Travel Trip Journey

Tuesday 5 November 2019

Jiaozhou Bay Bridge – The Marvel of Civil Engineering

The T-shaped Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is a 26.7 km long roadway bridge in eastern China's Shandong province. Out of 25.9 km are over water representing the total length of three legs of the bridge. It is also called Qingdao Haiwan Bridge which is part of the 41.58 km Jiaozhou Bay Connection Project. The purpose of the bridge as part of the plan to provide better connectivity between the two fast-growing industrial regions on either side of the Jiaozhou Bay.

Qingdao is a fast-growing coastal city, playing an intergyral part in the country’s development strategy. So, the ever-growing business could not meet the ferry service providing to passenger and cargo levels. Jiaozhou Bay Bridge longest continuous segment is 25.9 km making it one of longest bridges in the world. This bridge reduces the road distance between eastern port city of Qingdao and an offshore island, Huangdao by 30 km and travel time from 20 to 30 minutes.

The main entry and exit points in Huangdao and the Licang District of Qingdao. The Bay bridge construct with the mammoth 450,000 tons of steel and 2.3 cubic meters of concrete supported by 5,238 concrete piles. The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge can face any catastrophic natural disastrous. It is designed to tackle the severe earthquakes (more than 8 magnitude), typhoons, even collision of gigantic ship (300,000-ton vessel).

The bridge cross-section comprises of two beams in total 115 ft wide carrying six lanes with two shoulders. The bridge is part of the Jiaozhou Bay Connection Project, which includes overland expressways and the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay tunnel. The total length of the project is 41.58 km. The Jiaozhou Bay has an annual ice period of two months expected to have at least 100 years of lifespan.

Moreover, cushion caps made the bridge’s pillars from the force of waves and freezing. Hence, considering the bay freezes annually and holds high volumes of salt, waves, and freezing patterns. The water design of these 1,258 cushion caps adequately protects the bridge.

Jiaozhou Bay Bridge was opened for the public on 30^th June 2011. After that Guinness World Records listed it the longest bridge over frozen water (total length). The record was taken by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge in October 2018. Jiaozhou Bay Bridge had the first oversea interchange in the world and that it has the world's largest number of oversea bored concrete piles.

The idea was presented by the Chinese Communist Party, and it took four years to complete at a massive cost of US$8.8 billion. There are several concerns raised regarding the quality of material used in construction. Such as poor crash-barriers, missing lighting, and loose nuts on guard nails. However, the bridge chief engineer rejects the safety concerns and claimed perfect for traffic and meeting the safety measures.

Jiaozhou Bay Bridge combines all the fields of civil engineering for an impressive result. Jiaozhou Bay Bridge claims to be the first self-anchored suspension bridge in the world with a single tower, which is 149m high.

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The Magical Marble Caves of Patagonia, Chile

The South American Patagonia is one of a magical place in the world that's marked by its melodramatic landscapes. The Marble Caves of Patagonia dubbed as the most wonderful cave network in Latin America. It is also called as “Cuevas de Marmol” or “Marble Cathedral” is a more than 6,000-year-old, sculpture hewn by the crashing waves calcium carbonate of Lake General Carrera in Southern Chile.

The area is intricate caverns are part of a peninsula made of solid marble encircled by the glacial Lake that spans the Chile-Argentina border. The Marble Caves of Patagonia's swirling pattern and its interiors reflect the lake’s azure waters, change in intensity depending on the water levels uttered by weather and time of the year. The early morning sunlight breaks into the openings of the Marble Caves reflects off the water and splashes the marble walls of the cave with distinct shades and patterns of blue hue.

This unique geological marvel attracts visitors to see the constantly changing beauty in its appearance. At the start of the Spring season, the shallow turquoise water creates a crystalline shimmer against the Marble Caves. The swirling walls increase the deep blue hue that gives an exclusive unworldly shade. Although, water level significantly affected due to the freezing and melting of the surrounding glaciers. The cold freezing water of the lake takes the fine silt sediments that rest on the lake bed.

