The next week, we took on a more ambitious walk: The Macedon Ranges Walking Trail, which is a 20km path taking in all the highlights of Macedon Ranges park, including three peaks, Mt Macedon, the Camel’s Hump and Mt Towrong.

The walk started from the township of Mt Macedon (not to be mistaken with the township of Macedon), where our instructions were to leave our car outside the Mountain Inn, now sadly closed.  It did look like it was undergoing renovations, so hopefully there will be a place to pop into post walk.  After a short walk along the road, admiring the large houses with rather English gardens (oaks and bluebells!), we entered the park itself and started climbing, quite steeply, almost straight up to the top.  Many people were coming down while we were going up, so there were plenty of opportunities to rest as we stepped aside to let them past on the “one person at a time only” path.  The side of the hill was fairly well covered in spindly snow gums, the hill being just high enough (1,000m) for them to flourish.  There were also plenty of very prehistoric-looking ferns in amongst all the gums and, rather surprisingly, lots of bright blue forget-me-nots.  I think they’re an invader, but at least they don’t smell as terrible as lantana!

At the top, we joined up with a paved path to the memorial cross that marks the top of Mt Macedon.  Near here there is a car park and a tea room as the road actually goes all the way to the summit, so it was kind of strange to emerge huffing and puffing with our back packs to find people in brogues or high heels walking about.  Probably they thought we were a bit strange too.

At the cross, it started to drizzle.  Supposedly, one gets a view all the way to Port Philip Bay and Melbourne from the cross but we were not to be favoured with such delights.  We pretended to admire the view for a bit and then continued on our walk, stopping into another lookout about 500m from the cross, where we saw a flame robin and learned from a plaque that Mt Macedon, the ranges and some of the area was named for Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father and in my version of Ancient History a much more impressive character than Al) by Matthew Flinders.  I mean, I should have realised but it nevertheless came as a surprise.

Once past the tea room, we returned to spindly gum forests, where the walk took us past a few signs to picnic grounds and then through a large one, with barbecue spots.  Noted: place to take visitors!  From here, we descended ever so slightly to then climb to the highest point of the walk: The Camel’s Hump.  We passed through another carpark, before turning onto a steep gravelled path heading straight up.  Shortly before the summit there was a sign: to the left – Dangerous Cliff Edge; straight ahead: Summit Viewing Platform.  Now, I would have blithely kept on straight ahead had it not been for that sign, so we set off left to explore the Dangerous Cliff Edge.

A short stroll brought us to some big rocks messily lumped together and a view towards farmland and Hanging Rock.  The rocks in the Macedon Ranges are of the same stuff as Hanging Rock (formed by volcanic action a really, really long time ago).  We’ll get to Hanging Rock one of these days, maybe even have a picnic there.  I promise not to disappear.

Our bellies suggested this might be a perfect place for lunch, so we found a comfortable rock.  The sun stayed out but, oddly, it started to hail.  Teeny tiny hail stones pinged off the rocks and our lunch.  It quickly passed (that is, before we’d even finished our sandwiches).

From the Camel's Hump.

Snow Gums on the Camel's Hump.

Shortly after lunch, we had a minor mishap.  I announced that I was going to explore, “over that way,” which Nic mistook as a euphemism for something else.  When I returned from my exploration, Nic was nowhere in sight and I called his name a few times but got no answer.  Allegedly, he did answer but I just didn’t hear him.  I then struck off back to the main path, thinking he’d headed off to the summit viewing platform, while he watched me disappear up the path in the distance, ignoring his responses.  When I got to the summit, Nic wasn’t there so I turned around and headed back to our lunch spot.  Thankfully, Nic was just then walking to the summit himself.

From the Camel’s Hump, we retraced our steps down the steep hill towards Sanatorium Lake.  Amusingly, right after Nic announced, “This path is very well signposted,” we spent a few frustrating minutes trying to find where the path restarted after we’d been ejected into another large, lovely barbecue spot.  Sanatorium Lake was tiny.  We circled it, as the walk notes suggested we should.  Nic made some of his well-loved reflection photos and we continued on towards the Zig-Zag path which was true to its name but not as exciting as I had hoped.  It was only a series of hairpin turns and the path was wide enough for a car, and obviously used by trail bikers and horse-riders (signs told us so and the same signs told us the path was closed.  I don’t think it meant for walkers.)

Reflections of snow gums in Sanatorium Lake.

Our final hill for the day was Mt Towrong, which Nic, to deflect any hopes I might have of a view informed me was on an entirely wooded hill.  There wasn’t much of a climb to it as the walk had been mostly downhill after the Camel’s Hump.  Shortly before Mt Towrong, however, we spotted this weird creature:

Bright Yellow Worm, Possibly a turbellarian. I'm sure this colour isn't good for long term survival.

The summit was a rock cairn, indeed surrounded by view-blocking trees.  But the descent was wonderful: it was steep, exposed and had great views down to Mt Macedon township and across the valley to the memorial cross, marking where we had walked from.  I always love seeing how far I’ve walked.

But best of all, as last week, we caught sight of an echidna on the steep side of Mt Towrong, busily hunting out ants.  They’re usually such elusive creatures, it was a real treat to see another up close.

Echidna does "Salute the Sun".

After that, it was a fairly boring walk along the road, back to our car.  We passed some more grand houses and rather a lot of “For Sale” signs, leaving me to muse about how I would go with the commute into Melbourne if we lived out here…  I mean, it’s only an hour and a half by car.  And there’s even a train. Imagine all the books I could read on the commute!

Now we’ve settled into our flat in Melbourne, collected the boxes that were not destroyed by the floods from my parents’ garage, married our Brisbane stuff with our UK stuff, and have furniture and the other accoutrements of a non-bicycle-touring life, we’ve started adventuring outside Melbourne’s city limits to take walking trips.  It helps that we have a car (came with my new job!)

We’re still a little ambivalent about what we do with this blog.  But maybe you’ll enjoy reading about our adventures in Australia?

Our first bushwalk was on Grand Final weekend at a park remarkably near our home: Organ Pipes National Park.  It was tiny and there wasn’t much by way of walking to be had, but it was just nice to be out, among the gum trees.  We’ve not touched the camera much since getting back and, although we planned to take a camera with us, somehow managed to leave it on the dining table at home.  There were plenty of lovely blue Superb Fairy Wrens, which would have been extremely difficult to make a photo of, so I’m glad we couldn’t even try.

Our next bushwalk was in Brisbane Ranges National Park, following the Boar Gully circuit.  After a short drive on the freeway and then a longer drive on some gravel roads, we reached Boar Gully campsite, where we parked the car and took note: it will make a pleasant weekend camp sometime.  A guidebook – Daywalks Victoria by John Chapman and others – provided us with map and walk notes.

It’s rather strange to walk without wonderful 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey maps, marking the location of every rock cairn and post box.  But I guess Australia is much, much bigger than the UK.  I plan to commission the OS folks to map bits of Australia that I want to walk, just as soon as I’m a millionaire.

In the more popular parks, Australian walking paths are fairly easy to spot and often well-marked.  We followed the walk notes without too much difficulty, and our walk mostly followed what seemed to be a fire-break trail, criss-crossing wider park management routes.  The walk was fairly level except for one steep descent down to the gully and then back up the other side again.

We chose this walk mostly because it was reputed to have lots of lovely wildflowers and we spotted quite a few orchids and lilies, as well as some daisy-like flowers and lots and lots of gorse-like flowers (called bush pea flowers, usually, telling you what their shape is like). There were also heaps of grass trees, probably more than I’ve seen anywhere, except for out west past Mitchell way.

White Finger Orchid

Punk!

It’s interesting being back in the colours of Australian bush – that dull grey-green – and things like yellow, blue and pink flowers really jumped out.

We also spotted lots of little birds, which might have been pardalotes.  This time, we had our camera and I took plenty of flower photos.  Pardalotes (if that’s what they were) are tiny birds, about the size of a thumb.  Accordingly, they move ridiculously fast and they never stay in one spot for more than a second.  I don’t think I even managed to have the camera out any time we spotted one.

