Saturday, March 22, 2014

Penny, Bwindi, Nairobi and Gasadalur

Hello again, I'm back with a short update today. It's still winter here with cold temperatures, flurries and lots of snow on the ground. Spring, I don't think it's happening here this year, think maybe we'll  go straight from winter to summer. Of course the good thing about winter is that it's a great time to concentrate on postcards. 
So let's get to some.

I know many of you collectors have heard about the Penny Post, any postal system in which you could send a normal letter for one penny. Penny Posts operated in London, Edinburgh, and throughout the British Empire, even Buffalo, N.Y and Baltimore, Maryland in the U.S. Well my first card today is not about the Penny Post , but the Penny Post Office. It comes from  Penny , B.C. Canada. It is a card showing the Penny Post Office in winter. .  Penny is a community  located between  Longworth and Dome Creek on the north bank of the Fraser River in central British Columbia, Canada. It was established as a station on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1914. Penny Post Office opened 1 February 1916 with Nels Pederson as postmaster. Penny was the last  community in Canada that still relied on the railroad for postal service. Sadly, like all good things, it has come to an end. The Penny Post Office was closed by Canada post on Dec. 30, 2013.


Luckily my postcard was postmarked on the last day of service at Penny Post Office. This is thanks to Angie , a Postcrosser who lives in nearby Prince George, ( nearby is like a100 km or so ) . We swapped a couple of other cards which I will show when they arrive. The stamp is a Queen Elizabeth definitive issued last year.



The next 2 cards are both from David's recent trip to east Africa. The first one is from  Kabale, a city in Western Uganda. It is a convenient base for tourists traveling to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. The park is a sanctuary for colobus monkeys, chimpanzees and many birds (such as hornbills and turacos). It is perhaps most notable for the 340 Bwindi gorillas, half the world's population of the critically endangered mountain gorillas.



David used a Bird definitive from a set of 14 issued in 1992, along with 2 triangle shaped stamps from a 2013 set of 4. They commemorate the 100th anniversary of Sikhism in Uganda.


 David's second card is from Nairobi, Kenya. It shows some of the high buildings in the city, including the Kenyatta International Conference Centre ( bottom center ). The airline person in me likes the  " Fly Kenya Airways The Pride of Africa "sign on the building in upper right. 


 
David used 2 stamps from a set of 100 marking the 50th Anniversary of Independence for Kenya. The left stamp shows the lowering of the Union Jack and the right stamp shows the hoisting of the Kenyan flag on Mt. Kenya.








The last card today is from Torshavn, the capital and largest town of the Faroe Islands, Denmark.  This beautiful card shows the Falls at Gasadalur . In 2007 Gasadalur had a population of 17, a small place indeed. In 2012 it climbed to 18. The village has been in danger of depopulation since it is hard to reach, to solve the problem in 2004 a tunnel  through the mountains was made so the village could connect to the main road network of Vágar island.



This card comes compliments of Jia Yi Wang of China who was on holiday in the Faroe Islands.
The Butterfly stamp is 1 of 4 in a set issued in 2010. Take a look at the clear cancellation , don't you think every postcard deserves this treatment ?

 
 So ends another postcard update. Thanks go out to Angie, David and Wang for the cards. Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you want. Cheers. 

1 comment:

JOHANPOSTCARDS said...

Again a nice update !
Sorry to say Glenn buth we had no winter this year and got this week even temperatures of 20°C.
Now it's dropped to a more normal around 10°C.