Category Archives: national park

Walks, Christmas, a ride & New Year’s

I’m mildly disturbed that all my bags are packed for a month long trip & my bike is firmly in the garden shed. If the small amount of snow that has fallen today, & whatever falls tonight, doesn’t bring London’s public transport to a standstill before noon I’ll be back at Heathrow & then on to Calgary. It seems ages since I’ve been on a train or the tube – so it’s more than two weeks since I did my last bit of walking around London. That particular time I met up with my NZ cousin Chris & we followed the walking tour from Soho down to Trafalgar Square. Unlike in NYC, the origin of the name Soho is an old hunting cry – Soho Square was once part of a royal hunting ground.This walk wound around quite a bit & went down lots of small old alleys that we would have missed otherwise. Of relevance to NZ was a house that the botanist Joseph Banks used to live in & of most interest to me was the site of the Broad Street pump. In 1854, 37 of the 49 occupants of the street died of cholera & Dr John Snow was the one who worked out that the common factor was the water pump that they drunk from. The handle was removed & the death rate fell immediately – this work was perhaps one of the most important in the study of disease. Walking through Chinatown brought on a very interesting discussion with Chris on their family being in, & then evacuated from, Beijing in 1989 amongst the Tienanmen Square chaos. It wasn’t long before we were at NZ House, Pall Mall & then Trafalgar Square, where Chris left me & I went on up to Regent’s Park.

There was still a fair amount of snow & ice lying around on this particular Sunday, so it was a bit of a careful climb to the top of Primrose Hill. But as it was another nice crisp clear day, it was well worth it – good views of the city with London Zoo & Regent’s Park in the foreground – & some clowns playing touch in the snow. Crossing over Regent’s Canal & past the zoo I seemed to walk around most of Regent’s Park. With all the snow & frozen lakes it was quite beautiful & there were a surprisingly large number of people out & about.

I think it was the Tuesday before Christmas that I popped out to Hammersmith to take a quick look at a small photographic exhibition of Kenyan wildlife. The photos were quite good & mostly scenes at Nakuru & the Mara – so it was nice to see them. However, I wasn’t that enamoured with them to shell out nearly three hundred pounds for each small print. Up the Piccadilly line to drop off a couple of presents for Andrew & Shelley’s girls & then I was off to check out the Christmas Fair in Hyde Park. With all the German stalls, great smelling food & amusements it was a very Christmasy experience.

Thankfully it didn’t snow on Christmas Eve, so the drive down to Trish’s sister’s house just north of Dover was very easy. Jan cooked up a storm & it was a great day spent with family. As it was a gorgeous day I couldn’t help but go for an explore – so a short drive later I was at the top of the famous cliffs. It was a little strange seeing eight ferries sitting in the port doing nothing. But much more impressive was the sunset – I stuck around a good half hour to see it go all the way down. Back home very early on Boxing Day; later that day we went around to Trish’s brother’s for another great dinner.

After a couple days relaxing & getting the bike ready, I was off driving to Taunton to stay with John & Anna the night before what promised to be a very wintery ride on Exmoor on Wednesday. Since I last saw them, the Lambert family has doubled in size with the arrival of twin girls three months ago & their house has much more than doubled in size with the move from an apartment to a two-storey house. It was great to see John & Anna again & meet the girls – a little sick, but thankfully they seem to sleep well (one night is hardly a representative sample, but I was impressed). With a leisurely two breakfasts & getting organised, John & I drove an hour through very close fog to Withymoor – where we eventually met up with four others. Well wrapped up against the cold (we would have been lucky if it got to three degrees Celsius), mud & rain we set off through the village trying to follow a route that Dave had plotted on his Garmin GPS. Mr Garmin was to provide us with much amusement in the rain as he sent us all around the National Park on the most unlikely trails (or non-trails). A nice gentle & reasonable climb to start before we got off the road & on to the grass & tracks – with all the rain the day before, we were quickly soaked by all the standing water.

We had some good fun, but thankfully gentle, & slippery downhills.