Lastly, and most wonderfully, we spotted an echidna.  We happened to be downwind of him (or her?) when we saw him snuffling in the undergrowth and got to watch for a while as he busied himself with finding ants.

"I'm going on an ant hunt..."

"I'm gonna get some big ones..."

It’s funny to think on now but Kinabalu was only my second overseas trip. My first trip was to Viet Nam and, in some ways, “didn’t count” because it was with my sisters and my parents, because we were staying in 4/5 star hotels (except when we stayed with family and, oh!, the contrast). It was to a culture with which I was reasonably comfortable that I could navigate. Sabah, Malaysia, on the other hand, was what I would deem as my first, real, overseas trip.

When we landed – after transiting through Brunei’s Bandar Seri Begawan airport, strange but peaceful and spacious – I realised: I had not even bothered to learn the words for hello, goodbye, please and thank you. I’d never been to a country where I did not speak the language before – sure, in Viet Nam, I did not speak the language well, but I could communicate reasonably well even if the people I spoke to fell about in peals of laughter whenever sounds emerged or because I’d used an old-fashioned word, a slightly off-kilter way of saying something. But suddenly, in the humidity of Kota Kinabalu and as we checked into our hostel, I realised: I did not know how to say thank you. And throughout our few days in KK, I never learned because almost everyone spoke English beautifully.

The main purpose of our trip to Sabah was to climb Mount Kinabalu, South-East Asia’s highest peak (4,095 metres). We had one afternoon in KK before we were to be taken up to Mount Kinabalu National Park. Everything had been pre-arranged for us, including transfers, accommodation and meals. This was a strange thing, used as we were to organising ourselves, but it was deliberate and welcome: we’d spent the previous month organising our move from Australia to the UK, and this was a (capital “h”) Holiday.

A small 4WD took us, and only us, from the airport to the hostel, through streets reminiscent of Bangkok, but with more grit, less neon. There was a strong scent everywhere, that never went away the entire time we were there, of dirty oil, mixed in with the smell of wet foliage. It rained, and rained, and rained. But the rain was a welcome distraction from the heat and umbrellas were unnecessary and useless. We just got wet, and quickly dried off when the rain ceased and got wet again when the rain started again. Lots of men went about with hankerchiefs on their head as sole protection against the rain, or as a means of cooling off; I never could work out which.

Our hostel was on the outskirts of the town centre, down the end where there were lots of big bank buildings. It appeared, like many business districts, desolate on a weekend evening but when we saw it (a few days later) during a week day, it was buzzing with everyday working life. That evening, we wandered all around the town centre, looking for somewhere to eat dinner, and getting to grips with the town. We walked through obvious ethnic streets – the Indian quarter, the Chinese quarter, the Malay quarter – and marvelled at the variety and overall harmony of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious community. We found a market selling souvenirs and another market selling fruit. We crossed huge roads, using excellent pedestrian overpasses, and found ourselves meandering around a car park until we emerged on the other side to find clean, groomed and brightly lit Tourist Restaurants. This patch was full of white faces, laughing people and myriad languages. The tables and chairs were made of wood (elsewhere they were plastic) and the restaurants were your usual array of chains: McDonalds, Starbucks, an Irish pub and, for the first (but not last) time in my life, a Walkabout pub. The Walkabout pub brought me up short and I stared. Nic, more well-travelled than me, explained: they’re everywhere and serve hot chips in a billy tin. I laughed but we did not go in.

I think we chose one of the random restaurants along this stretch and had an okay, if somewhat overpriced, meal of seafood and rice. We would have returned to the plastic-decor restaurants except that they were all on the other side of that huge car park and wide road, and we were tired and hungry.

On our return walk to the hostel, we encountered a fair in another car park, and I ducked into a public toilet to be astounded that the attendant was about 10 years old. I handed over my 20 ringgit cents (i.e., practically nothing) while Nic loitered outside, taking in the neon. The streets were reasonably lively at night and we found another shopping market before stumbling back to the hostel and into bed.

The next morning we breakfasted in the hostel. It was a random breakfast of fruit, bread and jam and not our usual hearty muesli. Still, it was sufficient and we were collected at 9am by our tour guide – Kelvin – and a driver. I don’t remember Kelvin doing much tour guiding. He just sat in the car with us and answered questions when we asked them (What is that farm growing? Palm trees for palm oil. What is that strange smell? Durian. No, not the smell of durian. I know the smell of durian. What is *that smell*? Um, not sure. Palm oil?) We chatted and it was pleasant. During our ride, we stopped at a small market, at which I spotted tiny sugar bananas (my favourite!), so purchased a hand. We probably disappointed Kelvin and our driver by showing little interest in the knick-knacks and tourist tat, and mostly hanging around our vehicle, waiting until it departed again.

When we arrived at the national park headquarters – from where we were to start our walk the following day – there was chaos at reception. We were told something incomprehensible about electricity and rooms and unavailability and asked if we would be prepared to lodge elsewhere – a half hour drive away – at no cost to us. We did not give a straight answer because we did not quite understand what was being asked of us. They said things might resolve after lunch, so we went and had lunch and then a tour of the gardens. I think we were taken on the Silau Silau trail but I must say, I was terribly confused at this stage by what was happening, by being herded from one place to another, and by food that I had not ordered being brought out to me, and so cannot be sure what trail we were actually on.

It was raining torrents as we meandered around the national park, with a family with two young girls, slipping and sliding in the yellow mud, their father asking numerous questions of the guide. I don’t remember much from this walk except that, at the end of it, I realised our camera was drenched and had been sitting in the pool of water that gathered inside the bag. Camera = kaput. I was sad, but philosophical.

When we returned to the hotel reception, we agreed to move elsewhere as, whatever the problem was, it was still not resolved. We were put into a car and driven 30 minutes away, through glorious, dripping wet rainforest, and arrived at Mesilau Nature Resort. Mesilau was entirely different from Park Headquarters. For starters, there was absolutely no one except resort staff about. We followed a porter to our rooms but the porter was somewhat flabbergasted to find that we had no luggage – we’d stored our rucksacks at the hostel in KK and had only a small day pack each for our walk up Mt Kinabalu. We wended our way along a tree-lined path to a small bungalow and entered a heavily air-conditioned room. It was perfectly nice and clean. We were too close to the mountain to see it and there was too much rain. But we could certainly see something. And it was big.

At dinner, there were only a one or two other occupied tables in a restaurant built to take hundreds. There was a strange eeriness to the entire place, so quiet and so deserted. After dinner we meandered around the resort grounds for a bit, startling some birds but finding no other people. We returned to our little bungalow room and slept soundly.

The next morning, we returned to the restaurant for breakfast where I nervously awaited our ride back to Park Headquarters to start our walk. After a short ride, we arrived back at busy, crowded and confusing Park Headquarters. Before we could steel ourselves to enter the fray and work out what we had to do, a man emerged from the mess of people and walked straight up to us saying, “Mr Nicholas?” This was Petra, our guide. He explained that he had completed our registration and handed us our identification tags. Off we set, leaving behind the melee of people.

Petra spoke some English and we spoke no Malay, so we communicated only a little. We told him a bit of our past walking experience and he nodded. He calmly led the way along an initially quite wide path, past a waterfall and then steps and more steps up and up and up. Initially the steps were cut into ground in reasonably well spaced, wide planks but these soon degenerated to little more than worn tree roots and rocks. The path was pretty much entirely up, rather than the more usual up a bit, level out, down a bit, up a lot, level out etc of most mountain walks. Nevertheless we trudged on through rainforest and it really was raining. Nic and I pulled out our waterproofs and sweated inside them as we ascended. Petra pulled out an umbrella. I looked down at his feet and noted that he was wearing simple trainers without socks, while we had rugged ankle high hiking boots. He sauntered ahead of us, pausing to check that we were still with him, while we trudged along behind. Noting our discomfit inside our raincoats, Petra demonstrated how we could wear our raincoats with the hoods perched on our heads and the sleeves dangling, like a cape.

