Category Archives: travel

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.

Africa, bikes, Canada, city, event, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK, USA

2013 – a lot more biking than the previous year

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After reading last year’s Christmas letter, I can see just how different 2013 has ended up being.  The main driver for that is that my shoulder is completely normal after last year’s surgery & rehab (so much so that when people occasionally ask after it, I’m always slightly taken aback).  That has meant that excessive travelling fell by the wayside as I spent much time biking.  Before much biking, there was last winter to get through – I escaped to Egypt for sun at Christmas last; Christmas morning at the pyramids was certainly unusual. A country still in a state of upheaval & flux, it was a fascinating trip.

I moved into a new role at work about a year ago, which meant quite a few months of learning plenty while still trying to tidy up things in my previous position.  Along with my car comprehensively failing its annual inspection & many problems with the replacement, what turned out to be some of the best concentrated biking I’ve had was a welcome change.

After a couple of days having a look around Chicago, I met Megan, Alex & their son, Finn, in Utah.  We went to mountain-bike mecca Moab and did little except camp, ride bikes (a lot) and eat. As on my last visit, the scenery was stunning and the riding exceptional. STOP PRESS – Megan has just made a rather fun video that makes me yearn for sun, rocky trails, & great riding – much more interesting than me prattling on about Moab.

The summer was bookended by two big trips biking – Moab being the first.  That meant that I travelled very little during the summer – but that worked out well as we actually had a cracking summer of weather in the UK & the riding was plentiful.  Preparing for a three-day stage race in September I entered a number of longer-distance events around the south-west UK & Wales.  This being about the only photo of I have me “racing” – on a strangely scorching Shropshire day:

The other bookend event for the summer was the three-day Rift Valley Odyssey in Kenya.  Partly an excuse to get back to Africa & visit Adrian and partly a nice big riding adventure to train for & achieve, I was pleased to return to Africa – it’s a fascinating place after all.  The summer of preparation did me well & the only real difficulty in the 5500 metres of climbing over three days and 260 kilometres was a bit of digestive trouble at the top of a huge, hot & humid climb halfway through Day Two – not sure if it was the heat, too much food or the anti-malarial tablets; anyway, I survived the remainder of the day on next to no food and recovered enough that the last day (eighty-odd kilometres) was easy.

I was too busy riding to get many photos, but I quite like these two taken while riding along:

The second week of the trip was spent in Tanzania with Adrian, Carmen & their two children.  As they’d only just moved there, it was a relaxed week as they settled in a bit more and I recovered from the big bike ride.  Adrian & I did grab the chance for an overnight trip to a relatively close national park – there were many more elephants around than I saw on my last safari four years ago; an excellent end to another fantastic trip visiting Adrian & Carm.

Many months before, it seemed a good idea to book a trip to New England in the fall – after a particularly busy return to work, it wasn’t seeming so smart.  Nonetheless, I was pretty sure that I’d enjoy a short road trip around the north-east of North America.  With little biking, beautiful autumnal colours, nice cities (Montreal & Boston particular favourites) and absolutely fabulous food it turned out to be a very relaxing trip which was well worth it.  Although the photos don’t really compare to Utah and Africa – here’s one of Ottawa:

Shortly after my return from Canada, all medium-term plans got thrown to the wind as it was revealed that the plant where I work would close next year.  It was a sudden, but not altogether surprising announcement; things are becoming clearer now & I’m looking forward to a 2014 that will be very different to what I was expecting.  As far as I can tell, I’ll have work for about half the year – during which I will frantically save & prepare for extensive time biking in places yet to be decided.  Mum, & probably Adele, plan on visiting for a cousin’s wedding in May – so I’m well looking forward to that.

Merry Christmas & may the new year be a great one for you.

roadtrip, travel, USA

Through New York to Niagara

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Time constraints dictated that I get back to Toronto in only two days, so the Friday was very boring driving much too far on I-90 (which I hadn’t been on since Montana, Wyoming & South Dakota two years ago).  The west of Massachusetts was much more heavily wooded & hilly than I was expecting.  Still, state highways would have been preferable.

I stayed with a very lovely almost-retired airbnb couple in northern Rochester for the night.  Just to stretch the legs I took the short walk down to Lake Ontario.  I wasn’t expecting to see deer roaming the suburbs.

There were still plenty of red trees around in the fading daylight

I got down to the lake & this storm rolled in, so I retreated back to the house & had a big Skype chat with Mum – which after a week of meeting strangers was nice.

Once again, I managed to get fed not just breakfast (a delicious [goes without saying] bacon & egg roll from a food-van decades in business at the local Farmers Market), but dinner too from my hosts.  But hoping to get to Toronto mid-afternoon via the Falls, I left pretty early & took the gentle drive around the lake to Niagara on a miserable-weather morning.

I managed to view the Falls pretty well from both the American & Canadian side – you definitely get the best wide-angle view from Ontario.  On this particular day, the American side was good for feeling the Falls blowing in your face.  Not much to say really as they’re so well know – there’s a lot of water falling a fair way & it’s all very spectacular.  I opted out of the Maid of the Mist boat trip for time reasons, plus I was getting plenty wet standing above plummeting water.

Looking down at all those that are about to get soaked through their matching ponchos.

The sideshow American & Bridal Veil Falls.

I swapped photos with a couple of other tourists – it’s a rubbish one of the falls & only slightly better of me. But oh well, I was there.

The Horseshoe Falls

Watching a fair current of water plummet into much peril.

There I am again – perhaps I’m trying to smile, it’s a little hard to tell.

The drive to Toronto started out in dire conditions & was much shorter than I thought.  By the time I arrived the sun was out & I was back where I had been nine days before picking up Jane.  What a completely enjoyable trip, I do so enjoy travelling in North America; although after the last two big trips (Moab & Kenya) had been MTBing focused, it was a little odd to have a less strenuous trip.  At least I managed a fair bit of city-biking & walking – that helped to counter all the fantastic food, I suppose.

One last dinner out, this time in the old Distillery district – which Cat was keen to visit for the first time & with the largest collection of Victorian industrial buildings in North America, I was hardly about to say no.  There was too much choice as far as cafes & restaurants went; we briefly contemplating skipping dinner altogether and just camping in the divinely smelling chocolate shop.  But we did find a very good brew-pub & an even-better-than-the-last pumpkin ale. I dropped Cat off at work and packed before spending a sleepless night lying on the lounge floor (I was determined to not have carried my sleeping bag & thermarest all the way for no reason) listening to the traffic outside.

I snuck out at awful o’clock, returned the car & started the trip home – crossing pretty much the last thing off my food-to-eat-once-for-old-times’-sake list by grabbing some timbits for the flight home.  They proved invaluable when I discovered them in my hand-luggage before setting off on the nasty storm strewn drive home from Heathrow.