Oxford & Blenheim (Sept 2014)

The borders are closed (still), which has prompted me to get organised about my photo storage, and also get a little nostalgic about them.

So, in the early days of my photography hobby, but aware of my move to Australia, my father and I decided to head on an overnight trip to Oxford. The highlight of the trip would of course be the spectacular Blenheim Palace just north of the city.

I took my first Canon camera, the Canon 60D with the solid 17-40mm f/4.0 lens. My first and last L lens.

We’d left Cambridge early with a plan for lunch in Oxford, 2.5hrs away. The venue was the Eagle and Child and food was burgers. I’ve had a look and I’m happy to see they still exist but Google maps says ‘temporarily closed’ so I guess they’ve taken the Covid-19 precaution to take a break.

We spent the remainder of the day exploring Oxford itself. It’s been a while since this trip but my google timeline did help me out a little.

We had a decent walk to cover St John’s College, New College (of Harry Potter fame), the punting stations and honestly, a lot of it could have been mistaken for Cambridge.

In the end, I think my photos captures plenty of history, universities, old buildings, new buildings, interesting people and the demise of my interest in selective colour photos. That is a trend I’m happy to have left behind. Also haven’t dabbled in til-shift photography either - here the result was applied artificially but I just haven’t felt the need to use it, though maybe I should resurrect it with all my drone photography (its applied best with birds eye views).

We stayed at the elegant 4-star hotel The Feathers in nearby Blenheim, and had a very good dark setting dinner at the Kings Arms Hotel at the end of the road. Both still open!

The next morning we set off on the very short journey, basically round the corner, to Blenheim Palace.

This is what just makes me so sad about living in Australia, but more appropriately in the West coast. It’s so new here, there’s hardly any history. A lot of the city has fake old buildings and there are no palaces, castles, forts or any grand old structures.

Before the photo dump, Blenheim Palace is the home of the Dukes of Marlborough and of course its a UNESCO site (we love those). It was built between 1705 and 1722 and the rest can be found on wikipedia.

The Palace itself is pretty spectacular, although we stuck to the outside and gardens, that took plenty of time. I see they are currently open but social distancing and masks mandatory of course.