Every now and then, he would stop and gesture for us to step aside, which we obediently did. We watched as agile men and women carrying rucksack sized loads of tiles and other building materials climbed the same path with ease. Some would share a few words with Petra, some a longer conversation. Whenever that happened, Petra would gesture for us to keep on, which we did, and he soon caught up with us.

At our lunch stop, we paused where a large group of walkers lounged around on the simple shelters that dotted the path. None of this group seemed to have packs at all, while we were each carrying a small daypack. Room was made for us and we ate our pre-packed lunch of fried chicken wings, a sandwich and a banana. Petra chivvied us along and we departed from the group, having exchanged only brief pleasantries. They all seemed a lot more exhausted than us. Up ahead, I saw a porter labouring under a multitude of brightly coloured packs bound together with fraying rope. He was the only porter whom we passed; all the others passed us.

At one rest stop, a little red squirrel-like creature darted around us and I asked Petra what it was. After giving me a quick glance to see, perhaps, if I was joking, he replied “a rat,” to which I laughed. Later, he pointed out pitcher plants to us, miming that these ate insects and spiders. This I knew already but was delighted to see them in their natural habitat. I, later, pointed out a huge one to Petra and he nodded with pleasure.

Pitcher Plant, taken at Kinabalu by Cain Doherty.

In the afternoon, as we got higher, I struggled much more with the thinning air and we stopped more frequently to rest. As I felt the onslaught of a headache, I took out some paracetamol tablets and swallowed them without water. Petra gestured to ask me what I had taken and I explained I had a headache. He gave me a worried look and offered me chocolate. I declined his but remembered my own and pulled that out to eat, offering him some in return, which he in turn declined. It was a strange little game we played. As we got closer to Laban Rata hut, our accommodation for the evening, Petra encouraged me with, “Not far, not far; chocolate, chocolate,” and I took a few deep, painful breaths and carried on. Laban Rata hut is at 3,270 metres and the air is thin.

Laban Rata hut by ynwa2005.

A few smaller groups passed us as we neared Laban Rata. When we arrived, there were only about 4 or 5 other people there and we drooped, exhausted, onto simple chairs in the dining room. Petra went off to check us in and then took us up to our own private room and told us that he would brief us at 7pm about the walk to the summit. He then disappeared for the rest of the evening, although we saw him laughing and smoking with porters during our postprandial stroll around the grounds of the hut. Over the course of the evening, other groups arrived and the hut filled up. We had dinner of mediocre burger and chips and, after the aforementioned stroll, went quickly to our room, which we were delighted to discover was an en-suite.  Petra didn’t appear for our 7pm briefing, but we were oddly unconcerned, and resolved to rise at 2am, our pre-arranged time to depart for the summit.

Others in the hut shared a bathroom which was, unfortunately, on the other side of our wall. Behind the other wall, was the men’s dormitory and all night, our sleep was disturbed by their comings and goings. At one stage, in the deep of night, someone banged loudly on our door, shouting something. I got out of bed to answer it, angry – very angry – at the disturbance. When I opened the door, I saw a man disappear into the dormitory next door and realised he’d mistaken our door for his. I was terribly tempted to go bang on his door and demand an apology but instead fumed my way back to bed, where I slept surprisingly solidly until woken by Nic at 2am. We dressed warmly and went downstairs to find Petra, who had fallen asleep and missed the briefing, waiting for us.  He apologised profusely and, after a quick meal, we all set off into the cold night air.

Once again, our gear was over the top in comparison to Petra’s. We each had Kathmandu fleeces and Mountain Design mountaineering gloves. My gloves’ palm, thumb and finger pads had large plastic grip sheets, which looked like a gorilla’s palm. They were technical, ice-climbing gloves and definitely overkill but were the only small sized waterproof gloves in the outdoor store in Brisbane. Petra wore a cotton hoody and some ratty woollen gloves. I held my gorilla mitts up for him to look at and we both laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I kept them on, however, because it was cold. We did all, however, have headtorches, shining like miner’s lamps from our foreheads.

Overnight, we had acclimatised to the altitude and progressed steadily towards the summit, barely seeing much beyond the pool of orange light cast by our torches. The beginning involved many stairs and some ladders, and we shuffled along slowly. Even so, we encountered our first group of other walkers and after some calling out from Petra, and response from that group’s guide, the entire group paused and stepped aside to let us past. I was intent on just walking and breathing and barely noted this extraordinary turn of events. I was also obedient, so when Petra said, “Come! Come”, I just went, went, head down, past the other walkers whom I, at the time, thought were pausing for a rest break.

Whenever we stopped because I was struggling – and I was struggling: every breath was an ordeal, every step took effort – Petra would encourage me with, “Chocolate! Eat chocolate!” and so I gobbled a small piece, offered a piece to him (which he refused) and to Nic (who accepted) and continued, slow, inching steps ever closer towards the summit, which we began to see as the sky lightened.

After the series of stairs and ladders, we emerged onto a granite slab and part of the route involved grabbing a rope and hauling ourselves up. At one of these, I paused and took a deep breath to ensure I had enough oomph to get myself up. I found myself, however, practically vaulting up the rockface; Petra had pushed me from behind.

We passed a few more, smaller groups of walkers and at each bottle neck, Petra would call out to the other guides, who would call their group to a halt.  They would step aside, looking happy to rest, and watch us shuffle past. I only cottoned onto this at the last occassion and, though grateful to Petra, felt bad for the groups we had passed. At one stop, however, I understood Petra’s urgency for us. He was watching behind him, nervously, and we could see the twinkle of lights, like a highway of cars, inching towards us, “Move, move. You strong, you go up first. Come! Come! Chocolate!” And with that, we kept on, “Chocolate” being our rallying cry to be first up the mountain that morning.

And we were. We had the summit of rock scree and a few battered signs and flags to ourselves for a good ten minutes or so. There was, however, no view; although the sun was just rising, the clouds had rolled in. As Nic and I sat on the summit, Petra gestured that he would take a photograph of us on the summit. I looked down in surprise at the camera bag that I had uselessly carried all the way up this mountain and shook my head at Petra, too exhausted to explain that it did not work and absolutely discombobulated by my own stupidity. Petra gave us one of his long looks, and I just knew he was thinking, “These two really are very strange,” but he let us be. After a while, the next few groups reached the summit too and it began to get crowded, so we shifted away from the crowning glory of this walk and began the long descent back to park headquarters.

Approaching Mt Kinabalu Summit (Low's Peak) by myzulkefli.

The sky was magnificent as we descended, with the views opening up as we dropped back below the cloud line. The granite slab that I had so laboured on the way up was an easy stroll. As it grew lighter, we could discern the texture of Mount Kinabalu: strange smooth plateaus and spires of grey granite. With the increasing oxygen of each downward step and the jubilation of the views, we practically skipped down the mountain to Laban Rata hut, where we had a second, greasy breakfast, before retracing our walk of the day before.

Whereas we had gone up, up and unrelentingly up, we were now going down, down, joint-jarringly down. The descent was just as hard as the ascent, as the path was muddy and, in some places, like descending rivulets due to the previous day’s rain, but we got more oxygen as we got lower and felt like fit athletes. It stayed mostly dry for our descent, which was reasonably speedy: we got back to park headquarters before lunch.

Park headquarters remained a chaos of people, many hanging about waiting for buses or negotiating for taxis. We barely had time to thank Petra when a car pulled up and someone said, “Mr Nicholas?” and we got into a 7-seater vehicle. We thought that others would pile into the vehicle with us but instead, it pulled away and we looked back in surprise and apology as we left behind all these others, obviously on more budget trips than ours. We returned to park headquarters for another lunch where we did not get to choose our dishes and merely placidly ate what was put in front of us. Any request for a menu was met with a bemused stare and a, “It’s okay, Madam.”

