Shop Till You Drop

0

October 10, 2011

At this time of year I turn to recommending products that I have used through the year and make suggestions, or what are known as unsubtle hints to my family for products I would quite like for Xmas.

So lets start with the best way to read a book in a tent, if I didn’t have an ipad2 with a Kindle app, I would certainly have a Kindle.

Stuff I can recommend, in that I use it or find it useful and it hasn’t broken yet, for flying, sailing, sea kayaking, hill walking and wild camping (but not all at the same time)


My wish list store to bribe me is

Categories: Uncategorized.

Coastal Cycle

0

May 9, 2011

It started off as an idea to cycle from Newcastle central station to Berwick-upon Tweed railway station up the coast, and it turned out there was a coast and castle cycle route already so I bought the guidebook, which I then lost somewhere in my library, and 2 maps both of which had slightly different accounts of the route.

Ali dropped me off outside a catholic church in central Newcastle and I assembled my bits attempting to fit them all into a day sack which was now about as heavy as I was so I was now balanced top heavy with a full bladder on top of a lightweight titanium bike (mudguards removed to save weight seemed a drop in the ocean now). The forecast was showers with thunderstorms and heavy rain on the Sunday, so I had a light t-shirt and cargo shorts on.

The Coast and Castles route starts at the monolithic central station in busy Newcastle and drops down a steep hill to the Quayside, scene of my nude stance on the Millennium Bridge several years ago. I was powered on fruity porridge and set off. The Quayside was filled with strollers, cyclists and joggers which made for a good experience of avoiding people as I swept past carried with momentum and a slight gradient in the nice direction. The Google Map route goes across the water – not being Evil Knievel nor Jesus I diverted around crossing a bridge to emerge into a deserted area looking for somewhere to pee. Deserted apart from police, joggers and cyclists finishing their coastal route and looking totally knackered and as jovial as a jogger.

The first confusion with the Sustrans route is that it starts off as route 72 then changes to merge with the unnumbered Hadrian’s Wall route and at Tynemouth it becomes the start of the Coastal and Castle route 1 – I think they are making it up as they go along. The Hadrian’s Wall way is well signposted and is on a cycle path which changes randomly from being pedestrian on the left and cycling on the right to the other way round. The pedestrians consisted mainly of morose dog walkers and pushchair pushing women, the cyclists were dressed in bright racing gear along with cheerful smiles. One pit bull decided I was fair game as I put on a spurt to stop being eaten as its waddling owner (dogs and their owners?) shouted encouraging grunts to it.

The route follows the Tyne as shipbuilding in progress and large cranes impress an industrial historical feel. Views of the fast flowing Tyne open up at Wallsend with a tower for Port traffic control and roman ruins sharing space behind fences. The route was nicely up and down although the fast down routes also came with bollards and hairpin corners to keep your speed under control, or in my case bounced off them.

I got lost near the Tyne tunnel, fortunately you don’t go through it, but managed to find a bush to have a pee finally appropriately near the Wet’n'Wild building which the route website says Pass it on the left – which would entail crossing a railway line. Got back on track and reached the marina and North Sea Ferry area with a marina and a ped/cycle route with the pedestrian side sensibly cobbled to discourage the cyclists and sufficient signage to keep you on track.

Entered Tynemouth to see two drunks shouting and throwing beer cans at each other in front of me – more fast cycling past them and down to the promenade. One sign read ‘Black Pudding, no fat bits, like the wife’ and a pub sign had the actual structure it was named after. The promenade was filled with people to avoid and large ships were powering up the Tyne. The priory looked impressive but is an English Heritage attraction meaning expensive entry fees and constant temptations to join them. I walked my bike around its perimeter, filled with chip munching people then headed northward towards Berwick.

Tynemouth to Whitley Bay is one long conurbation with lovely beaches. Cullercoats is barely mentioned on the map and yet is a complete sea area in the met office forecast, has a NAVTEX tower and a historic RNLI building and fisherman lookout. Whitley Bay arrives very quickly with a restoring Spanish City building (as mentioned in local boys Dire Straits Tunnel of Love song) and a promenade filled with people to avoid, all seemingly munching ice cream on an overcast day. Seaton Sluice arrived unexpectedly and was more delightful than the name suggests, although it had a dried out harbour seen from a metal bridge.

Pages: 1 2 3

Categories: Cycling, Travels.

