18th April 2019 You can see my YouTube of this ride here The Hostal El Cruce in Ardales was in the right location to easily get back onto the Altravesur route, the at first steep surfaced road out of Ardales was easy to find….but oh so steep. This was day 30 of my ride, Thursday the 18th of April. It was a very scenic ride on an unsurfaced up and down twisty camino. The views of mountains as far as I could see, got better and better. Clouds were looming over the mountains ahead of me. Perhaps an hour or so into the ride the rain started, not torrential but reasonably heavy. Out came my fabulous blue poncho. I’m so glad I bought it with me, it's far too heavy to take bike packing, it’s thick plastic, so is 100 per cent water proof and is definitely the best piece of equipment I gambled on, why I say gambled is because I nearly didn’t bring it because of its weight. The dirt road ends and then I’m onto an uphill surfaced mountain road, I saw many motorhomes coming the other way, I guess the rain wasn’t what they came for. After a few kilometres on this road, going straight ahead on a tight righthand bend takes you back onto the GR7 dirt road through a sparse woodland. As I rode on a huge concrete wall came into view through the trees to the right, turns out it’s a reservoir wall. After a few kilometres I popped out of the woodland and found myself at the top of a mountain, with more rocky mountains in view. The way ahead was on a gnarly, eroded, mostly bare-rock narrow goat track, winding its way steeply down the mountain. With sheer drop-offs, and rocks and drops to negotiate on this ohsosteep trail, there was no room for error. This singletrack would be a fabulous downhill mountain bike ride, without all the luggage. It was so steep and rocky, sometimes teetering on the edge of this huge chunk of rock, that I could only ride now and again. I’d packed my rucksack badly and my laptop was to one side, which totally unbalanced me, and when I’d try and make a slight steering correction, it would sway and the correction would become an overcorrection, which made it very difficult to ride! I still had my poncho on, the rain had stopped, but the clouds were still heavy. To negotiate this rocky descent I had to take it off, as it also hindered any subtle movements I was trying to make. As it turned out, it didn’t rain again……..well not yet! It’s an epic descent by any standards into El Churro, eventually hitting the surfaced road, it’s a short climb up into the village. I’m not sure exactly how you get your ticket etc for the Caminito del Rey, which is a famous short trek through the mountains, on platforms pinned to the side of the rock. I deliberated, I really wanted to do the trek, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I was still recovering from my sunstroke and didn’t want to have myself over. So I decided I wasn’t going to do it. There’s a train station in this remote village, quite strange really! I stopped at a café just outside the station and had a sandwich. Whilst at the café another mountain biker came along, Tatod. He had ridden from Granada, in three days!! Put’s my riding to shame! He was getting the train back to Granada. We chatted for around half an hour, by now it was around 3pm, so I needed to get going to try and find somewhere to sleep. I was sorry to have to leave him so soon, as we got on really well, he has good English! I struggled to find my way back onto the Altravesur. After dicking around for around twenty minutes going the wrong way I eventually found I needed to go high into the Village of El Churro, and onto the mountain trail above it. It was obviously all uphill, standard! Twenty minutes on this mountainous woodland and the thunder started, then the rain, lightning and hail. This continued all the way up for around two hours. A few hikers had been coming down the mountain. In heavy rain, I’d stopped a group of ten to ask if there was camping nearby, they happened to be English, which made it easier. The guy said that I was near the top and there was a car park around 100 metres away, so that gave me some hope that I could find shelter and set-up camp. I continued on in the hopes of finding this car park in 100 meters, I didn't find it. I wasted half an hour walking down a side track towards what I thought was the car park, only to find it was a large cortijo, alas no one was around to ask if I could camp there. I had to walk back up to the trail, and re-join the route proper, eventually finding the car park at least half a kilometre from where I’d spoken to the man! It was in a clearing off the side of the trail, but the rain was too heavy and had settled into too many puddles to think of camping there. All along the trail I’d been sheltering under trees when possible, to get relief from the rain, at the same time scouting for a camping spot. You’re not allowed to camp there, so whilst I was still seeing hikers coming down, I couldn’t think about setting up camp on the trail side. I couldn’t go into the woods as it was a steep embankment down into the woodland, to the right, or a steep embankment up to the left. Where the guy had said I was near the top, turned out it was a false summit, it had gone down then up again. Due to the rainfall there was quite a lot of water running down the trail. At around half five the surface suddenly became clay-like, and it stuck to my shoes, weighing them down like lead boots, 5cm thick and increasing the size of my shoes by about ten sizes! It stuck to my tyres and built up like a snow ball. After 10 metres Bay stopped dead, the wheels were jammed up in the forks and suspension. I had to get my knife out to try and clear the clay, it was difficult, and eventually resorted to pulling this goo off with my hands. It was like potters clay, slimy and slippery. I’d push for another couple of metres and it would clog up again. Bloody nightmare. If I’d thought that was bad, there was worse to come. It had stopped raining by now but there was thunder in the distance, and it was getting closer. I could see the surface changed from red to white, I thought ahhh that’ll be better, so as I got to the chalky surface, I got on Bay and tried to ride!!! What a mistake. This was stickier than the clay. I couldn’t even move two meters without the bike coming to a stand-still. Not only was the clay and chalk stuck to the tyres and my feet, but stones, rocks and vegetation was all mixed in with it. I’d clean it off and move a meter or two at a time, but each time it was getting harder to clear away. The thunder was getting closer, the rain started spitting, I was at a loss as to what to do. There was a fence to my right, the chalky roadway in front and behind and an embankment of rough rocks and vegetation leading to the steep mountain to my left. I could only go forward or backward! I couldn’t see how far the chalky surface lasted as it went off into the see-able distance. I kept cleaning and pushing, and cleaning and pushing, scraping my shoes on the fence, scraping my hands, that were also covered in clay, on the fence. I had taken around half an hour to move twenty meters. It was around six o’clock, the sky was black from the fast approaching storm. I was feeling somewhat alone and desperate! Eventually I couldn’t do this cleaning anymore, I was thinking about taking all the luggage off the bike, carrying that to a point, then going back for Bay and carrying him. I knew it was around 8 kilometers to the village of Valle de Abdalajis, and thought if all the road is chalk I won’t get there until next bloody week at this rate! Then I thought I’d try and lift the rear of Bay, and push with the front wheel on the ground. This worked to a certain degree, I could go ten metres at a time before the front wheel jammed. Cleaning the front wheel was easier than cleaning the rear, so I used this method, until eventually the chalky ground ended. What a relief! Alas, with all the chalk on my tyres, it started to pick up an incredible amount of gravel from the new gravelly surface! So I still had to keep cleaning the tyres, I was worried how much damage these rocks and stones were doing to my bike. When I got to the downhill section, I thought fuck it, I’m gonna get on and ride as fast as I can to the village, before the pending downpour. The thunder and now lightning were very close, but the rain was light at this point. The road became surfaced, although very bumpy, I raced down that as fast as I could, with stones and mud flicking up off the tyres at me. There were some horrible noises coming from Bay, from the chain and my front Rollpacker bag was chaffing on the tyre, as the tyre was now 50cm bigger in diameter due to the collection of mud! But I kept going. Almost the second I got into the village absolutely torrential rain began to fall. It was horrendous. I’d not seen rain like this since Hawaii, where it creates instant puddles and streams run down the road. As usual the village centre was uphill, everyone was diving for cover from the torrential downpour, they were huddled in doorways. There had been a village fiesta happening before the storm hit. Some staring at the bedraggled English bird with her blue poncho, wading through the ankle-deep water. The police were trying to direct cars out of the fiesta car park, it was mayhem! I’d asked one of the policeman if there was a hostel nearby, and he pointed me in the right direction. On getting there, banging on the door, a man named Sergio came from another entrance. He could see what state I was in, so said he would telephone the owner to see if there was a room for me. This took five minutes or so, still in the torrential rain, he returned to say no, it was fully booked. He took pity on me and ushered me down a steep driveway into a workshop, to get me and Bay out of the rain. It was so kind of him, we were dropping mud and water all over the tiled floor of this workshop! He didn’t speak English but we communicated, and he said there was another hostel in town and phoned them for me, passing the phone over to me. As it turns out the Refugio de Alamut is run by English speaking Finnish people!! So I spoke to the lady, and she said come up, we have a room for you. It was such a relief to hear those words. Sergio was another example of the kindness that the Spanish have shown me over these past 30 days. I was so very grateful to him, he got the map up on his phone to show me where the Refugio de Alamut is, unfortunately a steep one kilometer climb from where I was, out the other side of the village. But no matter it was refuge! I thanked Sergio, and went back out into the rain, moments later the rain stopped. By now my feet were soaked to my ankles due to the torrents pouring down the street, I was cold, tired, but relieved. The final climb up the Refugio de Alamut’s driveway was hard, I stopped for a moment to rest, turned around, looking back over the village I had just left, and there, as if to say everything’s going to be alright, was a beautiful rainbow. This inspired me and helped me to the top of the steep driveway. Timo and Dah run the Refugio de Alamut, they’ve only been running it for two weeks, so I feel very lucky, as the other owners may not have been able to help me. Both Timo and Dah were so very nice and understanding of my messy muddy drowned-rat appearance! They soon settled me into one of their chalets. I had a very hot shower to warm me up, then walked over to their bar area for a cup of tea, and to collect myself together. It really had been another of those ‘oh shit’ moments, a bit like when Pepe and Inma rescued me! Although exhausted, I didn’t sleep much that Thursday night, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was that all my stuff and Bay was covered in mud and I was worrying how I would be able to get back on an even keel. I shouldn’t have worried, Timo and Dah both went out of their way to help me. Timo set-up the hose pipe to wash Bay, Dah took my dirty clothes and laundered them. Oh man what more could I ask for! On Friday, day 31 of my travels, Good Friday in fact, I spent the morning emptying my bags, washing them, washing Bay and generally trying to re-group and get some sort of semblance to my kit. This was made easy with the help of Timo and Dah! I discovered that I’ve ruined my front Rollpacker bag, where it was rubbing on the muddy tyres, it has worn a hole through, so is no longer water proof, bum it! They are expensive, £200, so today, Saturday I carried out some repairs to it, by sticking puncture repair patches on it, it seems to be quite a robust repair, so fingers crossed. Dah is originally from Thailand, she speaks Thai, German, Finnish, English and now Spanish! Timo speaks many languages including very good English. At Refugio de Alamut the spacious rooms are in chalets. With, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but to me looks like Buddhist inspired, tasteful artesan décor. There’s nothing not to like about being here. Even not having a phone signal or wifi in the rooms didn’t bother me. There’s wifi in the public area, which is around the pool, the bar and a recreation room. It’s not that good a wifi, but I’m sure Timo will sort that out. It would make the place absolutely perfect, but for me, it was heaven anyway! I’m writing this on Saturday 20th April, Day 32 of my travels, it’s rained on and off since I got here, with a sunny morning yesterday, and sunny intervals this morning. Refugio de Alamut sits right below a huge rocky outcrop, well and truly in the mountains. It’s a very rugged area, with an escarpment behind it, and rolling green hills in front, looking down over the village, it’s quite beautiful. There’s a feral cat that keeps coming to see me, I can’t touch him or her, but she meows a lot to me, and will just lay down near me and seems happy enough. I took a walk down into Abdalajis today, I needed some food and some camping gas. I'd been cooking all my meals except breakfast, in my room on my camping stove. The town was busy, I think there was a funeral happening. I met a lovely old guy in the street, he just started talking to me, which is quite unusual for older Spanish people, they are often times very wary of strangers, I guess you can blame the Franco era for that. Anyways, Bartholome, I think that’s how it’s spelt, he pronounced it Bar-toll-a-may, he was telling me where to go for getting the best photos in Abdalajis. He now lives in Barcelona, but has returned to his hometown for the fiestas. How lovely he was. I couldn’t find English Breakfast tea in the supermarket, so was asking in a Bazaar shop, the lady didn’t know what Te Negro was, but some young senoritas overheard, and started talking to me, they had good English. Rebecca, Marisol and Julia, told me they have English Breakfast tea in the other supermarket. So I went there, and got some. Later walking through the pueblo I hear shouting behind me, it’s the ladies again, asking if I got my tea!! So now, Saturday evening, with the heavy rain just stopping, I may venture across to the bar for a cup of tea! I’ve no idea how long the rains will continue, but the forecast is not looking good. At 35 euros a night, I can’t be here too long, that’s for sure! I had some neighbours in the next chalet, Alain and Helene, from Bordeaux, we chatted as best we could, Alain spoke some English. They left on the Thursday, driving home via the Sierra Nevada, back to France. I ventured over to the bar that Saturday night and got talking to a French guy, Michel, that has lived in Spain for over twenty years. He makes a living by organising Paragliding holidays, pretty extreme hey! Sunday night I also went to the bar and got talking to a local man, Jesus, he speaks no English, so I have to use my little Spanish, but we managed to spend a whole evening chatting! Embedded in the walls of the Refugio de Alamut bar are some Amonites, Jesus was telling me that he finds these fossils up in the craggy mountains above the Refugio. How fascinating to think that this massive mountain was once under the sea! There was a strange turn of events at Refugio de Alamut, on the Wednesday, my hosts, Timo and Dah, that had only been running the place for a short while, had decided they no longer wanted to buy Refugio de Alamut. The owner, Marie-Carmen returned and Timo and Dah left on their motorbikes on the Friday, the same day I was to leave! Marie-Carmen had built Refugio de Alamut, and run it for twenty years. She is hoping to sell up so she can retire. If you're interested in buying it, please contact her on the Refugio de Alamut website, directly. Jessica did the room turn-arounds at the Refugio, she was lovely. In fact everyone there was. Adios mis amigos!

