Ying and I joined Peter and Angelique for a 3-day walk across the north of England along the Hadrian’s Wall.
We picked the best 3 days, not starting directly at Newcastle, but heading by train to Hexham, and walking from there, west, towards Carlisle. The walking is lovely, although the abundance of sheep mean that you need to keep on eye where you walk!
Ying, myself, Dan and Amy spent a lovely weekend canoeing down the river Wye, which is on the border between England and Wales. Below is a map of our route with photos taken.
Martin and I took advantage of a January weekend to spend two days in Shropshire, near the Long Mynd. We had very un-British sunny crisp weather, albeit very cold. On Saturday morning we met in North London and drove the 140 miles to Wenlock Edge, a low escarpment south of Shrewsbury.
Wenlock Edge is an escarpment running north-south from The Wrekin and cuts across some lovely countryside. We headed across-country on our walking route, following a map and using my GPS.
I spent a lovely New Year’s holiday in Ireland with my family and extended family. We stayed in the house I bought two years ago with my father, and ate breakfast everyday looking out over the sea to Scotland.
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I joined Charles Garnsworthy and Reiko Koyama for a winter stroll through the Chiltern Hills north-west of London. We started at Saunderton train station, and headed north along the Ridgeway path. This path follows an escarpment of hills which was used in pre-historic times as an early migration and tranport route. At that time most of England was covered in dense forest and this higher ground would have provided the easiest and clearest route from east to west.
The three of us stopped in at Bledlow and visited its Holy Trinity Church where we given mince pies and a detailed tour of its interior.
At the Lions pub we had a hot meal and continued on our way, enjoying more mince pies courtesy of Charles.
Even though the paths were muddy, the sky was mostly clear, with some wonderful vistas of blue sky with the lows rays of the sun lighting up the trees.
When I planned my series of walks and hikes for this year, I didn’t realize that Armenia would attract the most number of participants. I believed that a few people would ask about the trip, but due to the distance and obscurity of the country, nobody would actually come.
As it turned out, there were five of us. Isobel Tanaka and Yumiko Ichikawa was joined by Renald Gregoire, all current members from Tokyo. At the last minute, former IAC member Allan Miles took time out from his cycle tour of France, Spain and Portugal to fly to Istanbul and travel overland through Georgia to Armenia to join us.
I don’t think anyone quite knew what to expect. Modern Armenia suffers from extreme obscurity to say the least. Although it was once a large kingdom that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Caspian and Black Sea, and was an important element in the formation of much of European architecture and language, it was nearly obliterated at the beginning of this century during the Genocide, and then became a part of the Soviet Union until independence 14 years ago. While Armenia is famous throughout the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, most westerners couldn’t point to it on a map. Furthermore, it suffered a devastating earthquake in 1988, a terrible war in the early 90s with neighbour Azerbaijan, and a crippling ‘brain drain’ since independence mostly to Russia and the West.
Jump!
When I look at a map of Iceland it looks to me like a map of a fictional country, like the maps in The Lord of the Rings or other fantastical tales. The towns are small and seemed to be lost in the remote corners of the countryside, next to the dark andgrowling sea. Great volcanoes like Hekla and Snaefells control the land except for where the glaciers obliterate everything. The great Vatnajokull glacier with its tongues of ice covers are large portion of the south-east of the country, a vast expanse of white except where nunataks (mountain peaks) appear like desert islands.
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My original summer plans included a 6 week trek along the Pyrenees, the chain of mountains that separate France from Spain. I decided to cancel this trip so I could progress with the research work for my walking tours business, but I decided to do a one week walk along the highest part of the mountains, and have just completed this.
The other night, after I had arrived back from one month drive around France, I was invited to dinner in Normandy at a friend’s house. Amongst the guests were four people who spoke Japanese and none of them were were from Japan.
There was a couple from Canada, one man from Holland, and myself, in addition to the French hosts, my mother, and another French woman who was a friend of the hosts.
Suddenly, in the garden of a house in Normandy the talk turned to Japan. The couple had lived in Japan for 30 years.
When they wanted to say something to each other which they did not want others to understand, they said it in Japanese. All through dinner the French and English conversation was peppered with ‘naruhodo-ne’ and ‘ongaku wa chotto urusai desu ne’.
Hilltop village
I am currently in the south-west of France. I wrote the following email about my trip to Ireland last month earlier but had no time to send it. Finally I have a internet connection for my laptop, so I am sending it now.
Just days after coming back from Greece, and with a dark suntan, I headed to Belfast from Paris. As I arrived we descended through grey clouds to land on a rain-soaked runway. The airplane crew huddled inside as the passengers walked down the steps and across the runway in the wind and the rain.
I met my father in the airport, who had flown from London, and we rented a car and drove to the Ards Peninsula, which lies to the south of Belfast on the Irish Sea. The small village of Ballywalter is where my father grew up, and my grandmother lived all her life. I spent my childhood coming up here several times a year, and it is a magical place for me. The sandy beach goes way out when the tide is out, and on a clear day you can see the coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man. Small outcroppings of rocks appear up and down the beach where my father, grandfather and I used to search for crabs.
Now my aunt Mandy lives in my grandmother’s house with her husband Graham, and my uncle Karl lives two houses away. My father and I bought the house in between two years ago, so we stayed there. It was my first time to visit the house since buying it, as I was in Japan when the purchase went through. It’s a 4 bedroom house, with a large lawn leading down to the beach. The views from the house out to sea are wonderful, and I was so tempted to look for a job and stay there.