We concurred that the walk was great but weird and that, though happy we had done it, we would not do it again. In addition, despite being treated so well, we did not really understand Petra’s role as ‘guide’ because if you got lost on that path, something was seriously wrong with your eyes. To be fair, many people of varying levels of mountain-walking ability tackle this hike and without the guides, many more would be injured. Certainly, Petra was indispensable during the night-time climb to the summit, if only for the continual, calm words of encouragement.

We also learned that we did not like popular summits and, I suspect, if we hadn’t liked it when we were given preferential treatment to get to the top, we’d like it even less if we were weren’t so treated. I knew that, even though I never really had a desire to “conquer” the world’s major summits, I really did not want to now, not if they were like this (and many are much more crowded). I’d rather walk in emptier foothills. To enjoy a mountain, I do not need to say I’d stood on its tallest point.

Back in KK, we were left to our own devices for two days; the organised part of our travel had ended. We knew we would be very sore the following day and possibly worse the day after, so we spent some time in the hostel considering what to do to while away the time before our onward flight to England. We were staying on the top floor of our hostel and each climb up to our room was agony and each climb down again worse. We moved like old people, laughing at ourselves even as we winced.

Relaxation was imperative, so an orang-utan tour was out (the car journey was much too long). Instead, we decided to head to one of the islands nearby, thinking this was just the occasion when we could lie around on a beach. We successfully found an island to travel to – there are quite a few a short distance from Kota Kinabalu and well serviced by ferries. However, we failed to lie around on the beach and somehow ended up walking all around the island and up to its (thankfully low) highest point. Although we do not seem to be very good at relaxing, we nevertheless had a wonderful time.

An almost deserted beach on the island of Manukan near Kota Kinabalu, photo by o2elot.

All the photos in this post are used, under a Creative Commons Licence, via Flickr.

If you double-click the picture itself, this will take you to the photographer’s photostream on Flickr.

The End of the Road (EotR) music festival has become our Favourite Music Festival Ever. We went in 2008 and 2009, though we did not write blog posts about it, possibly because it comes ’round at the end of Summer by which stage we are (usually) hopelessly behind in our postings! In addition, EotR is our total relaxation festival and, sometimes, writing these posts is just too much like work. Why spoil a good relax by blogging all about it?

You can check out the photos and our terribly witty comments for 2008 here and 2009 here, if you so desire.

Anyway, we must write about EotR this year because it is, sadly, our last (either forever or at least for a very long time). I hope we will find equally good festivals in Aus and I think I know now what my criteria for “good festival” is: small, lots of chill-out spaces, good food stalls and a carfree campsite. And, of course, music we like.

Obligatory photo of the End of the Road Festival sign.

Each year that we have been to EoTR, we discover more wonderful things about the festival site. The festival is held at Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset, a garden full of follies, interesting buildings and peacocks. The first year, it was all about the music (the great food was just a bonus) but we learned after the festival was over that there were a variety of other things going on: enchanted forests, firepits, disco dancefloor, games, secret gigs. We had no idea how we missed this. The next year, we took some time to discover the grounds and were amazed by the various nooks that had been coverted into inviting, artistic spaces: a grove lit up with fairy lights, the library in the garden (optimistic given the usual British weekend weather) and an Edwardian living room, home of secret gigs. We even managed to catch a secret gig, with a little help from a newly-made festival friend, an American lad whom we met in the queue for the bus.

Peacocks freely roam the festival site.

Edwardian living room, from End of the Road 2009.

Being a small festival (tickets are limited to 5,000), the organisers do not have the financial wherewithal to get in Really Big Acts (e.g. Ben Harper and the notorious downfall of Byron Bay Blues Fest) and so tend to book smaller, independent acts as well as giving a platform for local bands to play a gig. This means we get to discover lots of new bands, who often then go on to become really rather famous indeed. Despite our dagginess, we might be hipsters at heart.

On Friday morning we set off from home to catch a train to Salisbury and then the festival bus to Larmer Tree Gardens. In previous years, the bus operation has been a bit disorganised, with long queues. We were therefore pleasantly surprised to find a bus pretty much as soon as we got off the train. There was also no queue to get our wristbands and enter the site. This is the fifth year of the festival and the organisers are obviously learning how to make it all a smooth operation!

We made a beeline for the very edge of the campsite, as we like to pitch our home away from the crowds who oddly cluster around the toilet blocks. In our first year, the toilets were awful but, again, the organisers have learned and since 2008, toilets have been clean and plentiful. This year, there were also more shops where the campsite is (which is outside the festival site). Being lunchtime, we picked up some delicious rye bread and flammekuchen (German pizza, effectively) from a bakery to tide us over.

After lazing about eating flammekuchen and setting up the tent, we eventually wandered into the festival itself to catch our first act: Charlie Parr, playing charmingly authentic folk and blues.

Charlie Parr

Later that day, after lazing about at the main stage and slowly circumnavigating the enchanted forest, outdoor library, Edwardian living room and games area, we caught Elliott Brood in the Big Top and then the humble Frank Fairfield in the Tipi Tent. Frank Fairfield looked like he had time travelled from the 1920s to get to the festival, and brought his guitar, fiddle and banjo with him. He was wonderful to listen to and clearly enjoyed playing, chuckling to himself at the end of songs or as he switched instruments.

Frank Fairfield and his ancient guitar.

We’ve recently had some very busy weeks, and Nic in particular has been jet-setting for work. I had just shaken off a cold, which Nic was now coming down with. We were therefore a bit more relaxed in our approach to the festival and were early to bed each night, giving some of the more big name acts and DJ sets a miss (we nevertheless heard them reasonably well from our tent!), and spent a lot more time lazing around in the gardens reading, people watching and tea drinking.

The other downside was that this year, the thieves hit (although thankfully not us). On Saturday morning, we learned that our tent neighbours had been robbed by a brazen thief who took wallet and phone from the man’s jeans while he lay asleep in his tent. Throughout the weekend and after, we heard about other people who’d been robbed and security prowled the campsite. This was sad and somewhat shocking for End of the Road, because it’s such a cosy festival with a great ambience. As overheard in the toilet queue, “You expect this sort of stuff at Glastonbury but not here!”

Musical highlights for Saturday included whimsical folk duo Johnny Kearney and Lucy Farrell, who sweetly asked the audience for permission to photograph us (“This is for my mum, so everybody look like you’re enjoying yourselves!”), and eagleowl, a lovely foursome from Edinburgh who ended their set by inviting members of the audience (some of whom were members of other bands) up on stage to sing along with them.

eagleowl and their backing singers ...

The Unthanks, a folk band from Northumbria, were probably (for me) the surprise of the festival; I really did not expect to see any clog dancing (kinda like tap dancing), nor enjoy it so much, nor hear lusty men cheer so loudly when the clogs came out. The Unthanks, together with the Smoke Fairies, were the festival’s drollest performers, and both apologised for the preponderance of murder ballads in their respective repertoires. Interestingly, though probably unrelated, they were the two bands made up mostly of women. One of the Smoke Fairies told a story about trying to pluck a feather from a suitably enraged peacock, thinking it would be more like plucking a blade of grass. After an uncomfortably long pause at the end of her story, she delivered a deadpan, “Not that we endorse that sort of thing of course.”

Much of our afternoon was whiled away at Dish Cafe, a little tea stall hidden in a peaceful, leafy glade but from where we could still hear the main stage. With tea, homemade cakes and scones and cushions to lounge around on, it was difficult to leave!

Irresistible.

Iron and Wine were one of the few “big name” (in indie folk circles, anyway) acts that Nic and I were keen to see and Sam Beam (I like to think of him as Mr Iron and Wine) did not disappoint, although he did forget the lyrics to one of his songs (obsessive fans in the audience are always helpful in situations like that). Iron and Wine probably had the most magical crowd atmosphere: there was absolute silence when he sang as we all strained to listen to his beautiful lyrics.

Sam Beam (Mr Iron and Wine).

I also overheard a most amusing conversation:

Festival Goer 1: I think I saw Iron and Wine back there!
Festival Goer 2: How do you know?
Festival Goer 1: Huge beard!
Festival Goer 2: Um, you know everyone here has huge beards?

