Helen Stephenson's Basildon Pictures, 7th March 2008

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I haven't gone on many photographic expeditions near the office since my job was relocated to Basildon, but it was a lovely spring day one Friday early in March and I went for a lunch time walk from the Festival Leisure Park up Cranes Farm Road to the New Holland tractor plant and back and found quite a lot of interest to point a camera at along the way.

These pictures were captured using a Pentax K10D digital SLR camera.

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I drove my car from the office, which is in the Festival Business Park, located behind the Festival Leisure Park and I parked it in the main Festival Leisure Park car park. There is plenty of room in there at lunchtime, as this is a complex which comes alive in the evening. It's much harder to find a space to park at 7pm than it is at 1pm in the afternoon, when whole sections of the car park are quite empty.

The Festival Leisure Park is private property, and it's the sort of place where security guards are likely to appear if you try and do any serious photography, and as I haven't applied for a photography permit, I limited myself to some snaps of the Festival Leisure Park. I've been meaning to get a photography permit, as they have fairground rides set up in a corner of the car park from time to time, and those could make interesting subjects to photograph in detail, but I seem to have missed them for the time being. There was also an ice rink at Christmas time, but by March, that had gone, too.


 

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Here's the main signboard for the Leisure Park, which announces a number of the leisure providers to be found on the Leisure Park. Eateries feature heavily on the list.


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The Festival Leisure Park is on Festival Way. You can see the Macaroni Grill, which is near the edge of the Leisure Park, behind the street sign. Even closer to the edge of the park and overlooking Cranes Farm Road are the golden arches of McDonalds.

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The main part of the Leisure Park is an L-shaped complex with a hotel at either end. Between the hotels is a bowling alley, a multiplex cinema, a nightclub, and a huge choice of restaurants.


 

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Here are some closer views of the Holiday Inn (with a Pizza Hut in front of it), the main restaurant area and multiplex cinema, the bowling alley, and the Travelodge.


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Having taken some pictures of the main buildings on the Leisure Park, I slung my camera bag over my shoulder and headed out onto Cranes Farm Road. I waa astounded to find a clump of voilets in flower on the side of the road. There was other springtime blossom appearing, including the pretty pink of an ornamental cherry by the drive-through window of McDonalds.


 

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There were still berries in evidence from the autumn and winter just past, including a single holly berry and a rather more profuse collection of berries - the latter being located in the same garden area outside McDonalds as the ornamental cherry.


 

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My walk up Cranes Farm Road eventually brought me to the object of my walk: the New Holland tractor plant a little further up Cranes Farm Road.

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The yellow and blue flags at the entrance are impressive, but what I really wanted was a picture of the new tractors - rows and rows of them. Every tractor in the whole parking lot was blue!

I know that red tractors also roll of the production line as I've seen them on lorries leaving Basildon, and have also seen them from the office window. It would have been nice to have one red tractor to break up the sea of blue, but I'm quite pleased with the picture as it is.

This is the picture that I would enter into camera club competitions if I were attending a camera club at present!

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Last Revised: 9th March, 2008.