In all we were out about three or so hours & I had a complete blast – it was at least six weeks since I had been on my bike & therefore six weeks since I did my shoulder, I was very pleased with how it stood up to the ride.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the pub they had finished serving lunch. Back to John & Anna’s for a much needed bike, clothes & body clean; a quick dinner then it was driving through the night & rain to get back to Andrew & Shelley’s before they all went to bed. I’m always surprised at how well I manage to sleep on the floor of their lounge.

New Year’s Eve – spent a delightful four or five hours babysitting (two year old) Vittoria – reading books, pretend cooking, chasing her around the house & (the best game of all) pretending to be asleep. After Andrew & Shelley returned I was rather worn out – mostly from babysitting, but perhaps a little for the driving & riding the previous two days. A quick escape for another exploratory walk – this time to the rather delightful little centre of Pinner. We were joined for a quiet New Year’s Eve by a friend of the Patricks & we enjoyed a good meal, a strange game of Settlers (never seen so many long roads with four people playing), slight excitement when the new year ticked over, more excitement when Andrew touched the cork on the champagne & it went flying & champagne went all over Shelley & the Settlers set.

New Year’s Day was a gorgeous one, if very chilly – and also Andrew’s birthday. The six of us went out for a walk around a rather frozen in part lake & Vittoria amused us all by skating on the ice in her wellies whilst hanging on to the safety net of Dad’s hand. Lazy afternoon & then I babysat the girls again while Andrew & Shelley escaped for a birthday dinner. A nice cross London drive after they returned & I was back in Sidcup by eleven, ready for a sleep in my own bed & facing another drive – this time north. Trish & I spent the weekend staying with another of cousin of Mum’s – very pleasant weekend it was too. A little bike riding around the village, dropped in on my great-uncle Alan (who for almost ninety, is doing remarkably well living on his own & looking after himself). For dinner we met yet another cousin of Mum’s (three cousins, but no brothers or sisters present) & also my second cousin, Catherine & her boyfriend, Chris. Catherine & Chris have recently been to NZ & Australia, so it was great to hear their stories. That’s about it really for the last few weeks – the last few days have been spent recovering from the week before & mostly preparing for Canada.

From the archive – Thailand & Nepal – III

[The diary that I compiled during our visit to Adele in Nepal in January & February 2008 came up in conversation the other day. As far as I know only Mum & I have ever read it – so here is part of it for posterity, the photos are complimentary – yeah, they are for free.]

3/2/8 Trekking

Up at 0600 to catch plane to Jonsom with our guide, KB. Too much cloud, so we can’t go to Jonsom. Mum leaves us today – one night in Kathmandu & then on to see the Hinds in Sydney.

So a eighty to ninety minute taxi ride with Shyam deposited us at the start of our circuit (modified a lot as we can’t go to Jonsom). The first couple of hours were spent walking up a river valley from about 1000m altitude. After a long lunch, the climbing really started, but the path was well made using lots of stone – quite incredible how good it was.

Walked through many fields & the tiering of the fields was amazing. By 1630 we were at Ghandruk – after many steps & a few rests. We have climbed almost 1000m to 1950m. This was quite a shock for us all, especially Dad, as we were expecting to walk down from Muktinah after a jeep ride from Jonsom!

Pleasant guesthouse – great hot shower & dinner – part with KB. He spent eleven years from age eight washing dishes at a Kathmandu guesthouse before he started guiding. He has also spend two and a half years in France – his French & English are very good.

4/2/8 Monday Trekking

Forgot to mention that while paragliding on Friday, Pierre & I saw an occidental rainbow when were up in the clouds. This is a circular rainbow viewed from above, apparently they are not seen by many.

Awoke in Ghandruk (actually awoke numerous time due to barking dogs in the night) to find that the clouds had finally cleared & we could see the mountains! A nice clear crisp morning & we could see all the way to Annapurna South & Fishtail (I may be able to say its real name – but I sure can’t spell it). A leisurely breakfast, then set off at 0845 for a comparatively short & easy walk to Tadapani (a climb of only about 600m today).

We quickly left the immaculate stone path & steps of yesterday & the path devolved in to something much more like what we would find in NZ – steps made out of wood & held by stakes.