17th April 2019 You can see my YouTube on this ride here I left my wild-camp outside El Burgo at around half six in the morning, it was still dark. After a short while on the trail I came across a rather bedraggled fox, it stared, ran a little, stopped, stared, ran a little more, and repeated this a couple of times, very strange! The route was on badly eroded soil, sometimes one lane had collapsed completely from water erosion. I found it very interesting as this eroded soil had once been vertical, now horizontal, so the different coloured layers of soil and rock, laid down over millennia, changed as I walked aside it. I wondered which layer was from what sort of event and wished I had my own personal geologist with me to explain the mystery. It was uphill for many kilometres riding through rolling hills with the mountains in the distance. I was heading for a town called Ardales. The wind was building, when I reached a crossroads, quite high up, the wind was gusting at 20 knots or so. Turning left at the crossroads took me through pine woodland. At this point I hadn’t seen another human being since the night before. I like it like that sometimes, makes me feel like I was the only survivor of a catastrophe! The woodland went on for many kilometres, as I sat and took a break, another mountain biker stopped for a chat. I wasn’t the last person alive after all! The wind was building, the woodland was getting less dense, through it I could see the mountains getting closer. I stopped to do a Facebook live in the strong wind, which was probably around 30 – 40 knots by now! Even though there had been many wild-camping spots in this woodland, I didn’t think it a good idea to stop now what with the strong winds and it was way too early. I could see Ardales in the distance, surrounded by mountains with a wind-farm above it. I wondered if it was always windy here. Eventually came a fantastic decent for several kilometres, with wonderful mountain views in all directions. I raced down this twisty steep road into Ardales. As usual the town went steeply uphill. I stopped at a restaurant for a coffee, sitting with around six old gents. As long as I start speaking to them, I find that I get on OK with these strangers, otherwise they just stare at the random gringo! On asking where I could stay for the night, I was pointed to some apartments just around the corner, they looked really nice, but at 77 euros per night, they ought to be! So I set-off for a Hostel called El Cruce, that I’d spotted the night before when searching, whilst in El Burgo. It was just out of the town. At first, due to it being Easter the lady said that they were full, but a nice senorita got on the telephone and after ten minutes she’d sorted me out a room, but for only one night. So very kind of her! The restaurant at El Cruce is huge, and popular, the rooms are upstairs. I wasn't permitted to take Bay into my room, I had to leave him in the restaurant, so I bungeed him to a wall and locked him up! He was tucked well away, so I wasn't worried about leaving him. The rooms were modern, clean and plenty good enough for me, especially at 28 euros a night! The heavy winds were continuing into the night, so I was glad of the room. Although at the rate I’m spending money I won’t be getting to Valencia, it’s getting silly! But heigh-ho, let’s have tapas in the restaurant too!! I had been totally wiped out by my ride the day before after getting lost en route to El Burgo. I was definitely suffering from mild sunstroke. I had an excellent sleep that night but woke up still tired and feeling a little worse for wear. Anyway, I had to leave, there was no room at the inn! So I set-off for El Chorro, the land of the Caminito del Rey. Good news, the winds had died down. They had buffeted the Hostal all night long.

16th April 2019 You can see my YouTube on this ride here I had another encounter with Spanish kindness on leaving Hotel Arunda. The lovely clerk, Jose Miguel, gave me a nice discount on my room. I'm not sure if he felt sorry for me or if it was because I asked for my room not to be cleaned! Whatever the reason, it was very welcome! Riding out of Ronda, I was soon into the hilly countryside. A theme was set for the day, I missed a turn on the gravel road and had to back-track a kilometer, uphill. This was the easiest of my corrections due to my inability to follow a map! The gravel road crosses some meadows, very steep and rocky. Then I'm onto the GR249 that traverses the Sierra de las Nieves. It's a double track, not well surfaced and uphill, interspersed with some short downhill sections. This cuts through some beautiful mountains, the views always interesting. A local farmer, Paco, stopped his Land Rover to have a chat. He was very friendly, and told me a little about the mountains. There were some decent but gnarly descents, quite steep and I was having to exercise caution as sheep and goats are lining the route. They're a little like Pheasants, on trying to get out of your way, they run across in front of you. Eventually continuing straight ahead comes to a gate and turning right following the track, leads to a farmhouse. Google maps had lost the Altravesur route by now. I had no phone signal but as I was using offline maps I've no idea why it disappeared. The track ends at the finca, and there’s no where to go. Not knowing where I'd gone wrong, I decided to back-track until I found a GR249 signpost to confirm I was still on the correct route. I'd gone around half a kilometer back up the steep hills that had been my fun and epic descent a short while before. Once I got a phone signal, the Altravesur route returned. So I turned around again and slowly made my way along the track, watching the map carefully. It was very hot, there was no shade and I was getting flustered and overly hot. Again I ended up at the finca and again as soon as the phone signal disappears the Altravesur route disappears too. I still had the Orux maps on my phone at this point, I didn’t know how it worked but I opened it and it was showing that I was in the right place when I was at the finca and that I needed to go through the farm. Just before the finca is a GR signpost, but it doesn't point in any direction, the options are across a ploughed field to my left or go through a gate straight ahead or to the finca to my right. I started to cross the ploughed field but Orux was showing I wasn't on the right route. For some reason there was no indication that I should go straight ahead through the gate, which with hindsight is the correct way. So I go up to the finca and open the gates to the property, it felt wrong, as though I was going through someones garden. Which it turns out I was. I start crossing the farmyard, with two dogs barking at me and feeling like a trespasser. I had no idea which direction to go, then I hear someone shouting, it was coming from higher up than me, turns out it’s the farmer, yelling from outside his house. He wasn’t angry, he was trying to indicate to me where I should go. I dithered around, and he continued to gesticulate. This went on for 10 minutes, I'd go where I thought he was pointing, then he would indicate i was going the wrong way, and I'd try another direction. Eventually I got to a gate, this being opposite the gate that I hadn't gone through earlier! When I got to the gate three other mountain bikers appeared, they'd came across the field, through the gate (the easy way!) that I had thought was the wrong way. We had a brief chat, and the farmer came over for a chat with them, then we all went through the gate. The trail then becomes a very rocky single-track. I was riding behind the others, but we were all having trouble riding the steep rocky trail, so we all pushed out bikes for a while. The trail was cut into the mountainside, it was rocky and narrow and often we hit a rock-fall shale section. These shale falls were quite difficult to traverse, it was all a little precarious. Having overheated, I let them go and stopped for a drink and some food. Luckily I had brought a brolly with me so I sat in the only shade there was, beneath it. The rocky shaley narrow track went on for around two kilometers, eventually becoming interspersed with less rocky sections that could be ridden. Eventually it becomes a great downhill ride across a bush-populated meadow. It's a good fun piece of singletrack, after a while it enters woodland. It was a nice ride in the woodland, very up and down. The trail suddenly ended at a dry riverbed crossing. In my excitement at the great descent, I’d missed my turning, this became a theme through my tour. I hadn't been looking out for the signposts, and at that time I didn't realise GR signs with an X on them was the wrong way. I got horribly lost. It was like a heatsink basin, extremely hot, I hadn't drunk enough water and was struggling. Back tracking until I found a sign, was very difficult, steeply uphill with a slippery dry dust surface. I had gone down so far and looking at Orux I needed to get up to the turning I missed, onto the Camino. I can't describe how awful this back-tracking was. I was exhausted and overheating. I spent half an hour trying to get up one two meter incline. I exerted myself so much, I wanted to vomit. I was straining my arm and leg muscles trying to get up this bastard incline, but I couldn't. It was so dusty that every step I took, I slipped back down, the bike was so heavy I was getting desperate and more exhausted by the minute. So I ploughed through some dead bushes to the left of the dusty incline, it wasn't pretty and took another twenty minutes but I got up it eventually, only for there to be another 300 metres of exhausting slippery rocky push up. I could see the top, there was a signpost, but I was still 100 metres away from it. By now I was getting cramps in my hands, feet and legs. I was really struggling and I was on the verge of collapse, when I saw a man at the top who shouted down and asked if I needed help. Pepe is my hero, he ran down and pushed my bike up the last bit of the hill. I all but collapsed at the top, where his girlfriend, Inma and he had been deliberating which way to hike. We had a chat whilst I recovered, my fingers were in a rigid cramp as were my feet and leg muscles, I was in a ridiculous state, totally dehydrated and suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion. I know not to get into this situation, yet I often do, what is wrong with me? They were reluctant to leave me but I said I'd be fine, and they decided to hike in a loop to El Burgo, to the right. My destination, El Burgo also, but my route was to the left, to follow the Altravesur. The 9kms of track to El Burgo was a road cut into the mountainside, unsurfaced but in good condition. It wasn’t a tough ride out, I rode and walked. The views were some of the best thus far on my ride. I was continually looking for a wild-camping spot, to the right was a steep embankment up the mountain, to the left a long drop down the mountain. So it wasn’t possible to find anywhere to set-up camp. I stopped to filter some water at a fuente on this camino, to top up my supplies. My water filter consists of a pouch to catch some dirty water and a small cylindrical filter that screws onto the pouch, you squeeze water through it and it comes out clean. It's best to get water when you can. These mountain towns all have natural mountain water fuentes, occasionally there is one on the camino. The gravel surface was in good condition, and by now was going downhill towards El Burgo, I could get up some speed and cover ground with little effort. Running on fumes, this was good, being a near ten kilometre ride from where I had met Pepe and Inma. On entering El Buirgo at around 6pm I stopped at the first open restaurant to get a cold drink and an ice-cream. I often stop at restaurants, and always there is a group of old men, chatting and drinking usually coffee or beer. I started asking if there was a campsite nearby, or a hostel. No camping, but there was a couple of hostels. I started phoning around, one was closed, the other was too expensive at 55 euros a night. The restaurant owner had joined the conversation by now, and as I couldn’t find a place to stay, I asked him if I could camp at the restaurant. He didn’t hesitate and said yes, but I would have to wait until he closed at 11:30pm and that I’d have to be out by 6am. This was fine with me, it was going to be a long wait, so I started writing this blog! And this is where a somewhat surreal night began. When food was served at 8pm I ordered a meal, along with several cups of tea, to while away the time. I chatted with a few English people that were also sitting in the sun on the terrace and hung my solar charger up from one of their chairs as they were in the best location to get a good charge. When I ordered my food I asked again if it was OK to camp there, and that it wasn’t going to cause a problem, again Juan Miguel, the owner, said yes it was fine. But around 10pm he came to me to say he knew of a better place I could camp and said come with me. As I was walking with him, I felt uneasy, as we were walking into the town, and I’d left all my stuff, including Bay at the restaurant. Anyway we get deep into the town and he leads me to the loading bay of some sort of commercial premises. He said it would be much better to camp there. It’s hard to describe, except it was just a concrete area, up some steps leading to these loading bay doors. I thought there’s no way I’m camping in the centre of a town, but pretended I was fine with it. We returned to the restaurant, I packed my stuff and left as though going to this alternative camping spot. It was night-time by now. I decided to get back on to the Altravesur route and to find a wild-camp. I couldn’t be bothered to stop and put my bike lights on, so I rode just by, what I thought was the starlight, I think a full moon was probably behind me, as I could see very clearly. Riding out of the town, it was deadly silent except for the sound of dogs barking as I passed each residence. Less than a kilometre into the route I found a gateway with a steel rope across it, that looked like it led to some unused land, so I ducked under it and set up camp there. By now it was around 11pm. I was slightly worried that I’d be spotted as I’d set off so many farm dogs barking, but luckily it was very windy, so I guessed that some of the barking was down to that, or that the dog owners would think that. I had a good night’s sleep, waking around 6am, even though it had been very windy that night. I looked out of the tent and saw my first ever moon-set, the sky was black, the moon was yellow, it was beautiful, like the sun setting in the dark. I so wished I had a camera that could capture the scene.I had some breakfast and coffee then packed up camp and set-off before daylight. I didn’t want to get arrested for trespassing!