The Boat That Cutter Rocked

0

February 6, 2011

It seemed straightforward – crewing for a yacht being taken down the coast for winter from Oban to Rhu, near Helensburgh requiring traversing the Crinan Canal. It was all going to be new and exciting – especially as it was November outwith any sailing season. What could go wrong? It was going to be Three Men in a Boat and it was going to be jolly. A Skipper/Owner, Myself and the Third Man, an experienced yachtsman from Inverness.

The drive up was through a Scotland wearing an Autumnal kilt and unfortunately a police speed trap camera on the M9 bridge. Tyndrum Good Food Fish and I was powered up following traffic where I turned off for the Falls of Lora stopping to photograph the bridge and a heron sweeping over the water. Resuming the trip south to Oban I found the three cars I had been following surrounded by police and an ambulance after a collision on a bend.

Parked near Tesco and used one of their trollies to transport my kit across the car park and humped it along the sea front to the North Pier waiting for the ferry to the Kerrera Marina across Oban Bay. I joined the boat with a rugby playing schoolboy and a couple joining their yacht and we skipped across the dark water to the marina pontoons. The boat waited – a 39 foot Swedish Malo yacht which looked huge in the moonlight. It was even larger onboard – wide with plenty of space, even for me. The skipper/owner was fresh from a Nick Nairn cooking course so I was treated to some pasta in a tasty sauce washed down with a wine before we opening my malt whisky to while away the night with an Islay malt and stories but absolutely no sea shanties.

Morning porridge and coffee and then a blur of getting ready as an experienced yachtsman arrived fresh from a chilled Inverness and we were off, just as I was in the middle of getting my left leg out of my waterproofs with my Dubarry boots stuck somewhere on the velcro legging. I got sorted out and we were on our way up the Sound of Kerrera, on automatic helm heading past the green buoys. There was a a problem with the GPS/Plotter cable to its transponder – but who is going to need GPS on a fine day like this – we are just getting out to sea and focusing on a lovely trip down the coast to the canal.

The sun was shining, the wind was light, the weather forecast was frightening in the afternoon but we were on our way expecting to be sitting in a lock in Crinan before it hit us, hence the rush on departure. Tide was on the flood and we were heading straight towards a lighthouse, I knocked autohelm off and headed off its collision course we were all chatting and life was good. The sun was even shining.

A fisherman’s buoy was ahead and skipper advised keeping it to port as we didn’t want any rope around our prop – very sensible. And ‘oh look there is fish in the water ahead look at all the rippling’. Skipper and yachtsman went to see what type of fish. Then the cry ROCK ROCK ROCK, and I knew instinctively this did not mean change the music to something less Scottish Traditional.

I spun the wheel around watching the water swirl around what was obviously a large brown ragged object sticking out of the water. This was Cutter Rock. We hadn’t even time to congratulate ourselves as to our near miss when we struck a submerged reef, part of Cutter Rock. CRASH, BANG, WALLOP – I really felt it on the helm and can’t even remember whether the bow lifted into the air or sunk into the water. It all happened so quickly and there was a horrendous sound.

I wheeled us round and started heading back to Oban as skipper and yachtsman automatically checked for leaks below. All OK no need for liferaft yet so just a call to the marina to organise a crane rather than a lifeboat – fingers crossed. It seemed to take ages to get back and there a crane was welcoming us. Cruised into the crane bands in low water, as the crane guys start driving us in to shore and elevating us with us all on board. This was all a new experience.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Categories: Sailing, Travels.

January Two Thousand and a Eleven

2

February 1, 2011

It is now the start of February and I am finally putting fingers to keyboard to reflect on this year so far. I have been tardy with my blog for the simple reason that I live on twitter now @jailhouserock and twitter takes less time out of any busy day to simply rattle off a thought or an experience and move on to the next thought or experience. So I have decided to at least do a monthly summary of my adventures really as an aide-memoire to myself to help me struggle through the year and to appease the folk who mail me wondering why my blog is more cobweb than web 2 now.

