21 Dec 2009
Posted in Travel at 8:49 pm by alby
Now this is why I bothered to come all the way to Aus. Been wanting to get to Tasmania since I was little. No idea why it grabbed me at that time in my life but the older I got the more I wanted to see Tas.
But first I had to get there from Melbourne.
Tanya had booked us on a ferry so we could take her car over and have easy transport for the time there. Nice idea.
Shame she’s a bad traveller. Not that she dislikes travel. More that she doesn’t manage to keep her lunch down when moving on a boat or plane.
And the weather forecasts were not looking good for the crossing. (The day of the crossing was the Aussie rules final day)
“An Antarctic blast is set to hit today’s AFL Grand Final, making it the coldest premiership decider in history. Hail as well as heavy rain and thunder are expected.”
Nice. The isobars were squeezing ever closer together over the Bass Straits as well.
At one point R texted me with the words:
“I’ve just looked at the weather for your crossing. Are you sure it’s a good idea? It just smacks of Northumberland again but more dangerous.”
The seats we had (yes seats, not even a cabin) had not 1, not 2 but no fewer than 3 vomit bags each. All the loos had a huge stash of them too.
And then the captain comes on.
“Hello ladies and gentlemen. As you know the weather’s quite bad today. The swell on the crossing tonight is expected to be 3-5 metres on average so it should be a little bouncy out there.”
Thankfully he didn’t say “fingers crossed” or some such at the end.
Now miraculously I managed to get through the journey with no vom from me. Unfortunately I was surrounded by people of all ages, creeds and nationalities projectile vomming from about 10 minutes into the trip. And we didn’t even hit open rough water until about 2 hours through.
Not the comfiest night I’ve ever had.
We made it into Tas at about 7am on a Sunday so there wasn’t even much open to see. No cafes to get breakfast. Pah.
That day was spent travelling along the north coast as far as “Table Cape” through such metropoli as “Penguin”.
On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a place where the Little penguins come ashore for the night. There are a bunch of volunteers show up most nights to tell tourists what they are seeing. In our case we saw absolutely nothing. Until a feral cat showed up. Hence the lack of penguins. Poor show. Apparently they’re not even allowed to shoot the cats. What is the world coming to?
The next day we drove over the river Don to the dinky town of Sheffield. This place had a mural painting thing going on where many of the buildings had murals on and they market this as a thing to come and see. Wasn’t really worth it as far as I could tell.
So from there to the longest and most disappointing tangent ever as we drove miles and miles to a place called the “Devil’s Gullet”. This was a view point with a rather nice view and it was perched precariously on a high and sheer cliff but it was just too far for the hit. A shame.
From there we headed to the Marakoopa cave. Our guide was a bloke called Brian (this seems to be a common name in cave guides). Nice caves with lots of glow worms.
Eventually got to the Cradle Mountain national park and found that they had been hit by some pretty awful storms which had left them without power. This meant no card payments (a problem) and free frozen food ‘cos their freezers had switched off (a nice bonus).
But before settling in for the night we had a bit of a scout out of the local area. One place “Waldheim” was an ancient (in Aus terms) wooden house where some mad Austrian lived many years ago with his family. They seemed to have been the founders of getting Cradle Mountain its National Park status. His kids were the ones who set up the Overland Trail. It’s also where I saw a stack of small kangaroo type things. They turned out to be called “Pademelons”. Never heard of them.
We were in a bunkhouse next to a couple of germans and a young aussie bloke. Dinner was spent with them in the communal kitchen. It was here that we figured out a route for the planned hike tomorrow and chatted a lot. I also discovered that the german girl was of the same mind as me re Tim-Tams. IE that they’re massively over-rated and nowhere near as nice as Penguins. And that was it for the day until we were woken by a bunch of annoying Mercans who seemed to think that shouting and banging around late into the night in thin sided wooden huts was the thing to do. Tan went over and did her “Oi shut up” thing with the learned authority of being a law enforcement officer.
Next day was big hike day. I’d have loved to have done the overland trail but we didn’t have the 6 days necessary, nor the equipment. So instead we headed up towards the Cradle Mountain summit. It wasn’t the plan to make it to the top but we did have a decent long hike planned around a couple of lakes with a few steep climbs thrown in for good measure.
Started at a car park and walked through rain forest complete with waterfalls and then into alpine territory. Marion’s Lookout was the main target and the views of Cradle Mountain from there were stunning. At this point we were above the snow line (which I’d really not expected). From here it was down to Dove Lake via an unfeasibly steep descent route. At the bottom of this we met a small but bickering family. The kids were complaining about the walking at this point but the dad was keen for them to make it to the lookout. Somehow I think the kids and wife would have over-ruled him well before they made it.
