Monthly Archives: May 2010

Sunday’s walk around Pakenham

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With the Cambridge Rambling Club  A team skirting the coastline of the Isle of Wight. Sally and I decided to do a jaunt with the Newmarket Ramblers. Debbie led 15 of us on a good walk around the Suffolk countryside, it was advertised as 11 but ended up at 12.3. A good pace was kept up and my heel was really pleased it was only a 5 hour stroll.

Here is the walk on Everytrail plus some pics of Pakenham Water Mill where T treated Debbie, Sally and I to a gorgeous tea and cakes in the mill.

Pakenham Circular Walk at EveryTrail

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iPad first post

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iPad welcome screen

Experimenting with the WordPress app on my new iPad.

Beginning to love the iPad especially the HUGE Fonts available, in fact it’s rather weird going back to the iPhone! the iPad is ideal for us oldies with failing eyesight.

A problem for new entrants is that you need a computer & iTunes account to get it set up in the first place! This could be very very disappointing for folks thinking of getting one as their first and only computer.

Will I take it on my walks? Weighing in at 858gm with it’s £30 black case (yes pandammonium, Sally made me get one) compared to my Eee at 968gm is excellent! And now with the camera adapter (£25 in UK) it can backup my photos daily. However, it still has a major failing that I can’t back up my Garmin gpx files or geotag my pics. Maybe Ascent and Photolinker will do iPad apps :-)

So yes it will be coming to the great Italian wedding with me but still undecided about China.

Oh, still can’t work out how to add links with the wordpress app :-(

p.s. Links added on iMac

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Scribefire now available for Chrome

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Just trying out the new scribefire extension for chrome, looking good so far. Lets insert an image:-

Oh dear it needs a url, so already has to be on the web. No browse option
Dragging images in only gives this Photo Booth-1.jpg
Lets add a link to Mr Frisk winning the Grand National when Em was born/
That seems OK
Is this the last nail in Firefox’s coffin :-(

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Standon circular walk

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Today’s walk with the Cambridge Rambling Club A team was a circular walk starting from Standon and then heading over to Much Hadham. Christine ably led the walk and 10 of us set off on the hottest day of the year so far! Mud rain & snow were but distant memories :-) Here is the walk:-

Standon circular walk at EveryTrail

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During Sally’s mega shopping trip I treated myself to some Inov8 trail shoes which I tried out today. I felt a bit of a fraud as I didn’t seem a ‘proper’ walker. They are just so much lighter than wearing boots. My heels still started to hurt at the 12 mile mark after the damage caused by my Thames Path walk,. Hopefully, the bruising on my heels will go away with time. Otherwise they seemed fine, although still uncertain about walking through long wet grass with them.

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The Thames Path

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After 10 days of walking I completed The Thames Path from its rural source close to Cirencester and its 180+ mile twisty route to the Thames Barrier.

The route encompasses a lot of famous place names associated with Royalty and the English upper classes in fact it could be a tour of them from The palace of Westminster, Hampton Court, Windsor, Eton & Oxford.

Most days I did well over 20miles as the ground is flat, well marked & easy going. My days were:-

Day 1 (May 10th) Ashton Keynes to The Source and back again with Sally who I must thank for the lift :-) I stayed at the good Cove House. Distance about 15 miles.

Day 2 (May 11th) Ashton Keynes to Kelmscott about 21miles I stayed at the excellent Manor Farm with an amazing evening meal at The Plough.

Day 3 (May 12th) Kelmscott to Swinford another 21 miles or so Charles met be en-route and made me a coffee in his stunning house plus giving me lots of tips for my upcoming China trip, thank you :-)
My friend Chris picked me up so I could stay at his house in Abingdon.

Day 4 (May 13) Swinford to Clifton Hamden a 22mile day made possible by Chris picking me up again and providing a seconds night hospitality.

Day 5 (May 14) Clifton Hamden to Goring a short 15 mile day so I could be ready for Sally coming down for the weekend. I met Margaret who is walking bits of the Path over weekends etc.

Day 6 (May 15) Goring to Henley Lovely 21 mile walk with a couple of surprising hills.