Sunday opened with glorious sunshine, so we spent the morning lazing at our tent, Nic reading and me gadding about taking macro photographs of dandelions and bugs.

Nic being a lazy bugger. (In his defense, he was poorly.)

Lots of dandelions and lots of tents.

When we eventually made our way to the festival site, we did some more lazing and only got roused to go check out music when a monstrous catepillar launched itself (or fell) from an overhanging branch and landed with a thwack on Nic’s chest.

The horror! The horror!

Highlights for Sunday included The Felice Brothers, rocking out on fiddle and accordion, and, despite playing Americana / indie folk, looked like men you perhaps would not want to meet in a dark alley. When the fiddle player (Farley) pointed to the audience and demanded we sing along, I was almost afraid not to, despite only barely knowing the lyrics. Still, they appeared to have a heap of fun and were wonderful to watch. Also, they delivered the best line from the entire festival:

What is “Americana”? In the US, we call it, “We can’t make money ’cause we play the banjo.”

The Garden Stage, with a mellow Sunday morning set by Dylan Le Blanc.

The Felice Brothers, rocking out in synchrony.

We ended our End of the Road festival experience with The Low Anthem, very different to The Felice Brothers but another band who clearly loved performing and were delightful on stage. During their soundcheck, they gathered at the front of the stage and played a brief acoustic set for the front rows of the crowd. Although we did not get photos of the drummer, he was my favourite. He grinned madly every time he got to hit the cymbals.

The Low Anthem, playing lovely, intimate music.

Fittingly, Monday dawned overcast and it was with sad hearts that we packed up our tent and headed home. No more End of the Road for us. We’ll definitely miss it.

You can check out all the rest of the photos here.

Anyway, I have no intention of boring you with an account of the conferences, but here are some photos.

First off, the University of Southern Denmark campus, which is an astonishing building.  I can’t find any information about it on the internet, and my knowledge of architectural vernacular isn’t up to providing an accurate description, but basically the whole campus is oriented around a 500 metre long North-South corridor, with lots of exposed concrete, elevated walkways, pre-rusted panelling, climbing plants and natural light.  I was very impressed.  Apparently it was built in the 60s and it has aged extremely well.  Some of the local students informed me that walking backwards and forwards down the long corridor gets old rather quickly though.

Syddansk University, where the conference was held, was quite a remarkable building. This corridor stretched several hundred metres, from the entrance to the main seminar room. The parallel white lines demarcate the path upon which service staff whiz up and down on little motorized scooters.

I was going for a noir look here. Note the temporal ambiguity.  Whatever the time, I was probably supposed to be in a seminar room rather than walking around taking photos.

Arty exterior shot.

Another exterior shot, showing extensive use of pre-rusted panels.

Second up, I squeezed in a day in Copenhagen at the end, which is a beautiful city (if only for the surfeit of bicycles).

The Copenhagen stock exchange, commissioned by King Christian IV in 1625, by moonlight. The tower consists of four sculpted dragon tails.

I liked this colourful pairing.

Ascending the round tower, site of Europe's oldest observatory, also built by King Christian IV (busy chap).

Nyhavn, the old sailors' quarter, now filled with cafes, bars and restaurants.

Long-exposure night-shot of the stock exchange

No camera in Germany, so no photos from there…

The rest of the Denmark photos here.

We will be documenting that journey over at Crazy Guy on a Bike.

We intend to update this site, too, with both our cycling journey and other things but not sure (at this stage) how well we will be able to that.

Day 3: Loch Ossian to Kinlochleven

More conversation over breakfast led to a relatively late start. Initially very midgey, we broke out our stylish midge nets, only to discover that the mesh isn’t really fine enough to keep them out. Bugger. We climbed away from Loch Ossian and met up with the train line which we followed down towards Loch Treig. The landscape around us grew steadily more mountainous, and the vista from the shores of the loch was stunning. Had we made it here last night, it may well (depending on the wind) have been a pleasant place to spend the evening.

Great look. Utterly ineffective.

Talking with the woman at the hostel who had just walked up Glen Nevis, we decided against that route to Fort William. It sounded like yet more boggy, midgey walking following a river along a valley floor. We’d had enough of that yesterday and, as the weather forecast was positive, we decided to attempt a more ambitious route, following Glenn Iolarean to Kinlochleven and then crossing a range of mountains called the Mamores to drop into Glen Nevis just near the road’s end.

We turned off the main path at the point marked by this rather foreboding sign:

Sign reads: "Take Care: You are entering remote, sparsely populated, potentially dangerous mountain country. Please ensure that you are adequately experienced and equipped to complete your journey without assistance."

Immediately, we responded by following the wrong branch of a stream up the valley and then had to cut across the hillside when I decided, after much frowning at the map and scratching my head, that all the mountains were looking wrong. It certainly did feel remote, with not a soul in sight and the grand scale of valleys and mountains made us feel like a very small part of a very large landscape. After a few bends, we were over the path and had magnificent views down over Loch Chiaran towards the mountains of Glencoe, now clear of clouds.

Scenic map check.

We paused for a while to rest by the bothy. Sadly, while empty, it was filled with a lot of rubbish; despite its remoteness, it’s evidently still a bit too close to “civilisation” and used as much for pissups as for shelter. Protocol suggests that we carry litter out, but given that we don’t intend to return to civilisation ourselves for a couple of days, this isn’t really feasible. Oanh tidied up a bit and we moved on.

Our route now climbed up over some modest crags near Blackwater Reservoir, where we were rewarded with unexpected panoramic views of the surrounding peaks. Our thoughts turned to camping again, with several likely spots suggesting themselves. We decided to push on however, as we anticipated a long day crossing the Mamores tomorrow, and wanted to start as near to them as possible. Unfortunately, once we dropped down to the next loch, all of the ground was impossibly wet and marshy. There wasn’t much to be done except to push on, hoping that something more suitable presented itself.

The mountains of Glencoe, with the dam on Blackwater Reservoir just visible in the lower left.

As dusk drew nearer, the wind dropped. Hoping to repeat our success of night one, we made a detour up one of the crags above Kinlochleven. Frustratingly, the entire hillside was boggy and the air remained still. Eventually, we settled on a patch that was somewhat less boggy than the rest and prepared dinner. The views were stupendous, but as the final rays of sun disappeared, midges emerged in force. We barely managed to throw the tent inner up and dive inside before we were carried off. Quite a few midges got into the tent with us, so we killed them and then ate dinner. Through the mesh of the tent, the surrounding air was dense with tiny beating wings and biting jaws. All our gear and bedding lay abandoned outside, beyond our reach.

Beautiful view over Loch Leven. Shame about the midges.

Discarding (but only after serious consideration) the notion of sleeping in our clothes, sans sleeping bags and mats, I nobly volunteered to sacrifice myself (hah!) and ventured out to finish pitching the tent and retrieve our belongings. The next fifteen minutes (seeming ten times as long) were the least pleasant of our walk. I was immediately covered by hundreds of thousands of tiny mouths that resisted all efforts at deterrence (clothing, nets, repellant). Eventually, everything was recovered, the tent fly was pitched and I collapsed into a self-pitying, itching heap.

Day 4: Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis

I woke early the next morning, with the idea that we could beat the midges up. Around 4.30am I woke Oanh, who surprisingly accepted my plan. Alas, it was not to be. These midges are early risers. It was a still and muggy morning: clouds drifted around us and mist rose off the loch below. Breakfast was entirely out of the question; we scoffed muesli bars and hit the trail, relief coming only with motion.

Loch Leven the next morning, shrouded in mist. Still midgey.

To add insult to injury, while camped at approximatley 400 metres altitude, we had to drop down 200 metres or so before beginning our ascent to the ridgeline of the Mamores. Our ascent path was up another stalkers’ track through Coire na Ba. There was absolutely no wind, and the peaks were covered in dense cloud. Only our trust in the forecast of clear weather (now two days old: an eternity in terms of British weather) suggested that this was a good course of action.

