Category Archives: national park

Africa, friends, national park, travel

Tarangire NP camping

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AD was determined that my entire week in Tanzania was not to be spent relaxing around the house – & when someone is willing to take me camping and on a big game drive in an Africa national park I am hardly going to offer a dissenting voice.  Tarangire National Park was one I had never heard of & AD had not been too – so that was chosen as our destination.  A relatively easy (especially for me in the passenger seat) two-hour drive south-east later we were at the park gates around noon on Friday.  Camp was quickly set up in the public campground and we set off for a game drive for the afternoon.  The previously much-derided Range Rover came in to its own off road – very capable & very comfortable.  As AD was driving, I became chief photographer – it sure was nice to have a proper big camera, even if my photography skills are rudimentary at best.

We couldn’t believe how many elephants there were – hundreds!  All the other usual suspects were present: giraffe (much darker than those I saw on my last trip), zebra, ostriches, big vultures, buffalo, water buck, various antelope, mongoose, monkeys, baboons.  We finally saw a couple of lions nearing the end of the afternoon.  It was more than fun to be two guys from NZ just driving abound a huge national park in an ageing 4WD in amongst so many animals & tourists on proper expensive safari trips. Enough talking, the photos are better (more and better versions are here).

Apparently a large herd of elephants came to pay our tent a lot of attention after we drove off.

AD tried to take promotional photos, I minded the barbecue – sort of

Thankfully more large steaks didn’t attract the lion(s) we heard a little distance from camp

So many large baobab trees

Up & decamped early, there was enough time to marvel at plenty more elephants before returning to Arusha. I hastily packed, said my goodbyes and started what turned out to be a thirty hour trip home (that’s almost as bad as returning from NZ). It turns out carrying a Thermarest Neoair in your hand luggage is great for napping on boring airport (Nairobi) floors. Arriving home Sunday afternoon to the order of England, not too tired considering, it was hard to believe just the morning before I was out camping in a fantastic African park and seeing so much extraordinary wildlife.  Thanks AD & Carm for an excellent African break.

combe raiders, friends, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

Hound Tor return – in the sun

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John kindly proposing a big Combe Raiders ride was enough to get me to Somerset for what was otherwise a free weekend – I still need to get longer rides under the belt before the end of the month, while looking after my knees. With just three of us signed up for whatever ride it was going to be, it was going to be faster (fewer stops) than other CR rides.  With an all day pass from home, John was keen to head back to Dartmoor and ride a route I led eight of us on back in March – last time the weather was atrocious, so I could see some of the point in going back in nice weather at the tail end of summer.

After dropping into the bottom of the valley, there’s a big climb to get the legs & blood pumping.  It wasn’t long before I was wondering how I survived on a singlespeed last time – the larger group & cooler weather probably helped.  Dartmoor has a bit of a reputation for quickly turning into desolate isolation if the weather turns, so it was odd to see it on such a lovely day.  Oddly, within an hour of each other two of the three of us riding tubeless tyres got punctures that didn’t seal – I put a tube in, John just kept pumping his tyre up rather often.

We had to ride through a herd of these guys, thankfully they didn’t object

Grimspound

We eventually arrived at Hound Tor, which is a much bigger & impressive pile of rocks than the photos below show.  The Hound of the Basket Meals food van was back in the car park – this time we had more than tea.  One cheeseburger just served to remind me that I was actually hungry – so much to the others’ later envy, I had a second.


John & Hound Tor – after we avoided the man running after an escaped kite

Before long we were back at the van & with John phoning home to see if we might have another hour or so out & getting an affirmative – we tacked on a bit more trail that I’d loaded on to my GPS.  With a fair bit more climbing, a nice flowing bit of woodland trail and then an unexpectedly long hike-a-bike to more good views – this was the highlight of the day’s riding for me.

Just nice countryside

bikes, event, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

MTB Marathon again – Crickhowell – Brecon Beacons

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With a not too unpleasant illness from, I think, a dirty Camelbak tube earlier in the week, I was just aiming to finish another 75 km event (this time in the rather hilly Brecon Beacons, South Wales) without coughing up too many pieces of lung.  After the four hour drive I was just in time to put up the tent in the event village and settle in for the night with a good book before a huge thunder storm rolled through.

Excessive amounts of rain in the early morning also slid away over the horizon and the event started with the threat of showers.  This round of the series (there are four, I did the middle two) was supposed to be longer & with more climbing than the previous one I did.  But I expected it to be somewhat easier as I had a new bike, many more gears and, most importantly, it wasn’t 30ºC with the sun beating down.