As we were walking through forest/bush (c.f. with fields of yesterday) we saw far fewer Nepalis & houses. At our first stop we saw a family from Lake Hayes (back home). There were five of them – three boys, the youngest in a backpack. Next we saw an inordinate number of porters, but no trekkers. Eventually we find a very large group of Japanese trekkers sprawled over one of the few clearings. By now we are seeing patches of snow on the ground.

Our next stop was at the top of a very steep staircase. Here the Cokes were most welcome & we met a medical student from Perth – she is doing a similar thing to what Adele has just finished.

During the last hour to Tadapani the snow got more & more prevalent & it was quite fresh & nice & powdery. At times it was difficult to negotiate the slippery downs – but there were not so many of them! As we were behind a ridge, our view of the mountains had disappeared & when we emerged from the forest the clouds had covered our view again.

Tadapani is a pretty little settlement of mainly guesthouses (about six). There is no water here at the moment – except if you cook up a pot of snow. There are more trekkers staying here than at Ghandruk last night (most people seem to be going the opposite way to us). Some have come down from Poon Hill – they had good views this morning.

5/2/8 The Day We Almost Killed Dad

Up at 0645 after broken sleep – Nepali singing to start with & then too warm. Did not mention that we spent most of yesterday afternoon in the dining room as underneath the table (that was cloaked with think blankets) were steel buckets of hot coals – very toasty. Another beautiful morning – fewer clouds than yesterday & once again great views – many photos taken.

Started walking at 0830 & were immediately into a steep snowy, & therefore slippery, descent. Once we reached a stream it was back into a steep slippery ascent. By now, both Dad & I had taken small falls & all three of us were walking with sticks. Still there is a lot of snow around & I generally find it easier to walk on the powder than the icy steps.

After a brief stop for Coke & Fanta, the track levelled a bit & then went down for a while. Unfortunately for Dad, after this it went up & up a valley (quite steeply in places & very slippery) that never ended. Eventually we reached lunch & Dad was stuffed & Adele carrying his backpack as well as hers. We had lost our view of the mountains, but seen many waterfalls frozen in situ.

Shortly after our long lunch break the trail flattened out some & a few new peaks came in to view. The trail was now along a ridge – so undulating walking around 3300m, the highest I have ever been with my feet on the ground. By now we could see Annapurna I – the tallest of the Annapurnas at 8091m – behind & to the left of Annapurna South. Also visible a bit further away were the Dhaulagiris – the tallest of which, Dhaulagiri I is 8172m. Numerous stops to take photos & wait for Dad along the ~500m descent to Ghorepani.

There are many more guesthouses, & larger ones too, & for the princely sum of seventy rupees we have a view of Annapurna I & South & Dhaulagiri I from our room.

6/2/8 Trekking

Adele & I up at 0445 – along with most of the rest of the guesthouse (Dad & KB excepted) for the walk up to Poon Hill lookout for sunrise. All wrapped & out in to the dark & the not so cold before 0530. The climb was a good five or six hundred metres with many headlamps bobbing up the hillside – similar sight to doing the Moonride. Unfortunately, I had made the mistake of not having anything to eat. Part way up I started to feel clammy, devoid of energy & could not go on until I had dry wretched a few times, brought up some bile & then had half a muesli bar. Slowly my energy returned & we made it to the top. It was still dark, but starting slowly to get light. We were eventually joined by about fifty other sunrise pilgrims to see a great sunrise on some of the world’s tallest mountains.

Back down, we had a leisurely breakfast outside in the sun & left Ghorepani at 1000 for a gentle (mostly) walk down the valley toward Tatopani (tomorrow night’s stop). The stone pathway returned (not quite up to the same standard as the first day – but still pretty good) & it was only icy & snowy in parts for the first hour or so. Still good views of most of the mountains, but getting in to inhabited land with the odd village & more paddies.

We are staying in Shikha, which for a nice change is much more village than guesthouse destination. There are numerous stone houses & a school here. Adele & I had a small wander around the back roads (more alley ways). A great shower & we also had lunch on the rooftop in the sun looking at Dhaulagiri I. Mercifully, we are the only guests in the guesthouse – c.f. the last two nights.