11-12th April 2019 You can see my YouTube on this ride here On leaving Francisco and Rosamaria, I rode through Ubrique, further up into the main town centre, I struggled to not keep stopping to admire the town, it, like many other Spanish towns, is very well presented, and needs a second look. After stopping for a café con leche I had to get moving, although I would liked to have seen more. For some reason I didn’t think it would be so pretty and well presented. Up high in the town is the start of the route I needed, which turned out to be an old Roman road. The theme was kind of cobbled, but the cobbles were rough rocks. The steep incline up, plus the very rocky surface and blazing sun made this a very hard route for pushing up 50 kilos of bike and luggage. Sometimes, there was a water drainage channel at the side, with smoother cobbles, alas this would end and it would mean returning to the very rocky road. The further up I got, the rougher it became. And sometimes it would become very steep, and with that came bigger rocks. I was heaving Bay up these rocks with all my might, it was a real test of endurance. At one point I stopped for a break, propping Bay up against a large boulder. Unfortunately, he fell over, hard, onto the rocky road. Luckily it seems only my stills camera was broken. You have to count your blessings as he fell onto the derailleur side, with all the luggage on, it was a very hard fall, I think I got off lightly. I must be more careful. I seem to be good at carelessness! Before the top of the Roman Road there are around three gates to negotiate, and the last part of the trail is a narrow singletrack path through vegetation. This part was exceptionally rough and very steep, at least I could see Benaocaz, the next village at the top, so it encouraged me to keep going. I had to hump and heave Bay over the rough terrain. Negotiating the last gate at the very top, I was glad that was over. I was absolutely exhausted, so rested for a few minutes. To be honest, this Roman road section certainly wasn’t enjoyable; the views were nice but it was hard work. I sat in the shade of an information board at the bottom of the village. I didn’t venture into the village, there was no reason to. It was late afternoon by now, so I thought I would head towards the next village of Villaluenga del Rosaria, and find wild camping en route. Alas the surfaced road was long and uphill most of the way, with fencing along both sides, there was no chance of wild camping. So I kept going, thinking I would pass through Villaluenga, and find wild camping the other side. As it happens this wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but by the time I got to the pretty whitewash mountain town, I was too exhausted to go through it, that Roman Road has really sapped my energy. What a pretty pueblo it was, so tidy, and with great effort put into the design of the town entrance. I'd only ridden 10 kilometers but I was done for the day! Even though it was 17:30, a time when usually towns have awoken after the siesta, this one was deadly silent. Villaluenga doesn’t re-awaken until 18:00 it turns out. There was no campsite, no hostel and only one hotel. I negotiated as lower price as I could at 36 euros and decided to spend the night there. La Posada, the hotel, was a traditional Spanish village style building, the staff friendly and also bike friendly. They have a rear entrance with double doors that you can use to take your bike up to your room. The hotel is literally shadowed by towering, jagged cliff like mountains all around. It was so very nice to be able to take a shower and curl up in clean sheets! Before going to bed I sampled the restaurant’s menu del dia for 10 euros. It was a very welcome three course meal, my first proper food since Jimena. I spent some time working on Episode 5 of my Altravesur YouTube, alas I couldn’t complete it, I was too tired. For every hour of published YouTube, I think I spend around 10 – 12 hours editing. So it would have to wait. That turned out to be sooner than I thought anyway! After a hotel breakfast I set off around 11am. Later than I wanted but I spent time on the laptop editing Ep5 and then had to wait whilst the battery charged. On leaving the hotel, I needed to climb up and over the village, back down through the other side. I couldn't work out what was going on. There was a lot of people around, mainly shipped in by coaches, lots of them. With police ushering coaches and people all over. it was quite frantic. I don’t know what the occasion was, but it was very popular. It seemed to mainly be senior citizens; I couldn’t figure out the occasion though. On reflection I think it was for a religious fiesta or festival. Crossing by the coach park took me off road into the hills, this would be the Sierra de Grazalema. At first the road is surfaced, all uphill, then it flattens out after around two kilometres, onto the most excellent gravel road through woodland. It was perfectly smooth, very well maintained, and a good job too as the trees lined the route, with the sun filtering through, casting dappled shadows on the road, it was hard to distinguish any undulations of the surface. But without any potholes it was fine. This woodland road forked twice, and twice I took the wrong turning. The second time I did this, I hadn’t realised I’d taken the wrong route until after negotiating one of the most difficult gates I had come across. Dammit, I was so pleased with myself, getting through it, only immediately to realise I was on the wrong road! After some time on the lovely gravel road, it comes to a gate, where the sierra then crosses a pretty, but boggy series of meadows. The meadow has streams filtering through it and patches of standing water, there had obviously been a lot of rain here. There are a couple of stream crossings, that if you’re clever you can stay dry crossing. Alas I am not! Now I’ve got wet feet! Another gate, another boggy meadow. Then your out into a vast plain, with jagged mountains in the near distance. It’s nicely lonely out there, a long road in front and a long road behind, with nothing but brush and vegetation until the mountains. The Sierra de Grazalema eventually runs into an area with small farms either side, then it ends at a surfaced road. At this point there is a restaurant to the left. Rather a nice one, so I stopped and had some soup. I have a new found penchant for Coca Cola! I never drink coke, probably I wouldn’t average one can a year through my life, all of a sudden, I need it! So, I had a lovely cool Pepsi Cola to go along with my soup! Now this is where it gets tricky, the Sierra de Grazalema route continues, to my right. I could see I needed to get on the surfaced road for only around 20 meters then turn right back into the woodland. I did this, but a man, an official looking man in a council de Grazalema van, told me I couldn’t ride down there. I got back onto the road and found some very high gates leading into the park. They were padlocked and there was no way I could get over them. So I stuck to the road. I wasn’t that bothered, I could see it was similar terrain as to that I had just travelled, and on the mountain road I had better views of the mountains to my left. These wouldn’t have been visible in the woodland. I’m making light of it, I wished I was on the right track really! After a very long climb up a hot and shadeless mountain road, it then went down hill onto some plains. This was great, a long section of downhill, but I knew it would climb steeply again to get to Ronda, so bitter sweet! The mountain road was quite busy with traffic, it was narrow, windy and undulating. A lovely lady drew her car alongside me and asked if I was OK, which was nice. I guess I started riding on the mountain road at around 2:30pm and was on it for a few hours. My next major town was Ronda, but between where I was and Ronda, a few kilometers to my right there was the village of Montejaque that I would be missing, as the mountain road bypassed it. I could have made efforts to go to this village and return to the Altravesur route. But to be honest, I just couldn’t be arsed. So onward to Ronda, but following my new regime of not stopping in a town at night, I was looking for a wild camping spot. The road up to Ronda goes up, up up. Nearing the town, I found a way back onto the off road Altravesur route, alas this was a wrong decision, as it was steep, rocky, gnarly up-steps, that couldn’t be ridden. I was getting closer and closer to the town, thinking I’m not going to find a wild camp again, and would have to look for a hostel. By now I was very hot and bothered, the climb up to Ronda was relentless as was the sun, with little shade. There seemed to be a lot of military land on nearing Ronda, so camping was out of the question, although I did contemplate it, what's the worse that can happen! I messaged Jen, the lady I’ve been speaking to on Whattsapp, as she is in Ronda, to see if she knew of anywhere to camp. In the meantime, I found, just before the first urbanization in Ronda, a kind of nature area, with pine trees, poplar trees and brush. I scouted it out, I could see there were some trails on it. But bugger it, it was around six in the evening, and I needed to rest. So, I set-up camp right there, I was in view of the gravel road. I was kind of worried, camping so close to a town, and in view of walkers and the road. The evening brought many dog walkers, runners and cyclists. All were friendly and gave a wave. Except two teenage girls, walking their dogs, who told me to go away. I was slightly worried that I would get some sort of trouble, camping there, I don't think it's actually legal but I'm sure the police have better things to do. It was out of town, and after dark I think I only heard around two people pass by. And they were cyclists. By now Jen had replied and suggested we meet up, and go for tapas with her friends, as she was going to Granada for a few days on the Saturday morning, so it was our only chance to meet. I explained that I’d set up camp, I had only the clothes I was wearing, I was muddy, I was smelly, and I couldn’t repack my camp, just to go out. So, she suggested meeting for breakfast. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it, as I like to wait until the sun dries my tent of the morning dew. I had a reasonable night’s sleep, I woke around 7:30, it is still dark at this time. A beautiful view greeted me when I unzipped my tent, the silhouette of the poplar trees, against a dark bluey/black sky, with the Ursa Major constellation in full view. It was beautiful. Anyway, I thought as I’m up, I’ll get packed up quickly and go and meet Jen. I was nearly an hour early arriving at Café de Agata, where we were to meet, and Jen was a little late, so I could have waited and let my stuff dry out. But no matter, I didn’t want to get lost, then mess up our meeting. It was so lovely to meet Jen, I truly think she is lovely. I had formed an opinion of what she would be like, from our chats, and thought she would be too out-going and party animal for me. But she turned out to be quite normal, extraordinary but normal! I was so glad I liked her, and am really disappointed that we couldn’t spend more time together, we would get on fabulously. Jen’s friend Natty (Natasha) also came to breakfast, she was on a weeks holiday from the UK, where she is an anesthetist! OMG can you imagine the responsibility!! She was off to Granada too, having been to a yoga retreat for a few days before arriving in Ronda. She too was just lovely. We had less than two hours over breakfast, so we had a hurried ‘Get to know each other’ kind of chat. Both were my kind of girls! Oh well perhaps one day we will meet again! Whilst we were chatting, my neck and throat started itching, Natty said I should get something on that. I thought it was just a little irritation due to my camping being in long grass, I’m allergic to grass. But as the day wore on, more and more lumps, bumps and wheals were appearing. They go right around from one side of my throat, round my neck to the other side, from my collar bone to my hairline. Horrendous!! I also have them on one of my shoulders, from my collar bone to the bottom of my shoulder blade. And some random other places. I wonder if I had been bitten? There was some flies crossing the Grazalema sierra, but I can’t remember being pestered. Jen and Natty went off to meet their BlaBla Car driver, that was taking them to Granada. I went in search of the Hostel Jen had recommended. But first I took Bay for a jet wash, there was no way anyone would let me take him in a room in that muddy state! So funny, Bay is really hard to stand-up, due to all the luggage weight. I had to let go of the jet wash at one point to stop him falling, resulting in the hose thrashing about the wash bay like a demented snake, eventually the attendant caught it for me! He was a lovely young lad, very kindly. Jen had told me about a hostel she had used, so I went to seek it out. I arrived at the hostel around 1pm, only to find it didn’t have any spare rooms. It was so very hot in Ronda, I was overheating already. I was so cheesed off the hostal was full. I telephoned the cheapest hotel in the area, started cycling in its direction, where the road forked, I wasn’t sure where to go, so stopped two mountain bikers that were coming from the direction I was heading. With the language barrier they found it easier to turn around and let me follow them towards the hotel I was looking for. They were great guys, cycling back around a kilometre just to show me the way! The guys pointed me in the right direction, before we parted ways we stopped for a chat. Their names were Gocky and Habby. I rode off for around twenty minutes then realised this was too far out of Ronda to be economical, I’d have to get a taxi to go shopping! By now I’d been cycling for nearly an hour to get here, I turned around and went back into the centre of Ronda. I stopped at the first hotel I saw, Hotel Arunda, on the main strip. It was pricey at 45 euros a night, but there was a big religious festival happening Sunday, and it was their last room. Jen had also commented that this could prove a problem, so I grabbed the room. The room, on the 4th floor, soon looked as if a bomb had hit it. I needed to dry out my tent, and other gear. I washed all my clothes in the bidet, then hung my washing on the balcony and generally scattered my crap everywhere! I am soon going to run out of money, I’m spending too much on hotels!! The food is cheap, as I cook in my room on my camping stove, the costly part are the rooms, I must camp more! Ronda, it’s buzzing, I don’t know if that’s because of the religious festival or if it’s always like this. But it’s a very traditional, very historic, very beautiful mountain town. It looks like the town is built on a cliffs edge, with a gorge running through the middle. So, I’m in Hotel Arunda for three nights. And it’s a good job I am, this rash has got worse and worse. I’d had some hydrocortisone cream with me, and some antihistamine tablets. I think they allowed me to sleep well. I didn’t wake until 10am this morning. But the rash is so very itchy, so I thought I’d go find a Farmacia and get some antihistamine cream. Being Sunday, there is only one open in town, the other side of town. No matter, it’s a beautiful sunny day. And I would see some of the sights on my journey. Getting to the pharmacy was easier said than done! I ran into the religious parade, the streets were lined with hundreds of people, and many more adorned in costumes, or carrying one of the two huge religious floats. It was a struggle to get through. I didn’t want to be rude, I just needed relief from this bloody itching!! Once I’d got my antihistamine cream, I made my way back to town, and spent time filming and photographing the parade. For some reason I got very emotional watching it, I’m not sure why!? I don’t know what the parade is called, but it looks like it’s a build up to Easter, with old and young playing a part. Probably a couple of hundred people all told. Each float held 24 people inside! In this heat it must have been sweltering! They carried the huge wooden floats, one carrying ‘Jesus’ or 'Joseph' (not sure which) and one carrying ‘Mary’. They were very well constructed, with fine detail and quite beautiful. Many brass bands marched behind the floats, that seemed to be of different military contingents and also of different schools; the sun was blazing down on these guys in full uniform. They must have been longing for a cold drink or an ice cream! I have to say, the parade was very moving, and on more than one occasion, I found my eyes leaking! I followed the parade for around an hour, then set off back to the hotel to write this! In the evening sunshine the street below my hotel room is bustling with people, everyone dressed in their finery. Everyone enjoying the celebrations So here I am scritching and scratching my blog out to you!

