The Maze

[faustus]

N and I had been talking about wanting to do a proper maze, the one in the Dane John being impossible to get lost in even if a) it's dark, b) there is rain all over your glasses and c) you are drunk. I know because I tried. I even tried drunker. It needed something bigger for that maze experience, so he searched his memory and I searched the net and we both came up with Crystal Palace Park. After a certain amount of negotiation we found a window that suited both of us, and we headed for his place which would be the start of the expotition.

It had been throwing it down with rain, and the weather continued to be unsettled through the morning, and there was probably going to have to be a Plan B if the weather turned against us. We got to his local station, and realised he didn't have his keys with him, so N had to persuade his kid brother to get out of bed and run home to let us in. Then there was the diversion via Bromley to window shop for a PSP, and at last we were on a train for Penge East. I'd looked at the interweb and found Crystal Palace Park Station, a mere hour away by train from N's place, but it turns out that Penge East is a rather simple 750 yards away from the main gate, although sign posts might have been nice.

A map of the park would have been useful, and seeing a sign that the visitor's centre was open and had maps of the dinosaur trail, I figured I'd go in there to get something that would help us navigate our way around. The bits of door mechanism which came off in my hand and the lack of lights or assistants suggested that the reports of its openness were exaggerated, but I did at least get the maps. First stop was the statue of the gorilla. Why a gorilla, we wondered? I presume it's a 600 lb one and they had little choice about the matter.

I got N to pose for a photo and he got me to stand for one and I figured that I could always crop myself out and just have a head shot of the gorilla. Then off we went, maps in hand, in search of the maze. Now, if there are any urban planners reading, or rural planners for that matter, or anyone whose job is signages, then please note that maps of a location are much more useful if they include a YOU ARE HERE arrow. We found part of the National Sports Stadium, and the fishing lake, and the natural musical amphitheatre, complete with heron. But the maze was stubbornly unfindable.

N was wracking his memory - he'd last been here ten years ago, although the age he was claiming for that visit was such that it must have been twelve or fifteen, and he'd come in from the other end of the park. (In fact it must have been 1988 or later.)

"I reckon we'll find it when we see a large yellow sign saying, 'The Maze'," I suggested.

He pooh-poohed the idea as being deeply unlikely, and then something caught his eye. "You saw that before you spoke," he said, indignantly.

"Might have done," I said.

So we hit the maze, and decided that follow-the-left-wall was the tactic to begin with. We turned left, and we turned left and we turned left and we turned left and ... we ended up back where we'd started. Bum. Follow-the-right-wall then. So we turned right, and we turned right and ... ended up in the centre. That was rather too easy.

It had been replanted in 1988, and when N was last here it wasn't yet mature enough, because you could push through the gaps between the trees, although you hardly needed to, given the simple design. It still feels a bit threadbare, and the solution is too easy, but there are few moments when you can feel lost. We ate the remains of the carrot cake, and tried to get a bit more lost, then headed up the hill to the site of the Crystal Palace and I explained about the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Always the teacher, natch. And then we hooked around to walk down to see the dinosaurs, N promising me not to have nightmares if he got scared by them.

Working from the limited number of skeletons that had been found by the 1850s, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins reconstructed what contemporary science had thought the dinosaurs looked like, putting them on two islands, with a third island for prehistoric mammals. These have apparently been restored since the turn of the century, but I have to say they look rather battered still. In the water are Plesiosaurs, Labyrinthodons and an Icthyosaurus, not to mention a convincing looking heron (okay, maybe that one was a real heron).

We had a leisurely stroll back to the station in a failed search for a cash point, and adjourned to Petts Wood for a pint, and via two buses to Chislehurst for rather more. Then back to N's place for pizza, a ghastly film and the thunder and lightning which had been threatened all day. In the meantime we need a hedge maze or two, and I have my eye on a couple of possibilities...

Comments

Re: Getting Lost

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Actually, the truth is that it's nice to know where you are as often as possible. It's a feeling I cherish.

Re: Getting Lost

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

See I always know where I am, and have a horribly accurate sense of the time (it's nearly five he says, not looking at a clock). Sometimes it's all too grounded, and that mental compass gets too wound up.

It didn't work in Oxford, nor in Bristol, and it took a while in Canterbury - which I must comment on some time - but otherwise I have a rather uncomfortable sense of where I am - and where the nearest second hand bookshop is.