That’s how I think of our walks. They are not very challenging or very long but they are marvellous. We always stop half way round for lunch and a look. A sandwich always tastes better outdoors. Especially with views like these. Continue reading Pyrenean Mountain Walking for Dummies.
We go to the mountains whenever we can. And we try to find at least one new walk everytime we’re here. That was why we went to Bareges. Once a quaint mountain village, now an ugly resort. ‘I thought it would be buzzing’, said Jim. ‘I’d hoped we’d at least get a cup of coffee’. But Bareges was a ghost town, waiting for snow and … Continue reading A Walk. A Pick-me-up for the Soul.
I noticed him as we started walking. He skirted around us, no eye contact. I tried but he kept right on going. ‘Not very friendly’, I said to Sue. But the majesty of the Soulor beckoned and I soon forgot him. Up, up, up we went. But every breather break was rewarded with views. Behind us the Col d’Aubisque, it’s yellow-walled hotel tiny at the … Continue reading Top Dog.
And I sit. I just sit. For years I’ve been saying I want to ‘do nothing’. For me though, ‘doing nothing’ is never doing nothing. It’s just not going out. I tell myself I’ll ‘have a day off’ which means I’ll be catching up with things; doing something. There is no down time. There is no free time. There is no respite. I don’t write … Continue reading A Journey of a Very Different Kind.
Trekking in Nepal, 2010 Nepal is a small land-locked country, 800 km long and 200 km wide; but as the old adage says: ‘good things come in small packages’. Around 64% of the country is covered by mountains. One third of the total length of the Himalaya lies inside Nepal’s borders and the country claims ten of the world’s fourteen highest peaks. Wow! ‘Pokhara is … Continue reading Pokhara, Nepal.
‘The name’s Bond. Dennis Bond’. Mr Bond provided our rather grand lunch stop today. He constructed Grange Arch – a bizarre, Disneyfied ediface, to ‘close off the distant view’ at his country home, Creech Grange. Shame it wasn’t called Skyfall. That aside it was a perfect walk on a perfect day. We skirted around crumbling Corfe Castle, leaving it almost immediately behind and below as … Continue reading Perfect, Quintessential England.
The weather forecast promised a heatwave. Blinding sunshine, blue skies and temperatures soaring beyond the twenties to the low thirties. We got mist. A white-out. And a few spots of rain. I wanted to find an ichthyosaurus, a plesiosaurus, or a scelidosaurus. We’d got bad weather under the circumstances, but what we needed was really big, bad weather. Rain coming down by the bucketful, wind, … Continue reading In The Footsteps of Mary Anning.
There’s a great thing about walking in the English countryside. The tea-room. All good walks should begin or end at one. At Worth Matravers, deep in Dorset, next to the duck pond on the miniscule green is the quintessential, quaint English tea-shop. Full of antiques and mismatched china, embroidered knick-knacks, sugar basins with cubed sugar and tongs, old advertising posters, – and people. We could … Continue reading Dorset. Sea and Scones.
These are the two basic staples of life. There is not much else. A friendship that endures is special. To know someone who really knows you – who knew you when you were young, and still knows you when you’re old. ‘I cannot imagine you all as young lads’, said Val. There is photographic evidence of course. We see what they looked like: long hair, … Continue reading Food and Friendship in Orta.
‘It’s just you and the creatures now’, said Juan Carlos as he waved goodbye. The air was loaded with sound. We could see nothing, but knew that life was all around us. We were at the last outpost on the Yanayacu de Yacapana River, at the start of our Amazon Refuge adventure. Beyond lay only jungle and watery veins of the Amazon. We plunged right … Continue reading Into The Amazon.
Wondering Woman 