January Two Thousand and a Eleven

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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.

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Categories: Flying, Kayaking, Travels, Walking.

High Cup Nick

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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.

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Categories: Travels, Uncategorized, Walking.

Island On An Edge – St Kilda

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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.

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Categories: Kayaking, Travels, Walking.

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.

2010 FlashForward

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May 31, 2010

Having paused finally to grab breath I realised that my last post was titled Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice is fast approaching. I had been tweeting daily but never really consolidated it into a blog for those non-twits. It has been a fun packed year so far including

Lighting up Hadrian’s Wall with our team leader being the Top Gear Health and Safety man, with two Dutch folk dressed as Romans kidnapped by the BBC leaving us with a gas canister and two flares to light two sections of the wall – the gas canister stays burning for an hour and was set off at 1830 on the dot with adoring housewives in a circle around us, whilst we ran up and down when the helicopter approaches lighting the 5 minute burning flares.

Paddling my kayak out in a moderate sea out of Eyemouth beach to near Burnmouth and returning surfing into the harbour, surfing the waves with sea kayaks at Coldingham Bay capsizing in salty surf after a failing bongo slide, down the Tweed from West Ord to the lifeboat station after sunset taking tea at the castle near the Berwick railway bridge, and doing the Glasgow city centre to Falkirk wheel kayak marathon with a bust rudder and attacked by a swan twice (hit with its wing on the back of the head).

Paddled around the islands on Loch Lomond wild camping on Inchcailloch and given a steak sandwich from some camping Glaswegians, paddled over to wave at the local kayak club and headed onto the island of Inchconnachan where 50 wallabies are bouncing through the undergrowth (I saw one) and they are under threat from being culled by Luss Estates as they are competing with the rare capercaillie. A jet skier speeding down the Loch was arrested by a ranger rib with police on it leaving the jet skier with a fine and an inability to restart his machine – he drifted back to the shallows and dragged the machine ashore. The sound of wild weegies partying kept me awake most of the night. Breakfast was shared with 2 ducks and 12 ducklings who managed to peck my kayak as well. I paddled back to Balmaha the next day to be embraced by two Taiwanese women seeing someone who enjoys life in a kayak.

Walking was upped as we are scheduled to do the St Cuthberts Way – so it started out with baby steps with walks to the monument near Kirknewton, over to Kirk Yetholm to the Border pub, around Hethpool, up the Hen Hole to Auchope Cairns and then an unexpected solo 18 mile trail up Windy Gyle to Cheviot summit and back dropping down into the valley and spending hours after sunset jumping over a meandering and ever widening stream in the dark until reaching a farmhouse and road and hence my parked car. A coastal walk from south of Craster to Seahouses was a delight and was really a pub crawl with the Jolly Fisherman at Craster, Ship Inn at Low Newton By Sea and Olde Ship Hotel at Seahouses. I climbed up Conic Hill near Balmaha joining the thronging line of West Highland way walkers avoiding the midgie in May, went on to climb up the Pap of Glencoe having to abandon the final scramble due to failing light and returned with a climber and exhausted climber on a 12 hour traverse of Glencoe. Ali joined me for the Devil’s Staircase to Kinlochleven part of the West Highland Way watching the mountain bikers speed down the long descent. Hill walking also includes Castle Crag and Haystacks in the Lake District – my new Salomon boots making a big difference.

A cycle from Lempitlaw to Berwick along the cycle route was fun and I did cycle down the west bank of Ullswater and paddled back up the lake and up a river to my parked car. Ali and I are planning to do the Newcastle to Berwick 100 mile cycle over two days B&B’ing in Alnmouth.

Flying took the brunt of being busy but I managed to get my 3 landings and an overhead join in on a calm day doing 4 landings (one beng a double bounce) – our Orkney trip was cancelled with weather – weather has been a bit of a grouding force for me this year.

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Categories: Flying, Kayaking, Walking.