And back to the car park. A good few hours hike. Completely loved it. We were extremely lucky with the weather too, apparently they only get about 30 days of clear, sunny weather there a year. Nice.
And on to “Strahan” on the west coast. More wandering through the evening and back to the hostel. At this point I was sat and started to scratch my leg. And there was blood! Loads of it. I found a small hole in my leg which had bled copiously and the clotting had gone weird. I think I’ve gone and got myself leeched! Whoot! Shame one of my socks got rather badly manked up with matted blood.
Strahan was nice but nothing very exciting going on so we spent a day driving to Hobart via Lake St Clair (the other end of the 6 day hike). We ended up in a quiet hostel in north Hobart where we spent about an hour being talked at by the receptionist. We heard tales of wanting to leave Tas and seeing photos of her new house on the mainland and why the new place is better than Tas and that the crime here is getting worse and how the Tassers are small-minded colloquial idiots and on and on and on…. This was odd but not quite as odd as her habit of saying “Air air” to signal her agreement with you when you were talking. Very strange indeed. But she was a hive of info and pointed us at a very decent Indian restaurant.
The next day’s travel was Hobart – Huonville – Franklin – Kettering – Margate – Hobart. Best bits were drive up Mount Wellington into unfeasible gales and a town called Geeveston where we ate in a little place called “The Bears Went Over the Mountain” which was stuffed full with cuddly toys. This while region felt very American. When we put the local radio on they even had country and western playing.
Next day to the Cadbury factory in Hobart where they make far more varieties of chocolate than they make at Bournville. Most disappointing that I can’t get hold of these varieties here. Much nicer than boring old “Fruit and Nut”.
And then to Port Arthur. This is the site of two rather depressing things. One is the old penal colony – now people thought Tasmania was hell on Earth at the time and Port Arthur was where they sent you if you didn’t behave. It was cold and mournful. But still quite pretty and you can imagine rather liking it if you came here voluntarily and there were nice things around. As it was though almost everyone feared it and hated it and the work was horrific even on good days.
The second event was sadder more through being more recent. In 1996 a gunman killed 35 people at the site. Today there’s a memorial garden for the victims both tourists and staff. And a portion in the visitor guide asking people not to ask the current staff about it as many lost friends and were there that day.
After a sombre sort of day we headed north to Swansea and the most prison like of the hostels we stayed at. There were loads of tedious house rules starting with “no shoes” and a stern woman enforcing things. Nice new place tho. Would have been a great place to stop if it hadn’t been for the excessive rule giving.
Everything in Swansea was shut. Except one restaurant. So we ended up there and it was sort of ok. Nicer food than expected but expensive.
The following morning’s brekkie was in a nearby bakery that seemed to be attached to the local tourist spot “Tasmania’s only working bark mill” museum. We didn’t stay to see if it was worth a look. But they were very proud of it. They even had a certificate they’d won. “1983 Museum of the Year”.
The day’s trip was to Wineglass Bay in the Freycinet national park. This beach was beautiful (high praise from me considering I firmly believe that sand adds nothing of value to any form of endeavour except maybe sand castle building). A hard walk to get to it though. Something they don’t bother to mention in most of the tourist articles.
That night we stopped in another hostel, this time in St Helens. After yesterday’s clean but miserable hostel this was much more relaxed but it had the filthiest floors and surfaces, the worst beds and coldest rooms of any in the state. Minging it was. I got bitten loads by crawly things.
And that was about it. Tasmania was bloody marvellous. If it wasn’t so far I’d be back there with no hesitation.
The mainland has a strange relationship with Tassie tho. It’s a bit like England’s view of East Anglia. They’re all seen to be inbred and mutant in some way. I had no preconceptions but then I saw an advert for a local event that I’d loved to have seen but we weren’t going to be there.
Here’s the advert in full:
The Ulverstone Show
Many great attractions including
- Performing ducks direct from Queensland
- Chopping
- Beaut Ute display
- Alpaca judging
- Ferret display and races
Sounds utterly brilliant but really doesn’t favour the “they aren’t rural hicks” view of the locals.
Tasmania – bloody lovely, beautiful, cold and welcoming. Go there if you get the time on an Aus trip.
Permalink
09 Nov 2009
Posted in Travel at 8:55 pm by alby
Righto finally I get to the main bits of the trip. I’ve decided not to bother with a day by day account of it all as there’s going to be too much to write. And as you can see I’ve not had a vast amount of time to get writing.
I decided to split the thing up into Tasmania and the rest. Tas comes last as it was the main thing I wanted to do over in Aus.
But anyway, what happened after the MJC.