10th April 2019 You can see my YouTube of this section here I still had two days to kill in Jimena, on Monday it was bright and sunny first thing, with rain threatened later, so I thought I’d do some sightseeing early in the day. The owners of Casa de Luna liked my video and wanted to link it to their website. As I was going to visit the castle and make a video of the trip, I thought I’d include a tour of Casa de Luna, that would be more useful to prospective holiday makers. Something to keep me busy as I was getting itchy feet by now! As I was due to leave Jimena on the Wednesday, with new tenants arriving Thursday, and that Sharon had been so kind in negotiating a good deal for me, I really wanted to leave the house spotless for her. So, during my stay I had been tidying, sweeping, mopping etc. as I went along. To leave it tidy meant weaving tidying with living and living with a whole load of junk at that! To make a house-tour video I needed to tidy the house, so that was my first job, then a quick GoPro tour of the accommodation. The castle is around two street levels higher than Casa de Luna, so only a short walk. Unfortunately, the tourist information office is only open Wednesday to Sunday, so I couldn’t gather any information on what I was going to see, I’d have to use my imagination! There are some fabulous views of Jimena from the Castle, looking down onto the roof tops. The site of the castle is atop the hill of Jimena, built into the Limestone rocks. It can be quite windy up there. There are 360-degree views of the Los Alcornocales Natural Park from the castle, I guess that was important for a fortress! Looking south you can see the Rock of Gibraltar, I’m sure on a clear day the Moroccan mountains will be visible. To the north, off into the distance are craggy, rugged mountains, to the East lush farmland with the Hozgarganta river meandering through. The castle ruins have had extensive rebuilding carried out, it’s been very sympathetically done, and is a credit to the craftsmen that carried it out. The entrance tower can be accessed, but the main lookout tower was locked, possibly open Wednesday to Sunday, I wish I could have gone up there, it’s considerably higher up than the entrance tower. Apparently, the castle site is under-going further excavations, as it’s been discovered that a settlement there pre-dates the castle’s construction by the Moors around 750AD. Jimena has been won and lost by the Greeks, Iberians and Romans. Also, the Moors, the Muslims, used Jimena as a stronghold. Eventually in the late 1800's the town of Jimena de la Frontera was settled by the modern Iberians. There is also evidence of prehistoric human habitation so is of great interest to archaeologists and historians. The site is over quite an expanse of ground. How I would love to see how it looked hundreds of years ago. It’s a shame it will not all be be restored to its former glory, but is worth a visit, nonetheless. Also upon the Castle hill is the Municipal Cemetery, a glorious final resting place. I captured what I could of my castle visit on my GoPro, then took a walk down towards the shops, in the lower village. Perhaps I should have recorded the higher village as well as the older town is quite pretty, and there are a few places of interest and some great views. But I didn’t, it had started raining as I got to the lower village. I made a quick edit of my days activities and published it before preparing to leave Jimena the next morning. You can find my film here The next morning more house cleaning was required, washing and hanging out my bed linen etc. so I could leave the house with minimal work for Sharon. By the time I had packed my bike and finally shut the keys inside it was 10am, and who happened to come along! Sharon and Alan out walking their three dogs. It was so lovely to be able to properly say goodbye to them. I was sorry to be leaving Jimena, but it was time to go. Having been warned by Simon, the mountain biker, and Sharon and Alan, that it would be best to take the surfaced mountain road, as the off road camino would be very muddy after six days of rain, I started out on the quiet surfaced road. Very few cars use this road, but I saw many cyclists and motor cyclists. I happened upon a random cow meandering along the road and a family of black pigs crossing the road on a tight bend. I would imagine there's been some accidents on this road, what with the wildlife roaming freely and motor cyclists enjoying the tight twisty tarmac. It must be a popular route for touring motor cyclists as I was passed by at least 10 in the two hours I was on it. And also cyclists, a German cyclist stopped to have a chat, he was on a solo tour of Andalucía, and as we were chatting several other German cyclists passed us, he had stayed at the same hotel as them in Jimena. Their tour was from South Spain to North Spain, with their luggage being transported to the next stopping point for them, by a supporting holiday company. I was so pleased to see a sign denoting I was entering the Malaga Province, thus far I had been riding in the Cadiz Province, only for a few hours later to return to the Cadiz Province, dammit!! It’s a mental thing, just feeling like I was getting somewhere! Just after the Malaga Province signpost I noticed a turning off-road, onto the Altravesur route, so I took it. If it was too muddy, I could turn back easily. A steep uphill at first, soon it transformed into beautiful mature woodland, upwards inclined but less steeply. On this blue sky, sunny day, riding through this woodland was a pleasure. Beautiful mature gum trees lined the route, it was very reminiscent of being in Australia! Such a pretty woodland, with many wild flowers, grasses and tree varieties. The ground wasn’t too wet at first, it was a slightly sandy clay like soil. Later the muddy areas increased, but after a day without rain it was drying well, and I could always find a way around. The road was uphill for many many kilometres, with a few downhill sections. I passed many cows and calves roaming free on this route, they are very beautiful creatures. I am slightly wary of the cows with calves, as I was when I happened upon a group of four adolescent bulls!! The road is graded quite well, but ruts were formed by motor vehicles on the muddy sections. I had been on the surfaced mountain road for around two hours, then passing through the woodland for around three hours. Eventually the off-road route ends, at a junction onto a surfaced road, which now is the Ronda sierra. I took the surfaced road towards my next destination, Ubrique. I was hoping to find a wild-camping spot, alas as is often the case, all sides were fenced in. And it had been a little too early to camp in the pretty woodland, on reflection, I should have camped there. I kept on the mountain road to Ubrique, looking for camping, wild-camping or a hostel. By now I was getting very tired, after many hours of uphill riding. It was now time for the Spanish people to take their evening walk, I stopped a few people on the roadside, asking if there was any camping or a hostel locally. But no, there isn’t anything in Ubrique that I can afford., although now I question this, I wonder if I just hadn't asked the right people. I also realise now that I should have just kept riding through the town, I’d have found a bee and bee perhaps, I feel now that I panicked and shouldn’t have. After around an hour in Ubrique, I came across a gentleman that I had earlier spoken to, the friends with him were Francisco and Rosamaria Borrego, and they took pity on me! I didn’t really understand what was going on, due to the language barrier, but I knew that Rosamaria wanted me to wait with her. Francisco had walked home, got his car and returned, with his daughter Joanna also along for the ride. Rosamaria got in the car and I was to follow. This was OK on the downhill sections, but on the uphill I struggled, so Rosamaria got out the car and walked with me. I still didn’t know what we were doing, but eventually we got to their Casita de Campo on their piece of land just outside Ubrique. The land has fruit trees, nut trees, vegetables and animals. It is similar to an allotment or small-holding in the UK. Upon it is a Casita,, a small house. In Spain you can have a resting area on your country land, not for permanent living, but for weekend living. And this is where Francisco and Rosamaria had led me, for me to sleep the night! The family had been busy, the land was full of fruit and vegetables, it's hard to keep a plot that size tidy, but theirs was immaculate. I was so overwhelmed by how much they went out of their way on this Wednesday evening, for me, and wanting nothing in return. How absolutely lovely! Rosamaria spoke a little English, as did Joanna. Later their other daughter, Rocio, arrived, she spoke very good English. I wish my Spanish was better so I could have communicated more! I'm so sad that I didn't get a photo of Rocio. Joanna got out of the car, she had a beautiful budgie on her shoulder, Lily! She is very fond of the animals and them, her. I was shown Bitty the cockerel, who is human friendly, and some chickens with chicks. Also she has two rabbits that roam freely on their land. The Casita itself was a large room with a separate flushing toilet with hand basin. There’s a kitchen area, a large family dining table, storage for all the kitchen items and a sofa bed. The Borregos brought me water, and let me cook on their gas hob, I was embarrassed that they wouldn’t take any money, even just for the utilities. Rosamaria kept saying, when I offered money, they are doing this from el corozon, the heart. How bloody lovely! A beautiful sunset was to my right, adjacent, looming heavy black clouds over the mountains. I was dreading rain, and luckily it didn’t happen. It was soon dark, the electricity wasn'tt working in the casita so I used my headtorch. I had a good night’s sleep and didn’t wake until around 08:30, at this time it’s only just getting light. I had hoped to return the favour to the Borrego’s by sweeping the large patio area, alas I could not find a sweeping brush. Whilst having breakfast, Bitty the cockerel came to see me, he does this funny sideways walking thing when he wants you to stroke him. He spent quite a while with me, interspersed with returning other cockerel's calls! It was beautiful, the campo opposite had around 20 – 30 rabbits running freely, and many chickens and what looked like turkeys! It was quite beautiful, with the sun rising, a heavy morning dew, and all the animal sounds. Rosamaria had picked around 10 oranges for me to have for breakfast, I ate one, it was succulent and sweet, the best orange I have tasted, by far! Because of the weight, I only took one with me, I wish I had taken more! I mooched around until around midday, when I was finally ready to leave. I messaged Francisco, using Google translate, to say I was ready to go and could bring the keys to him if he let me have his address. Ten minutes later, Francisco and Rosamaria appeared! I thanked them, many times, we said our goodbyes and I left. I was quite sad to go and could have stayed much longer! I was quite emotional after they had left, I was so touched by their generosity, trust and kindness, and humbled. One thing that I had come to realise at this point was, I am doing this wrong. I was riding from town to town, reaching a town each evening. Which means there is nowhere to wild camp. Therefore, I decided I needed to change my schedule, I needed to be riding through a town midday, coming out the other side, into the wilderness areas and riding until I found a good camping spot. It turned out later that this strategy was going to take some fine tuning because this day I would need to pass through two villages. But I needed to take into consideration that if I needed to resupply my food, if I passed through a town after 2pm, all the shops would be closed for siesta, so it was going to take some honing!

You can see the YouTube of this section here Whist I’ve been riding this route, I’ve been in contact with three people on Whattsapp; Jen, a lady that is bike touring, not specifically the Altravesur, but in the region I’m in. Currently she’s staying in Ronda for a few weeks, she tends to stay at homestays such as Warmshowers or Workaway. Then there’s Sean, he was a few days ahead of me on the route but had broken his bike in the mud after all the rains, just before Jimena. He had flown from New Zealand to do this and was en route to a family gathering in Ireland, so he had a tight time-frame. After breaking his bike, he pushed it to Jimena, got a taxi to Ronda, and held up there for a few days. In fact, he met with Jen whilst he was there, which was nice. Then he needed to get back to Valencia to collect his bike box and catch his flight to Ireland. That was a saga in itself, usually the trains allow bikes, but due to some breakdown of a train carriage or something like that, he wasn’t allowed to take his bike on the train. After a lot of frustration, he eventually got a bus from Ronda to Malaga, then an overnight bus from Malaga to Valencia. What a palaver! I wonder what is going to befall me after all this! The third person I’m in contact with is Tom Phillips, he rode the Altravesur in February, an excellent time window, before the winds and the rain! Although cold, it is the best time to go. These three people have been a great help, when I’m stuck, when I need to know how, where or what, there’s someone to talk to. For instance, I wouldn’t have known about the terrible mud after the heavy rains if it wasn’t for Sean. Which is something I’m having to contemplate now, whilst typing this I’m in Jimena, and it’s been raining heavily for days. On the Wednesday morning I was to leave, I’d decided to set-off around 9am. I thought I should go and buy a spare chain link before leaving Los Barrios, I do have one, but it turns out it’s the wrong one. And after Sean's chain breaking I thought it best to have one. I don’t know why I brought the one I had along, I knew it wouldn’t fit, I am such a weirdo! I made my way to Runbaik, but it didn’t open until 10am. I had to wait around for an hour, so spent it in a café just opposite the bike shop, who made me an excellent Café con Leche with Soya milk! It was rather pleasant just sitting there in the sunshine! So, on leaving Los Barrios, it’s a ride back out of town, past the Repsol fuel station, and through the Natural Park of Alconocales, at first on a surfaced road then onto gravel. It was a beautifully sunny and chilled ride, lots of gates, around six I think! I was passed by many mountain bikers coming from the other direction. In fact, Los Barrios was very popular with both mountain bikers and road bikers. It turns out this natural park is a big mountain biking area, with many trails at the Montecoche mountain bike zone. There's a military installation on the right, I was told off for taking photos....oops! The trail is double track gravel, with great views to my right across the green valley. Once through the park the trail becomes a very well designed and maintained bike lane. I rode this for some time, then stopped and had a sandwich that I’d made before leaving. Learning little things like this seems obvious but I hadn’t packed a snack before, this was the first time, and it made it so much easier, not riding hungry! I started up a surfaced mountain road, it was steep and went on and on and on, in fact 8 kilometers. There was little shade, the sun was beating down, and it was just up up up. I was convinced I had taken a wrong turning, but now looking at map, I don’t think I had. Google maps thought I was on the right road. Below, to my left, I could see a lake, and I thought I should be riding down by the lake, I’ve seen others on the Altravesur at this lake. I was totally confused as to where the route really was. Anyway I had committed to this detour so I just had to keep on going to the top. I could see the top, there was a castle right on the very top of the hill. Just before the castle I came to the start of a village of Castillo de Castellar, I stopped in a seating area, out of the sun and had a nap. Then I made my way up the last steep part of the mountain road. Getting to the castle I found a tourist shop, I started asking an old guy there which way the GR7 went, he told me, but said he wouldn’t ride it after all the rains. But there had been three days without rain by now, so I knew it must be drying a bit. The guy then started talking to an English lady, and she also said it would be best to turn around, go back down the hill and go on the road. I had a think about it, and the thought of the, what was at least three hours, I’d spent pushing up that sodding hill being wasted, I wasn’t about to ride down it! Plus there had been three days of sunshine to dry out the track. This is the track Sean broke his bike on. I went with my gut feel, decision made, I took the GR7, and luckily I didn’t regret it. It was a fabulous ride across woodland and farmland. I could see why Sean had problems, there were still large puddles, ruts and boggy areas to negotiate. At one point the farmer has decided to plough up the GR7 so that was pretty muddy. By now it was around 7 o’clock, and I was looking for a place to camp. I've ridden 30 kilometers this day. To the left of the GR7 runs a train line, so there’s nowhere to camp to there, and mainly to the right was fences or crops. I got to one pine tree planted area, just a small copse, but the ground was so bumpy it wouldn’t have been good for camping. I continued, for around another hour and eventually there was a small clearing on the right, with some woodland beyond it. Sitting against a tree was a backpacker! I said to him I wanted to camp there, was he thinking of doing so. I can’t speak any Russian, Alexie spoke a little English, and we established that we would both camp there! Alexie had flown into Ronda from Russia and is walking to Marrakesh! He was quite a shy 33 year old. We didn’t talk a lot, we both set-up our tents, had a meal and went to bed. Alexie had already given me some water he had filtered, but we both needed more so before going to bed we took a walk to the river, that was beyond the trees behind our tents, to collect and filter water. I had a good night’s sleep, after a quick breakfast we both broke-down our camps on this Thursday morning, moving our equipment into the sunshine to dry out the heavy morning dew that had soaked everything! Alexie set off on his way, I was still drying out my stuff and eventually got going around 10am. It was another lovely sunny ride through farmland, then through vegetation lined double track, then bramble lined double track, eventually becoming a surfaced road at a small