The year was entered with a murder mystery evening where eldest son Stuart turned out to be the murderer (indeed a serial killer as he was also the murderer the year before). Certainly we managed to kill the two kegs of Alnwick Ale which was delivered after the November and December snows blocked us in. The New Year’s Day was greeted with a customary walk around Bowmont Forest in the deep snow, and with the weather clearing up, Kim and I flew in our plane to Dundee Airport with Gordon and Jill in their plane forming a small squadron, through the Edinburgh Air Traffic zone, over Edinburgh Airport runway whilst looking out for an EasyJet flight which air traffic asked us to avoid bashing into, over the Forth Bridges and a severely frozen Loch Leven, dodging a snow shower over Fife and over a frozen Tay (turn left at the rail bridge and left for the runway over the football fields) to land at an empty Dundee Airport. As frozen as the Tay we went in search of warming coffee and were escorted to the cafe for a welcome bowl of hot soup. It had taken an hour at freezing temperatures to reach Dundee we didn’t fancy another hour back. I took off with a dodgy radio thanks to a broken aerial (Gordon relayed to Dundee Tower for me) and we were pre-cleared for the Leuchars MATZ, coasted out over the Forth from Fife and held down at 3,500 feet over the Forth due to cloud – we reckoned the waters of the Forth, if we had to ditch, couldn’t be any colder than the current air temperature so risked the lower crossing zooming across at 100mph to reduce the time spent in the danger zone. Only half an hour to get back to East Fortune from Dundee and we thawed out with hot coffee and banter.

Kim’s birthday falls on the third so it was a birthday treat for us all to go to Illegal Jacks Tex-Mex diner on Lothian Road – Ali drove letting Stuart, Kim and I sample the Brewdog 9% beer which was awesome with some fabulously yummy burritos and fajitas (nom nom nom). A fruitless search for an architectural model of a famous building for Kim to while away her January – no call for it according to Wonderland, and a gawping at the ‘Corporate Entertainment’ window drawings of half naked women in the fleshpots of Lothian Road, we retrieved the car from the expensive NCP carpark. The ticket machine refused to spit out a receipt so a disembodied voice advised putting your hand up the slot – I suggested ‘Kicking it’ which caused a bit of alarm to the disembodied voice – but the receipt emerged clutched in Kim’s birthday paw. Along to the Dundee Street cinema with free parking and family tickets for a very dark Harry Potter with some fat woman barging through us saying EXCUSE ME – causing me to make an uncontrolled and ungalant quip ‘ if the fat bitch walked around us she might lose some weight’. But the birthday treat of the day had to be in the Macdonalds in the 24/7 Asda for hot self service lattes from a bean to cup machine which spat foam all over us as we hadn’t dropped the dispenser down far enough, and a quick shop for last minute Birthday gifts (two 1 quid novels by Dan Brown one being Snowbound to remind us of the end of 2010). Since Ali was driving I was navigating so Stuart was on the phone to Stephanie explaining that we were now travelling the wrong way down the city bypass trying to get to the airport for them to return to Gatwick.

I had started kayak pool sessions in Berwick where we had the wave machine going and debugged most of the issues in rebuilding my kayak in the safety of the pool. However I also managed to catch flu in all the New Year handshakes and hugs and spent the next 10 days doing a passable impersonation of a Victorian wastrel dying of consumption. Not entirely fully recovered I spotted an email which said EASY Paddle – it was initially going to be Loch Earn which I fancied but was switched to Loch Lomond as others were wanting to paddle there. It was going to be from Balloch to Balmaha so that was going to be new for me so jumped at the chance and turned up on a freezing day to the loch and we all exchanged pleasantries as we lifted our kayaks off the cars and down to the beach.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Categories: Flying, Kayaking, Travels, Walking.

Bonnie Banks

0

October 18, 2010

Dusting off my Orange bike I decided that since I remember it is all downhill to my archery night at Kirknewton and that Kim will pick me up later I shall go for a spin. Well it turned out remembering hills in a car and actually doing them on a bike are two very different things. The Lempitlaw hill is brilliant for cycling down – 31 miles per hour and a wee bit of braking before the junction and I was ready to cross the English border and hit my first bit of uphill getting into the right gear and peddling and puffing up it. My iphone Cyclemeter app was monitoring my progress as I decided to take a short detour and ended up more bloody hills as it was the wrong road, almost ran down a red squirrel, had a hawk swoop down for my bright yellow hat and a combine harvester taking all of the width of the C class road left me in the ditch. It was also getting worryingly dark – worrying as I wasn’t in Kirknewton and I didn’t have any lights whatsoever other than my bright yellow hat but finally cycled into Kirknewton towards the end of twilight to have bats flying around me.