Photos of the whole post-MJC trip here (some will be linked to directly in the post as well).
Nice zoo type place where my first roo was seen. They had a few shows on and I managed to catch a couple with birds. The first was native parrots, the second, birds of prey. They did a decent job of showing different birds and their behaviours. The irritating bit was some of the kids running wild and trashing the show amphitheatre and not seeing their parents do a damn thing about it. Scum.
After the bird shows there was an aborigine who did a boomerang throwing show. He was quite an old bloke who turned out to be only half aborigine. The other half was, oddly enough, Scottish.
At the end of the visit I managed to stroke a roo but sadly not a koala as such a thing is banned in the state of Victoria. Harumph.
Home of lots of penguins and very very windy. I ate a picnic near to the bridge and met a few very greedy silvergulls including one particularly persistent pair of hangers-on. One was a bully fighting for everything, the other was a one-footed bird who just kept avoiding the first gull and being quieter about wanting food. He got fed. The bully didn’t.
Once on the island there were opportunities for photos of wind resisting and huge numbers of gulls.
The main tourist thing is the penguin viewing place. Sadly they milk this horribly. The prices were staggering so the decision was made – stuff that! A shame but there was no way those prices were worth it.
I’d heard a lot about this park. There’d been some bloody awful bush fires in Victoria back in Feb this year and “the Prom” hadn’t escaped the carnage. The scars were still clearly there both in the landscape and when talking to locals.
But it’s an extremely beautiful place. An ace place for walking and I managed to get me up a mountain. Ok it was a little one and the walk wasn’t too hard but it was still a mountain.
There were quite a few beaches of note. The one that stuck out was “Squeaky Beach”. When dry the sand squeaks when you walk on it. Very odd.
Quite a nice city. The day me and Tan were there was the AFL Grand Final Day. Now this match happens at the Melbourne Cricket Ground so it was proper big for the locals. Walking around Federation Square in town there were people in team colours everywhere and then I noticed a vast telly screen. It was showing a panel discussion rather like “Football Focus” in the UK. It took me a while to realise that the people on this huge telly were actually sitting below it. The whole show was being shown live and the presenters and guests were sitting out in the square. It was really quite cold (so much that local shops and cafes had signs like this in their windows). The presenters really were working for their money.
There were lots of fans milling about and finding their seats to watch the game on the telly. Apparently the winning team were going to come to the square after the match too. So a big day of fun for one set of fans. The teams were St Kilda (local Melbournites) and Geelong (industrial city a short drive away) so no real travel problems stopping huge numbers coming into town.
We ended up watching the show from a bar at the port (waiting for the Tas ferry). It’s a fun experience watching the most passionately followed sport in the country in a pub full of obsessed supporters.
I should say that I still have no idea what the hell the rules of the sport are. But, for a brawl, it seems to take up an awful lot of space.
During my time in Aus there was a bit of a scandal about one player. Guy called Brendan Fevola got off his skull on booze at the big end of season awards thing (here and here). Apparently he has form. It was a huge news story at the time. Flintoff after the Ashes was nothing compared this bloke.
Away from sport I saw a fantastic museum called ACMI where I saw Mad Max’s car among other things and I ate burek at the Queen Victoria market (ace place).
Coming back from Tasmania, Geelong was the first stop before getting to the Great Ocean Road. We were there early and nothing was open. But the weather was clear but there were some very strange skies that morning.
They were big on bollards there too. There were rather a lot of them done up in odd styles, some were pirates or policemen. One notable group were bathing beauties. Not the nicest statues but certainly diverting.
It’s a very winding road along the coast. Very pretty and twisty and there are loads of accidents here. Most of these come from foreigners not remembering to drive on the left, or by those looking at the views rather than the road.
A way down the road you get to the 12 Apostles. Well 8. Actually 7. In fact I have no clue how many there are as some have collapsed. I was told one fell whilst I was in Australia.
This is also where I saw an echidna. Cute!
One of the unexpected highlights. I’d never heard of the Aussie Grampians but had a lovely time here.
Started with walks and climbs with magic views and scary sheer drops and continued with huge waterfalls and animals galore. One waterfall managed to flow without any sign of a pool at its bottom. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
At the town we saw a huge number of roos including a very large group of females with 2 males fighting for dominance. They’re very odd looking critters. Even more so when fighting. Two big fellows standing on their tails so they could kick each other. This went on for an age. The ladies just carried on munching the grass (all this happened on a cricket pitch).
The place was also the site of one of the more memorable events of the trip. I’d occasionally phoned R on the trip but the time difference was a major pain. A good time for her is around 8pm. This translated to 5am Aus time. At the hostel there was a public phone but it was on the corridor where all the rooms were. So I couldn’t really use this phone as I’d be waking everyone up with conversation that I’m sure they’d not really wanted to listen to anyway.
