge 210) over the river also crosses the canal, and there is no way down!!!

Still, the railway is itself rather attractive at this point, with a fine curve of lines going to the north (Heyford and Banbury) , as well as from the south (Tackley and Oxford).. There are even trains on the tracks!

One final attraction of this outing, at least for me, was the opportunity to photograph this very fine array of satellite dishes, which are very close to the railway to the south of Tackley (and near a good pub that has been the destination of other trips in the past). These satellite dishes seem to be almost as confused as the sunflowers that I showed yesterday.