Category Archives: friends

bikepacking, bikes, combe raiders, family, friends, MTB, UK

The South & South-West Farewell Tour

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With redundancy rather inconveniently (in more ways than just timing, it must be noted) for me being timed for the middle of summer, I didn’t waste any time in moving out & leaving the area before heading off on my European bike travels lest the weather get colder.  As such,  I never really said a proper goodbye to all the people in the south & south-west that I’d spent so much time with over the previous three years.

So, another little bike tour was in order to do so.  At least as winter approached & then took hold, I had the luxury of knowing I’d be staying with friends & family – & therefore could carry more clothes in place of sleeping bag, mattress & tent. Luxury. I managed to see many people & almost all that I really wanted to see.  Most of the riding was a means-to-an-end (except for two great final MTB outings around Winchester & on Exmoor), but pleasant as the leaves are all sorts of shades at the moment and the English countryside doesn’t fail to be pretty.  I also managed to time rides so that I’d mostly miss the rain.

Schedules dictated I depart a day earlier than I intended, but as the weather was strangely warm and the first of only two big days was spent riding all day & into the night in shorts & short-sleeve top.  Threading my way across south London & then beyond I followed the Basingstoke canal to the eponymous city before taking the train to Bournemouth.

The next morning it was around 20oC, so I hardly needed much persuasion (actually, it was probably my idea) to get some gelato.

Popping back into the plant (former-work) that afternoon, it was eerily quiet and all rather strange. A couple of hours was enough it was so silent. But it was nice wandering around chatting to those that still survive, for however long that may be.

Great to get out for one last ride on the trails around Winchester with Dan & Chris – my only regular riding buddies I had in the area.

Chris recommended an American burger joint, Seven Bones, excellent food & value. Once again, riding so much just provides an excuse to eat excessively.

Due to timings of visits, I ended up crossing the New Forest four or five times – here along the Bournemouth beachfront as the sun sets.

And my last look at the Isle of Wight – I had some nice long & hilly MTB trips out there.

After a couple of nights in Poole, I used the other half of my return train ticket to get back to Basingstoke and ride north of Reading to Rich’s.

I’m going to miss the history of being in Europe; this a typical discovery while just riding along – a Roman amphitheatre seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

As I was riding through a park in the north-west outskirts of Reading I heard a loud & obnoxious ringing – eventually I saw that it was coming from a phone on top of a bin. Thinking that someone had probably lost it, I answered it feeling I was in some strange bicycle-touring Spooks crossover. I was right, a woman had lost her phone & I tried to describe where I was not really having much idea. I wanted to hand it in at a nearby business and carry on my way as the light was fading fast, but she insisted I wait ten minutes. Eventually, a rather old Ford Galaxy rolled up and I was almost forced to take a tenner from a large roll of cash as payment for my waiting around doing nothing. All rather weird, but it paid for my lunch.

Startling pheasants of the game variety was becoming more normal as I continued; I must note that the pheasants in Berkshire and Oxfordshire are much more handsome – darker colouring. And just rolling down the hill to cross the Thames, again, on a quiet country lane I came across the largest bouquet (who knew?) of pheasants I’ve seen.

The goal for the next day was Bristol & it promised to be one of my longest on a bike.  But as I planned to do most of it alongside the Kennet & Avon Canal, it wasn’t to be too hilly.  Rich kindly plotted a route for me to follow on my GPS that would take me most-directly to the canal on quiet roads.  With rain overnight, the tow-path was decidedly wet – and the rain that continued to fall didn’t help all that much.  Unfortunately, the National Cycle Route I was following left the canal for quite a while and seemed to insist on gradually climbing into a stiff sou-wester – not some of my favourite moments on a bike.

In time I reached Devises and what turned to out to be the end of the climbing. Deciding I was much too muddy & wet for the cafe recommended by a passing cycle tourist, so I quickly snacked before rolling quickly down beside the Caen Hill Locks.  With sixteen locks all in a row here, they do form a rather impressive staircase – navigating in a boat must be tedious, five to six hours apparently.