Luckily there was a public phone about 5 mins walk into town. So at 5am I was walking down a dark road in the very cold to find me the phone.
It wasn’t too far but I was damn cold. In fact it was near the cricket field with the roos on. But it dark enough for me not to be able to see them at this point.
In the middle of the phone call I turned around to see about a dozen kangaroos bounce past me down the road about 2m away from where I was standing. I was also battling the dawn chorus during the call. I’m used to this being sparrows and starlings and tits and the like. There’s a distinctly different feel to the chorus when the majority of the birds making the thing are parrots or some such.
The final bit of this early morning cake was when I got back to the hostel to discover that my key card didn’t open the front door. There was a key pad thing but no-one had mentioned this to me so I had no clue what the number was. It was about an hour before the reception opened up too. So I was banging on the door for a while. My toes were really very nippy by the time I was finally let in.
Adelaide is a lovely city. Small enough to get around easily but big enough to have lots of things to do. And big enough for bits of it to feel slightly seedy.
Some great museums and galleries too.
The hostel was notable for a couple of things too. One was a german man shaving in the bathroom. He was making awfy orgasmic noises during the process. Very odd.
Second was I saw the man with possibly the acest job ever. As I left the hostel there was a tour bus parked up and the driver got out to let his passengers out. He was about 40 and dressed in full-on Ocker Aussie outdoorsy type clothes. His passengers were 18-30 year old women. All of them. He got a hug from all of them too. Nice job if you can get it.
I’d only picked Sydney to visit as I was in Aus anyway and I thought I shouldn’t really miss Sydney out. I sort of wish I had now. I wasn’t really that impressed.
I think my view may well have been different if I’d been with someone who knows the place rather than on my own. It’s too big to get a handle on in 36 hours or so.
Sure the bridge is a bridge and the Opera House looks like it does on every tourist info blurb re Aus you’ve ever seen (apart from it not actually being white). But once you’ve seen those then there’s nothing else there that really separates it from other big and rich cities.
A bay? Tick. Lots of museums? Tick. Lots of tourists? Tick.
Sydney was the first place I met English folk out and about. There were none in Adelaide, nor in Melbourne (except Dave at the MJC), nor in Tasmania. It was nice to go so far and seem far away. Sydney felt just too familiar even to the extent of me getting annoyed with 2 english women on the bus gossiping about one of their “friends”.
Not as god-awful, smelly, rude, expensive, obnoxious, self-satisfied, self-deluded, over-hyped and generally shitty as Paris though. But that’s hardly a recommendation. I really can’t see much of a reason to visit Sydney. It’s a city; if you like that sort of thing then go for it.
Oh yes and this bridge business. Ok so you copied the Tyne Bridge well done you. Now how about NOT charging $160 to climb the thing and then banning climbers from even taking a camera with them just so you can screw more cash out of them by charging for photos once they’re up there?
NB I really do like the Opera House. Was just a shame there wasn’t anything on that I wanted to see when I was there.
Australia then. Has some amazing bits and some cities. I know which bits I’d go to again. Actually if I ever do get that far again I doubt I’d go to the same places. I imagine I’d do the middle and the far north instead.
Top trip.
Permalink
21 Oct 2009
Posted in Reviews, Travel at 10:26 pm by alby
Well done me. I managed not to remember a note pad. Sigh. But this did mean I bought one at Singapore airport. This wouldn’t ordinarily be bothered with but this is a special one. The front cover is a serene photo of footprints in a snowy landscape with the words
“CHALLENGE – Do not follow where the path may lead. Go where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Then on each page is a sort of water mark (not actually, just a cheap bit of very light grey writing) which states
“Destined to win”
With this notepad I can hardly go wrong this whole trip! Woot.
Anyway back to the trip.
I was off to the airport via a coach from Leicester city centre and I was planning to get a cab to the coach station. Well 40 mins before my coach was due off I phoned up the taxi cab and was told they had an hour wait at best. Eek. This was at about 4am. Must be mighty busy or maybe they only had the one guy on. So off I trot on foot dragging a large case and lugging a full day pack. Luckily I bumped into a cab on the way who gave me a lift. Not a great start.
All my flights to Aus and back were on Singapore Airlines. I’d happily recommend them. Decent space, nice service, good entertainment system etc. Very good. The food was top notch too. I brought back a menu with me so I could remember the food offered. How about this for a dinner menu (in economy no less):
Appetiser: Thai Papaya salad with shrimps
Mains: Beef fillet with port wine sauce, roasted assorted vegetables and potato, or
Indian style butter chicken with jalfereizi [sic] vegetable and basmati rice, or
Char Siew pork with steamed rice and leafy greens.