This was all in training, as well as the nightly rowing machine, for the Fife Sea Kayak Club annual outing on Loch Lomond at night racing to find markers. Since I was going all the way over there I thought I would cross the loch from east to west at its widest point in the afternoon as a warm up. I set off with kayak strapped to roof and interiors filled with IKEA (International Kayak Expedition Association) blue bags full of food, camping equipment and kayaking apparel, to find a car tyre on my lane on the M8 swerved to avoid it and fortunately didn’t watching other cars do the same in my mirror – the problem of being in the slow lane of a motorway for once. Hopefully that was going to be my near miss for the day. Arrived in Drymen after a tortuous route without a satnav and into the Clachan Inn for Cod and Chips and Irn Bru – I would fart myself across the loch at least. Launched from Balmaha harbour onto a completely calm Loch and headed out following the island chain with a blue sky and a blinding sun ahead.

It turned out the tyre was not going to be my only near miss after all as two motorboats racing each other headed towards me, I paddled briskly out of their way and surfed the wake waves they generously gave out to find myself on a collision course with some tourist boat along the west bank. A bit of back paddling and not paddling and it was racing ahead and I carried on to the golf course on the loch, back paddling in the small surf waves to head back across the loch and to the campsite. I arrived around half past 5 and spent an hour carrying stuff form the kayak to my personal bit of Scotland where my tent was erected and filled with the contents of the boat. We then waited by the shore to watch paddlers arrive, for the night race, in the orange sunset. A Glaswegian family arrived on a motor launch had a fire on the beach then proceeded to set off a chinese lantern (crepe paper hot air balloon powered by an incendiary device) which is pretty for the first minute as it ascends and then is very worrying as it rocks from side to side hitting unstable air above a dry forest. We decided not to use it as a navigational aid at night.

We were allocated into teams – two of us having not night paddled before were led by Ian and Trish who had paddled in from their caravan at Milarrochy Bay and who had obviously done this sort of thing before. We attached our glow sticks (instructions were take from pack, break and shake, take an E tab and start dancing), donned head torches, marked up maps with the coordinates and launched into the darkness. My night sight was reasonable and there was a half moon peeking out from the clouds and our different colour glowsticks identified us.

Pages: 1 2

Categories: Uncategorized.

High Cup Nick

0

August 15, 2010

Archery ended on Thursday night with me missing the target and splitting the wooden surround, followed by hitting the inner gold so they didn’t ask me to leave immediately, followed by being presented with my certificate of completing the 6 week course with the advice that this allowed me to join any archery club and not just the Kirknewton one. They emphasised that several times.

Flying to Wick was on the cards for early Saturday morning (if we arrived between 10:25 and 11 we were reminded that this was Wick Airport’s tea break time and we were to make blind radio calls then – and the cafe was closed so it was going to have to be brie and chilli chutney sarnies). The alarm woke me up at 5am, in the middle of a dream about dinosaurs, to find that the whole of scotland was under dark grey cloud effectively stopping any microlight flight north, south wasn’t looking good either and in fact any point of the compass was looking poor. An alternative had to be found and since there was no wind for sailing and no kayaking taking place it was walking.

I had always wanted to go up the strangely named High Cup Nick (it was also supposed to be one of the best walks in England) and it turned out to be only a couple of hours drive away in Cumbria. So far so good, we didn’t have a map so headed into Penrith to buy one to find that the minimum parking was 2 hours for 1.70 with a permanent marker scrawled message “RIP OFF” on the prices. We paid, picked up a map and returned handing our extra time to someone heading to the ticket machine in a Pay It Forward gesture.

Kim was driving through Penrith and I had the sat nav which had run out of power in one hand and my iphone which could not get a signal for Google maps in the other hand – where do I go Kim asks – ‘err dunno I’m lost as nothing is working’. What about the OS map we have just bought which is under your arm? she inquires – err yes – head along this road I replied hurriedly looking for where we were on a huge OS map which didn’t have Penrith on it.