hamlet. I stopped to have an avocado sandwich and a drink, in the distance I could see another castle upon a hill, with a village below it. I guessed it was Jimena. It looked a very steep ride! And that it was. I’ve spent time in mountain villages in the Sierra Nevada, but nothing like this, so very steep! It’s again, a beautiful town. Well presented, the streets are a modern cobble, but steep oh so bloody steep. And it was hot. After only riding 10 kilometers this day, I was struggling my way up, to find a bed for the night as heavy rains were due. I couldn’t afford the boutique hotels that were in the town at 55 euros a night, so was looking for a B&B, I found a couple of them, but couldn’t get an answer at the door or by phone. What a pain. A few locals chatted with me, not that I understood most of what they were saying, but basically one of them was saying that Pedro would be drinking in a bar, so I should go to the bar and find him, he runs one of the B&Bs I was trying to book into. There was no way I was walking down to the bar after struggling my way up this far, I would go on up to the other B&Bs. I struggled on farther up the town, to stop at a B&B, and whilst deciding which way to go a lady was passing by, she looked English, so I spoke to her, told her that I was looking for a room. Sharon had lived in Jimena 16 years with her husband, it was their home now, originally from England. It turns out one of the ways Sharon makes money is looking after an Airbnb house, making it presentable for new guests etc. She tried to contact the owner to see if I could stay there. But no reply. Sharon knew the people that ran the B&B I was trying to contact, so we made our way up there. She could see I was struggling with pushing my bike up the steep roads, so she offered for me to leave the bike at her house and then I could find somewhere to stay more easily. We made our way to her house, a little bit higher in the town. A lovely cottage, she lives there with her husband Alan (or Allen), three Scotty dogs and a cat! Surprisingly Sharon let me put my muddy bike in her living room! And what a godsend, she made me a proper cup of tea! It was glorious! The first decent cup I’ve had since I’ve been in Spain We chatted whilst drinking our tea, then the owner of the Airbnb house replied, and Sharon managed to negotiate the price right down, a bit more than I wanted to pay, but I thought I should just take it, so I can get my head down. We walked a short way down from her house, near to where we had met in the first instance, down to Casa de Luna, the house I was to stay in. I'm so thankful to Sharon, it's perfect! And I have it all to myself. With three outdoor terraces, I was able to wash Bay before bringing him inside. I walked to the shops to stock-up on food, and made myself a lovely mushroom and chickpea curry, heaven to have proper fresh food not camp crap for a change! I spent the rest of the evening on the roof terrace, it was wonderful. I felt so lucky! I really love this house, I could live here! You might be wondering why I’d taken a BnB? Because it had forecast five days of heavy rain that’s why! It rained heavily, as forecast, on that Thursday night, and on Friday, Saturday and it’s now Sunday, with heavy clouds looming and drizzle in the air. It became evident on the Friday night I think I had caught some sort of bug or had eaten or drunk something off. Which explains why I was struggling so much to push my bike on the day I arrived in Jimena.I had a terrible Friday night, I was nauseous, my stomach bloated, and it was painful. I barely got any sleep Friday night, on Saturday morning I was feeling a little better so decided to very slowly check-over Bay, just to make sure everything was tight. I found that the front axle, where the over-centre lever is fixed, was loose. And I didn’t have an allen key that fitted the screw to tighten it up. Damn it! I knew there was a construction material shop in town. All the shops in this town are right at the bottom of the steep hill, I really didn’t feel like walking, with my tummy still not right, but I’d have to get down there and see if I could find an allen key. So, I took a walk to the shop, feeling pretty secondhand, and hurrah they had allen keys, I had to buy a whole set, but at least I could fix Bay. I also bought some stomach acid pills, they were very expensive natural ones. I slowly walked back up to the house, tinkered with Bay, then went to bed at around 4pm. I slept until 1am then got up for a while, then went back to bed and slept right through. My tummy still isn’t right. I haven’t got diarrhea and haven’t been vomiting, it’s just nausea, bloating and uncomfortable. It feels like a hangover. I hope it goes soon. One thing I wonder, Alexie gave me water he had filtered from the Hozgarganta River, I didn’t drink the water I filtered. I wonder if it was that? Whether it was or wasn’t, a rule from now on, don’t accept water from others except in an emergency! The weather forecast is for rain until Wednesday. I can’t stay here after then anyway as the house has been booked to someone else. So, decisions need making! Whilst I was down the shops on Saturday, I noticed there was a guy on a mountain bike, so stopped to talk to him. Simon’s from Canada, his visa only allows him to stay at his house here for three months of the year much to his annoyance! He was very helpful to me, I asked about the ride from Jimena on the GR7 towards Ubrique, he said he wouldn’t attempt it after all the rain. And that there was a really nice old country road I could take instead. I valued his advice, he had ridden it many times so knew what he was talking about. So, I will either take that country road, or I will go straight to Ronda on the main road. I will wait until Tuesday to decide which way I will go and when. So that’s me, holed up in a lovely house in lovely Jimena! ! There were some great views from the roof terrace, and even from the kitchen window I could see the Rock of Gilbraltar in the distance.

You can see the YouTube of this section here If you have to be stuck somewhere for a week, Barbate isn't a bad place to be. I spent my time wandering around the narrow streets, stalls and shops, with nothing particular to do except wait out the Levante Winds. And boy did they blow! Mid-week they were at their height, nearly 60 knots, when it wasn’t gusting it was just blowing, the constant noise is something I got used to. I can’t recommend Hostal Barbate enough. They are bike friendly, allowing Bay in my room with me. I could wash clothes in my room and hang them out on the washing line, so I had everything a bikepacker could want! The thing I value most is my privacy, I want leaving alone, and this they did. I could ask if I needed anything. Occasionally the cleaning staff would ask if I needed anything. Trinny, the housekeeper was very helpful, actually slowing down her speech so I could catch what she said! I’m sorry to say I didn’t get the gentleman’s name that I first talked to on arriving at Hostal Barbate. He was immediately helpful, knew that I’d want my bike inside, so the first thing he did was open the double doors. He didn’t speak English, so we got by with gesticulations and my little Spanish. He then handed me over to Vanessa, I think she may be his wife. We communicated using my little Spanish and Google translate, I’d left it open as to how long I would stay, I was hoping just two nights, which turned into seven. Their tapas are very popular; morning, noon and night, the place is busy! The morning rush hour around 9am is mad, the waitresses, Vanessa and El Hombre are buzzing around like crazy, it seems like half of Barbate eat there. I indulged twice, and they really are exceptional, so I can see why they are popular. I made a bit of a school-boy error on the Sunday I was to set off riding again, by forgetting to charge my devices the night before, so I had to hang around whilst I got some charge in them, eventually leaving at around 10:30, a lot later than I had wanted, and with devices not fully charged. This put me on the backfoot where electronics are concerned, so I wasn’t happy to have to do it. I rode on the surfaced road, over the estuary bridge out of Barbate, riding south east towards Bolonia. With the coast to my right, the land between the road and beach was a prohibited military zone, although you could get onto the beach, I decided to stay on the road, why make it more painful than it needs to be for little gain i.e. I could see the same views!. I think I had gone off the Altravesur route around here, again I was total rubbish at navigating. Riding through the small town of Zahara de los Atunes, it was a peaceful, lazy Sunday morning, the town just waking. Heading farther along the coast, through the resort and urbanization of Atlanterra, which seemed rather up-market and a great place to have a villa nestled into the cliffs, or a posh hotel if one was holidaying. Mostly closed due to being off season. Down a steeply descending street, then a steep ascent led me to the Faro de Camarinal, a lighthouse. Obviously being on a headland the views of the Atlantic coastline were stunning. I could barely make out Barbate in the distance. The Faro de Camarinal is quite a pretty lighthouse. cylindrical in shape, tapering slightly towards the top, very much like an old fortress turret, made from very large tan coloured stone blocks. It looked like it may have been restored recently. As there was no one around I decided to park-up Bay against the lighthouse, sheltering from the wind, and made myself some coffee and lunch. It wasn’t long before walkers, bikers and sightseers turned up, so I felt a bit selfish ruining their view, and any prospective photos of the lighthouse. But too late, I couldn’t pack-up and move, they’d have to wait until I’d finished. No one said anything, but I did feel bad, and apologise if anyone’s view was spoilt! The lighthouse is on the boundary of the National Park de Estrecho, I found that a funny name!But anyway, turning right from the lighthouse took me onto the National Park road, at llast some decent off road riding was in store.At first the road was roughly surfaced, then it became gravel. The views were outstanding; of the coastline to my right, the turquoise ocean, the very green, undulating park and winding road unfolding before me, with bays, coves and coastline villages in the distance, to my left rocky outcrops and mountain forest. Sometimes I question why I blog and vlog, why not be satisfied that I am doing what I’m doing and seeing what I’m seeing. After all, taking all the electronics is quite an additional weight, time consuming and a faff. I guess it’s all about showing off, look what I’ve seen, look what I’ve done. No really, it's not just that, I love watching back my YouTube videos, especially if I'm not able to be getting out and about doing fun stuff. They cheer me up no end but with that comes more of a longing to be out on the road. I bumped into a couple of backpackers on this trail, two middle aged men, they were walking from Morocco to Seville. I didn’t get their names, but we had a good chat, I think they were from Belgium. It was a blazing hot sunny day, I was stopping in what little shade there was, quite often, to cool down. It was a lovely ride through the park, then ahead I could see the road goes from gravel to steeply ascending and rocky to the left fork, and continues to the right as gravel, I keep going right, there’s no way the trail can be that rocky road! Alas it was, I turned back, and as I did I met three people that were observing, what turned out to be Vultures, flying over the pinnacled mountains to my left. They were very enthusiastic about these birds, and lovely to talk to. The steep rocky road goes up and up, eventually levelling out to become part singletrack, part double track, through pastures and woodland. At one point Google maps was showing me off route, I spent perhaps half an hour trying to get back on the route, only to find it was the way I went originally. This would have been an ideal place to wildcamp, but it was too early, only around 5pm. I enjoyed this ride, it was quite challenging due to the rocks, and quite fun with some decent descents. The road eventually becomes surfaced again and passes through many kilometres of wind farm. I appreciate these swooshing giants, the clean energy and the engineering, it’s no mean feat, they are massive, and have to withstand the exceptionally high winds of the area. On hitting the highway, I make my way towards the village of Facinas, but by-passed the village on a well-maintained walking path, with the village to my right. This path, on this Sunday night was popular, people out for a stroll, I started to ask people if they knew of any camping, alas there was no official sites around. The path passes by a large recreational area, which has a café on it, I took a look, it would have been ideal to set-up camp, but it was forbidden, and too early to stealthily set-up. I kept going, a German guy told me the lake was only half an hour away, I didn’t think I’d get to the lake before sun-down. And knew, by experience, when someone says half an hour they mean much much more! But I went for it. It was hell of a push up a steeply ascending gravel road, around one mountain, then dropping down towards the reservoir. I was now on the Camino de Ojen, a popular walking track in the southern part of the Parc natural de Alcornocales, the route is also part of a eurovelo route and is the GR7 a near 2000 kilometer footpath from Tarifa to France. This was the first of many encounters on the GR7 on this ride. If I had wanted to camp by the lake I’d have had to divert off the route and the Camino de Ojen, to get to the shoreline. This I didn’t realise at the time. I wasn’t going to backtrack, I’d ridden around 40 kilometers and was totally shot-away by now, and needed to rest. I was too tired to go on, it was around 8pm by now, and going to be dark soon, so I decided I would setup camp just after the lake, by the side of the Camino de Ojen. A rather inauspicious first wildcamp for me! I was too tired to go on, it was around 8pm by now, and going to be dark soon, so I decided I would setup camp just after the lake, by the side of the gravel road. A rather inauspicious first wildcamp for me! It was pleasant enough, some mountains were opposite, the meadows and lake behind me. A few people passed by, on foot and in cars, but I had no trouble…..until 3:30 in the morning, when torrential rain, thunder and lightning set-in! It was fine, not scary at all, but obviously some things get a bit soggy. I had a decent night’s sleep, on and off, and waited until it stopped raining around 9am before getting up and packing up. It was going to rain again, the clouds were black, so I packed up in little spurts between rain showers. Trying to keep as much of my kit as dry as possible. I set off, riding the wet gravel road, in my very thick plastic poncho, that I am so so grateful I brought along! It not only keeps me dry but keeps my bike luggage dry too. It rained on and off for hours, there was some fabulous descents to ride, and some push-up ascents. I bumped into two English guys that were walking from Lisbon in Portugal to Budapest, on the GR7 and E7 routes. One of them wasn’t that happy, and stopped to rest, the other continued, I sensed some tension! They needed to get a grip, it was wet and shitty, so best to stick together. Eventually the one that went off, waited for the other guy. After I stopped to talk to him, I didn’t see them again, as there were so many fabulous descents to ride, I was a long way ahead of them by now! It was great albeit a little wet. I really enjoyed that section despite the rain. I passed a cottage that looked like it was a tea house, but it was closed, shame, a nice hot cuppa would have gone down well. Eventually I hit the road, it was the sort where an old road had been side-lined for a newer bigger road, so there were slip roads and all sorts! But best of all, an oasis in the form of a Repsol fuel station which serviced the motorway that had been built adjacent! I stopped here, had some food in the excellent café whilst pondering over whether to go into Los Barrios and re-supply or to continue on to Jimena. It would be possible to stock up on water from the café, where they also let me charge my electronics, but being the half-hearted lazy person I am, I decided to go into Los Barrios and stop over for a couple of nights. It’s a lovely mountain town. The Spanish seem to take so much more pride in the aesthetics of their towns than we do in the UK. It was just beautiful, palm tree lined avenidas, with well-tended roadside shrubbery and trees. I'd only ridden around 25 kilometers this day, it was mid afternoon when I arrived at the hotel. I found Hotel Real along the main strip into town, getting a room for 27 euros a night, for two nights. The room I took was very basic, but clean, with a balcony which was great for cooking on my stove! And for hanging out my washing. I washed my clothes and hung them to dry on the balcony, I unpacked my tent, sleeping bag etc and hung them to dry too. the room looked like a bomb had hit it! After a good night’s sleep on Monday, I went exploring around the town on Tuesday. I found a great littlel bike shop, Runbaik, and what a fab place it is. No sooner had I taken Bay in there and asked if it would be possible to clean and lubricate the chain, that Jose Miguel had whisked him away and started work, for free! He was such a lovely young man, I gave him a fiver for his efforts. Whilst Jose Miguel was working I’d been talking to Salva regarding GPS as I wasn’t happy with Google maps offline capabilities, you can’t see walking and cycling routes for one thing! We chatted about me buying a Garmin, he had one he could let me have at a discount but it was over 200 euros, and I couldn’t afford that. He said he uses an app called Orux, I installed this when I got back to the hotel, and spent sometime trying to figure it out, but there just wasn’t enough time for me to learn the intricacies of it in a few hours, it wouldn’t seem to let me have the map of Spain as an offline map. So eventually I uninstalled it. I spent some time working on my YouTube, but then couldn’t upload the film once finished, as the WiFi isn’t so good at Hotel Real. I wandered around the town on the Tuesday evening, it was like other small Spanish towns, busy and buzzing with couples and families doing what they do. And quite lovely, I could easily spend more time here. One thing I really miss is having the money to eat out. I've only had two tapas to date, I need to keep expenditure to a minimum, and would rather have enough to pay for hostels, when necessary.