Eventually, we managed to pause long enough to cook breakfast, which restored our spirits somewhat. The midges tracked us down before we could make coffee though, so we continued uncaffeinated. Fortunately, as we climbed, the clouds lifted, and occasionally we got clear glimpses of the pass we were aiming for. The sides of the corrie got increasingly steep and the path zig-zagged precipitously until, suddenly, we were on the pass: a broad sweep of grass, scattered boulders, and — mercy of mercies — a breeze!

Rejoicing on the ridge.

Rejoicing, we cast off our packs and boiled up water for coffee. Checking my watch, I noted that it was only 10.30am: it felt like we had already done a days worth of exercise. Four hours of climbing with barely a pause for breath left us well knackered. We sat back a while, relaxing in midge-free splendour and enjoying the views. While there was still plenty of cloud around, it was moving, and so we were treated to ever-changing vistas as the various peaks appeared and disappeared.

The ridge between Am Bodach and Stob Coire a' Chairn, along which we would soon be walking. If you look real close, you can see two people in the middle already.

Considering our options from here, several routes down into Glen Nevis presented themselves; we decided on one of the longer, but less steep, paths, hoping it would be kinder on our knees. Eventually rested enough to greet the idea of further climbing with eager anticipation, we set off toward the summit of Stob Coire a’ Chairn. On the ridge, the path was broad, clear and relatively easy, and the surrounding views were sufficicent to distract us from any residual discomfort.

Oanh on the summit of Stob Coire a' Chairn.

The next mountain along the ridge is Am Bodach. The OS map shows the path traversing below the summit, so I figured it must be a more technical ascent and that we would skip it. (Ideally, I could have done more research on this section of our route…). As we approached, we saw other people scrambling up what, from our perspective, appeared to be sheer rockface. “Aha”, I thought, “that must be the technical ascent, the turnoff to the traverse should appear soon”. Next thing I knew, we too were picking our way up a steep, though easy, scramble, this route evidently being a bit more heavily used, and hence clearer, than the one marked on the map. It was actually rather fun doing some proper scrambling, although we would have been happier without full packs.

Stob Ban, one for next time.

The summit, alas, was currently within cloud, so no views; however, there was a small cluster of people up here, grumbling good-naturedly about the inaccuracy of the forecast, so we had an opportunty to canvas opinion about the safest route down to Glen Nevis. Turned out our current choice was the best. I suppressed a pang of envy when I realised that everyone else had several more summits ahead of them for the day, while our path led mostly down. However, this was the sensible option — we’d been going for about eight hours already and were both starting to flag.

After following the ridge line for another hour or so, we reached the turn off for our descent path. What followed was several hours of fairly gruelling downhill. The path was reasonable, but worn down to bare stone, which exacted its toll on the soles of our feet. Distractions took the form of rushing streams, more wildflowers and butterflies, and contemplation of a pub dinner.

Our descent route, through Coire a' Mhusgain to Glen Nevis.

The final remaining barrier between us and aforementioned dinner was about five kilometres of tarmac. It was hard to think of any less pleasant way of ending our walk. As we came off the mountain, our path intersected with that of two blokes who strode past our increasingly feeble shuffle. Intercepting them in the carpark, we asked whether they were heading towards Fort William (given that the road goes nowhere else, it was a fairly safe bet). They apologised that their car was currently full of camping and climbing kit, but offered to rearrange and squeeze us in too if we were happy with a tight fit. Happy? Ecstatic!

They were from Southampton too (small country) and worked at Calshot, the centre where we have occasionally gone indoor climbing. They kindly offered to wait while I dashed in to enquire about availability at the Glen Nevis YHA (success!) A shower before we caught the overnight coach back home the following day was imperative.

Soon after, much cleaner, we enjoyed great beer, delicious burgers and friendly service at the Ben Nevis Inn. Walking back to the hostel, we saw rows of head torches bobbing their way down the Ben Nevis path.

Day 5: Glasgow

With a whole day ahead of us before our coach departed, we decided on a slight change of plan. We were walked out and, while the scenery around us was still beautiful (and the weather was the best we had) we realised that we’d drunk our fill of the highlands on this occasion and any more would seem anticlimactic. After a bit of research, we decided to take an earlier train back to Glasgow, stow our bags, and spend a bit of time exploring the city.

Wandering slowly into Fort William, we stocked up on antipasto lunch ingredients but failed to find anywhere open for coffee. The train journey was fantastic. We passed through some of the areas we had recently walked through and gained a new perspective on Loch Treig. By the time the journey was over, we passed through so many stunning landscapes that I was a bit jaded and buried my head in the newspaper.

Loch Treig again, from the train (the Glasgow to Fort William line is simply stunning).

Glasgow was bustling with happy strollers and shoppers all making the most of the glorious summer weather; we joined them (well, the strollers at least) and meandered down Sauchiehall Street, marvelling that a city that spends so much time in rain and gloom did outdoor living so well. Eventually we discovered that we were near the Glasgow School of Art and decided to see if there were any exhibitions open to the public. It was already closed, but we managed to squeeze onto the last tour of the day and enjoyed a marked change of pace, learning about the whimsical design experiments of Charles Rennie Mackintosh; such as a stairwell that grows dark and foreboding as you climb upwards, and yet unexpectedly light and airy as you descend into the basement; and the magnificent library, designed to resemble a forest glade.

Glasgow School of Art. The tall windows illuminate all three levels of the beautiful library.

A bit of art deco.

After a bit more strolling, we had a relaxed dinner of antipasto (more!) and pasta at an Italian Restaurant called Antipasti before we made our way back to the coach station, and thence home (and thence, for me, straight back to work, but that’s another story).

see here for all the photos

The adventure began with transport options.  Timing and price were against planes and trains and we eventually settled on the overnight coach which, while not sounding especially appealing, at least had the advantage of low price and early morning arrival time.  As it turned out, it wasn’t too uncomfortable, and we both got quite a bit of sleep (though would have got more with eyemask and earplugs).  To say that our fellow travellers represented an interesting cross-section of society would be an understatement.

Day 1: Dalwhinnie to Ben Alder

Glasgow was just waking up for a sunny workday as we arrived, grabbed a light breakfast, and switched from coach to train.  The scenic journey saw blue skies replaced by rain, and we were the only people to disembark at Dalwhinnie, a quiet village with a few cottages, a hotel, a distillery and a primary school (currently on break).  Crossing the rail line, we began the long walk in towards Ben Alder Lodge.

Our first ten or so kilometres walk was along the estate road into Ben Alder Lodge. Easy going, but a tad dull once the novelty of dense pine forests had worn off.

Despite the fact that Scotland has incredibly progressive attitudes towards access (you can pretty much walk and camp anywhere), the fact remains that every inch of land is owned by somebody.  One of the uses to which this land is put is deer stalking, which serves the twin purposes of earning the estates some income, as well as keeping the deer populations at sustainable levels.  Hypothetically, walkers and stalkers can co-exist, but as we were walking at the beginning of the peak stalking season, I was a bit concerned about making sure that we co-existed at a safe distance.  The Hillphones service provides information on stalking activities for some regions, but unfortunately not those of primary concern to us.  I managed to track down phone numbers for a couple of the estates and had called up Ben Alder while in Glasgow that morning.  The friendly woman on the phone reassured me that no stalking was currently occurring, but that everything was wet and midgey.   Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Anyway, the first ten or so kilometres of our walk were along the road to Ben Alder Lodge.  This ran alongside Loch Ericht, backed by smooth green hillside and surrounded by dense pine forest.  We passed a couple of grand, turreted mansions on our way in (one possibly the original gatehouse) and noted that the mountains ahead of us were periodically covered and uncovered by drifting clouds.  While initially dramatic, the charm of pine forests soon palled, and we were glad to climb away from the loch and leave the estate road behind us.  Switching to a well maintained stalking path, we could see herds of deer in the distance, and the landscape began to feel much more remote.

Allt a' Chaoil-reidhe (the river) with the flanks of Carn Dearg (the hill) in the background. Ah! Back in Gaelic lands again!