The walk started at Dufton outside the Stag Inn, which gave an incentive to make a round trip returning for dinner and a pint, we strode off with Kim staring at the OS Map working out where the path started and me staring at the rather nice thighs of the shapely woman cyclist looking at the Dufton information board. Kim, with huge rucksack and twin walking poles, was looking so lost at the start some housewife came out and asked if she needed help and pointed her to ‘turn left at the Methodist Church of Dufton and Knock’. So we did, ignoring the Pennine Way and up past Dufton Peak following a well drained miners track up to the top of the hill past a lime kiln and up to a steep track heading to the mine. There was a pole with a warning sign all empty so I assumed that shooting wasn’t on, it was a military area. It was a little further up the road that we saw a red flag lying by the side of the road. – I assumed that It was surprisingly windy in Dufton, considering the weather forecast was for little or no wind, and a venturi effect had caused this to be a lot more and we struggled upwards. We decided to stop for lunch to break the struggle and sheltered behind large boulders to enjoy the brie and chili chutney sarnies, banana and fruit cake.

Strangely enough after lunch the wind had dropped so we made good progress and made the shooting hut at the top near a tarn. Curious Kim opened the red metal door and slipped in through the narrow entrance, I squeezed through following her to find bird feed and a table and benches in the dark. I was wondering why the entrance was so narrow when on closing the door I discovered that Kim had opened the door outwards and not inwards where it actually opened the entire wide entrance. We locked up and headed down to the tarn following the outflow across the shooting moor.

I knew it was for shooting due to the number of wooden shooting boxes and I knew it was a moor because I kept falling into wet muddy boggy patches up to my ankles as there was no longer anything resembling a path as we followed the brown stream for what seemed like forever. Then I heard the sound of a shotgun – we moved a bit faster – at least Kim was dressed in a bright red outfit so they might go for her first as I kept low and followed her dropping down to the stream and making several wobbly crossings over brown waterfalls. This was a long and tiring trail but it finally emerged at a gorgeous gorge and we came across the first people we had seen since the navigating housewife of Dufton. The river cascaded under the footbridge and we crossed to join the Pennine Way, crossing what looked like a graveyard but were rocks dropped during glaciation.

Pages: 1 2

Categories: Travels, Uncategorized, Walking.

Windy Weekend

0

July 26, 2010

Having survived another archery evening, where I assembled the bow and added a sight which gave me such improved accuracy I managed to hit the wrong target with one shot – the danger however was far more in my driving where on an unfamiliar road I went steaming across a crossroad without realising it was there missing another vehicle with seconds to spare. Accidents are always caused by people not driving fast enough – if they were driving faster then they would not be in the position where the accident happened, and fortunately on this occasion they were driving a few seconds faster thus missing a possible accident. Spent the Friday evening unti dark watching through my telescope an abseiling forestry worker trim an osprey’s nest and ring the chicks who would be leaving soon on their long journeys of learning how to catch salmon and the mother vertically landing onto the trimmed nest – amazing. Much easier using a telescope for terrestrial viewing – at least trees do not move rapidly due to the earth’s rotation – stars and planets whirling in an endless dance around the skies and out of the telescope’s gaze.

Early morning gutbusting on Saturday morn, to ease tired limbs from archery and kayaking, led us slumped drinking coffee, to find out that one of us busters of guts had gone on a white water rafting adventure for her 50th birthday and ended up with a broken cheekbone and lost a tooth – Nae Limits indeed – we were wondering what the weekend would bring us. It started with being given our certificate and badges for walking the St Cuthberts Way, followed by trailing around Lidl for breakfast delights to go with our tiny eggs (first eggs laid by new chickens) and wondering who had flattened the plastic road sign when we remembered it was obviously the Common Riding day in Kelso and the ride to Yetholm which we could get stuck behind on the way home. We romped back home to see the riders in a traffic jam of their own making caused by slow horses in the lead and a coloured gal looking fed up on a white charger plodding up the Lempitlaw hill (she turned out to be appropriately a Colour Busser).

Kim had decided to go wandering up Windy Gyle so I joined her armed with my iphone, a pair of headphones and ‘To Your Scattered Bodies Go’ the first of the Riverworld series of books by Philip Jose Farmer – so tromped up from Cocklawfoot listening to Sir Richard Burton having sexual congress with Alice in Wonderland to reach the summit of a well named Windy Gyle dressed in my ‘I am not a Werewolf’ Tshirt and shorts and feeling the wind. The summit was mobbed with Newcastle walkers all on their mobiles telling their absent families about their achievements and talking loudly about geocaching as we sat sheltering from the wind and munching our brie sarnies.

With the descent we left the wind and met clouds of insects sheltering from the breezes and descended passing a forest which had been entirely cut down apart from the odd straggling tree which confused Kim’s navigation for a short time.

