Farne Adventure

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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.

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Categories: Kayaking.

Here There Be Dragons

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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.

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Categories: Travels.

Epiphany

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June 7, 2010

According to Matthew, Mark and Luke (but curiously John is noticeably silent on this) the last will be first, and the first will be last and so it was on the religious St Cuthberts Way from Melrose to Holy Island, albeit me being the least religious person to trod the sod, that I was the first person leading the walk and the last person running in to Lindisfarne.

In the beginning there was putting on of boots in the Melrose car park followed by grabbing of water bottles as Neil and I lead the pack out of Melrose up the steep hill and onto the Eildon steep steps. What a start – no warm up walk just a steep set of steps followed by a steep climb to the saddle of the Eildons – which idiot designed this long distance footpath?

I stopped to take a photo and found myself swiftly at the end of the urgent walkers all walking in memory of Connell, Lynn and Derek’s son who died of some dreadful disease last year and for the benefit of the Children’s Hospice at Rachel’s House who cared for all of them during the dreadful months of decline and sadly eventual death.

I found myself with the tail girl and her dog, a hot air balloonist (on YouTube apparently) with fainting fits which thankfully left me time to amble up the hill chatting to her, encouraging her onward and not staring at her cleavage every time she collapsed, rather than trying to keep up with the pack who were now patiently waiting for us wondering what I was doing in the gorse with a well endowed lady. Dumping her on Jim I chatted to a chap who it appears I was at his wedding 20 years ago – either I have not changed in 20 years one bit or I am very memorable but he recognised me immediately – the only thing I could recall is that the Ednam House Hotel ran out of beer at the start of evening thus proving that they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, although sadly the marriage is at an end, perhaps things would have been different with beer at the reception. Jim grabbed some heather from the side of the Eildons and proudly carried it on his rucksack with the aim of carrying it to the Northumberland Holy Island.

Climbing done it was downhill to Bowden where we were met by a cheery Gordy and his water and beer wagon – he exclaimed religiously ‘Christ you guys are fast I didn’t expect you here so soon’ to which we replied that we were actually the end of the group and he had missed all the others in front of us. Saturated with bottled water and slopping sun tan lotion over our own white bits (we didn’t know each other too well at this time for reciprocal sun tan application) we marched onward to be met with a van with ‘Connell’ written on it – this was an omen – the walk was in remembrance of the death of Connell and here was a franchised delivery van with the name emblazoned across the front – spooky or what I love life’s coincidences.

The endless march in hot sun was made more pleasant by a riverside walk to St Boswells passing my previous existence at the offices in Tweed Horizons (the converted St Columba’s monastery – a much more interesting saint as he was the first to see and report on the Loch Ness Monster). It is often difficult to appreciate the beauty of the Borders unless you march along its highways and riversides – people simply drive through it too fast on their way to and from Edinburgh. I was walking into the lunch spot with Catherine who had prepared for the walk by actually doing the entire walk in stages but had decided to consume an entire bottle of Powerade to help her keep up with the lead group, possibly a desperate attempt to avoid me lagging at the rear, the ploy failing as she was now lagging at the rear with me and she was feeling awful. Kim who had a strategy of avoiding me entirely had powered away in the lead group leaving me to devour my Brie and Asparagus sandwiches and Orange Lucozade ready for the next stretch to Harestanes.

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Categories: Travels, Walking.

Orkney Flight = Kayaking, Cycling and Walking

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June 1, 2010

Kim’s account with anything derogatory against Mike removed follows, lol

Plan A: Fly to Orkney (when is Plan A ever anything other than this?!)
Plan B: Fly to Wales
Plan C: Hillwalking

It became fairly easy to discount Plan A as the large blue blobs of rain and wind virtually covered the North of Scotland on the weather forecast maps. Plan B was also looking dodgy as the blue blobs were forecast to travel South and East – which would jeopardise our plans to get back to East Fortune for Saturday…

Plan C looked obvious, and with the Rain centering in Scotland, we reckoned this would be a great opportunity to introduce the Tuesday Walking Club to the delights of the Lake District – there is also a lot of water around there so that Mike, the ‘Non-Tuesday-Walker’, could do some paddling in his kayak. This looked good until we realised it was Bank Holiday Weekend – urggg! B&Bs and Hotels all jam packed, roads and hills would likely be the same… even camping was looking like a non-starter as a lot of campsites seemed full up as well – this wasn’t going to give the best impression of the Lake District to the Club!

However, Graeme set to researching camping options, we decided on Scafell Pike as a target walk, and Mike found that Ullswater would provide a promising paddle.. the plan started to come together when he found out that a site at Buttermere didn’t take bookings, and if we arrived by lunchtime on the Thursday we should be able to stake out our plot for the next couple of days. Buttermere is my favourite area, off the main ‘drag’ through the Lake District to hopefully avoid ‘bank holiday campers’, and offers Haystacks as a great introduction to Lakeland hills – what it lacks in height it makes up for in its position and character, with a wonderful ‘wild rock garden’ on the top complete with tarns, wild flowers and rocky outcrops. Some more logistical organisation saw us leaving the Kayak in storage at Ullswater on the way down, and packing the Brompton folding bike so that Mike could get from one end of Ullswater to the other, paddle with a following wind, and not need dropped off or picked up anywhere.

Thursday: Home to Buttermere, and Haystacks

We met up in Keswick at lunchtime, having dropped the Kayak off at Ullswater, I provisioned with breakfast bbq stuff while mike got disoriented in the anti gravity room in the puzzle museum in Keswick, and after sampling the wonderful Cornish Pasties from the Cornish Pastie Shop in Keswick (I kid you not!), we decided these would make excellent hill-walking sustenance for the next day – they even did sweet varieties – so stocked up. Down to the campsite, which was just delightful – an undulating field with trees and rocky outcrops to make natural boundaries around the pitches – only a couple of other tents there, so we set up camp, approved of showers/toilets/nearby pubs (there was even a plug point for my hairdryer!), then high-tailed it to Gatesgarth to park for Haystacks. We quickly split into groups – Gordon (clad in super-hero outfit of ‘tights’ and shorts on top!) picked up his usual running pace, and decided to to Haystacks, then the range of 3 connecting hills that led back to our campsite – High Crag, High Stile and Red Pike. It took him about 2 hours (for what I had thought was a good day’s walking – shit!) Graeme followed his route, albeit at slower pace and taking photos, but was still back at the campsite in just over 3 hours… at this rate they would gobble up the Lake District in a matter of days!! Mike, Jill and I made steady progress and enjoyed the delights of the summit walk in the evening light, round towards Fleetwith Pike, but came down its flank following Warnscale Beck back to the cars. The weather was kind – showers that threatened on the summit didn’t materialise, and we brought both cars back to Buttermere to congregate at ‘The Bridge’ after quick showers (for most of us…). The Bridge offered Buttermere Bitter and Lakeland Gold, wonderfully restorative fare after a walk, and the food was excellent (buttermere beer-battered fish and chips, Cumberland hot pot with lamb, black pudding and a ’stottie’, and roast shank of lamb) – with great puddings (lemon meringue pie, gooseberry crumble, summer pudding)!

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Categories: Kayaking, Travels, Walking.