The ground around us was wet and boggy, but the path itself was quite dry, being protected by trenches dug on either side.  Also, despite the occasional showers that passed overhead, the river levels seemed to be quite low.  This was encouraging, as we weren’t anticipating too many bridges out here (there are a large number of river crossing on the OS map marked “Ford”).

We passed by Culra Bothy on the far side of the river at about 4pm but, with plenty of daylight left, decided to push on up to a small valley containing a loch that we spotted on the map between the mountains Ben Alder and Beinn Bheoil.  The valley sits at about 700 metres above sea level, and I had an idea that there would be more breeze, and so hopefully fewer midges, at higher altitudes.

As we climbed, the rain intensified, and the bothy began to seem like a more attractive option.  Although I know that we are well equipped and prepared for all sorts of circumstances, I’m always a bit apprehensive when walking in a new area whose topography and weather patterns I don’t really know that well.  I figure that this potentially excessive concern is why we do so rarely end up in any sort of serious trouble.

The rain cleared again as we reached the valley (Bealach Beithe) and we spotted another herd of deer moving slowly across the flank of Ben Alder opposite us.  From this angle, the ridge up to the summit looked eminently achievable, but the top was still covered in cloud, and it was too late to consider it today.  The previously firm path turned much wetter where it ran alongside the loch.  The ground surrounding us was not suited for pitching a tent upon.

First sight of Loch a' Bealach Beithe, by which we were hoping to camp.

Otherwise, the valley was beautiful: still, peaceful, with the smooth and concave side of Beinn Bheoil to the south and the rocky cliffs of Ben Alder to the north.  The loch’s surface was ruffled by a gentle breeze and gaps in the cloud granted occasional glimpses of blue skies and sunshine.

Intuition suggested that the far end of the loch, where it is fed by a small stream, might be drier, so we pushed on.  Sure enough there was a small raised hummock about a dozen metres square that was drier underfoot.  We settled in, pitched the tent and cooked up macaroni with tuna for dinner.  The breeze kept midges away without making us too cold.  Clearing skies intimated stars, but at this northern latitude, it seemed the sky wouldn’t get sufficiently dark.

Oanh stirring dinner.

Day 2: Ben Alder to Loch Ossian

The day began with a steep and rough descent towards Loch Ericht.  Following a gentle stream interrupted by numerous small waterfalls, we spotted more deer on the ridge line.  The weather was clearer, although the distant peaks were still cloudbound.

We had extensive views across Rannoch Forest — one of those “forests” with not too many trees, and rather a lot of plain.  What trees there were to be seen were clustered in small, hospitable looking groves along the shore of the loch.  Far below us, I spotted a couple of tiny figures making their way across the plain.

As our route swung around to the north before climbing back up to the next path, we decided to spare our knees some of the descent and veered off the path, hopped across the river, and made our way along the hillside.  It was pretty uneven underfoot, with many ankle-twisting holes hidden by waist-length grass.  One positive aspect of summer is that flowers were still in abundance: mauve heather, purple harebells, spiky red bog asphodel and silky bog cotton grass (note the emphasis on “bog” oriented species).  Fortunately, no ankle-twisting occurred, and we were soon back on another excellent stalkers’ path.

Odd, ground berry; currently unidentified.

Eyebright.

Harebell.

After a slow ascent up the valley, the path we were on turned back towards the bothy.  We left it once again to struggle over the next patch of rough, boggy ground down to the valley floor, where we picked up a new path towards Corrour Lodge (a new estate).

We encountered our biggest river crossing here, and spent a few minutes wandering up and down the banks looking for the easiest crossing point: about seven or eight metres across, but only ankle to calf deep.  I got across reasonably drily; Oanh (whose gaiters are a bit too big) less so.

Oanh wrings out socks after an ankle-deep crossing.

The river wound extensively down the valley, and while the surrounding hills and corries (steep-sided circular valleys) were pretty, we were a bit exhausted.  The path either followed the bends of the river, or climbed and descended over adjacent hills, making for slow progress.  We also started to notice the presence of midges, dissuading us from standing still for too long, as it didn’t take long before they tracked us down and swarmed about our face and ears in an infuriating fashion.  Fortunately, they can’t really keep up with walking pace.

Late in the afternoon we reached Corrour Lodge, at the eastern end of Loch Ossian.  Passing through a gate, we were instantly in another world: the various buildings of the estate constituted almost a small village, and we were back on well-graded dirt roads.  The sky cleared as the sun fell lower, transforming dull greens of the hillsides into bright emerald.

First views of Loch Ossian.

My equanimity was spoiled somewhat by a growing concern about where we would spend the night.  Much of the ground (apart from the road!) was either densely forested, incredibly steep, or very boggy.  The bothy beside which I had hoped to camp was still some distance away, further than we wanted to walk and we were clearly deep in midge territory.

Loch Ossian has a youth hostel at its western end, and we began to wonder about asking whether we could camp there.  I had actually attempted to book beds a week earlier, but found no availability.  We eventually decided upon a strategy: ask whether we could stay there (expecting a “no”) and then see if they will let us camp as an alternative (with appropriate abject looks).  When we arrived at the hostel, I wandered around taking photos in the evening light while Oanh enquired.  As it turned out, our bluff was called and they did have beds.  At this stage, despite lugging a tent around, the prospect of another midge-free evening persuaded us to happily part with our £16 each.

The YHA at Loch Ossian is rather unique, being accessible only via a mile-long hike in from Corrour train station, which itself is the most remote train station in the UK, being approximately twenty kilometres from the nearest road!  The hostel is entirely powered by wind and solar power, and very ecologically friendly in all respects.  We passed an enjoyable evening, chatting with a Spanish-Australian family from Barcelona on a holiday entirely planned by the 16 year old son, a Scottish woman who had walked in from Fort William along one of the paths we were considering, and a 71-year old ex-mountaineer turned munro-bagger.  Everyone was quite excited about the prospect of the meteor shower forecast for that evening, but unfortunately the clouds rolled back in and it was a no show.

see here for all the photos

Our first outing was by train to Scarborough, to walk some of the coastal path in North York Moors national park. An initially overcast morning soon gave way to blue skies and sunshine as we left the beach behind and hit the cliff tops. The scenery was stunning, with waves crashing against dramatic rocky outcrops to our right, rolling wheat fields to our left, and a profusion of birds and butterflies all around us. One particular species that caught our eye was the vivid Cinnabar moth (as later identified by Oanh, to us it was just the black and red bug), swarms of which covered purple thistle flowers.

The only downside of the dry, breezy, summery conditions was that we found ourselves suffering from varying levels of hay fever.

The Yorkshire Coast nort of Scarborough.

Cinnabar moth on thistle.

Friday, we set off for the Yorkshire Dales, where we had a room booked in the YHA at Grinton Lodge, a former shooting lodge in Swaledale. Arriving at a vacant reception, we stowed our food in the kitchen, whipped up sandwiches for lunch and set off onto the Hackerton Moor. Despite a bit of confusion regarding which path we were (or weren’t) on, we managed to stumble along the top of the ridge, battered by wind but surrounded by stunning views of wheat fields, buttercup-filled meadows, and grey stone barns and walls.

Every so often we would pass short two-metre lengths of waist-high stone wall, rows of them separated by twenty metre gaps stretching up and down the hillside. Eventually we realised that they were for grouse shooters to shelter behind, and the probable reason for having them all in a row was that, much like a driving range, having everybody shooting from the same place and in the same direction is probably a Very Good Idea.

We also came across a small hunting lodge with one of its doors swinging ajar. Curiosity got the better of us and we poked our heads inside to discover, on the wall, a stuffed grouse (normal enough), but on the table, a stuffed sheep (decidedly weird and just a little bit creepy).

Shortly after, we descended to the River Swale, and made our way back along the floor of the valley. Several village pubs intervened between us and our hostel, but we persevered and made it home in the end.

Swaledale, near Grinton Lodge (our YHA).

A scenic, if windy, spot to pause for lunch.