Cheese: Cheese and crackers.
Dessert: Chocolate delight.
Not bad at all.
The flight to Singapore lasted nearly 13 hours though which is a bugger of a long time in anyone’s book. The A380 is quite large too – good for cutting down turbulence and loads of space to move about.
My prep worked though. The iPod gave me plenty of entertainment (and with a seat back USB port available, it didn’t run out of juice no matter how many vids watched or games played), the sound cancelling headphones were well worth it too; I was surprised they worked as well as they did to be honest – most impressed.
On the seat back thingy I finally got to see Monsters vs Aliens which I annoyingly missed down the cinema. And as we were nearing our destination I sat back and watched Kooza too. This may be stating the obvious but some of those performers are awfy good. The wheel of death folk were spectacular, they even had me gasping at one or two points. Stunning stuff.
Regarding the seat back entertainment wotsit. I had a huge bullock of a man sitting next to me and he looked quite dim. At one point he was fiddling with the handset and looking dumbly at his screen. Which was blank. He kept looking at the screen and then at the handset and then at the screen again. All with a blank look on his face. Now the “on” button wasn’t on the handset it was on the bottom of the screen. I helpfully, I thought, leaned over and jabbed his on button for him. He looked very confused and then annoyed and then confused again.
Turns out that his screen was on but the LCD screen didn’t allow me to see it from my viewing angle! Luckily he didn’t get annoyed when we figured out what was going on. Well done me again. Sigh.
Once landed (in an excellent airport – it has about 9 gardens, one of which is a butterfly garden!) I was going to meet up with a couchsurfer who was landing from Kuala Lumpur at roughly the same time. I had 24 hours in Singapore so I though seeing it with a fellow traveller would be a good way to spend the day. He had said he knew Singapore a bit so could show me around. Well we met up, got the train into town and then he had to sod off. Nice.
So I wandered a bit and then went to the zoo.
Now just about the only thing I really knew about Singapore was that it is somewhat clammy. Ross Noble went on and on about this somewhat in his show from there. (I agree with him that the Merlion is a bit rubbish too) When I landed I was in the air conditioned airport and then the air conditioned train. The first I noticed of this clamminess was when the train doors opened at over-ground stops and the air rushing in made it feel like the moment you enter a sauna. Hot and damp. Lovely mix.
But it wasn’t sunny. The photos I got show it as quite gloomy. Strange atmos really.
The zoo was right good tho. Saw a few animals including a saki monkey, some shagging baboons, a couple of pygmy hippos and more. Slightly depressing white tiger exhibit sadly. One of them was just pacing left and right – poor thing probably had too much energy to be cooped up in that size compound. Oh yes they had polar bears too. In Singapore! Talk about wrong habitat.
Next to the zoo was the “Night Safari” which was all about the nocturnal animals. This had a nice, if overly worthy, show about the night timers.
Oh yes there was a woman there at the zoo who was the exact image of Ginormica from Monsters vs Aliens. Only she had black rather than white hair.
By this time I was getting more than a little tired. At one point I fell asleep in the zoo’s cafe. I also managed to fall asleep on the bus from the zoo to the train station.
I got back the airport with a few hours to go before check in so availed myself of the facilities there. And they’re fantastic. Sadly the transit hotel was full but there was something called the transit lounge. This offered showers and short term beds for a low price. A bed! I’d had about 4 hours sleep in the preceding 2 days. So I had me a 3 hour snooze (could have done with much more) and a lovely shower thus making the onward journey much nicer for whomever got to sit next to me on the plane.
Singapore was an interesting stop with far more to see than I managed. Possibly worth a return visit one day. Maybe I’d lump in a Malaysia visit too.
Photos from Singapore (not that I’m best happy with them tbh) here.
Permalink
16 Aug 2009
Posted in People, Travel at 8:34 pm by alby
As P and C get ever closer to being parents it was noted that P would have fewer time to go off and do his own thing in the near future. Thus was born the plan of me and him charging up and down a stonking great hill.
We decided on Snowdon as I’ve never been up it before. No really.
We headed off later than planned on Saturday but ended up at the correct camp site around 4pm. The plan was smaller hill on Saturday and then Snowdon on Sunday.
The camp was under the minor hillock known as Tryfan. The weather wasn’t wonderful but that was expected. So off we went.
After a good while of off-route scrambling we figured that we’d not have enough time to reach the summit and get down again before dark so we reluctantly headed down before we’d planned. We did manage to get to a high ridge between two peaks though. No idea if it’s called anything, prolly.
So down we went. Quite a steep route down but for the most part pretty easy.