You can see the YouTube of this section here My destination on this Sunday morning was Barbate. When I checked out, the lady on the reception suggested I ride through the natural parc, but that wasn’t the route, the route was along sand duned woodland. There was a few kilometers of road riding, to and through Los Canos de Meca, a lovely seaside town, mostly closed, but is probably buzzing in the summer! The very clever thing that has been done all along the Cadiz coast, over 100 years ago, to stop sand dune creep, was the planting of vegetation and pine trees that could survive in sand. Hence creating many wonderful woodland areas, with the added protection of inland areas, from on-shore winds. The Levante wind where I am at this time was an onshore wind, coming off the ocean. A short road ride took me to a natural parc, running along the cliff tops, a sand dune woodland. I started this, what would be hike-a-bike (pushing or carrying your bike), I managed to get around 200 metres and decided I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t move the bike in the deep sand. I turned back and took a road that I thought would take me to Barbate, which it would, over the top of a mountain. But noticed on my right was a gravel road into La Breña y Marismas del Barbate Natural Park, so I took this road, thinking it would go to Barbate, alas my no-sense of direction didn’t tell me that it took me back to the sand dunes woodland!! Oh blast it I said, or something similar!! And I learnt something from this, I give up too easily, anything for a quiet life. That had always been my personal life trait, as soon as there was trouble, I’d choose flight over fight but funnily enough not in my work life, at work I would fight, So, I had to trudge through the sand dunes, back to where I’d gotten the first time! Then onwards for around perhaps an hour or two. For this effort, I was rewarded with beautiful views, not only of the woodland but of the ocean too. Don’t under estimate this section, it is all uphill, a gentle incline, but becomes a little steeper at one point. Here I had to take some of the luggage off my bike and carry it up two sections, then go back for my bike. The sand was deep, the wind had died down and was now light, but the incline steep and the bike bloody heavy! And one thing to look out for in this area are the pine tree roots, they run over the top of the sand, and in the sand. I had a nasty stumble over one of them whilst pushing my bike up the steep section. Unfortunately, the result was jarring my already injured shoulder. I felt it squelch, this means I’ve re-damaged it, and was very upset that it had happened, as I knew that if it had aggravated my supraspinatus, which is partially adrift from the bone, it would be months of pain, and the end of my ride. I also knew the symptoms wouldn’t show until the next day. Eventually, after the steepest part, the sand becomes rideable, this was more like it. Such pretty views, cycling at a comfortable cadence. Then the trail becomes a little rocky, nothing much, easy enough to traverse. Then you come to another old fortress tower, Torre de Tajo, which is at the highest point of the hill. I sat at the tower, admiring the beautiful sea view, had a rest and something to eat. I also had a nice chat with a German couple that were holidaying in the area, it was their last day, I felt sorry for them as they were returning to work! After Torro de Tejo the trail becomes a roadway, semi-surfaced, from what I remember, and all downhill until Barbate! It’s around 3-4kms long, and the views are stunning, the turquoise ocean to the right, with some vegetation between you and the cliff edge, then on your left, more vegetation and more cliffs. Quite unique terrain, I’d not seen anything like it before. I was so very pleased I’d managed to traverse the sand dune woodland, I must not give up in future, but persist and endure! Stop being a wimp! So now I set about finding a hostel. I had decided to stay in a hostel for a couple of days, so I could keep an eye on the weather, and leave when the winds improved. Alas, Sunday was going to be the best day, from then on the winds were ramping up, to a maximum of nearly 60 knots on Tuesday/Wednesday. After a bit of faffing, trying to get into Hostal Mediterraneo, I gave up and went to Hostal Barbate. I think the former must be closed, although the restaurant was open, so I’m not sure what was going on there. But so glad I got into Hostal Barbate, the hosts are so lovely, it’s a young couple that run it and the tapas bar too. I’ve yet to learn their names, they are always so busy because the tapas bar is rammed from breakfast to dinner! It seems really popular with the locals. On arrival in my room, I slavered my shoulder in Fisiocreme, something I swear by, and had no pain that night. In the morning it was uncomfortable and weak, but there was no pain in the supraspinatus, which was promising. When I damaged my shoulder originally, in 2014, it pulled the muscle from the bone and also did some damage in the rotator cuff and to my shoulder blade. And it was this shoulder blade that was uncomfortable now. Usually when this happens, which can occur just swatting a fly, something comes out of position, and I’ve never been able to put it back into place on purpose, usually it just happens, with a click, when rolling over in bed, sometimes taking weeks. Luckily for me, this happened on Wednesday night, I just need to take care of it for a while and she’s a good’un! Currently I’m writing this in a tapas bar in Barbate, an off-season seaside town, but still bustling with people meeting for their midday tapas and coffee. The tapas bar I’m in sits in a pedestrianised Calle, along which are many fixed stalls selling fruit, veg, beer, coffee, provisions, all sorts. The stalls are on the outside wall of an indoor market, where again there are stalls selling meat, fish and veg. By the time I walk home, at 14:30, all is quiet, siesta time. I wonder what they do for those three hours? It’s a long day isn’t it, it’s like work is woven into their lives in a different way than a nine to five in the UK. I love it, and could certainly live this way. I had spent the week writing and editing videos, waiting for the Levante wind to die down, 60 knots would flatten my tent I think. I cooked my own food in my room, and did very little at all really. I’d been down to the beach a couple of times, but it’s not much fun in the strong winds! It is now Saturday, I’ve been in Bar-bat-ay 7 nights. It's been a big dent in the budget but I can't complain at 20 euros a night. The winds have been at around 20-30 knots today, but tomorrow they should be less than 20 so I have decided to resume my ride tomorrow, Sunday…….onwards!

You can see the YouTube of this section here After 2 nights and a zero day, I left the Rosaleda campground on the Saturday morning heading for Zahora. My bum was rested, and no longer feeling bruised! The ride back onto the route took some time through urban and suburban streets, it was very windy and difficult to ride in a straight line at times. I had been riding parallel to the coastline through the urban areas but there wasn't a coastal path worth following as it was going to be necessary to cross an estuary on a bridge which was slightly inland. The bridge leads to a vast expanse of sandy heathland, with the ocean to the right. The wind on this heathland was crazy, I couldn’t keep the bike on the trail, I was being blown sometimes over two metres off the trail time and time again. On occasion there would be a large palm shrub that I could use as shelter from the wind for a moments respite. I’d not known wind like it, and quite enjoyed it, the feeling of strong winds, an untameable force of nature that we can do nothing about. Around two thirds of the way across this expanse I stopped at an old fort, Torre Vigía de Castilnovo, to shelter from the wind for a while. I got talking to a lovely young Spanish lady, whose name escapes me, that was also sheltering from the wind. And this is where I discovered that the heavy winds had a name! It’s called the Levante Wind, which blows from the East, through the Gibraltar Strait, and hits the Cadiz coast for ten days, a couple of times a year. And it started the day I started my ride!! I started to check the weather apps out, and this night it was to be blowing, what I thought was 45 kilometers per hour, but turns out it was 45 Knots per hour. Pretty bloody strong! Eventually the heathland meets the beach, at El Palmar de Vejer, there’s what appears to be a river to cross, but if you turn right at this, onto the beach, the ‘river’ ends and you walk along the beach to get around it. My route was to ride along this beach all the way to Zahora. I tried to do it, but the wind was so strong, the sand blasting so uncomfortable, the sand so soft and deep, it was too hard a job heaving myself and 50 kilos of sinking loaded bike along it, so I decided to take the path alongside the coast. It’s such a shame, but the path was right on the beachside, so I saw all the beautiful views anyway. The ocean is just perfect, the colour a bright turquoise, the beach is around five kilometres long. All along this road are restaurants, bars and surf shops, being out of season most, but not all, are closed. It looks a fab place to visit in the summer, I expect it’s completely rammed! It is heavenly, and probably one of the best beaches I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Once again it was getting late in the day, the wind just got stronger and stronger, so I decided that I would find another campsite for the night. I rode away from the beach around a kilometre, only to find the campsite closed, so I continued on my route towards Zahora. After the beachside path ends I took to unsurfaced country lanes, with the coast still to my right. In the middle of nowhere was a BP fuel station! I asked the man for some campsite info and he told me there was one named Pinar San Jose in Zahora, only around 4km away. So, I rode there, on the surfaced road. This day, I’d only ridden around 18 kilometers, my lack in bikepacking skills was becoming evident. I was riding very short distances, and only staying in campsites so far, I felt like a phoney! In fact, there were two campsites at the location of Pinar San Jose, alas one was closed. It was quite expensive to stay the night, for a small tent pitch it was 17.50 euros. And the pitch was directly opposite some holiday cabins, that were occupied. I thought I’d be in for a noisy night, with partying holiday makers in the cabins, but that wasn’t the case. The only noise was from the howling, gusting winds of 45 knots. I hadn’t put the guy ropes on my tent thus far, but with the wind so strong I decided to fit them, only to find the tent didn’t come with pegs for them. In my emergency kit I had a spare wheel spoke and a length of carbon fibre flat stock. I broke the spoke in half, which made two pegs, then used my swiss army knife saw to cut up the carbon and used the file to make a lug to hitch the ropes onto. The ground on my pitch was so soft, you could push all the tent pegs in, all the way with one finger! So, I wasn’t hopeful on just how effective the pegs would be. In total with the four guy ropes, corners and vestibules needing a peg, that made a total of 10, my tent had only come with 6. I made sure all my heavy gear was in the tent, and me also, when possible, so that the chances of it flying off were reduced. The stress of the heavy wind was evident on the fabric of the tent, I think the stitching was at it’s limit of integrity, so I wouldn’t want to be using it in the higher winds that were due in the middle of the following week. The Pinar San Jose campsite, although compact’ish, had good facilities, including WiFi and electricity at the pitch. It’s set in Pine tree planted sand dunes, and quite pretty. The toilet blocks were nice and clean, with good washing-up, clothes washing and shower facilities. Again, the pool and other facilities are closed due to low season. I’m just grateful these places are open at all! As I came out of the toilet block, I noticed, what I thought was a wild boar the other side of the site boundary fence, so I went over to take a look, and it was a beautifully happy black pig! That ran over to me, wagging its tail like an excited dog. It was such a sweet Puerco! The night was fraught with very strong gusts, it doesn’t scare me at all, in fact I love being in the tent in the wind. My only fear is the expense and inconvenience of the tent splitting! I was up early, for me, and ready to go by 9am. The winds had eased, so that was good news.