To see this unique marvel, you must pass an arduous journey. You have to travel almost 800 miles on major highways to the next big city Coyhaique. After that, you must be followed by a 200-mile drive on rough dirt roads towards the lake. Eventually, you need a boat to access the caves. Although this journey is fair difficult and long challenging. But you will forget the tiredness to see the enchanting beauty of Marble Caves of Patagonia, which is worthwhile.

This region has rising mountains, extensive ice fields, towering glaciers, and land forever altered by volcanic activity. The best time to visit this natural place between Sep to Feb. During these months, the ice melts and feeding the lake, which changes the color of water particularly enchanting turquoise.

It is a great place for photography, then you have to go here early morning when sunlight is perfect for nature photography. Here the ferry service will take you to and through the Marble cave and its tunnels. Whenever you go to this part of the world, then you should list this place on top of your sightseeing plan.

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Monday 21 October 2019

Keti Bunder – A Wildlife Sanctuary at Thatha, Sindh

Keti Bunder is part of Indus Delta and situated at Thatha district, Sindh, Pakistan. The diversity of avian dominance and diversity of Keti Bunder; carried out at dawn and dusk in the winter season. Keti Bunder is situated at the mouth of the River Indus recognized as Ochito, which is entering through Hajamro creek consisting of an area of 9,130 hectares.

The mangrove forests are key forest and ecological features of this region. These mangroves covering an area of 2,631ha with the large size of 1996 ha. However, the medium size is about 3,588 ha with sparsely distributed. The remaining part consists of human settlements, Sand dunes, and water channels.

The area is consisting of a large number of channels on the western and the eastern sides. Whereas, on the other two sides are shallow and deep-water channels namely Hajamro Creek, Khobar Creek, Dabbo Creek, and Qalandri Creek.

Keti Bunder consists of 195 villages with the estimated population of the whole is about 27,405 and the number of households is more than 4,000. These towns are widely distributed in 35 acres area around the seawater. In a survey, around 49 winter season bird species belonging to 33 genera and 21 families were recorded. A total of 4280 birds were recorded dedicated survey effort from the Keti Bunder.

The most abundant species in this area are little egret, cattle egret, greater flamingo, greater egret, and common coot. The beautiful bird species number is decreasing with the passage of time due to anthropogenic impacts especially pollution impact.

The exponential growth of the population of humans has badly impacted the avian species in many ways such as; habitat loss, deforestation, invasive species, agriculture intensification, urbanization, industrialization, human-avian negative interactions, and climate change.

Almost, 90% of people are engaged with the fish industry. These fishermen are with different casts present in the area. The Syed and Memon communities are said to be well-reputed in terms of socioeconomic status, while the majority of them have a small business with agriculture land. The people are involved in fisheries in different ways as; fishermen, boat owners, boat captain, helpers in factories, transporters, merchant shops and drivers of fish carrier vehicles.

Keti Bunder is a Wildlife Sanctuary; for the conservation of water birds. The winter visitor and summer breeder’s birds are herons, egrets, waders, pelicans and raptors. Common terrestrial mammals are fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrrinus), Indian wild boar (Sus scrofa), Asiatic jackal (Canis aureus) and Indian porcupine (Manis crassicaudatus).

The most common reptiles are sea snakes, vipers, cobras and lizards. For the identification of avian species was a wildlife sanctuary, 2nd was Keti Bunder port and the remaining two were rural areas of the habitats. Each place visited for four months. Once in each month and twice a day at dawn and dusk.

Only one bird watcher moves from one place to another through ship or boat to measure bird diversity. The species of birds in the winter season from Head Qadirabad, Punjab. The freshwater areas of Pakistan have a high species number as compared to coastal areas of Pakistan. The freshwater landscapes have higher and unique nesting, roosting, feeding, shelter and breeding sites as compared with coastal areas.

