James' World 2

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San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the U.S. state of California. It is surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area (often simply “the Bay Area”) and is dominated by the large cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.

San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California. Water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and from the Sierra Nevada mountains, flow into Suisun Bay, which then travels through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. It then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2017.

The bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles (1,000–4,000 km²), depending on which sub-bays (such as San Pablo Bay), estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay measures three to twelve miles (5–19 km) wide east-to-west and somewhere between 48 miles (77 km)¹ and 60 miles (97 km)² north-to-south. It is the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas.

The bay was navigable as far south as San Jose until the 1850s when hydraulic mining released massive amounts of sediment from the rivers that settled in those parts of the bay that had little or no current. Later, wetlands and inlets were deliberately filled in, reducing the Bay’s size since the mid-19th century by as much as one-third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the Bay’s size. Despite its value as a waterway and harbor, many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels was often dumped onto the wetlands and other parts of the bay as landfill. Wikipedia

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Eastbourne is a town and seaside resort in the non-metropolitan county of East Sussex on the south coast of England, 19 miles (31 km) east of Brighton and 54 miles (87 km) south of London. Eastbourne is immediately to the east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the larger Eastbourne Downland Estate.

The seafront consists largely of Victorian hotels, a pier, a state-of-the-art theatre, a contemporary art gallery, and a Napoleonic era fort and military museum. Eastbourne was developed at the direction of the Duke of Devonshire from 1859 from four separate hamlets. Eastbourne boasts a newly-modernized town center, consisting of a large shopping center, ‘The Beacon’, and an extensive high street. It has a growing population, a broad economic base, and is home to companies in a wide range of industries.

Though Eastbourne is a relatively new town, there is evidence of human occupation in the area from the Stone Age. The town grew as a fashionable tourist resort largely thanks to prominent landowner, William Cavendish, later to become the Duke of Devonshire. Cavendish appointed architect Henry Currey to design a street plan for the town, but not before sending him to Europe to draw inspiration. The resulting mix of architecture is typically Victorian and remains a key feature of Eastbourne.

As a seaside resort, Eastbourne derives a large and increasing income from tourism, with revenue from traditional seaside attractions augmented by conferences, public events, and cultural sightseeing. The other main industries in Eastbourne include trade and retail, healthcare, education, construction, manufacturing, professional scientific, and the technical sector.

Eastbourne’s population is growing; between 2001 and 2011 it increased from 89,800 to 99,412. The 2011 census shows that the average age of residents has decreased as the town has attracted students, families, and those commuting to London and Brighton. In June 2019, the population of Eastbourne was estimated to be 104,042. Wikipedia

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The Kosciuszko National Park is a 6,900-square-kilometre (2,700 sq mi) national park and contains mainland Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, for which it is named, and Cabramurra the highest town in Australia. Its borders contain a mix of rugged mountains and wilderness, characterized by an alpine climate, which makes it popular with recreational skiers and bushwalkers.

The park is located in the southeastern corner of New South Wales, 354 km (220 mi) southwest of Sydney, and is contiguous with the Alpine National Park in Victoria to the south, and the Namadgi National Park in the Australian Capital Territory to the northeast. The larger towns of Cooma, Tumut, and Jindabyne lie just outside and service the park.

The waters of the Snowy River, the Murray River, the Murrumbidgee River, and the Gungarlin River all rise in this park.

Other notable peaks in the park include Gungartan, Mount Jagungal, Bimberi Peak, and Mount Townsend.

On 7 November 2008, the Park was added to the Australian National Heritage List as one of eleven areas constituting the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves.

Multiple Aboriginal groups in the southern part of NSW gathered in the Australian Alps Bioregion in the summer on an annual pilgrimage to the Bogong and Snowy Mountains. Here, the men participated in a feast of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) that were found on the rocky outcrops of the mountains.

The area was explored by Europeans in 1835, and in 1840, Edmund Strzelecki ascended Mount Kosciuszko and re-named it after a Polish patriot and military leader Tadeusz Kościuszko. High-country stockmen followed, using the Snowy Mountains for grazing during the summer months. Banjo Paterson’s famous poem The Man From Snowy River recalls this era. The cattle graziers have left a legacy of mountain huts scattered across the area. Today these huts are maintained by the National Parks and Wildlife Service or volunteer organizations like the Kosciuszko Huts Association. In the 19th century, gold was mined on the high plains near Kiandra. At its height, this community had a population of about 4,000 people and ran 14 hotels. It was here that Skiing in Australia commenced around 1861. Since the last resident left in 1974, Kiandra has become a ghost town of ruins and abandoned diggings. In the 20th century, the focus of Skiing in New South Wales shifted south closer to the Kosciuszko Main Range. Wikipedia

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An image from Kosciuszko National Park

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