Dry stone Feature in Japan

Richard Lloyd and Teruki Kamlya built this interesting double arch in front of a flower shop in the city of Gifu. Shortly after it was completed they found it damaged and suspected vandalism . However this was Japan, the next day a gentleman arrived at the flower shop admitting that he had bumped into the stones with his car. He offered to pay for a rebuild. This was done and now the arch is the talk of the town.

Visit to Victoria Australia

I did promise that I would not get involved in dry stone walling while visiting one of our sons in Australia. I did see many wonderful and unique animals including the egg laying mammal Duck Billed Platypus. Looking very relaxed was this Kangaroo. I also tried to photograph the elusive Tasmanian Devil but only caught it retreating. Despite my promise I did have to help a little bit along with son Calum. The wonderful folk we were staying with had a set of steps built with the local well named Mud stone. They found the rock was not suitable to run a wheelbarrow down as it was tending to crush the stone. We built a wheelbarrow ramp using large rocks set deep into the ground with only the flat surfaces exposed.It worked well.
I did find a few dry stone features in Australia, they will appear in a day or two. After that will be a photo of a build in Japan.

Swiss Style

Before I visited Switzerland several years ago I had the usual mis-preconceptions about that Country. I imagined that everything was as the post cards neat and ordered. I thought that the dry stone walls would all be the same strictly coursed and blocky. This set of images shows that their stonework is as varied as anywhere else. I leave you to decide what you like best. But please do not fall into my bad habit of judging without knowing.

Big problems face the wallers in my next entry 15th April