Caen.hill.locks.in.devizes.arp.jpg

The rest of the way into Bath was pretty flat, but with about twenty miles to go on top of what I’d already done wasn’t particularly fast. As the night closed in I decided I didn’t have the light or energy to ride for another couple of hours – so I took the train to north Bristol to arrive at Laura & Luis’s. I was quite pleased with about 145 km/90 miles for the day and over eight hours moving time. While I had remembered that L&L’s first house is undergoing extensive work, I’d forgotten there was no shower – one was much needed after all the mud & work into the wind. Never mind, nothing a walk in the rain around the corner to the gym couldn’t fix.

A most enjoyable weekend catching up, watching the All Blacks narrowly beat England, checking out a local fireworks night, ripping the kitchen ceiling off and popping down to the centre of Bristol to learn a bit of the city and walk in the sun. I’m still of the mind, if I was to come back to England for any length of time, this is an area I’d try to live.

Builders turning up early Monday morning meant an early start to my departure from Bristol for Winscombe. But this did mean that I got to see the day dawning on Bristol as I rode across the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Carrying on through Ashton Court I enjoyed trying to spot bits of the course I rode & rode for six hours last year in the Bristol Bike Fest – six hours of riding the same short lap is rather boring. It was a pleasant dry morning for a ride across Somerset Moors and through cider country; I was pleased to do the half of the Strawberry Line that Mum & I didn’t ride in April (that is, the Yatton – Winscombe half).

While Andy & Jo were still at work I managed to occupy myself getting stuck into War & Peace, wandering around the village, cleaning the mud off my bike (an exercise in futility considering the subsequent ride to Taunton), sitting out a truly miserable Tuesday of rain and generally relaxing. Somehow I found myself recounting my travels since April (my previous visit) in greater detail than anyone else has been subjected too – for once I became a very slow eater.

Across more of the moors on the Wednesday I once again escaped the rain before reaching Taunton – which must be one of my most visited places over the last five years, considering how much John & Anna have had me to stay under the guise of popping over from Hampshire for many great rides in the south-west with the Combe Raiders. Unfortunately, Thursday was rather wet so John & I couldn’t get out for a long ride while Anna was at work and Lydia & Esther were at school – a much needed bike maintenance session wasn’t all that successful for my creaking pedal.

The Final Pheasant ride for the Saturday Combe Raiders outing was back on Exmoor – where I first rode over six years ago with John, Andy & Rich. It was great to have all of them back for my farewell ride and with a few others we had a good group of eight to head out on a day that promised all sorts of weather. A very enjoyable and memorable ride that had some decent climbs, stunning views over the Bristol Channel, some rain, the standard navigational debate, a short very muddy hike-a-bike section (that turned out not to be on the route) and much fun on some long rocky descents. Near the end the cloud really rolled in and above Dunster the woods were so misty one could hardly see twenty metres in front – it was all rather eerie. With one last pastie stop in Dunster my Combe Raiders riding career was over; I’ll miss it all the more as I don’t even get to defend my Christmas Hill Climb title this year.

Map discussions – my stopping to take photos was rather woeful throughout this whole trip.

Before long I’d said all my goodbyes to many friends & family in the south & south-west and I was on the train back to Paddington and then riding across London (which I really enjoy, I suspect I’m in the minority) – home for a couple of days’ breather. Thanks to all who took the time to see me & especially those that had me to stay – it sure beat wild-camping in winter! For the record – it was quite a leisurely tour: nearly 800 km/500 miles in two and a half weeks, only two big days over 120 km, the rest nicely between 30 and 70 km.

Africa, friends, national park, travel

Nakuru camping trip with a lion and ten pre-schoolers

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I’m not sure what was scarier – the lion was definitely quieter and better behaved overall.

I had originally planned that my three week visit to Tanzania would not involve a lot of traveling around. That didn’t last long as I soon got wind of a plan to travel up to Kenya for a week – partly for visa reasons, but mostly to go camping with various friends to mark Tesni’s birthday over a long weekend.

Sean (Tesni’s husband) had booked a private campsite in Nakuru National Park for us all for the weekend. I visited this park with AD five years ago on my first trip to Kenya – I was looking forward to seeing how it appeared now that the drought had been broken and the lake was no longer empty. Highlights from last time were all the rhino sightings and a herd of buffalo wandering through our campsite.