However, the other reason is that industrial wastes, pesticides, household wastes are dumped in all rivers that polluted rivers water is entered in coastal water from all over the rivers of Pakistan. The anthropogenic impacts like deforestation, land degradation, agriculture use, shipping, high rate of fishing, urbanization, fertilizers and pesticide use, and ethno-avian use the main causes of species depletion.

The species number is getting low while the population of the bird is higher as compared with freshwater birds. The reason is that homogeneity in the landscape in the coastal area e.g. only mangrove plantation is present while freshwater landscapes have heterogeneity in landscapes, i.e., grasses, herbs, shrubs, and tree plantation.

It is concluded that bird species number is decreasing with the passage of time and noted that freshwater birds’ diversity is higher than coastal birds’ species. The reason is that pollution rat is increasing day by day in coastal areas of Pakistan. But it is also noted that less heterogeneity of landscape of the coastal area of Pakistan as compared with the freshwater landscape.

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Sunday 13 October 2019

The Dam Climbing Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex)

Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) are big wild mountain goats that live among the peaks in the European Alps where predators cannot reach. They are a sexually dimorphic goat with larger curved horns and like to occupy the steep, rocky terrain above the tree line between 2000 to 3000 meters above sea level. It is extremely difficult to live there because there is no food upon the point.

These goats are very social as both males and females live separately most of the year and coming together just for the mating purpose. The breeding season begins in early December and lasts around six weeks. During this time, male Ibex herds break up into smaller groups that look for females.

When the spring and summer season comes, then plenty of grass available to them for feed. Like the snow falling starts, they are fattening up and build reserves to meet their requirements in winters. During the colder weather, the Alpine Ibex make their homes safely in the clouds. Many studies have shown the flexibility of their social systems related to environmental conditions.

The Capra ibex sibiricais related to predation, winter snowpack, forage availability, and human activities; in moose and white-tailed deer snowfall has an important influence on habitat selection. During the rut, ibexes used larch woods and rocky slopes, probably to minimize the risk of avalanches.

In the spring there was great variability in the use of the different habitats. The ibexes exploited all kinds of fresh vegetation to gratify their energetic requirements, and low altitude pastures were used only in this season. In summer, Ibexes stayed at a higher altitude, above the timberline and seemed to prefer Alpine meadows and stone ravines.

The Alpine Ibex lacks some essential minerals in their diet, like salt which aren’t available in the grass. Like many herbivores, the Ibex must seek out natural salt licks. In the spring season, they meet their salt requirements but licking rock surfaces for leached salts. The concrete Dams fulfills the needs of salt and minerals to Alpine Ibex. These Dams release the calcium-aluminum mineral during the curing process. This process is also called ettringite almost 20% available in hardened concrete.

The Alpine Ibex are excellent climbers. They can easily climb any sheer vertical face of the dam’s wall. During the climbing process, they use small protruding boulders as a foothold to lick ettringite off the dam’s wall surface. These mountain goats scale such massive heights due to their soft, split hooves.

The Ibex can scale such great heights because of their soft, split hooves that can grip any surface like a pincer. The large grazing mountain goats’ ungulates habitat has been studied in reintroduced populations in the central and eastern European Alps.

The Italian Cingino Dam is a famous place where many Alpine Ibex’s gravity-defying stunts. Moreover, such unusual behavior has also been observed at the Barbellino dam in Lombardy, and Lago della Rossa dam in Valli di Lanzo, Piemonte. The Alpine ibex approaches sexual maturity at around 18 months, but females do not reach their maximum body size for 5 to 6 years.

The Alpine ibex almost became extinct all over Europe at the beginning of the XIX century. However, they were surviving only in the area around the Mt Grivola within what these days are the Gran Paradiso National Park Italian Alps. The population was saved from extinction and recovered thanks to the setting up of the royal hunting reserve in 1856. Then later anomalous behavior compared with autochthonous ones.

