All posts by bpheasant

city, Europe, family, travel

Paris week

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After two aborted attempts to find a time for Adele (my sister) to visit me in the UK from NZ for three weeks, May 2014 was finally chosen as being suitable for our respective work commitments. With Mum also visiting, a long wet winter with no travel for me and the work shutdown & impending redundancy, there was eager anticipation on my part for this May just past.

With a day catching up over various meals with extended family north of London and Adele battling jet-lag while trying to remain sociable over, the three of us were off to Paris for four nights – as I was adamant it was a European city Adele must see (it’s taken twenty-seven years to get her back to Europe, so who knows when it may happen again). We stayed an easy walk north of the Arc de Triomphe in a pleasant apartment; with reasonable spring weather (I only remember one decent bit of rain – when we were on top of Notre Dame) we walked around a lot looking at things and generally marveling at the beauty of the city. I was fine with this as I’d had a very hectic week doing what I wanted in the city almost five years ago. I think we all had a good time, with many croissants and other baked goods consumed – it was just as well we walked a lot.

Family selfie cleverly obscuring the scaffolding on the other half of the Arc de Triomphe

Notre Dame

Musee d’Orsay – still my favourite of the Paris galleries

The view is not bad from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Back at Notre Dame, not just for the family picture

Earlier in the week, we had met Adele’s friends Gavin & Amy (ex Christchurch, but now living in Sheffield – although Gavin seems to spend most of his time in Central African Republic) for dinner. On the Thursday Adele went off on a day trip to Fontainebleau with them, which included some rock-climbing. Mum & I being not that interested in such things went off to Versailles, only to find that the staff at the Palace had gone on strike at short notice. So we returned to Paris and spent the afternoon at Sacre Coeur – wine, cheese & biscuits before lounging/napping in the hot sun in front of the basilica.

Somehow for the last night of the week I was back to my usual dining-while-travelling situation of eating alone – but as it turned out, that was fine as Trip Advisor came up trumps with a small local restaurant and an absolutely exquisite meal. A fun week showing off Paris, riding the metro, walking a lot and possibly eating even more was over – Eurostar back to London Friday afternoon.

bikes, Europe, family, travel

A long weekend return to Barcelona

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The first May long weekend made a good time to join Mum as she visited Spanish friends (from her time at university in New Zealand) in Barcelona.  On my previous visit about eighteen months ago, I’d done all that was at the top of my list of things to do in what is a fantastic city.  Consequently, I had no real agenda of places to see – so that made it rather relaxed.  We were warmly welcomed by Araceli and her family in their large flat (actually two combined into one) all weekend and, importantly, well fed with Catalan food.

When not eating or just hanging out at the flat, Mum & I did a fair bit of walking around just exploring places. Noticeably better weather than spring at home was conducive to this. We enjoyed poking down small alleyways and streets in El Gótic (the old gothic area) and investigating interesting looking stores.

The cathedral

From Montjuïc (where a lot of the Olympics was held)

Walking around Poble Espanyol

Plaça d’Espanya

Just a dog keeping an eye on the world walking past

After a shorter day walking around on Sunday, I still had energy to burn. I’d spied a few mountain bikes in the flat; kindly Jordi lent me one so I could go for a ride in the evening sun. An urban jump bike was a little different – but with the tyres fully inflated & the fork rock hard for commuting, it was fine. I had my eye set on reaching the tower & church perched up on the ridge running behind the city. With a steep climb up the city streets, I was soon at the end of the tram route and the beginning of a funicular railway. Here I found a dirt road heading up that soon turned into singletrack – bonus. This connected onto a big wide running & cycle path that follows the hills around for miles. There were plenty of people out running & riding – I’ve decided Barcelona mountain-bikers are particularly unfriendly as I couldn’t coax a smile out of any of the many I saw.

Eventually, I decided this route wasn’t getting me closer to my targets – so switch-backed onto the road and continued upward past increasingly large houses and great views off both sides of the ridge. I found a great steep rocky route off the road up to the transmission tower (Torre de Collserola) – but after grunting up that, I was turned around by double chainlink fences & many CCTV cameras. I did make it to the top by a more conventional route & after a quick look around, headed down for dinner. It sure was a lot quicker going down through the 300-odd metres of elevation change – I managed to find even more rocky singletrack on the way back down. A great little unplanned excursion all up.

Torre de Collserola

Sagrat Cor at Tibidabo

I was convinced that Mum must see Sagrada Familia – I wanted to go back & see how much more of the Unfinished Church had been finished since my last visit. Alas, by the time we got there the line had grown too much & did not want to stand in that for hours. Still, I was pleased to see the building again and confirm that it still warrants Dad’s continued enthusiasm for it forty or so years after he saw it.