But then. Oh then.
My legs were a little worn out and were trembling a touch with the effort when I missed a step and my body went further forward than my legs. There was a large stone to my side that I tried to grab and vaguely managed but I couldn’t stop myself sliding further forward and down. At this point I was still confident that I was going to be fine. My head seemed to be coping happily. Unfortunately for it (and the rest of me) it was mistaken.
My chin smacked into the stone with a mild thwack. It hurt a bit but I was more worried that I had hurt my jaw. I’ve had problems with it before and don’t want the bother of dealing with it again.
(Incidentally, while I’m typing this it’s making my chin and jaw ache a tad.)
P saw me on my face and shot back up from where he was to make sure I was ok. I felt not too bad but was bleeding a bit from my chin.
P didn’t look too impressed when I showed him the cut.
But no matter there was no other option but to carry on walking down. The next hour was tedious descent whilst noticing that the bleeding hadn’t stopped. By the bottom of the descent my shirt was mildly gory. P looked at it again and thought that it now looked worse than it did when I first cut it.
So off to A&E to get it looked at. I did wonder whether this was an over-reaction but I preferred to get it at least checked.
Once there the triage nurse thought it might have been ok to just tape together but was concerned enough to ask me to wait to see a doctor just in case. I think our A&E plan was justified right there.
After some waiting I was called in to see the doc and he said just one word (other than pleasantries); “glue”.
So my chin wound was superglued together!
Well not actual superglue but something very like. The stuff they used is not water-proof. Meaning I can’t wash, shave or shower (that bit) for a couple of days.
Main concern now was “what about Snowdon?” We’d come all this way and I didn’t want to let the side down. We’d already wasted our one evening there waiting in a bleedin’ hospital.
We’ll see in the morning I guess.
Now we needed food. We’d had to come to Bangor to get to an A&E dept so we found ourselves a sit-in Chinese place called The Garden. Very nice it was. I’d changed from gory shirt to “near-rags” shirt but they had a big mirror in their waiting area and when I saw my chin I wanted to walk straight back out again.
It looked like it was still bleeding badly. One of the waitresses gave me a paper napkin using which I discovered that the big blob of blood on the chin was set solid, rather than still oozing.
I still wasn’t best pleased sitting in a public eatery looking mildly gored up. Never mind they found us a quiet place. Food turned out to be rather good too.
Back to the camp-site via some extremely strange directions from P’s satnav. We finally figured it out when I used mine instead.
Windy night in my new one man tent. It worked fine. I may be a touch too tall for it however.
And then to Snowdon. Started at Pen-y-Pas and headed up the pig track (PYG track). Harder work than I’d thought it would be and took ages. Oh and the weather was quite close so once a certain height up there the visibility dropped right off. We walk these things to get the views yes?
I rather liked the gallows humour of the other walkers and it was a proper sense of achievement getting to the top. Woot.
Coming down P had picked the Miner’s track. Some fools seemed to have chosen to try and ascend this way. It’s far steeper than the PYG and that’s after a long slow incline to the start of the scramble. I did feel quite sorry for those at the bottom of the scramble who asked how far they had to go.
“Well about 300-400m straight up and then you’re about half way”. Seemed a rude answer to give those who were already struggling.
I should note that P had originally planned to go via Crib Goch. But the weather conditions really did suggest that this would be a more bad idea than it already was. The combination of very strong (to 50mph) winds and poor visibility meant that only the loons would bother this route on this day. But there still were some folk trying it. Idiots.
As we headed back along the easy end of the Miner’s track we saw some very unfit looking folk heading up the hill. I’d say a good few of them should have turned straight round and gone home. The depression they were setting themselves up for didn’t seem worth it to me. These were people red-faced and wheezing up a mild incline with 1km to go before the really harsh bit.
At the other end of the fitness scale there were a few lunatic fell runners. One of whom passed us 3 times. Once on the way up and again coming down (as we were still going up). Later, on our way down, he passed us again on his way up again! Fool.
There was a couple who made it to the top with a baby being carried in a rucksack thing. Fools.
And back to the car.
Pics of the weekend (including mild gore) here. No summit shots though as it didn’t seem worth getting the camera out in howling winds and no visibility.
Permalink
09 Aug 2009
Posted in People, Self-indulgence, Travel at 9:33 pm by alby
Hi all
Most of the locals know by now but I’d like to make a welcome to the woman who shall be known as R on here now and again. She lovely and I’m happy.
[edit: just spotted that this pic looks rubbish in IE. You should be using a decent browser anyway but there's a better version of this pic in the weekend photos, link at end of post]
Anyways we went away this weekend. We ended up camping near Edale in the Peak District. Beautiful place and we had stunning weather.