Day 7 (May 16) Henley to Windsor/Eton A cracking day of over 23 miles with Sally followed by a meal at Zizzi’s thank you Philip and congratulations on your upcoming wedding :-)

Day 8 (May 17) Eton to Hampton Court A big 24 miler so a tiring day thanks to AroundMe I located the Lionsgate Hotel even though I had no prior booking!

Day 9 (May 18) Hampton Court to Chelsea another 22 miler this time with aching feet :-( Very impressive that the countryside extends so far into London. AroundMe saved me again by finding a cheap hotel in Chelsea, The Oakley the neighbouring Fiamma made me an excellent vegetarian stuffed cannelloni

which brings me to the final day

Day 10 (May19) Chelsea to The Thames Barrier 17 miles to do what a crow could fly in half! Past all the magnificent buildings associated with London, Big Ben, The Globe, Tower Bridge etc etc
All totally awesome except for the nagging pain of two small heel blisters :-( :-( although relieved somewhat by meeting Alwyn & his wife who are planning to walk to Santiago from St Albans, they had just returned from cycling the length of New Zealand having previously crossed Canada and covered fair distances in Australia – amazing the folks you meet when walking.

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More of The Cotswold Way

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Today we started of The Cotswold Way from Wotton Under Edge to Horton returning via Bays wood and open fields to Wotton.

Very hilly for we Cambridge folk but fantastic scenery and the Bays Wood area looking very much like all England did before we started chopping all the trees down!

Here’s the walk on Everytrail:-

Wotton under Edge to Horton circular walk

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18.7 miles done!

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Wotton to Tyndale monument circluar wark

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Here is our first day’s walk in The Cotswolds. A pretty damp day with a cold wind on the tops. Amazing to see and smell the woods filled with wild garlic & bluebells. We still managed a few circles in the woods even with 4 GPS’s between us! As you can see here:-

Wotton to Tyndale Monument circular walk at EveryTrail

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Many thanks to Sally & Ross who are putting us up after staying in my Les Gets apartment this winter.

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Geoff’s travelling gadget bag!

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I spent tonight shortening all my USB cables so that my electronics can pack away neatly.  In the past I have carried a rats nest of cables & Power Supplies with me.

The result of tonight’s endeavours is shown above. It’s now  below 2Kg including the Asus power supply, Garmin GPS, Olympus uTough camera, Eee 4G, rechargeable battery charger & iPhone.

Its always annoyed me that the Olympus cameras come with a separate power supply and cable rather than charging through their USB lead. Tonight, whilst shortening the camera lead I discovered that if I left the green & white wires disconnected then it would charge through the Eee USB port (OK you also need a complete cable to get the pics off).

On the Eee I have a nLite version of XP Pro (About 3GB in size) with GPS Trackmaker for downloading tracks of the Garmin, Picasa for downloading images of the camera and storing locally on a 16GB SD card. GPicSync ties the images to the gpx tracks. I also have MemoryMap with the whole of the UK at 50000:1 plus The Alps and Pyrenees :-) I run CCleaner very frequently to get rid of accumulated crap and keep about 600M free space. It also has iTunes so the iphone can charge and unlocked if anything goes wrong.

So the Thames Path will be the testing ground, at least I will be passing a lot ofelectronic stores if anything goes awry.

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Following river courses to and from their sources!

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Now the business & office is sold. The big house move is behind me
and my other house is renovated and let out it’s time to start
travelling!

Next week, after our weekend in The Cotswolds,  I’m rambling all 184 miles of The Thames Path from its source near Kemble to the Thames barrier, Sally will join me when she can.

In July I hope to cycle my bike back from Les Gets via the source of the Rhine in Reichenau, Switzerland to where it meets the North sea about 800miles!.

Then in October and November I hope to visit the source of The Yangtze  where it originates in a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Dangla Mountain Range on the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau  although I don’t think I can cycle or walk its entire 3,915 miles!

Afterwards  after travelling by train overland to India. I intend to do the holy trail upto where The Ganges rises at the foot of Gangotri Glacier, at Gaumukh, at an elevation of 3,892 m (12,769 ft) Cathy thinks I should don all the traditional gear of the  Sannyasisi, since I’m over 50 vegetarian and bald :-)

Should all be very interesting to see the major rivers of their respective countries, lets hope my stomach can take the strain.

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