Natural History Museum

The famous central atrium of the Natural History Museum below the Blue whale skeleton is a mandatory stop for photos and we joined the throng before reprising  our knowledge of dinosaurs that was so sharp when the children were little and we knew the 'The Land Before Time ' series of movies by heart.

Given the British founded the sciences of modern geology and mineralogy those galleries were outstanding and we enjoyed the sections on volcanoes and earthquakes.  The 2011 Japanese earthquake featured in displays but the simulated earthquake pad did not quite live up to that at the Te Papa museum in Wellington which seemed to be a step higher on the Richter Scale when we visited there with the children some years ago!

'Lucy's tooth ~ Australopithecus afarensis
living ~3.7 million years ago
I was looking forward to the gallery on human evolution having recently become very interested in this subject and was not disappointed.  The history is complex with >20 identified hominin species existing concurrently and probably interbreeding.  The current dominant view with some outliers is that homo sapiens evolved ~200K years ago in Africa and modest numbers migrated north in waves with the last migration 50-80K years ago eventually reaching Asia (~70K years ago)  and Europe (40K years ago) proving more adaptable than the Neanderthals who died out about 15K years ago.  Most of the skulls and bones on display of our hominid ancestors were casts with the originals rightly retained in the locations where they were discovered - perhaps surprising in this land of the British Museum.
Dodos
The museum special 'treasure's' gallery contains some rare items including drawings by Joseph Banks of Australian flora, stuffed dodos and the most important fossil in the museum - the Archaeopteryx  (~147 Million years old!).  When the fossil was discovered in Germany in 1861, it caused a lot of confusion as birds as birds that old were unheard of and some thought it was an angel.  Upon seeing this treasure I recalled my fascination with fossils when searching for shark's teeth and other Tertiary specimens in the limestone outcrops of my parent's farm at Tapui, North Otago New Zealand.  50 years ago I learned about the Archaeopteryx fossil - what a buzz to see one of only 5 known specimens.
Archaeopteryx

John took us on a tour of Exhibition Road, Kensington, flanked by luminous cliffs of white Georgian mansions, hotels and embassies as well as the Museums.  We ventured to the Science Museum specifically for the Space gallery leaving the rest for another day.  Given the recent celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing we were particularly interested in what they had on the Apollo missions.  A model of Apollo 11 Eagle landing module, a Moon rock on loan (smaller than that at Tidbinbilla Space Tracking Station!) , and the actual Apollo 10 capsule were all great but reference to any of the communications processes including those provided by space trackers (including Honeysuckle Creek) was missing.

Apollo 10 capsule





After a tour of the Imperial College campus we reached John's desk in the
Math's Department 5th floor  and met some more of his housemates who  had just returned from a conference talk.



Outside ICL


Exhibition Road leads to Hyde Park and the walk through to the Lancaster Gate was very pleasant on a mild winters afternoon (13 degrees!!). We passed by the Albert Hall and the enormous memorial to Prince Albert, the beloved consort of Queen Victoria.  There are many paths crossing the park and ours took us alongside the lake through the bare oaks and able to meet several cute squirrels, European magpies and a range of the other water bird species of Southern England



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