The field we were in had rather more than the average amount of sheep poo but was well located near an ice-cream shop and some wonderful scenery.
The owner seemed to be an very old man who lived in a decrepit farmhouse. The house itself didn’t look too habitable but he seemed to manage.
On Saturday we walked and walked. We started going up from the site to Edale and then up Mam Tor and along Rushup Edge before getting lost and finally making our way back to the campsite.
We’d bought barbecue stuff and a crappy portable BBQ. We managed adequately with food but that was enough for us.
Sunday was spent de-camping (slowly) and then more walking, including a trip down Blue John Cavern. Nice guide by the name of Brian and worth a look.
Then it was back home via rellies (hers) and more food.
Photos here.
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07 Aug 2009
Posted in Juggling, Travel at 6:15 pm by alby
Yay! After my call for liftees to the BJC this year I got a call from one Ms Biskup and Mr Mats.
Looks like I have myself a pair of hitchhikers. Huzzah!
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03 Aug 2009
Posted in Juggling, Travel at 1:05 pm by alby
I’m a heading to the BJC in a couple of weeks and after travelling types to come with (since my usual liftees ain’t going this year).
I’ll be heading there, from Leicester, on the evening of Wednesday 19th and coming back on the Sunday afternoon.
If you want to come along then let me know soon. Can pick up on the way if necessary.
Have fun.
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28 Jul 2009
Posted in Juggling, Travel at 12:24 pm by alby
This is awfy early but I’ve an idea that I want to put out there.
I want to go to Finland’s EJC next year. That’s not the idea btw.
I want to drive there. I reckon it’ll take me a couple of days going at full speed and not seeing anything. So stuff that.
I want to take a week getting there going through Germany, Poland, the Baltic states before getting a ferry to Helsinki and then up to the site.
After the EJC the idea is to take a further week to drive through Finland, Sweden and Norway before coming home to the UK via the Bergen-Newcastle ferry.
So a 3 week trip then.
If I decide to go for this then I’d like companions to come along for the craic.
I’d expect it to be one set of 3 passengers there and another set of 3 back, maybe.
If you know of anyone who might be up for that sort of hols then let me know. First come, first served!
Have fun.
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23 Jul 2009
Posted in People, Travel at 10:08 pm by alby
Two new albums up now that I have me nets up and running again.
First one is of a staff rounders game we had last week.
Second is the Couchsurf flooding hiking weekend.
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20 Jul 2009
Posted in Rants, Travel at 8:15 am by alby
OMG
What a weekend.
This was my first going-away-to join-some-other-couchsurfers weekend away. Someone had thrown together a let’s-all-go-hiking thing together and I’d managed to get a couple of folk to share the drive up there with.
I met the first, Esther, at Leics train station at 2.15. The second should have been there then but his train was delayed so it was at about 2.45 that we met Vivek. And away!
The weather wasn’t going to be great but the rain was pretty minor at this point. The traffic, however, was bad. It took an age to get to Leeds where my final passenger was to be picked up. We were there nearly 2 hours later than I’d hoped and her phone hadn’t been giving her text messages on time. So she’d been there 2 hours despite us sending her repeated updates of when we’d arrive.
So an annoyed Russian then (please don’t switch my gas off).
And northwards!
The drive wasn’t so bad from this point but the weather was turning miserable. The company wasn’t though so it was an enjoyable trip.
Sat-nav at one point guided me off the A1, drove me round a small town for a bit and then guided me back on to the A1 again. Well impressed with that!
We were to arrive at a small campsite in a little place called Beadnell.
Heaving rain and blowing a gale it were, oh yes and starting to get quite dark.
The gruff bloke at the site whinged at us for being part of a disorganised group and that 2 of our number were sharing with someone but didn’t know whether the someones had arrived. The other knew that someone had arrived but couldn’t remember her surname. I was unbooked and unknown but I was supposed to pitch on the spare bit of someone else’s pitch but I didn’t know her surname either.
So I mentioned: “If it’s going to stay like this then I’ll sleep in the car anyway.”
Ooh that didn’t go down well. “Not in my campsite you won’t”.
Arse.
Being a born rebel I stayed in my car that night. I didn’t see the point in trying to pitch a tent in howling winds and copious rain when there was a perfectly dry and comfy car handy.
Frankly I’m amazed all the tents stayed up that night. Some half blew down and others weren’t up to keeping all the water out so there were some grumpy campers in the morning. Shocking weather, it really was bad.
Now by Sat am we’d not really met many folk. There was nowhere at the campsite to congregate under a roof. So when I got up was when I first met the “organiser” and others. People were remaining keen for the day’s hike. The weather was resolutely unpleasant.