We managed a pleasant boat-ride around the harbour and an hour at the maritime museum before more fascinating walking of the older parts of the city – not to mention more shopping for food. As it had been over six months since my last vacation abroad (not really the point of being over here, but needs must) it was fantastic to get away with Mum for the weekend. Now there’s only a short week at work to get through before I make up for that six months.

around home, bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, UK

Short Easter rides

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Three out of the four days off work for the Easter break were surprisingly fine and sunny – which, after the wet winter we’ve had, is more than one hopes for. So in amongst sorting out details of what promises to be a very busy May, I managed to get out for two very good rides.

Good Friday served up what was the most fun ride I’ve done in ages. Nothing spectacular, especially compared to rides this time last year, but the riding around Winchester was remarkably dry (two weeks ago we got proper soaked on the South Downs Way) and I even came back with dust on my bike – & as an added bonus, it didn’t need a hose down. Out with Dan & Chris, we took whatever bridleways took our fancy, found some really enjoyable singletrack, and sessioned that. Of course, there was a good lunch & a satisfying pint at a pub somewhere along the way – Otterbourne, I think. I do enjoy a nice ride around Winchester – it’s very pretty, if not particularly hilly.

Since the last time I visited Andy, he’s gone & shifted out of Bristol – this time conveniently right on the edge of the Mendip Hills. The Mendips, when the limestone is dried out & not gloopy, provide much quality riding. On that last trip I stopped en route & explored a bit by myself. Somehow Andy & Jo have managed to buy a brand new house pretty much in the middle of Winscombe – with plenty of space & nice views I was suitably impressed. Well-fed, there was plenty of time now that sunset is late, to explore the village a bit to walk off dinner.

It was another very enjoyable ride out in the sun – starting off on the Strawberry Line (yet another victim of the Beeching Cuts repurposed as a shared cycling-walking path) before turning sharply up Crook’s Peak – Andy was keen to ride up here for the first time. It was worth it with some nice views, although Wales was a bit obscured by the haze, and good fast descending. Back on the flat, it was in to the outskirts of Cheddar before climbing up on to the hills a bit. We missed a turn so found another route near the quarry – probably a bit steeper than we bargained for, but not too bad. It was an OK detour as it turned out most of the route we rode I had done on my last visit – albeit in reverse.

With a more-planned excursion into the forest to sample a bit of the many small sections of singletrack done, it was a gradual climb along the top to the highest point on the Mendips – Beacon Batch.  A gradual whiz downhill had us closer to Cheddar again, near the top of the gorge. There was about a hundred metres of elevation to gain up a rooty hike-a-bike before we could ride to the edge overlooking the gorge. Unfortunately, there were many people out enjoying the sun & views so the blast down in to town was a little tempered by scrubbing of speed so as not to frighten anyone too much. Back home on the Strawberry Line to a kitchen filled with wonderful baking aromas.

bikepacking, bikes, GPS, history, national park, UK

The Shipwrights Way

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With the January & February weather being so dire, my motivation to go bikepacking was low – lest I float away in the middle of the night. March has been, in comparison, very dry so far & the floods have receded in many places – so it was time to load up the bike and head out for a long ride, camping overnight. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled (online) across a new long-distance path (at fifty miles, it’s not that long) close to home in east Hampshire – The Shipwrights Way. Starting in the Alice Holt Forest, near Farnham – the trail uses bridleways, rail-trails and quiet country lanes mostly to follow an imaginary path that ancient oak trees would have taken to Portsmouth to be used in the building of medieval naval vessels.

It seemed an easily doable out & back overnight trip – I decided to start at the end (Portsmouth) instead of the beginning as it was quicker to drive there (I couldn’t be bothered being restricted by train times) & meant I was more likely to be wild-camping in the countryside rather than the city. It was easy enough to find free street parking near the seaside in Southsea at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I was soon riding along the seafront in the unforecast sun. This first section (for me, actually Section 12) of the ride was soon over as I was waiting for the small ferry to take me to Hayling Island.