As a reward it was to the Border Hotel at Kirk Yetholm and a refreshing pint of the bizarrely named ‘Zig Zag to the Onion Bag’ as Kim explored the children’s Wendy house and took the fountain to bits working out how it operated…

We chose to miss the East Fortune airshow due to its cost and lack of Red Arrows and headed southward with Stephanies’ parents to the free Sunderland airshow joining a long traffic queue on the outskirts of Sunderland, which with a combination of iphone and google maps rerouted us around side roads to reach the free parking at the Metro near the Stadium of Light. This was followed by a brisk walk through council estates and rather nice terraced houses and a pet groomer called Millionhairs, to see an enormous woman directing traffic outside a shop called ‘Chubbies’

The vista of the sea front is an amazing place for an airshow, with a royal navy vessel anchored out and passing yachts, RIBs, cargo ships and a passenger ferry all giving something to watch inbetween the aircraft displays – not counting the Sunderland populace with a ‘Fat or Pregnant’ quiz and remarkable hairstyles. We munched our way through a Hog Roast roll and a Mr Whippy icecream, watched youngsters assembling and pointing rifles as a huge recruitment campaign was taking place, read the Northumberland Cross inscription from the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Race, and suffered screeching Makems in makeup at the next drinks table before the Red Arrows dazzled the huge crowd and it was time for a march back to try to escape the exodus of Park and Rides.

Pages: 1 2

Categories: Travels.

Island On An Edge – St Kilda

0

July 19, 2010

With a gunman running amok in North Northumberland, together with the police not too sure where he was and with me living not too far from the Border I decided to tell Kim to lock the doors and I headed to the Outer Hebrides with a kayak on the roof, making sure not to pick up any hitchhikers on the way. In the standby queue at Ullapool for the Stornoway ferry, filled with haddock from the Pub on the Pier, and waiting with trepidation as the large lorries filled the ferry but thankfully I was finally waved on – saving a 6 hour wait for the next ferry as I had already exhausted the fantastic bookshop and museum and fuel was too expensive to go cruising around. The ferries were busy as they had been cancelled a few days before due to appalling weather and there was of course the Stornoway music festival on.

This allowed me a Johnson and Boswell Tour of the Hebrides, albeit at a much faster rate – tearing up to the Phallus at the Butt of Lewis (the magnificent lighthouse) and eyeing with concern the stormy sea I would be paddling in the next day. The Butt is also a differential GPS station which didn’t quite explain why my satnav was reporting 385 miles to the Callanish stones which were under 40 miles away. Passing large concrete bunkers littering the road it turned out they were bus shelters the previous ones not made of reinforced concrete being scattered to the winds like breadcrumbs.

Reached Callanish at sunset to find more photographers than stones but a few scrum tactics had me in the centre of the circle as the stones were painted in the sunset. They are trying to rename them Calanais even though the stones predate the Gaelic language by thousands of years. Smaller than I expected but delightful all the same and sunset is definitely the time to see them.

I filled with with petrol at 131p per litre in Stornoway to find air guns standing proud behind the counter and found no room at any inns other than a hotel whose empty interior was far too much like the Shining to encourage wandering around corridors. Early walk around Stornoway then it was over to Uig in Lewis to meet the MV Cuma and the rest of the team for our circumnavigation of St Kilda. Provisioning for wine and goodies took us to the community shop where we found out that the 131p diesel was a bargain compared to the 160p here in Uig.

We assembled over a cup of tea – Murty Campbell is the coxswain for the Stornoway lifeboat (which did cause a moment of pause wondering who was going to rescue us if he was on the same boat), Linda had attempted to cycle the world with her husband who sadly died after 10 days crossing the US, Andrea is an american folk singer and geography lecturer with a specialisation in Nepal and fruit teas, Nick a brummy builder, tree planter and kayak coach from Anglesey, with Tom a mechanic with a hatred of contemporary art involving unmade beds and a confession that he couldn’t swim well a good incentive to keep in his kayak and Rosie from the Wirral whose smiles would light darkened caves. This was the paddling team and we were joined by Jim, the headmaster from Bettyhill at the top of Scotland, whose personality filled the rest of the places. The Skipper and chef was Murdani Macdonald (yes this is a boat with a Campbell and a Macdonald on it) and the deck hand and waiter with ulcer problems was Garry – they had been lobster fisherman out at St Kilda for years and their love of the islands and rough seas came over well. The boat itself had a tumble drier and 24v sockets for recharging which was amazingly useful over the week.