But off to find the start of the hike. It was to be in the National Park. I had Vivek with me and others had joined cars with people they’d shared tents with.
We were first off. Place wasn’t on the satnav (not mine or anyone else’s). The signs were ominous. There were plenty of mildly flooded roads. I went a touch too fast through one large puddle and there was a horrible scraping noise from the front of the car afterwards. I thought it was in the wheel arch at first but couldn’t see anything there. It carried on and eventually I spotted that some plastic had come adrift at the front. (If it helps my dad called it the “sump plate”)
By the time I spotted that it was the dodgy bit it had split but was temporarily mended by a bit of brute force. It held for a few miles or so before needing “mending” again. This went on a while.
As we were nearing our destination we came up to a “weak bridge” that seemed rather pointless as the river wasn’t just under it but around it as well. We were concerned that people would be battling on and waiting for us at the rendezvous so we edged through what was quite a speedy rapid to get to the bridge and over. Safely done.
Further on there was the entrance to the park and the start of a 4 mile drive in the park to the meeting point. Most of this went well until we hit another longer flooded bit. A 4×4 was coming the other way and we flagged him down to ask what the road was like and we were given a “I really wouldn’t advise it” from him. It seemed sensible to concur. So back to a small village with a cafe to take stock.
Bacon buttie. Nom nom.
OK so we weren’t going to be doing the original planned walk. But there were other options for hiking. We got a local tourist map and headed out to a smaller 6 miler from another local village. The journey had more flooded roads which were ok for passing until we got near our target and the road simply disappeared under water.
At the other side was a family in a land rover. And they weren’t risking it. So we didn’t either.
OK back to the first village and try a different route. Nope, that route was flooded out too. There was a 3rd way though. That was flooded as well but passable, slowly. One of our cars (there were 3 in my group) conked out in it. My “repair” decided that it had had enough and seemed irreparable.
Wasn’t going well at this point. We’d had about 3 hours of driving by now and got precisely nowhere; all there was to show was a group of annoyed people and a damaged car.
Eventually I managed both to completely repair the front of my car (with a brief stop and think before slightly more precise brute force did the trick) and add to the floods by stopping to piss on Northumbria; well it had done the same to me for the better part of 24 hours by this point.
Around now we’d had contact from others in the group saying “go to Bamburgh castle”. Back to the A1 and an easy drive (with only 2 major floods to ford) later we were there. By the time we arrived they all wanted to go to Lindesfarne. Annoyed now, we’d been just about 7 miles from there on the way back to Bamburgh Castle. Grrr.
I slept a bit whilst those in my group of 3 cars had a look round the castle before we all headed up to Lindesfarne.
The day actually got quite a bit better from here. The drive was easier and the weather finally started to look up. IE it wasn’t incessantly drizzling.
Got there and spent a nice 3 hours looking round and finally chatting to some of the others who’d braved the trip up.
Some really nice folk it must be said.
I’d picked up a couple of Australians for the ride back to the camp and we headed home.
Now Lindesfarne is on an island and the causeway is only passable at low tide. We were on the causeway and I felt that there was an odd noise coming from the left of the car. Could something else really have gone wrong?
Well yes. Stopping at a passing point I had a look to find a flat rear tyre. Arse.
We changed it reasonably easily but the crap of the first half of the day hit me around now and I wasn’t in the best of moods.
Once back at the site the 4 of us went for chips and fish which was surprisingly excellent. None of us were having the best time so it was no extra surprise that it started raining on us when we out eating our fish.
At this point me, Esther and Vivek all agreed that, rather than paying for an extra night’s misery, we’d hang around to chat and meet people but then would drive home over night. I think we’d all had enough of this.
So to meet the group. They were all getting ready to head to the beach (100m away hurrah) with food for a bbq.
We walked with them for a bit and discovered that they were going about “20mins walk away” to a “nicer” beach. Aarrgh!!!! What’s wrong with the one over the road?
So we walked along the beach but lost the leaders who’d gone along the road. After clambering a lot we got to the road but this mythical “better” beach wasn’t anywhere to be found. The 3 of us companions looked at each other and silently agreed “stuff this for a lark!”
So home we went.
Got back to Leicester at around 2.30 Sunday morning. On the trip I’d spent about £100 on fuel, broke my new car twice, replaced a tyre (actually 2 as one other needed changing – another £200), not camped, not hiked, not had anything in the way of nice weather, and not met many folk who’d gathered for this trip.
Well bloody worth it I must say.
Still, those I met were lovely so hello to Peta, Esther, Vivek and Gunilla and a few others. Maybe one day we’ll meet in happier circumstances…
Photos to come when I get my home internet back.
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