You can see my YouTube of this section here Cycling out of Calle Real, San Fernando, my destination was Chiclana de la Frontera. Once out of the urban area, I was riding through an expanse of marshy wetland, alongside it on a gravel road. With the wetland to my right and a railway track and motorway to my left, the very windy ride was pleasant enough. I got lost in the narrow streets of Chiclana, which is where I dropped my best phone, cracked the screen and from then on it only intermittently connected to the network. By the time I’d got back on track the sun was starting to go down, I didn’t want to wild camp because I was so close to a town, so I stopped a passing cyclist to ask if there was camping nearby, he sent me to La Rana Verde campsite. On arriving I was surprised it was still manned, as it was early evening by now. Jesus was really friendly, he is learning English, so was keen to practice on me! He'd only been learning three years and was very good. And there I camped, a rather inauspicious first bikepacking camp night! There were the usual facilities; toilets, showers, water etc but this also had electricity in the pitch, so that was useful! And at 8.70 euros a night was quite reasonable. This day I only covered 15 kilometers, not including the distance I was lost! Wednesday night was a very windy night, it’s essential to set-up my long thin one-man tent with the thin end pointing towards the wind, I did this, then the wind direction shifted a bit, but still it coped well with the conditions. It was not only the first time I used my tent, but also the first time I used my sleeping mat and quilt. The mat is ace, no falling off this one, like with my previous Exped hyper-lite sleeping mat, that I'd bought for the Himalayas. I wish I'd had the Big Agnes for that! No other padding is required, it’s quite thick. I was a little chilly in the morning, but I think that was because I’d slept in just shorts and a top. I chose a quilt rather than a sleeping bag as I like to wrap myself tightly in my bedding, with a mummy bag you can’t do that. And there is a weight and space saving with a quilt, none of that silly top piece, I never liked that part of a mummy sleeping bag! I had some coffee and cereal, broke down camp, then set off for Conil de la Frontera. These are all coastal towns by the way, so although some places such as campsites, cafes and shops are open, not everywhere is open, due to it being low season, March in fact. I set off around 9am, and hoped to reach at least Conil de la Frontera before nightfall, then start looking for somewhere to camp. The first couple of hours of riding was through some urbanizations and golf courses, plus some extra roads to get me back onto the Altravesur route. The Urbanization Roche was a rather up-market beach front housing estate, very nice. I took a detour to investigate a nature reserve I was passing by, which led down to the Playa del Puerco. It was a nice spot, with plenty of space for camping and RVs, it’s not an official campsite, but there were several RVs and a tent that had obviously been there all night. It’s worth seeking out, it’s a big space and in a good location, shame I hadn’t got that far last night! I stopped at the Puerto de Conil for some lunch, then continued towards what I thought was Conil de la Frontera, alas, I took a wrong turn somewhere and went in a big loop, ending up not far from the Puerto de Conil again, I'd lost hours! Never mind, the loop I rode, through sandy pine woodland was quite beautiful. That was the second time I'd been completely lost today. It was around 4pm by now! Eventually I found the right clifftop trail, that took me into the small town of Fuente de Gallo. The last part of the trail is a nice bit of downhill with lots of jumps, but I was having problems with my rear RollPacker, so had to take it easy. My rear Rollpacker had fallen off a few times by now, it wasn’t until a day or two later I realised that the over center lever shouldn’t be pushed all the way over center but left on the high part of the cam. I also fitted two cable ties to hold the lever in that position, one to stop it moving up and one to stop it moving down. I also wrapped a bungee around the bracket and seat bracket. It didn’t fall off again at all for the whole tour. By now I really needed to find somewhere to camp, I was not only a bit flustered, but my bum was very sore! I hadn’t ridden my bike for six months before this trip and my bum just wasn’t used to it! So, I decided I would find a campsite and stay two nights, taking Friday off, as a zero day. I asked a couple that were out walking if they knew of a campsite, they sent me to the Eucalyptus Campsite which was way out of the direction I wanted to go but I went, it was closed. I was sore, tired and hungry, and pretty pissed that the campsite was shut. I asked a man just outside the campsite where else I could go, and he gave me directions to one that was only a kilometre or so away. Alas I didn’t have the energy to get up the hill, so had to have a quick pitstop and eat some bread I’d nicked from the restaurant at lunchtime. Don’t ask me why I wasn’t using my phone to find campsites or to navigate properly, I really don’t know why I was being so rubbish at organising myself. How lucky was I, the Rosaleda Campsite in Conil was open, even farther from the route, a bit expensive at 15.50 euros a night, but well worth it for the facilities, including an excellent wifi signal! The facilities were second to none, with clean and fresh showers, toilets, washing-up, clothes wash bays, a supermarket and launderette. I think there are many other facilities such as a pool, sauna etc, closed for the low season though. It was just what I needed at this point, some comfort! I really was flustered at getting so lost. I have two mottos for this trip. 1) The plan is, there is no plan. 2) Enjoy not endure . I must remember these, and not get flustered! I had covered around 18 kilometers this day, with an estimated 25 kilometers ridden due to being lost for so long!! On reflection there was no reason to get lost, I was just being an idiot. And I think that is part of the steep learning curve of bike packing. And it was only my second day, so I forgave myself and got on with setting up. The time goes so quickly with just doing stuff! I gave my bike a good check-over, did some washing and rested my bum, so not a bad two days. I had a great two nights at Rosaleda, albeit very windy. The facilities are top notch and I’d recommend it as a place to stay, whether in an RV, caravan or tent.

You can see my YouTube on preparations here Since being addicted to watching the films of my YouTube bikepacking hero, the late Iohan Gueorguiev, I’d wanted to do my own tour. It would be nothing as adventurous as his Artic circle to the tip of South America, 5 year, truly amazing epic, but it would be the best I could do safely, as an older, solo woman. I had chosen the Altravesur route in Spain, an off road ride from Cadiz on the Atlantic ocean, to Valencia on the Med. Why I chose this, is that I love Spain, I could speak a tiny bit of Spanish. And it was all I could afford! My other option was the Arizona trail, but it was so very expensive! I had no intentions of riding fast, counting my kilometres, counting metres climbed, it would be just for fun, for the solitude and for a little adventure. The plan is, there is no plan! The word adventure is bandied about for anything these days, from going shopping! Going to the bike park or putting the bins out! But seriously, on a scale of 1 to 10, of adventuredom, I’d say my Altravesur ride would be perhaps a 3. I thought I had prepared well, certainly although I do say so myself, time proved out that I had prepared the equipment well, as for being bikepacking savvy, and for my ability to navigate, that was a big fat nope! So the moral to the tale is, just because someone else makes it look easy, doesn’t mean it will come easy to you! When it came to equipment, I went for mid-range everything, except the bike luggage, which at around GBP250 each, front and rear, was top of the range. Packing the bike for the flight was next on the list, I couldn’t use my Evoc bike bag as I wasn’t returning to the start point. I went to the local Halfords and asked if they had an empty cardboard bike box I could have. They duly obliged, alas the first one they gave me just wasn’t wide enough. A large framed full suspension bike is pretty wide as well as long, the box needed to be wide enough to get the two wheels alongside the frame. The second box they let me have was that of an e bike which are generally bigger. I spent a day cutting it down and re-closing it. I end up with a very sturdy, and as small as possible bike box. I’d packed and repacked the gear I was to take, twenty times, each time taking things out and sometimes adding something! But I couldn’t get down to just using the bike luggage. I’d have to use, and nearly fill, a large rucksack. When I unpack now, there isn’t much that isn’t used, just some emergency items, of which I’ve used two already, to make some additional tent pegs, needed for the strong winds. Clothes are down to a minimum, and as I write this, I have a wet set of clothes that I’ve just washed and am having to wear my long-johns and mountain bike jersey out into town! Basically, including long-johns, I have two sets of clothes. I’ll do a separate blog and YouTube on my gear. My flight to Seville, from Luton airport was effortless, as was getting a taxi from Seville Airport to my Airbnb. I’d booked two nights with a lady called Manuela. Manuela didn’t speak any English, so we communicated using Google translate and my little Spanish. She wasn’t going to be at her apartment until the next day, so a kind friend of hers, Juan, settled me in. There are two longer term tenants staying there too, Victoria and Emilio. Both Spanish, but both speak English, in fact Emilio is an English teacher. And they were a great help to me, in getting some things sorted. I met Manuela on the Tuesday night as she had returned from her trip, we got along fabulously and she was very helpful, especially when it came to disposing of my bike box and miles of bubble wrap! The apartment was on the fourth floor of the block, it was easy to get the bike up to the flat, in its box, using the lift. I was wondering how I would get it down once the bike was built, as the stairs twist around the lift shaft and are quite narrow. I spent my time at Manuela’s building Bay, my bike, fitting the bikepacking luggage to him, shopping for camping gas, and trying to find a local SIM card. I had heard Vodafone generally had the best coverage, but trying to find a decent pay as you go package proved to be somewhat difficult, especially with the language barrier. I feel the sales assistants could have been more helpful in the second Vodafone shop I went in, after searching for a couple of hours I returned to the first Vodafone shop I’d been in, I bought the best of what they had. I’m using two mobile phones, one with the Spanish SIM and my ‘normal’ one with the UK SIM. I also had a spare phone with no sim, it'll become evident how important this was on the final day of the ride! I’d arrived in Seville on the Monday, and was to start my ride on the Wednesday, so after getting packed up Wednesday morning, I made my way down the four flights of tight twisty stairs with a fully loaded Bay, which was quite a feat! I got a real sweat on! Before I made my way to the station, I popped into the service garage across the road, the mechanic tightened my pedals for me, as I’d not wanted to carry a heavy spanner just to do that. My Spanish isn’t very good at all, I’d known a lot more ten years ago, but never really used it, so am having to pickup from what I remember. They really do speak fast, and with different accents in different areas, I find it tricky to understand. Riding from the garage to the train station was the very first time I’d ridden my bike with luggage on! It took a bit of getting used to! There’s quite a wobble from the handlebars, but in that short ride, perhaps 2kms, I’d got used to it. The Seville station really is well organised. Everything was effortless, much more so than I expected, from buying the ticket for me and Bay, to boarding the train. I was a bit miffed at getting shortchanged again, it had happened in a supermarket the night before, then at the station coffee shop. I decided to contest it with the senorita, and she gave me back the euro she had shortchanged me. Only for it to happen a third time in a supermarket in Barbate, again managing enough Spanish to get it back! I think they prey on the non-spanish, and it as always been by a young lady. Bloody cheek! I had a reflective ride on the train to San Fernando. On the outskirts of Cadiz, we were passing through mainly farmland, almond, olive and orange groves. When the train stopped at Jerez Airport it brought back memories of the times I’d flown into there whilst working at Renault F1, we would test at the Jerez circuit many times a year. Reminiscing can gloss over some terrible times and buff the memory up, to make you long to be back there, when really, although I loved my job, let’s just say it got spoilt. On arriving at San Fernando, I was concerned to see that I’d have to take the fully loaded bike up an escalator, I had flashbacks of when I tried to take my bike bag up one at Sydney airport, it was touch and go as to whether I’d have to let go of it, sending it crashing down onto people behind me, luckily I just hung on and fell into an embarrassing mess at the top, I was then helped by a very kind airport worker who saw me fall, who then proceeded to pull my bike bag all the way to the domestic terminal for me. Anyway, it was awkward but fine. It was riding the escalator that I noticed how very windy it was. Riding through San Fernando to the start of the Altravesur route, Calle Real. It’s a part pedestrianised, part tram tracked street, it was early evening by now and the Spanish had started their promenading, oh how it is so different to the UK, couples old and young, walk hand in hand, to their favourite tapas bar or restaurant. Calle Real is a part pedestrianised, part tram tracked Calle, it was early evening by now and the Spanish had started their promenading, oh how it is so different to the UK, couples old and young walk hand in hand to their favourite tapas bar or restaurant. Barbate, where I'm writing this is a small seaside town a few days into my ride. It has many small shops and kiosks, the tapas bars are always busy from nine until two, then it’s siesta time, they re-open from five until whenever! Some are open all day. But generally it is a very traditional Spanish way of life to close for siesta. I noticed that some large supermarkets have opened on the outskirts of the town. Aldi, Lidl, Dia etc, it's a shame because eventually it will kill this way of life. So here I am at the start point of the Altravesur route.

