Points on the map

At the beginning of November Martin and I drove to Capel Curig in North Wales to get in a good weekend of hiking. We stayed at Capel Curig Youth Hostel and on our first day hiked up Y Foel Goch just to the east of Tryfan.

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We spent a great long weekend in Venice, and the highlight was bringing our folding Puffin II Pakboat with us.

Before we went I looked at whether it was possible to kayak in Venice, and the websites I looked at suggested it was. The owner of our small hotel said it was not problem, but that we should be careful not to touch the gondalas, which cost more than 50,000 Euros. So, we put together our boat and took to the canals…

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Ying and I spent 4 days kayaking the central lakes of Sweden this August. We were in the Dalarna province, about 3 hours west of Stockholm. We brought our folding Pakboat kayak from London on the plane, and then took a train to the small town of Smedjebacken, from where we paddled south.

Our campsite on Day 3

Our boat was full of stuff; camping gear, clothing and food, but it was great paddling on placid waters, with only a little rain on day 1.

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Ying and I joined Peter and Angelique for a 3-day walk across the north of England along the Hadrian’s Wall.

Flickr link
Flickr map

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!

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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.

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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.

Mapsource GPS file
GPX file

Today’s Chilterns walk with my father Bill was a baptism of mud. My new boots got covered in the stuff. The early April day north-west of London was mostly sunny, but quite cold and windy. It was warm out of the wind, but when we came to an exposed section of the path, the howling wind made it feel very cold.

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Our weekend in Yamagata was a great success. Kanako, Yukiko, Isabelle, Arika and Renald joined me for 3 days of snowshoeing. We drove up on Friday night, arriving just before 2 am. Okuyama-san roused us early next morning for hot breakfast, and we then set off for our first snowshoe adventure.
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I took Bill and four friends to Yatsugatake for snowshoeing during his visit.

We stayed at the “Owl” lodge, “Fukuro-no-yado”、and spent two days snowshoeing up high on the top of Yatsugatake.
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