7/2/8 Trekking

Up & away by 0830 – a nice walk down the valley from Shikha to Tatopani for three hours. We lost about a thousand metres in altitude. Nice to walk through the villages & past the children on the way to school – ten o’clock start. Our last glimpses of the Annapurnas as we get deeper in to the valley – still mostly the big stone steps & paths, although it is quite a dusty trail in places. Dad managed to get a few agricultural photos – piles of dung in fields that will be used for fertiliser & a cow & calf in a milking shed.

Down at the bottom of the valley we crossed the Ghar Khola river & then the much larger (unnamed on the map) river on swing bridges & walked up the valley a short way to Tatopani. This last bit was on the newly made & graded road. This is much less interesting & we are going to head back to Pokhara tomorrow, instead of Saturday. Soaked in hot springs/pool late in the afternoon.

8/2/8 Trekking – Pokhara

It’s our last day – up & left by 0820 (our earliest yet) after a good sleep. Walking down the new road down the valley the whole way. It was quite a deep gorge in places & would have been a spectacular walk on the old stone path.

The valley was still really spectacular when one remembered to look up from the road at the steep walls & behind us to Jonsom & the odd mountain still visible. The road is pretty wide in places & almost complete. We saw a group of about fifteen men breaking rocks in to gravel with small hammers. Also a twenty tonne excavator finishing off part of the road next to the river – quite a juxtaposition in technologies.

In places there were jeeps, motorbikes, taxis & quite a few people walking. In other places there was just us & a random stray dog that followed us for ages. By lunch we had all, especially Dad, had enough of walking on the boring road & got a jeep (an old Nissan Patrol) to Beni & then taxi ride of death back to Pokhara.

More safari & animals

I’m sitting in the departure lounge waiting for VS672 back to London. That has got to be the easiest & quickest international (economy) check-in I’ve ever done – even Nairobi airport is better than Heathrow! The security in triplicate did seem to be a bit of overkill though. After the excitement & all the travel of going to Uganda last weekend, this week has been pretty lazy really – sitting around resting my shoulder (which is much better, thank-you) & slowly ploughing through “The State of Africa” by Martin Meredith. It is a pretty dry & long history book about Africa since most countries were granted independence around fifty years. The words dog and show go a long way to summing it all up – it was all pretty depressing; the detailed explanations of what happened in Rwanda and then Liberia & Sierra Leone in the nineties were particularly grueling reading. I eventually finished it – so the challenge is still there, Carmen.

Friday afternoon, Adrian knocked off early & the three of us (Kimberley included) jammed the Suzuki full of camping gear & food & headed off to Nakuru National Park for the night.

The great advantage of Nakuru is that is only a relatively easy two-hour drive from home (not that I did any driving, thanks Adrian). I was also assured that I would see plenty of rhino – the only of the Big Five that I did not see in the Mara. Lake Nakuru was disturbingly low, but it did mean we got to walk over the salt flats to try & see the flamingo – apparently, there weren’t all that many, but still more than I had ever seen at once. Shortly after, we did see my first rhino in Africa (this one had a young one with it) & then we found three more making there way across the dry part of the lake bed.

We managed to get to the campsite & pitch the tents & get the fire going before it got too dark. It was so great camping out & when the clouds cleared quickly, there was of course a great sky to look at. As we were chowing down on some quite wonderful steaks & the rest of our dinners a very large herd of buffalo made their way down the ridge next to our camp for a drink. Later on at about 10.30 well after the rest of the herd had made their way back past; alone buffalo, who was pretty damn big, wandered over a lot closer – thankfully he was just curious & not the slightest bit shirty. After a fitful sleep (for me at least) we were up before six to go on what turned out to be a fantastic game drive.

I’m not so good at describing game drives – but as always it started off slow & then we saw a whole heap more of rhino (they are frigging massive – in both senses of the word; but no great surprises there), including this rather cute pair.