The weather was not going to be good for a trip to St Kilda for at least 2 days – so we were dropped off on the west coast of Lewis at 3pm as the boat steamed off with our dinner to some far off sea loch to encourage us to get there. Paddling didn’t feel right in my boat but we made it to an island and beached – I was pulled up to what I thought was the beach and stepped out to find myself upside down in the water – the front of the kayak was on some sand the rest was in deep water! Andrea shouted ‘Mike is talking to the fishies’ and produced a huge bag of Green and Black chocolates and some marvellous White chocolate covered blackberries which Mike devoured on medical grounds.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Categories: Kayaking, Travels, Walking.

Farne Adventure

0

June 27, 2010

Ollie Jay runs an adventure company in Northumberland, a TV star he had resuscitated Robson Green after his Lindisfarne wild swim and appeared on Countryfile taking the farming guy kayaking to Inner Farne. I had been out on a couple of trips with him and the sea kayak gang (circumnavigation of Lindisfarne and the Bass Rock) now there was the chance to go out to one of the best sea kayaking areas on the east coast – the Farne Islands.

On the drive to the launch site at Seahouses I turned a corner to find what looked like 100 hunting hounds with three guys on bicycles with sticks who controlled them into the left side and waved me cheerily past.

A couple of days before I had joined the Kirknewton archery club and found myself with a sore paddling arm holding the Olympic recurse bow whilst going for gold, so by Saturday I had a mouthfull of paracetemol as I dragged my kayak on a trolley over the sand dunes and down to the water edge. Exhausted already we all assembled and the extreme lady Ros said to my comment that the weather looks good ‘That means boring then’ and looked discontented.

We paddled out towards Crumstone Rock due to the tide and wind so this was one lengthy sea paddle taking us out the Outer Farne islands rather than the closer Inner Farne and island hopping. The problem I had was my rudder was continually driving me right and the way the wind was going was driving me right too so with no rudder I was heading out into the North Sea. Rudder up it was a case of lifting my left leg and paddling more on my right but progress was far more zigzag than anything. At one point a large yellow yacht looked as if it was on a collision course but we turned towards it and got friendly waves. We stopped at Crumstone after an hour and a quarter paddling and we all looked at my rudder and got it more or less working.

All this time we had a growing population of seals popping up and watching us and one curious pup came very close to my kayak at the water edge – naturally when all our cameras were tucked away. We headed out past the divers RIB towards Longstone with the tide with us we sped along then hit the tidal race – surprised to actually still remain upright I was surfing through to the eddy and tied up to the jetty and got out lunch. Ollie shouted encouragement from the water edge to the tidal race surfers and we all assembled back for lunch chatting to a couple in a dual kayak who had popped in to see us.

Ollie went off with the others to tackle the more extreme waters whilst I wandered around the lighthouse to find another 8 kayakers lunching on the other side of the island. There were now more kayakers on the water than tourist boats! One of them asked if I was a coach which was very flattering – must be the VHF radio sticking out of my PFD – he had obviously not seen me trying to get back into the kayak at the jetty where the tide had come in and I was waist high in water trying to jump into the tipping kayak whilst holding onto the jetty rail.

Famous for Grace Darling rescuing people from the sticken SS Forfarshire, it turns out all she did was steady the boat her father rowed several times over and comforted a woman whose children had perished. Not quite the picture of her rowing in rough seas painted by the tourist agencies. But being in those waters I can understand how frightening it must be out there in a Northumberland Coble – never mind a sea kayak!

We had been paddling in relatively calm waters – apart from the tidal streams, and we set off now along with the other kayakers. Since my rudder was playing up again since I adjusted it at Longstone I was joining them as they were heading back to Bamburgh on the right – but Ollie the sheepdog came along and made me go through the difficult waters with tidal streams all over the place!

Now with a dodgy rudder in a kayak that needs a rudder in springs tide in a tidal stream – this was a joy to everyone else! Ollie kept me right and I made it through the different streams using my paddle rather than a rudder and stayed upright which was touch and go at times. Wide kayak with sponsons does make a difference and fear works wonders with bracing. Upside down in a tidal stream at the Farnes would not be fun. As I said the first half of my roll is perfect – the going upside down bit. One of the guys who went off tidal surfing in rougher waters found himself in this situation.

