Category Archives: Travel Blogging

Posts on my experiences in travelling

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Southern Upland Way – Portpatrick to Castle Kennedy

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IMG_9367Today with George (who I first met 50 years ago whilst doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme at Parkgate Iron & steel works) I started the Southern Upland Way. This is a 212 mile coast to coast walk across Scotland starting in Portpatrick near Stranraer.

This is the first time I have pre-booked the trains at either end plus the ten b&b’s in between. Another first is I’m  using my new Polar H7 heart monitor with the iCardio app on the iPhone.

icardioWhen we left George’s house in Kendal it was hammering down with rain. However, by noon when we arrived at Portpatrick all was clear but with a very cold wind blowing hard.

The walk is, so far, well marked although with a fair bit of road/track walking today. The moorland bits were very boggy with no refinements such as gravel or paving slabs like on other National Trails. The Via Ferrata bit is a chain handrail alongside straightforward  steps in the rock.

We did 18.38 miles in 5hr 52min + 1hr 35min stops  according to my GPS as we went into Stranraer to grab some fish & chips before our b&b. This is the rather magnificent deluxe Chlenry Farmhouse (which offers a big meal with wine for £35 each…)

Tomorrow is Bargrennan some 25 miles away

All the day’s pictures are here

The trip statistics are here 

The trip on Everytrail is here 

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A sculpture day

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Auguste Rodin - Adam - 1881Yesterday I did an excellent walk with my Jesus Green Pool swimming friend Chris. I have been wanting to visit The Henry Moore Foundation site at Perry Green, so when a 25% discount voucher appeared in the post & also prompted by Chris wanting to do a longish walk for him :-) (but a walk Sally & I would consider a bit short at 13 1/2 miles) . I finally made it there.

We took the train from Cambridge to Bishops Stortford (equally fast frequent trains from Stansted airport & London). First part of the walk is along The Stort navigation past locks & narrow boats plus two nature reserves, although Chris didn’t have much time for bird watching, apparently walking and twitching don’t mix). After leaving the river and crossing the main line (trains every 3mins so don’t hang about on the level crossing)  we made our way over to Thorley with its delightful church we had a bit of confusion at Thorley Wash after crossing the A1184, but we took the track, rather than through down the private drive, which then transforms into a delightful old coach road.

We arrived at Perry Green and made straight to The Hoops for a pint & salad, a tad pricey but excellent quality.  Straight after lunch it was across the road to see the Moore / Rodin exhibition of  sculptures, totally stunning! & a must see. I thought artists were meant to be poor! However, according to Wikipedia he was paying a million pounds a year in income tax! Maybe we overpay for public works of art :-) The staff said it was OK to take photos outside so you can see some of them on Flickr.

A lovely walk back via SideHill full of bluebells (Chris pondered wether they were Spanish or Native) past enormous houses and then a lovely walk into Bishops Stortford through the sports grounds of the college ( a snap at £24,000 per year for boarders).

Chris treated me to tea and a chocolate brownie at the Host restaurant in Stortford. Then it was back home. an excellent walk on a perfect day. The walk is on Everytrail :
Bishops Stortford circular walk to Henry Moore  Centre at EveryTrail

 

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First Great Walk

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Tomorrow I try my first New Zealand Great Walk it’s the Tongariro Northern Circuit and goes around two active volcanoes Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe. What makes it different for me is that I have to take all my food & possible water for two nights & three days. I’ve booked both the Oturere Hut and Walhohonu hut and taxi service to take me to Mangatepopo and collect me from the Whakapapa Village Centre

The weather forecast is looking OKish although there are certainly high winds. I don’t intend on going to the summit’s so hopefully should be OK.

I’ve downloaded the relevant New Zealand Topo50 maps into the Viewranger app and will be taking a spare battery.

Should be interesting – now to pack my bag :-)

 

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Arrival in New Zealand

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I left Cambridge at 9am on Sunday the 14th October and arrived in Auckland at 2pm on Tuesday the 16th with brief stops at Dubai, Kuala Lumpur & Melbourne on the way. Thats 43 hours  straight without any proper sleep.

First job in Auckland was to try and get my D550 camera fixed as it went totally dead on the way over. It wasn’t the battery and so I ended up buying a second hand body from Camera & Camera on Queen street for about $599 :-( an expensive start to the trip. Next job was to sort out the iPhone.

text from 3

Welcome text from 3

Three had kindly sent me a text  on arrival offering internet at £6,000 a GB in New Zealand. I thought that just a tad to expensive… So I went over to Vodafone where I quickly was set up with a 2GB / 1 month Supa Prepay Broadband+ package complete with iPhone5 SIM for $50 a month a saving of ££5,960 :-)

Emily Place signAfter all that excitement it was off for a well needed sleep at Jucy’s hostel. in Emily Place :-)

 

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I arrive in Kuala Lumpur, well Gate C22

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Dubai - Kuala Lumpur flightpathFor some reason the  flight from Dubai to Melbourne takes a break in Kuala Lumpur  after 5689km. It’s not clear what is happening other than we are all deplane with our belongings. The pilot reminded us that there is a death penalty for anyone having drugs!

So we come out of one door and re-nter through another, having our bags x-rayed far more thoroughly than at Gatwick. I had to remove my kettle and aluminium spec case so the lady could see they were harmless.

Now on my 4th airline meal are a couple served earlier:

Dinner on EK016

 

Emirates snack

Well we are all boarding the same plane, same seat for the next leg to Melbourne!

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Travelling to New Zealand

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Geoff leaving CambridgeCurrently flying 543mph at 35,000 feet en route on the 3602 miles to Dubai. This is the first leg of my marathon journey to Auckland.

The journey across London was once again bedevilled by an ‘incident’ on the platform. Leading to the closure of St Pancras which on top of the closure of the Victoria line & Circle line (well it is Sunday). Not finding any buses I quickly jumped into a passing black cab, whose voluble driver promised to get me to Victoria for 15 quid maximum then proceeded with his life story About his travels to all the (ex)colonies in the 60′s. Staying in each one for a couple of years.

At Gatwick I eventually succumbed to buying a Kindle but could I get it to sync :-( I’m sure it was getting in a muddle with the Kindle apps I have on my Macs :-( in the end I downloaded the books to the Air and then used a USB cable on the plane to drag them into the Kindle. So I can now read the new Goddard books at less than £3 a pop.

A weird thing is that charging the Kindle through the backseat USB socket on this B777-300 means I cannot read it at the same time :-(

Hopefully will get to post this in Dubai! I’m certainly not paying 3′s £6 a Mb roaming rate though

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July snow

GR10 Merens to Bouillouses

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Lac d'EtagnasSally and I have now completed the first two days of my resumed GR10 trek along The Pyrenees and even though I recently completed The South West Coast Path I’m finding it tough going.

Maybe its the altitude as we are spending a lot of time above 2000metres or it could be the backpack is heavier as we loaded up with food due to staying in remote refuges or maybe I’m just getting old :-( Hopefully, my fitness will return over the next 100 miles.

The weather has been excellent, good visibility and sunny most of the time which is in marked contrast to my previous trips :-)

The route and photographs can be found on Everytrail, The Day numbers are taken from the Cicerone GR10 guide.:
GR10 Day39 Merens les Vals to Refuge des Besines at EveryTrail

Day 40 GR10 Refuge des Besines to Refuge des Bouillouses at EveryTrail

The pics are also on Google+ Day1 here Day2 here

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