The advance party of two families arrived Friday, having driven through a lot of rain. I decided to travel over on Saturday with Bobby & Brandy – mostly because the park and camping fees are exorbitant if one is not an East African resident, but also I don’t think I would have fitted in the Prado with all the camping gear the Maarschalks had. It was great to catch up with B&B on the drive over – I rode with Bobby for my RVO mountain-bike adventure last year. By the Saturday evening everyone had arrived – we totaled twelve adults and ten children under the age of five. No-one told me I was signing up for that last part!

Before we had left home on Saturday morning, word had leaked out that a lioness had made an appearance on the edge of the campsite around breakfast time and then proceeded to take up residence in a large tree about thirty metres from the tents! She had quite a limp on her, so I assume had left her pride after a fight with another animal. Apart from the Saturday night (we saw her leave that evening & return the next morning), she spent most of the weekend that close to our camp. Needless to say, this put us rather on edge – especially with so many young children around.

But it all worked out well, and probably helped in keeping the children roaming too far when there was who-knows-what-else in the long grass surrounding the camping. Obviously hungry lions are quite useful for keeping children in check. Contrary to what I thought before the weekend, the game drives weren’t the highlight of the weekend – we saw many flamingoes, giraffes, buffalo, antelope, baboons, zebra and some big rhinos, but they couldn’t compare to just staying in camp and watching and listening to the wildlife nearby.

As well as our lion resident, we had a lot of zebra, buffalo and baboons pass through at various times. But the unexpected sighting was the huge hippopotamus that wandered through Sunday night. I didn’t even know there were hippos in the park (they don’t like the lake as it is quite alkaline) and there was no water close to our campsite; I was pleased by the hippo sighting as the only one I’d previously seen in the wild was in the Masaai Mara five years ago – & it was just sitting in a pond barely visible.

Generally the days camping were passed eating an awful lot of good camp food (bananas stuffed with chocolate, wrapped in tin foil and baked on the side of the campfire may be better than even toasted marshmallows), keeping the children amused, game drives trying to find elusive leopards & other lions and spending time with good friends.

Once the children had gone to bed around nightfall things were quiet and dark enough to hear more lions roaring not that far away, hyenas barking and jackals making some sort of racket. Realising that there were so many children around, I had intended to put my tent well away from all the others so that I might actually get some sleep. But in light of the lion situation, that didn’t seem so prudent – so I put my tent so it was loosely surrounded by (sometimes) sleeping families. While I didn’t think I would get much sleep, this had the advantage of being less likely to be eaten. As it happened, I slept very well – especially considering the morning reports of very unsettled children making a lot of noise at regular intervals.

In all, a very different safari to what I’ve become used to – but it was still fantastic. Enough writing, pictures:

Crested eagle.

There’s a lion in that tree centre-rear of photo.

For those that thought climbing a tree would be a viable way to escape a lion, think again – even injured she made it up OK.

Lion-watching while an awful lot of mushrooms cook.

Braai time!

Still keeping an eye on our lion friend.

That’s me escaping to the Prado with Chloe as the lioness makes her way to her favourite tree.

Europe, food, friends, GPS, travel

Les Granges – through another’s eyes

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Sort of a guest post today – well, I’m still writing but all the photos are Zuza’s. Previous posts during my stay here at Les Granges have centred on activities away from the vineyard and winery – mostly because I don’t tend to carry my camera when I work and therefore don’t have many photos to write to. But Zuza likes to carry a camera around often and has somewhat become official photographer for the few of us that have been working together for the last two or so weeks. It’s also interesting to see things that I see every day through another’s lens – plus she’s a much better photographer than I am. So, with minimal words hopefully, here are some of the scenes of my stay here.

Nightly serenade.

Every so often the aged family dog makes an appearance struggling on tired arthritic eighteen-year old limbs.

A little slice of home.

New house (still in progress) and winery on left.

Netting up to thwart the hungry birds just before these grapes are due for harvest.

Cleaning vats in the winery.

Pressing grapes by foot.

Edo and the small vessel used to ferment a little – this is then added to the larger batches of wine to kick-start them.