Waiting for the Hayling ferry

Most of this part of the route (Section 11) follows a rail-trail, Hayling Billy, so it was easy & pleasant riding – with views back over the harbour. Crossing onto the mainland I was soon riding through the town of Havant – hoping I’d be in the countryside soon. Sure enough, it was country lanes & then a bridleway (an ancient drovers’ road) into the village of Rowlands Castle – the castle is ruins now. The next section (8) paralleled the main London Waterloo-Portsmouth railway line (a lot of the route didn’t stray too far from this, & I crossed it numerous times) north surrounded by fields. Plonked in the middle of one of those fields, on a slight rise & seemingly quite isolated was St Hubert’s Church – built in 1053. For a couple of hundred metres north of Finchdean the whole width of the road was completely underwater – a slow pace was best for not getting soaked; sandbags were still to be seen, as were pipes carrying pumped water to drain from numerous properties – it hasn’t rained for two weeks, it must’ve been very wet.

St Hubert’s church

Having left the coast some time before, I had been climbing for a while – albeit gradually. As I was expecting from a previous visit: as soon as I hit Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QEP) there was the biggest climb of the entire route, not the most fun with a loaded bike but easily manageable. This coincided with the sun getting higher & me getting noticeable hotter. I finally saw my first of the twenty new sculptures along the route – each relevant to history or wildlife of the particular area they are set. Of the twenty, I only saw about five – eight are yet to be installed yet, but I still missed quite a few. Immediately behind the sheep sculpture, the trees had been cleared to give a nice look over the downs.

Looking out over the South Downs National Park from Queen Elizabeth Park

The first I saw of the many new statues on the route – a Hampshire Downs sheep

It was a steep downhill section past chalk pits hundreds of years old (of which I enjoyed reading the industrial history) to the village of Buriton before a mostly sealed section into Petersfield – which handily had a market to provide me with lunch.

Buriton

Crossing under & over the busy A3 and then the railway again, into Liss I joined another rail-trail. This time, it was through a nature reserve & used to be the Longmoor Military Railway – that used to go from the mainline at Liss to the large military camp at Longmoor. At one stage it was a seventy mile length of track & saw a huge assembling of rolling stock to go to the continent after D-Day. I was still finding evidence of large sidings in woods many miles north. Annoyingly, the route is not yet established for Section 4: Lindford to Liss – so I tried to find a more direct way than the main roads. This involved some slightly damp off-road cycling trails & then I found myself on footpaths – footpaths aren’t a good idea with a loaded bike as the gates are extremely difficult to get a loaded bike through or over.

Most of the rest was through Alice Holt Forest, which was well frequented by families enjoying the sunshine – there’s also a very large adventure type playground that seemed very popular. I didn’t stop as I feared I’d not be able to weave out of the melee of kids if I did. Shortly after I reached the end (start) of the route at Bentley – stopping briefly for croissant, cake & ginger beer I turned to see how far back I could get. With eight hours of travelling time for eighty kilometres, I figured I could do the easier overall-downhill direction in six hours.

But as I’d dragged my camping gear all the way it seemed a waste of effort to just return to the car & drive home that night. So I had steak dinner in Petersfield and continued in the dark to QEP. Well dark by now, my dynamo (in the hub of my front wheel) powered k-lite front light was super bright & more than enough to light up the trail & blind oncomers; the charging system worked well in the day either charging AA batteries for my GPS or charging my phone (via USB). The steep climb up past the chalk pits was tough for legs that aren’t used to twelve-hour rides carrying a heavy load. At the top of QEP, after startling a large herd of deer, I found the picnic shelter that I’d noticed early in the day. With no one about, three walls, a roof and relatively flat woodchip floor was good enough for me – no need to put up the tent. In bed by nine, I was later woken a noisy pack of cubs (of the marauding boy scout variety) out hiking to an unknown (to me) campsite. Much to my relief they continued on after noticing the bike & strange man sleeping in the shelter – they were rather noisy.

An even more stunning day dawned Sunday – I was fed, packed up & riding by quarter past seven. I was right – it didn’t even take me two hours to get back to the car, although I opted out of trying to get the ferry as I couldn’t be sure I’d make it in time & then not have to wait an hour for the next one. I’m glad I wasn’t out long as I was much-overdressed for the sun & heat. Even so, I dumped my heavy load of camping equipment in the car & enjoyed a pleasant ride along the waterfront to the end of the route in Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard. I always like the naval history in Portsmouth & I saw some different things compared to my previous visits.

A little off the route at Chalton

Royal Garrison Church, Portsmouth – fire-bombed in WWII, part of it is still roofed

So a great ride all-up, although I wouldn’t recommend it for the mountain-bike trails – I would recommend it for a mostly easy ride to link together a lot of interesting history, nice villages & scenic countryside. There’s so much I missed by not stopping more, I think it would be quite a pleasant walk if one was so inclined. Now to find the next overnight trip around Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset or somewhere suitably close by.