Down at a water hole there were a lot more buffalo & as we were next driving aimlessly around (or so it seems when you are looking for game), Adrian was very interested in what had a herd of impala rather spooked. Eventually he & Kimberley spotted a leopard slinking through the bush – I was in the back, so couldn’t see it as much as I tried. After waiting around for quite a while wondering where it had gone, it eventually crossed the road right in front of us – what a beautiful animal. We tried to find it on the other side of the bush it was walking through, but had no luck there – we traded sightings with another van (they found our leopard & we found their group of seven lions later on). The said lions were happily resting near the road & we quite easily watched them for ten or fifteen minutes.

By this time it was going on for four hours of driving & no breakfast, so we started heading back to cook brunch & decamp. On the way back it was quite neat to see a small group of giraffes near the road & then cross right in front of us.

Upon our return, we discovered that the pesky baboons had gone through our fire lighting material & decided a bottle of kerosene was the only thing worth taking. Needless to say, that made lighting the charcoal a bit harder; but with a lot of fanning of flames, bacon & scrambled eggs & toast was finally cooked & devoured before we decamped & hit the gravel roads for another few hours. Exploring some different areas of the park, we didn’t see a whole heap (except some more magnificent giraffes) before we headed up to Baboon Cliff for a great panorama of the lake. The resident baboon up there must have been fed previously as he was mighty bold, jumping on the car as soon as we stopped & tried to get in the window. A swift punch in the face & much throwing of rocks from Adrian saw him off; that was until he came back to jump on top of the next van that came up & try & get in the open top – completely freaking out the child inside.

On the way out of the park, it was back to the group of lions we had seen earlier – they had moved a whole five metres to the shade of a different tree, so we quite happily watched them while we had lunch. Just before we left the park, we stopped & watched a wonderful black-maned lion & lioness lazing around between attempts at expanding the Nakuru lion population; pleasantly, it started to hose down while we were there – the park definitely needs a lot more rain.

So it was back home to pack (for me), eat & sleep. So that is the end of my Kenyan adventure for this time – I sure am looking forward to getting back to London & having a decent sleep without being woken up at all hours by crazy dogs. I’m not looking forward to the winter however – the Kenyan weather has been fantastic. In the air now & just crossed the equator for the fourth time in three weeks – plane is a lot better & less cockroach infested than the Akamba bus. Less than six weeks to Canmore, Alberta! Hope my shoulder is up for skiing.

Masai Mara!

So for the fourth night in a row I have woken up at about 2.30 & this time I decided I couldn’t take any more of my mind going in circles with no hope of resolution & a rumbling stomach; after some toast, here I am doing something slightly productive.

I have spent the previous three days in the Masai Mara National Reserve (& on the four-five hour van ride to & from). The Mara is in south-west Kenya & borders Tanzania at the Serengeti (pretty much making it the top of the Serengeti) & Adrian had organised for me to tag along with four of the volunteers – a wonderful opportunity & not one to be passed up. The park is over 1500 square kilometres & is named for the Masai tribe that live there & the Mara river that flows it.

Hopefully this posting won’t have much text as normal & lots of photos. I am pleased at how a lot of the pictures turned out from my little Canon. Sure, it would be nice to have an SLR – but this camera was bought for one function only, to sit snugly on the shoulder strap of my Camelback while riding. Hopefully I can filch some good photos from the rest of the group sometime – but they all had compacts too.

We stayed at the smallest of the camps in the park (only thirty beds) & were extremely well looked after – there was only one other group there the first night & no-one other guests the second night. The food was fantastic & I have never stayed in such a flash tent – bath, shower, toilet.

We had to be escorted to our tents at night by a sentry carrying a spear as there was much wildlife wandering around at night – we saw a lot of buffalo tracks the first night & Lotte & Ansje (sp?) saw a couple of buffalo outside their tent before going to bed on Saturday. Enough of such details – while the camp was excellent, that was by no means the highlight of the weekend.

I went on four game drives over the weekend (three of the group opted out of Saturday afternoon – which turned out to be my favourite – after a six hour drive in the morning). It was all new on the first so we were very pleased to see hundreds of zebra (they are such comical looking animals with such vivid patterns; the funniest thing I saw all weekend was zebra lying on their side & then rolling over with all legs sticking up in the air to scratch their backs), impalas, wildebeest, buffalo (they do have such strange looking horns) & a few giraffes.

