I flew from London to Lyon, only Diego didn’t make the flight. He ended up flying to Geneva, so I drove the rental car from Lyon and met him there. Luckily this gave me time to go and visit Chris, Junko, and the twins…

Chris, Diego, and I were together the next day, staying in the very friendly Gite l’Aventure in the small village of Pisancon. Our host, Fabien, cooked wonderful meals each evening, and, helped by Angele. We were not alone in the gite; there was a very lively group of sixty-something friends, who took to singing loud soungs each evening over dinner.

The weather was tricky. We had rain near the gite, but heavy snow at higher altitude.

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.

There was a lot of snow on the ground, from a snowstorm that had blanketed the UK a few days before, including London. It was slow going as we climbed, but we eventually made it to a wide ridge with great views through the low clouds over to Tryfan.

Surprisingly for a November weekend, it was sunny on Sunday morning, and we take an easy route that started right at the hostel, and up to a series of low hills and wet, boggy ground. The route took as higher, over Crimpau, Craig Wen, and up to the ridge of Craigiau Gleision. The views were the best I have seen in Snowdonia, and there was a perfect panorama of mountains against a blue sky.

On Monday we drove to Pen-y-pas, the most popular place to start the ascent of Snowdon and the infamous Crib Goch. I’ve done this before, but I must admit found it very unnerving. This time we had only a few hours before we had to return to London, so we started on the Miner’s track, which runs from Pen-y-pass to Llyn Llydaw and then on to Snowdon. At the lake, we started uphill, and got the to top of Craig Llyn Teyrn, at the end of the Horns, and had a wonderful view down the valley to Llanberis.

Photos on Flickr

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…

As we glided along the canals, it was like a different world from the busy streets with the tourists. The canals were so quiet, except when we came up to a footbridge busy with people. We became one of the attractions; people looked at us in initial puzzlement, then happily took our photos.

The gondoliers seemed somewhat bemused, and were quite happy to share the canals with us. Our small boat is more a cross between a kayak and a canoe than a true kayak, as it is not covered on top. This means it is vulnerable to waves and crossing the grand canal with its fast traffic was a little nerve wracking.
We spent a full day on the water, which this being a lagoon, is salty. When we were tired we stopped by one of the piazzas and lifted the kayak out of the water. We had a strong coffee and pastries, and then got back into the boat.

Here is a track of our day on the water from Google Earth.

Venice kayaking GPX track

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.

At Söderbärke jetty

Each night we found a camp site; all basic but very well placed camping spots right next to the lake. So all we had to do was pull the boat out of the water, and take out the gear. They had shelters, plus places to build fires, and sometimes even toilets.

On our last day, as we dismantled the kayak at Angelberg.

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!

At the end of Day 1, near Once Brewed

The sun comes out!

A break for lunch

Day 2 begins

A friendly cat

Me at the end of Day 1

The scenery near Carlisle is less dramatic but still beautiful

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.

We stayed at the small youth hostel in the village of Ratlinghope, which in the winter is only open on weekends. It was suitably cold, and most of the guests, who were all hardy walkers, huddled near to the fire. Martin and I luckily had a dorm room to ourselves so no snorers to worry about!

The next day we drove to the town of Church Stretton, and started out on a lovely hike to the top of Caer Caradoc, which was formed of volcanic rock, but was not actually a volcano. (Caer comes from Welsh and means fortication.) There was a light dusting of frost on the top and the wind was very cold, but the 360 degree view was worth it, all the way east to Birmingham and west over the Long Mynd.

We descended off Caer Caradoc, and climbed up on to Hope Bowder Hill, and then down to the south-east of Church Stretton. It was a lovely walk and by this time Martin had decided that he would be quite happy to live in Shropshire.

Here are two links to the walking pages on walkingbritain.co.uk, which provide good walking directions for these, and other walks in Shropshire and the UK.

Wenlock Edge page at walkingbritain.co.uk and Caer Caradoc and Hope Bowder Hill page at walkingbritain.co.uk.

Here is my GPS track of both walks, in Mapsource GDB and GPX formats.

Shropshire January 2005.gdb Mapsource file
Shropshire January 2005.gpx GPS file

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

We started out from Great Missenden station, which is on the rail line from Marylebone Station in London, and followed a series of public paths through the rolling hills east to the neighbouring town of Amersham. To find the route, we used a guide of country walks around London.

Being early April, the ground was quite muddy in places, and had been churned up quite a lot by horses on many of the public paths. By 2.30 we arrived at Amersham. It’s a prosperous town where probably the entire population works in London, although it feels very much like the country. The guidebook pointed us to a teashop where could get a pot of tea, and a cake. The tea shop no longer existed (the book is about 6 or 7 years old), but across the street was a cafe, serving lattes and cappucinos. It struck me how much London had changed. Ten years ago it would have been a polite tea shop but now it was a trendy cafe with Australian cookies, Italian smoked ham, lattes and the like. You could see that everyone in this town was well off; there were no ordinary shops, just a travel agent selling overseas tours and a place selling up-scale kitchens, but not butchers or bakers.

GPS tracks of the walks:
Mapsource GDB file
GPX file

In the evening back at the lodge, Kanako and Yukiko made themselves comfortable…

The next day we did a long snowshoe hike, right up towards Gassan. The weather was brilliant, and the snow very white, so Renald and I got quite a tan.

To see all the photos, use this link:
http://www.malcomson.com/gallery/yamagatamar2005

GPS tracks of the hikes can be downloaded from here:
Gassan snowshoe GPX file
Gassan snowshoe Mapsource GDB file