Pages: 1 2 3

Categories: Kayaking.

Here There Be Dragons

0

June 13, 2010

We weren’t going to see dragons in Wales we were going to see Peregrine Falcons, but they are possibly the closest thing to a perfect fast killing machine. In any event we left early to breakfast at T Bay on the M6, lunching at the Crooked House Inn further south in the Black Country – a subsiding inn which has rooms at all sorts of angles – quite disturbing walking in sober and staggering around.

Fortified we headed to the famous Cheese Rolling hill – where rounds of Double Gloucester cheese are rolled down a 1 in 2 hill followed shortly by suicidal people tumbling after them. The tradition was enacted unofficially this year but we wanted to see the hill even without the 5,000 spectators. Local bylaws prohibit clambering up the hill and throwing anything down apart from on the Spring Bank Holiday!

The next tourist feature was the Keith Hardie World of Mechanical Music – a delight of working player pianos and musical boxes. We followed a chap in a wheel chair with his parents to hear various painos playing before the request came from the wheelchair for David Bowie. And amazingly there it was the theme from Labyrinth played on a large disk like a reverse gramophone record with raised hooks instead of pits. It played on a record player but it picked like a musical box and lo and behold beautiful music appeared. Apparently Mr Jones turned up one day and asked for the disc to be created for a low budget movie (it turned out to the David Bowie for Labyrinth). Juke box musical boxes and organ grinding later we left the Cotswolds to cross the 80p olde toll bridge with new automatic toll meter into Hay-on-Wye for a pee and a quick jog around the closed bookshops and on into Wales.

Crossing the Welsh border meant trying to find somewhere to stay – tripadvisor on an iphone as I drove at speed through the countryside towards Carmarthen found Kim wooping beside me with delight as she had secured a Georgian mansion for bed and breakfast. Enroute we had a lamb shank, not rhyming slang, in the Fox and Hounds (which served Wainwright beer which I hadn’t even seen in the Lake District as well as Rambler’s Ruin a great Welsh beer) and then after several wrong roads – thanks to Mike a few pints down and still navigating and the disagreeing sat navs – we drove up to a friendly greeting and parked outside the splendid B&B.

Early morning walk around the grounds was a delight, Kim watching the leaping fish in the green pond and a wander around the walled garden. Filled with a full breakfast we left to find ourselves in a labyrinth of roads to emerge as directions dictated to shortly be cuddling young peregrine falcon chicks whilst sipping tea. An international teleconference later whilst reading photo books about falcons and we were off around the coast and back on tripadvisor to find somewhere to stay.

I hadn’t realised St David’s Head was a huge religious significance for Catholics (2 visits equals a one visit to Rome) but we bypassed it for honey and ginger ice cream and a promenade along Fishguard harbour in the sun watching small boys hurl themselves off the harbour walls with the cry of ‘We are fucking hard’ as they plummet into the freezing waters. Although we almost never found it as I confidently told Kim to turn left here and she was wondering why we were going around Somerfield car park…

Typically we were lost in the Welsh countryside with 2 satnavs, 2 iphones and the B&B website how to find us. The woman I called said that the owners husband was in hospital critically ill and his wife was at the hospital and she had come from Spain to help – so we weren’t too sure what was going to happen. As it was we chanced upon a field of clay figures – a family, an old man sitting and a horse – which was quite bizarre, before passing the same vehicles in different directions several times before finally 1 sat nav said we were 2 miles away and the other said we were 18 miles away and heading away from it and the iphones could get no signal whatsoever – we took the chance on the 2 miles one and lo and behold arrived. It was now 8:30 I rushed in met the woman I spoke to and said ‘we won;t book in just now as we need to find somewhere to eat before they stop serving at 9 – can you recommend anywhere?’ In her best Manuel from Fawlty Towers – ‘I know nothing, I have arrived from Spain only 2 days ago’ – we left and headed in any direction and chacned upon the Falcon Inn (which having spent most of the day with Falcons we reckoned was an omen). They had a golf party arriving so couldn’t feed us anything but a basket meal (was this the 70’s?) – but the barmaid was really nice and helpful and there was real Welsh beer on tap – so we munched through scampi and beer.

Pages: 1 2

Categories: Travels.

Page 1 of 1612345»...Last »