That night we saw (actually were right next to some of them) a pride of at least twelve lions (including glimpses of a very cute looking cub); we watched for quite a while – as it was near the end of the day, they were still lying around keeping out of the heat. On the way back to camp we saw a small herd of elephant – the only time we were to see an elephant calf. Elephant are especially cool to watch as they grab lots of foliage off the trees & eat it – I think this was the first time I have seen so many elephant still with their tusks, so that was neat (I think in Nepal & Thailand they had be detusked). So back for dinner we had seen three of the ‘Big-Five’ (apparently the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot), with just the rhinoceros & leopard to go.

Saturday morning we left the camp at six with a massive packed breakfast. I still couldn’t get over how many zebra there were – they all look so well fed, but I’m told they look quite round even if they don’t have much to eat. The Mara had been in drought for seven months previously & has only just started to get a bit of rain & green up a bit; consequently, the Masai have been running their stock further in to the park, which means reduced feed for the wild animals & therefore lower numbers. We added a cheetah resting on a bushy knoll to our list – it was gorgeous, if a little restful.

This took quite some time to find & in the meantime we had gotten the van stuck twice in mud – stuck enough for us to have to get out & push, the first time took quite a while to get out – I was glad that there were no animals around. We also a lion & lioness stalk a limping zebra for about fifteen minutes, that was neat to watch – incidentally, the zebra managed to get away.

We managed to find a good spot away from all the animals to get out & have a very large & very late breakfast, before heading off in search of the elusive rhino (apparently there only four to five hundred in the park & they are very hard to find).

Before long we had found another cheetah who was out for a bit of a stroll. No one seemed interested in a sprint against it & the herd of zebra close by were pretty unperturbed by its presence.

Returning for lunch, the rest of the group lounged by the pool while I tried to grab a nap in tent – but it was a bit warm – so when Yvonna & I headed out again at three-thirty I was still pretty tired. But I figured I wouldn’t be here again in a hurry so, I would just suck it up & enjoy it. Which was just as well, because although the drive started off pretty quiet looking for that elusive rhino – it ended in a flurry of fantastic sightings. First was this lion just dozing in the shade & here is a photo to prove that I was actually there (there is a lion there – I assure you).

Next we found a hippo sitting in a pond that looked like it had be made quarrying for roading materials – this was a great surprise as we had been told that hippos are mostly down by the river which would have required a whole day excursion, which we were not keen for.

After seeing a big herd of elephants in the distance, a couple of giraffe crossed the road right in front of us. I can look at giraffes for so long – I think I’ve really liked them since I was quite young – the patterns on their skin are so cool & they seem such unlikely animals.

Then what turned out to be my favourite sighting of the weekend – a leopard up the tree. We couldn’t get quite as close to it as some of the other animals (that is what I am telling myself is the reason why I only took one photo of it – & that isn’t even very good). But it was a delight to stare at through the binoculars as it lazed on what looked like some pretty precarious branches high up surveying the surrounding scrub (looking for dinner perhaps). I thought it had an extraordinarily long tail, & I now know why a leopard doesn’t changes its spots – they are quite incredible to start with & not worth risking I think. It was getting darker now, but we still managed to a cheetah & two more groups of lions. The last group (a male & two females) were a bit more active than most of the others we had seen & the two females had a bit of play fight that was entertaining. There was also a nice sunset way off across the plains (it got better than this, but it was hard to take a decent photo while bumping along the dirt tracks & road).

This is Edward – our Masai scout – in traditional garb, you can almost make out his ear lobe that (because it has a massive hole in it) he wears pulled over the top of his ear. You can’t quite see his traditional knife or traditional cell phone.

Sunday was off again early in hunt of that rhino. However, we never found it – that was a little disappointing, but I didn’t mind too much as I have seen one in the wild many years ago in Nepal (albeit briefly as someone yelled “Rhino!” on spotting it & it ran away). We saw quite a few big herds of giraffes (more than thirty in total) before heading back home. What a weekend – Joe (one of Adrian’s flatmates here) wasn’t kidding when he said the Mara was one of the best, if not the best, things he has seen in his life – it was incredible.