Back from a week’s work in Albania, prospecting a pipeline route and evaluating the river crossing points.  Not much railway interest, but here are a few holiday snaps from a beautiful and friendly country.

First the work.  This is a spectacular gorge with a pristine gravel bed river at its bottom.  The river is doing all the things that a natural gravel river should do, with meanders, bars, and the like.  Not many rivers are still in this natural state – man has modified them and often pulled out the gravel for construction.

But walking the river banks has its risk.  Marco was lucky to get pulled out of the mud with his boots on!

Looking up, the mountains still had a little snow on the tops, although it decreased through the week, with days around 30C.

There was time for a little tourism – a coffee by the ‘seaside’ of this Alpine lake went down very well.

And there were always things to look at.  Plenty of birds (including a couple of new species I’d never seen before), and wild flowers.

More tourism at Berat castle, where the old town is on the top of the hill, surrounded by the castle wall.  The views down to the town and river are spectacular, and worth the walk up the hill to get there (worse than any walk through the week).

Farming the old-fashioned way….

I never did see a train moving – but here’s the nearest I got…..

Next stop, the UK the day after an interesting general election, and the ESNG PlayDay on Sunday.