Pizza night.

And some from our hike to Col de Malatra, near Monte Bianco, last week:

Tasty, tasty ham.

Europe, friends, hiking, travel

A hike in the Alps – Col de Malatra

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A slightly longer and higher hike was planned than that of two weeks before. Also promised were good views of Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc) for most of the day if the weather was good. Eight of us set off for the day out – it started with an hour or so driving up the Aosta Valley to Courmayeur and then turning north-east to the trail-head. The weather was proving sufficiently good to get nice views of Monte Bianco as the highway wound through villages, under and over the autostrada and railway, loosely following the Dora Baltea upstream. Clearly we were getting into popular ski country as large cable-cars and smaller chairlifts stretched up the valley walls and sometimes across the valley.

Off the highway and out of Courmayeur, the road climbed steeply and we were loosely paralleling the French border, which in this part is the watershed of a ridge towering above the valley we were in with some quite impressive peaks. Starting to walk at around half-nine it was at first a little bit near the road to get to a bridge that crossed the river that drained the valley we were to walk up to the pass. I only mention that as the bridge was wooden planks and every time a car crossed it, the sound would reverberate around the valley – I was hearing that annoying bridge quite a lot. The climb began in earnest as we left the road again; with a mixed group the pace was also mixed – so there was frequent stopping to wait, take photos, eat wild blueberries, admire the views and snack.

A very dirty glacier way off in the distance.

Down the valley from which we started – Monte Bianco hiding briefly behind clouds.

The first milestone for the climb was the refugio (a day-hut) at about 1900 m. For some of us, this was the limit of the day’s walking – I couldn’t quite understand being up in such beautiful mountains on a sunny day and wanting to sit at a day-hut waiting for the rest of us to return. I later found out that there was a pretty good bar in the refugio, so that made a bit more sense. Six of carried on, five of us together and the sixth at a steady pace much more suited to her. The valley was quite wide and our climbing would have levelled off quite a bit – if we had taken the correct path up the centre of the valley, not up the (/our) right hand side. It didn’t matter though as it was easy to traverse around to the trail when our mistake was realised.

Traversing near the top of the valley.

Monte Bianco on the left.

Back on the trail, we were onto the steepest climbing of the day as we climbed out of the grassy valley and eventually traversed a rocky scree slope to the pass. Just as we got out of the grass we were passed by two mountain-bikers coming down – not sure how they would go on the descent of what we’d just climbed (I’d have had to walk a fair bit) the rest of the day’s trail looked fantastic and I was slightly envious.

There’s the trail heading up to the pass – which is the narrow gap on the right. There wasn’t a lot of room to have lunch.

I for one started to notice a shortness of breath, plus maybe a little tiredness from the previous thousand metres of climbing, as we went through the last two hundred metres. At the pass, 2925 m, there was a bit of a traffic jam of various groups (some had walked up from the other side) but once one group moved off we had enough room to perch ourselves and tuck in to all the cheese, proscuitto, bread and chocolate that had been hauled up. The view that opened up on the other side of the pass was towards Great St Bernard Pass – but this was obscured by a couple of other peaks in the way.

Various attempts at group photos ensued before we descended.

A fantastic walk up with great views all around in excellent company – the most surreal thing was trying to teach Zuza, a Polish girl studying languages and translation, how to count in Maori while walking in the Italian Alps. As we got off the scree on the way down I was impressed to see Mary still making her way up. We continued down together for a while, but our pace was a bit too much on the steep part – rather we all spread out as I took it pretty slowly too so as not to have sore knees for days to come.

I really wanted a bike as we got back into this valley – the trail was sublime.

We found Eliza and Rachel back at the refugio enjoying the sun and the views. I was hungry again and they had even more proscuitto. Jokingly, I mentioned that a drink a bit stronger than the mountain-side water I’d just filled my bottle with would be nice. When some of the Italian part of our group returned with a bottle of red and glasses, I realised that there was actually a bar – sitting in the sun staring out at the Alps and Monte Bianco drinking wine, playing cards, and probably eating still, was pretty damn good.

We all spread out again on the final descent to the road, before regrouping and heading off for gelato – of course.