The next morning, we waited for the school groups to clear out of the way before enjoying breakfast overlooking a stunning Dales vista. We drove further up the valley to the small village of Muker, from where we set off on a rather crowded path through meadows alongside the river. Eventually, everyone but us crossed over to the other side of the river, and peace was regained. The path climbed beside the river past dramatic gorges that I’m sure must, in wetter times, house equally dramatic waterfalls. Now they were but mere trickles.

After pausing at Keld for coffee and cakes, we circled back over the top of Kisdon Hill for more stunning views. Difficult to say more really: just magnificent scenery.

Breakfast with a view too!

Further up the River Swale, currently running very low.

Oanh was there too, just mostly behind the camera.

Typical Dales scenery: stone barns and steep hills.

Typical Dales humour (it was too, the pub).

Back in York, we resumed our tour of York’s finer drinking establishments, including the York Brewery, which would be impossible to locate without local knowledge: down a back street, past some trash cans into an alley, through an unmarked door and up a flight of stairs: a tiny pub atop the brewery serving a variety of ales brewed on site. An excellent Italian dinner was followed by a hilarious (to us) game of drunken charades in a pub and a walk home interrupted by assaults on York Castle and the city walls.

Perhaps as a consequence, Sunday morning began somewhat slowly. Oanh and I had a train mid-afternoon, so we went for a gentle circumnavigation of York, visiting some of its green spaces (including Simon’s allotment) before making our way to the station and thence home. All in all, a fun, if rather exhaustingly active visit to the north (and a resolution that, should we ever return to the UK, we should live up near the hilly bits…)

More photos here.

On balance, this restricted range hasn’t been altogether a bad thing. We have greatly enjoyed exploring Hampshire and surrounding counties in more depth and at a slower pace, by bicycle and foot (together with the occasional rental car). We have spent more time revisiting the nearby attractions of the New Forest, the Isle of Wight, Dartmoor and the Brecon Beacons, discovering sights and routes that are a bit further off the beaten track.

During longer holidays, we have also visited Snowdonia, Northumbria, the Cotswolds and other further flung regions (though not, unfortunately, Scotland beyond a brief incursion into the southern abbey towns — we hope to rectify this soon). As our time here draws to a close we begin to realise that only a finite number of weekend remain, and there is still lots of pre-departure planning to do. Not every place can be visited. Not every sight can be seen. (Our mantra to stop us from tryng to do too much!)

Last week, using my work meeting in Leeds as a focus, we spent some time in Yorkshire, enjoying the hospitality of James (fellow PhD student from Queensland) and Nadia in Leeds, and Simon (former workmate from Southampton) and Mel in York. Weather-wise, we couldn’t have picked a better week for a holiday. England has been enjoying heatwave conditions: our first “proper” Summer since arriving here.

Leeds

We spent Saturday morning travelling up to Leeds by train. After collecting us from the station and feeding us, James took us out to Harewood House, a stately home just north of the city boundary. In light of the clement weather, we eschewed the house itself in favour of strolling around the grounds and gardens. Harewood has a fine collection of rare and exotic birds (“rare and exotic” for the north of England, at any rate). We had the opportunity to marvel at flamingos, toucans, java sparrows, macaws and other oddities. Of course, the only photos that we took that really turned out successfully were of the more humdrum pheasants and turkeys. Oh well, didn’t stop us trying. In addition, multitudes of wild birds congregate in the grounds, ranging from water birds on the lakes through to flocks of huge buzzards circling and soaring overhead.

Nadia eventually joined us for coffee, ice cream and further exploration of the Himalayan Gardens. Oh, and Harewood House officially has The Coolest Kid’s Playground In The World. Unfortunately, we were all above the age limit.

Harewood House

Us, with the extensive grounds of Harewood House in the background. Not bad for 15 minutes out of Leeds!

Alarmed pheasant at Harewood.

Colours of Harewood.

Sunday dawned bright and clear again. After some consultation with the internet, we decided to drive over to the village of Clapham on the south edge of the Yorkshire Dales and hike in to Ingleborough Cave and Gaping Gill. The peak of Ingleborough itself was also a more ambitious option. Our walk began in a small Clapham Cafe, where James almost got us thrown out by asking for tomato sauce for his cheese and onion pie (he swears he was only joking, but the look of shock on the face of our chef/waitress was a sight to behold). We appeased her with exuberant praise for her scones which, having just emerged from the oven minutes earlier, well deserved it. Duly energized (and caffeinated!), our walk proper began with a gentle climb through Clapham Wood. Following Clapham Beck upstream, we were glad of the shade afforded by oak and beech trees. The water level was remarkably low: evidence of the current dry spell.

Emerging from the wood, we followed the stream a short distance further to arrive at the entrance to Ingleborough Cave. The next tour was not for another 40 minutes, so we decided to explore further above ground, and visit on our return journey. The path took us up through a narrow gorge (Trow Gill) occupied by several rock climbers. Climbing out of that, James left the path and set off straight up the steep, grassy hillside to see what lay beyond. I followed and the views were stupendous. Unfortunately, I’d left the camera with Oanh, so had to beckon her and Nadia to follow us up.

Disinclined to return to the path at this point, we struck off across the hill top in the vague direction of Gaping Gill, our next landmark (or at least, so we hoped). All we really knew about Gaping Gill was that it was a Very Big Hole. However, in this area, there are any number of potholes and shakeholes, leading to some confusion about whether we would in fact be able to distinguish which one was Gaping Gill. Knowing that a stream fed into it though, we dismissed numerous smaller holes and, sure enough, Gaping Gill was unmistakeable (it was fenced off and had a signpost, for a start).

Gaping Gill is where Fell Beck descends beneath the earth for a distance of a mile or so before re-emerging at Ingleborough Cave. Apparently, two days a year, the local potholing club sets up a winch to lower people the 100 metres down to the base but, alas, today was not one of those days. Nonetheless, we spent some time exploring around the edge and gazing into the misty depths.

Returning to Ingleborough Cave, we discovered that once again we had mistimed our arrival to fall between tour times. Clearly it was a quiet afternoon however, as they offered to take us down regardless. Our guide was fantastic, offering an informative and personal account of the cave (he was from Clapham and had been guiding here for a decade or so). Decidedly nippy underground though.

Despite the glorious sunshine very few people were out and about: they were watching the England -v- Germany World Cup match.  When we emerged from our cave tour, our guide got on the telephone to find out the result.  England was out, humiliatingly so, having lost 4:0.  Oh dear.  I, however, was quietly hopeful that this would mean the St George’s flags that were everywhere would be put away.  We returned to a sombre Clapham and had a rather late lunch at a very friendly little pub, where the locals seemed to be consoling themselves about England’s loss by discussing whether or not to burn the flag!

Our pleasantly shaded woodland walk to Ingleborough.

Entering Trow Gill, Nic gazes wistfully at climbers (been a while since we've done any of that).

Gaping Gill, a hundred metre deep hole in the ground. The river disappears here and reappears about two kilometres away.

One of the locals.

Monday, James and Nadia had to go to work, so Oanh and I took a bus out to the town of Ripon, from where we walked the five or so miles out to Fountains Abbey, a world heritage site and apparently one of the largest ruined abbeys in the country. Somewhat alarmingly, our walk took us in past a large lake that was currently bereft of water and full of bulldozers; dredging and de-silting apparently — fortunately the disruption was limited and we were soon exploring the water gardens established around the site of the ruined abbey in the 19th century (when having a romantic ruin on your property was all the rage). We joined a walking tour for the abbey itself: sometimes we’re OK using our imaginations, other times it’s nice to know what the piles of rocks you’re looking at actually were. We realised that we’ve obviously learnt something during our time in England, as a lot of the history conveyed to us during the tour was quite familiar (basically the circumstances under which the abbeys were founded, grew and eventually dissolved by Henry VIII).

Fountains Abbey.

The magnificent vaulted arches of the lay brothers' range.

Lots more photos of Harewood House, Ingleborough and Fountains Abbey.