Read More – Golden Chains of Laburnum / The Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina)

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Friday 27 September 2019

The Wave at Coyote Buttes

The Coyote Buttes, in a remote region on the Arizona-Utah border, was considered inaccessible and almost unknown. It has become easier to explore the desert back country and venture into locations that were once too hazardous and too distant. These places are protected by acts of Congress as wilderness areas, to keep them from being overrun and exploited. The area has dinosaur track way in this region densely packed more than 1,000 footprints roughly 200 million years ago.

The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) uses a quota system and granted limited numbers of permits to keep visitors to a minimum in brittle areas like the Coyote Buttes. The BLM website has maps of the Coyote Buttes area, showing hiking advice and offers permits to anyone. Because of the most beautiful places like “The Wave,” in the North Unit of the Coyote Buttes, are national treasures.

With such exclusive examples of geology, they should be kept open and reachable to those able to make the spirited hike into this remote region. They want to preserve these subtle and delicate lands and don’t want to be locked out. Photographers should be able to enjoy and photograph these remote and protected parts of America. The Wave can be really challenging to locate due to the lack of an established, marked trail.

Most of the North Unit of Coyote Buttes lies at an elevation of five-thousand feet. Because the winter snows on the Slick rock can hide the trail and make it slicker. A light dusting of snow on the tops of the formations can make a fantasy land for photographers. Anyone entering the region in mid-winter must be prepared for cold weather.

When you scroll through the BLM Website and find spaces still available for hiking permits during Dec, Jan, and Feb, but make sure that you may be lucky and get a permit for a cool, clear, bright day or you may arrive during a blizzard. Control Tower and East Tepees are one of the more prominent and interesting rock features in this region.

It is also listed later with GPS coordinates, as it is both interesting, and very good central locator for the East Tepee group. In the early morning or late afternoon, the wave becomes draped in shadows that hide many of its rainbow colors and curves. The region covered by the wave is not large, but it offers delightful photographic possibilities. Source:

Read More – The Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina)

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Wednesday 4 September 2019

Giethoorn Netherland – The Little Venice

Giethoorn is also famous “Venice of the North” or “Venice of the Netherland”. It is a small town has no roads and cars, but instead - more than hundred bridges over miles of canals. The town quaint canals and rustic wooden bridges interconnecting the peoples. Geithoorn is home to less than 3,000 people. They reside in the islands connected with wooden bridges. Geithoorn is in the province of Overijssel, surrounded by an immense natural reservation entitled De Wieden, every so often included in tourist brochures.

A four miles of canals separating the different islets. Geithoorn people traveling through small boats, including row boats, whisper boats. The small town is a river city look like a crass metropolis. Geithoorn were formed by Franciscan monks in the 13the century dug peat unearthing about one meter deep. Footpaths beside the canals are ideal for pedestrians, and wide selection of cafes and restaurants pleasing way of spending an afternoon.

Giethoorn became locally famous, particularly when the Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra made his famous comedy Fanfare there in 1958. Moreover, a cycling path was eventually added in the older part of the village. This is a popular tourist attraction in the world. More than 150,000 tourists visit the Geithoorn every year. Giethoorn firstly served as part of a large nature reserve.

The quacking ducks enjoy the narrow canals system and do not disturb village peace. However, the postman uses a boat to deliver the mail. The sedate walking paths offer a picture-que view when easily-frozen water routes make for prime skating in the winter. One can ice skate both on the canals and on the adjacent charming lakes.

It is highly suggested to visit in extreme winter if you are not familiar with coldness. It is a perfect place for peace lover who can chill there without city rush. The cleanliness, colorful flowers, beautiful old house, and lush green scenery offers a life time view to visitors. The Dutch Venice is simply unforgettable laced with serenity with its idyllic beauty, lakes, colorful flowers and wooden bridges. Source: CP