To get out of the village up the valleys there was too much road for my liking, but eventually we got off road and there was a steep, rocky climb – my valiant (or so I’m saying) attempt to get up it was thwarted by too many people in front of me walking.  Eventually the course opened up and all of a sudden twenty kilometres were gone and I was at the first of the legendary feed stations (so much home-baking & other goodies, I probably spent too long at these just eating).  More climbing, this time on gravel, and then the course split and the lesser distances were away and it was blissful solitude on the trails.

The next climb was long, very technical and just kept going.  In the perfect riding weather (mostly sun, a breeze, 20ºC and an occasional bit of drizzle), this was a very pretty climb up a long valley.  Of the 8.5 km, I managed it all apart from a few metres choosing the wrong line through the rocks.  Near the start of the climb a large dam loomed large above us, I was surprised when we kept going past it.  Over 300 metres ascending, there was a wild descent (20+ % in places) on which I found my forks had too much air in them – never mind, I survived.  I also stopped briefly for some photos as it was rather pleasant.

Back in the valley, it flattened out a little going down to another feed station – conveniently at the bottom of what turned out to be the biggest, hardest hill I’ve been up in ages.  Good training for the RVO hopefully.  The bottom was super steep & rocky, but as we rode through the stone wall (it was gated, my bike is not magic – well, no more magic than bikes are in general) it was the beginning of an interminable granny ring grind on grass.  Good fun slowly hauling others in – the tail wind as we traversed helped.  Time for a couple more photos before traversing into the massive head wind on the other side of the hill – never that much fun having to work downhill.

It was pretty much all downhill from there, so pleased to get back just over five hours (including all the food stops – yum, Welsh cakes).  Once again, it was disappointing that the distance & elevation gain was somewhat less than expected.  But a great day out & a very enjoyable ride in another national park previously unvisited by me.

around home, bikepacking, bikes, MTB, national park, UK

A small local adventure

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Rather amusingly, parts of England – including where I live – are in the grip of an official heatwave (Level 3!).  The weather has been extremely settled & good recently, but it is amusing that there have to be nationwide alerts if summer actually turns up properly on consecutive days as no-one seems to know what to do (the last heatwave was in 2006).  Level 4 is apparently a national emergency, so I look forward to seeing what state of panic ensues if that happens.

With sleeping inside being a little difficult (at least it’s not humid) I thought last night was a perfect opportunity to try out a few of the bike-packing items I’ve bought recently.  That is – a Thermarest Neoair inflatable mattress that provides a lot of mattress considering how tiny it packs down, an Alpkit bivy bag and a very cheap & lightweight sleeping bag.

So with my sleeping bag strapped to the handlebars of my singlespeed & everything else loaded into my Camelbak (better & more permanent carrying solutions will appear after new bike is collected), I headed out into a very pleasant evening to scout around the forest for a suitable bivy site for the night.  It was very nice riding in the cool of the evening & there were few people around (it’s nice to see someone riding an identical bike to one which you had ten years ago)  – but I didn’t want to get too far from home as the following morning I had to ride home, shower, make lunch, breakfast & then ride to work before seven o’clock.

On my well worn route to the centre of the forest, I found a few potential sites & eventually settled in a small clearing in some woods well off the beaten path.  It’s a simple arrangement to set up – ground sheet, mattress then sleeping bag inside bivy bag on top of all that – so I wasn’t expecting many problems & there weren’t any.  It has been sometime since I’ve slept under the stars, so it was nice to watch the night take over from dusk as I lay staring at the sky.  Shortly after, a herd of horses walked through seemingly crashing through the undergrowth (I bet they weren’t, but it was so quiet it sure sounded like that), grabbing a supper of grass noisily as they went.  I was a little nervous that they’d be so startled by my presence that I’d some how get trodden on, but it wasn’t quite as bad as coming out of a tent in Nakuru National Park & discovering a herd of giant water buffalo staring at you.  A frog visited me too – that was odd as I was nowhere near any water, I thought.

Anyway, the rest of the night was uneventful – but it was still a bit warm, so sleep was fitful.  Eventually the alarm went at five and I got up, decamped, watched a herd of deer close by and rode home – somehow I got to work even earlier than normal.  So a successful little outing trying the gear & adding a small amount of adventure to my normally quiet week.  It’s nice to know the forest is so convenient for more than just riding – it’ll be easy to head out to safe surroundings to test more overnight gear in the future.