I have done nothing of note since my time in Spain last August, that being the last time I rode my bike too. So, I've had nothing to write home about! Over the last 12 months I have visited Australia, Hawaii, Nepal, Wales, Spain and my home country, England. So, no complaints there. I was hoping to knuckle down and re-start my career in F1, but I am finding it difficult to commit myself to a long-term position, short-term positions are difficult to come by. I thought the remedy for that would be one more bucket-list trip, then that was it, I would re-start my career after that! You know, the diet starts tomorrow sort of thing! Returning to my short-term contract at Haas F1 team after the August shutdown, I had decided to stop camping and mountain biking at weekends, as I had been falling asleep at my desk when I was doing that! So, I kind of went into a lock-down, from August to March I did nothing, and it was a self-perpetuating situation, the less I did the less I wanted to do. But I didn't want to do anything as I wanted to take the time to save as much money as I could, to take one more bucket list trip. I have many places on my list, the Rift Valley in Africa, the Iguaçu Falls in South America, touring the Canyons of Utah, Hiking in Central and South America among the volcanoes, Mountain climbing in Alaska.....the list goes on. But these all cost a lot of money, and that is something I haven't got so I started looking at alternatives, such as house-sitting, backpacking and bikepacking. Bikepacking, it's a thing! It's a bit like backpacking but travelling by bike across non-surfaced roads and camping along the way. It can be an overnighter or a many-year globetrotting adventure. My interest in bikepacking grew, I watched and read hours and hours of reviews, rides and advice on the subject. In the meantime, I had started collecting the necessary luggage for my bike. Buying a proper touring bike was out of the question, so I was going to have to use my Specialized Camber full suspension mountain bike, named Bay. Not ideal, he's heavy, but it is Bay or nothing. I wouldn't have minded backpacking but knew on long straight trails and roads I'd be longing for my bike! My first thoughts were that I could fly to Anchorage, then to the Yukon and ride down the Yukon then through the Denali national park. So that would be Alaska done. Then fly to Arizona and ride the Arizona trail, 800+ miles from the Mexico border, through the mountains and desert of Arizona, down and up the Grand Canyon, to the Utah border. Which would mean I have nailed two bucket list items in one trip. Alas, I was dreaming, I priced it up and was looking at around £10K, so out of the question. Even if I could afford it, there are only specific weather windows where one can 'easily' ride the Yukon, the same for the Arizona trail. An to be honest it was way over ambitious for someone that hadn't bikepacked before!! Plus, the 90 days of the cheap visa wouldn't have been enough time. So that trip was out of the question, I compromised and decided to research the Arizona trail a little more. I watched and read as much as I could on it, I downloaded the GPS data, joined the necessary forums, groups and clubs. I even found myself a very kind Warmshowers host, Neil in Sierra Vista, that would help me find my feet once in Arizona, and ride with me on and off. If you didn't know, Warmshowers is a network of people that will host bike travellers, give them lifts, a bed for the night etc. At the same time, I was researching many other trails, these included ones in South America, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Australia and Spain. I worked out a route from Melbourne airport, through the mountains to ride to my daughter's in Lavington, Australia. Again, the cheap visa is only for 90 days, so I would have to fly out and back in to be there for Christmas 2019. Too expensive, and the cheapest flights from the UK are in May, with Qantas. I needed to leave in March, not wanting to overstay my welcome at a friend’s house, as well as having cabin fever! So that was a no go too. I even mapped out flying to Perth and riding across the Nulabor to my daughters, but Perth flights are really expensive! Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, these would be fabulous, not too expensive but I didn't have the balls to do it alone. I appealed for a riding partner on many forums, but it's hard to find someone with the same plans as you, at the same time, with the same ethos. My ethos is, it takes a long as it takes and it's to be enjoyed not endured! I'd feel safe in Spain; a partner wouldn't be necessary. On checking out what was available on the peninsula, I found a route named the Altravesur, which runs, off road mainly, 820 miles, from Cadiz in the south west to Valencia in the East. A coast to coast, Atlantic to Med. This looked interesting, so I spent many hours researching this. There is a lot of preparation needed to embark upon such an endeavour. I had literally spent hundreds of hours researching gear as well as the routes, the etiquette and the unexpected nuances of long-term bike travel. Weight is key! Basic physics! Having the lightest tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat etc can be very expensive. I had to go mid-range, so I am heavier than I could be, but paying £600 for a tent just isn't in my price range. During my indecision on my route, I was collecting the necessary gear, as 'cheaply' in the mid-range that I could. I decided upon Arkel Rollpacker25 luggage for my bike, one front and one rear, definitely not cheap. Plus, two Gorilla cages for my forks. I bought my tent, sleeping quilt, sleeping mat, a solar charging panel and a lightweight rucksack. For clothes, cooking etc I would have to use what I had. Until less than two weeks before departing on my adventure, I still didn't know where I was going or if I was going at all, as I was quite exasperated by the months of research, and the indecision took its toll! I told myself I must decide by the night of the 10th of March. I had narrowed it down to Arizona or Spain. Swaying my decision was that Arizona was having an unusually heavy snow fall, like several feet in places. I was aware that it is not possible to traverse a small part of the route if it's wet, due to sticky mud. Also, the need to take additional clothing wasn't an option, I was preparing for desert by day and chill by night, I was already too heavy. Then there was the Ethiopia Boeing plan crash, the cheapest flights to Denver were with Norwegian airlines that used the grounded 737 Max 8. So, I thought these were omens that it just wasn't meant to be at this time. A hurried decision was made that Sunday night, I checked the flights to Jerez with EasyJet, damn it, they don't start until April! But there were flights to Seville, farther away, but the best available, so I booked a flight for me and Bay. On arrival I'd have to buy a local SIM card, some camping gas and food, so booked an Airbnb for two nights to give me time to build my bike and do my shopping. Plus, research how to get from Seville to Cadiz. I found a great Warmshowers host, Rual, that although wouldn't be hosting me, was there if I needed help. So that was how and why I am writing this in a hostel, in the seaside town of Barbate! It's the sixth day of travelling, I've spent four nights camping, and one night here at Hostal Barbate, which is so very fabulous! The proprietors don't speak English, so we get by with my little Spanish and Google translate!! They are so friendly and welcoming, I can't recommend it enough. Anyway, the reason I'm in a hostel is because of the wind! Little did I know that there's a wind named the Levante, which blows from the East through the Straits of Gibraltar, along the Cadiz coast, just where I'm riding, and I'm riding East so head-long into it. The Levante started on the day I started my ride, and is expected to last another week, dammit!! At times it's been impossible to ride, or even push, a lot of the trail has been in deep sand, that and a headwind of even 25kph is tough, but when it's 45kph it's near impossible, with all the weight I'm lugging. I haven't weighed my bike loaded but I reckon all told, with my rucksack I'm shifting myself and 50kg, nearly double my weight. I quite enjoy being in my tent with the strong winds, but it's the expense and inconvenience I'm worried about, should it get destroyed. So, I have a dilemma, the winds are expected to peak around Wednesday to Saturday, nearing 60kph, so not really doable with my little one-man tent. It is long and thin. Saturday night it was gusting to around 40kph, and my tent was at the limit of collapse I think, so I don't want to destroy it in 50-60kph winds. But it is only Monday now, that means I would have to stay here in the hostel for a week! Which is going to cost a lot. I don't care that I'm not moving on the trail, I'd rather enjoy it in less wind! Another consideration is that I tripped yesterday and jarred my shoulders on my handlebars, my left shoulder has a long-term injury, I heard the squelching as it jarred so knew I'd aggravated the injury. On waking this morning, my left shoulder is weak and uncomfortable. Fortunately, although I thought I'd aggravated the supraspinatus that is partially detached from the bone, I haven't, it seems OK and would have been devastating for my progress. When I injured the supraspinatus, I also injured the rotator cuff and shoulder blade, and that is what has been aggravated by this jarring. I've slathered it in FisioCreme, I swear by this for injuries, so it isn't giving me pain, but is uncomfortable and weak. A rest may help it, but a week’s rest probably won't restore it back to where it was, it takes months, if not years! Another dammit moment! So here I am and here is my dilemma, wait and rest. Or push-on and hope for the best. Argh!!

See Episode 3 of my Vlog on this trip here Tina, a friend of Amanda’s has bought Mister Grey, he wasn’t a rescue horse, but was quite neglected, massively under-weight, and with many open sores where he’d vigorously rubbed himself on anything he could! Currently he’s at Amanda’s, but will soon go to Tina’s newly built yard, when he and Tina have had some training! It’s Tina’s first horse, she has ridden for many years but had a hiatus after a nasty fall, so just needs to get back into the swing of things. I can’t wait to see their relationship develop over the next year or so! After riding in the mornings, we’d wash the ridden horses down……. Only for them to nearly always roll in the dust immediately afterwards! Amanda would give the horses a hard feed and do a few other jobs, I’d do the hay nets, water and de-pooping, after settling them all down in the barn, we’d go up to the cortijo for breakfast, around 11am. Amanda would sort out the breakfast, I didn’t contribute an awful lot toward that, except gobble it down as I’d be pretty hungry by then! I’d do the dishes, perhaps some sweeping then go for an early siesta quite often, to make sure I didn’t sleep later in the afternoon, as it wasn’t helping my night time sleep napping that late. Around 2pm we’d go back down to the horses, do the water, hay nets and some more de-pooping, perhaps for an hour or so, then return to the cortijo for a late lunch. Often this would be the main meal of the day. I’d sometimes go for a bike ride in the afternoon, or perhaps clean some tack or do some sweeping, whilst Amanda and Andy took their siesta. It was tempted to sleep again, but tried not to! I’d ride Bay down the rambla, flat-chat, whizzing through the stream crossings, getting a little wet in the process. It was downhill all the way and was so much fun! Other times I’d explore on Bay, to try and find some trails, mostly I was unsuccessful, the terrain is very steep, loose and eroded, not suitable for riding in short shorts and a vest top! Thinking back, I’d actually explored more on Bay than it seemed at the time, having pushed-up and ridden down the hills in various directions from the cortijo, over the two-week period. In the heat it was tough going which meant I’d only ride for a couple of hours then call it a day. I think if I’d have been there in spring or Autumn I could have found some good trails to ride. When out on the bike I didn’t want to go too far as I was terrified of getting lost. I’d never find my way back, especially without a phone signal! Amanda tried to help me with pointing out landmarks whilst we were out on the horses, to try and give a sense of where I was and where we’d been, alas I just don’t have any sense of direction, at all. Some days we wouldn’t go on a hack with the horses, we’d ride in the arena or ring. Amanda introduced me to long-reining, poor Sombra he must have thought what the hell is she asking me to do! I didn’t fully get to grips with it although I started to understand what I was supposed to achieve towards the end. I’d watch her school the horses, or she’d give me a short riding lesson. The beautifully long summer days, 7am to 10pm were pretty much filled with horsey stuff, three times a day doing the horsey housekeeping, riding, chit-chatting over a meal or a cup of tea, walking the dogs, mulling over life’s experiences or Andy’s documentary conundrums. Pretty sweet really! And it’s made me think so much about wanting to be in the Alpujarras permanently, but I need an income and it’s not like there’s any real jobs up there! I’m still working on figuring a way that I could move there. Could I handle it? Everything is harder work than it is at home, I’m not sure but watch this space! Thanks to Amanda and Andy for hosting me, I hope I wasn’t too painful! And thanks to Tina and Jenny for the visits and chit chat!

See Episode 2 of my Vlog on this trip here Walking down the rambla, with the stream, the varied flora and fauna and rugged mountains either side, was always interesting, I never grew tired of it. The only noise to break the tranquillity of the walk would be the distant ringing of cowbells, worn by the 100 or so goats that the shepherd would be ushering to another parcel of land, often around the time of our evening walk. The five Los Plumas dogs, Essi, Maxi, Barney, Lily and Rosie, are working dogs. They fiercely guard the Los Plumas land, amazingly so. Sometimes if the shepherd’s dogs come too close, there can be trouble. Which happened one evening, resulting in Barney getting a nasty bite, that he was still recovering from when I left. I hope he’s OK now, as he had taken quite a battering and was somewhat forlorn for a few days. The dogs really are amazing, Essi will stay up all night, laying out in the yard, any activity and she’s on it, calling the other dogs to arms many times a night. She’s an old girl, I’m really not sure when she sleeps! And still she comes on the morning horse ride with us, which is usually for several miles, at a fast pace! After the evening walk we would return to the cortijo for a little supper, sometimes an evening meal if we’d eaten lightly at lunchtime. The kitchen is the main hang-out area, with lots of chatting whilst Andy or Amanda would be preparing food, or whilst eating. Both have many interesting stories to tell. Andy is currently filming and producing a documentary on the mysteries of an ancient Spanish civilisation. I have a slight interest in anthropology, but more so in geology, which his investigations have to touch upon. It was quite fascinating as to how much detective work he was having to do to even postulate upon what may have occurred ten thousand years ago. The mystery continues! He’s a fabulous chef! Very patient with his food preparation, chopping the fresh vegetables into perfectly equally sized pieces, I’d not have the patience for that! And the food was delicious, fresh and healthy. Two of the cats would hang about the kitchen, Freddie and Frankie, with Freddie being the cuddliest pusscat I’ve ever met! Alas, now and again he would bring in a live mouse or gecko and play with it for quite some time, poor things. Frankie, the ginger-puss was friendly but not needy! The third cat, little Lissy only ventured up to the house now and again, mainly living in the hay barn. Again, she was very cuddly and friendly. After supper I’d return to the casita, Barney would come and sleep in the casita with me. By 10:30pm it would be dark, Mars would peep up above the opposite mountain around that time and slowly the night-sky would fill with the most magnificent starry display. Such a treat when you rarely get to see many constellations in the UK, let alone the full swathe of the Milky Way. The first two nights, Sunday and Monday, I barely slept, so spent a lot of time star-gazing. After a couple of days I really wasn’t feeling too clever. I think it was a combination of working in the heat, lack of sleep and also adapting to the meal times, as I tend to eat all day long! When I did try and sleep, all I could do was itch! My hay allergy meant I had rubbed the rash on my arms and legs raw, which was a vicious cycle, as I couldn’t put bug spray on broken skin, so I was getting a lot of bites from what they call Sand Flies, I think in the UK we call them Midges! Which meant I scratched even more. There was also a lot of horse-flies about, they give a nasty bite, nearly three weeks on, I have three bites still not healed. Luckily there wasn’t too many mozzies about! Anyway, I soon realised that riding my mountain bike really did sap my last bit of energy, so I only rode every couple of days or so. By the Wednesday I felt I had acclimatised to my new routine, having had my first decent night’s sleep on Tuesday night. My only time off site, apart from riding out on the horses, was a trip to the local town, Cadiar, where I bought snacks, so I could graze a little more! I’ve got an energy in/energy out kind of metabolism, so keeping reserves topped up is important to me. The days begun with a cuppa up at the cortijo around 7am, then we’d go down to the horses. Amanda would do the technical stuff! Such as rugs, hard feed, fly cream etc. I would prepare the stalls with fresh straw, fill and put up the hay nets, fill the water troughs and muck out the yard. I liked to do all this before we went for a ride, but sometimes it was necessary to do it afterwards, which was a right pain as the sun would be blazing by 10am. De-pooping in the heat I found quite uncomfortable, especially as by then I really needed some food! And I’d be in long-sleeved top, jods and riding boots……a little sticky to say the least! Most days we groomed and tacked up the horses after the stable work. Sometimes we’d have a visitor join us. Jenny from the local mountain bike holiday venue, Pure Mountains, rode with us a couple of times, and Mister Grey’s owner, Tina, rode a couple of times too. Amanda has four horses; Toro the bay, quite a heavy-set Spanish X, who is in fact Andy’s horse. He’s very well behaved and will go as fast or as slow as you want to go with no dancing around. He’s ridden in a Dooley, bit-less bridle. Such a good boy, and a pleasure to ride, and is the go-to horse for visitors to ride as he’s so trustworthy. Luna, the more dappled of the greys, is a mare that Amanda has been bringing on after being considered a bit of a lost cause by her previous owners, and she’s doing well, pretty much a good girl although a little hormonal when in season! She had the hots for Mister Grey for a while! Sombra, the whiter of the greys, a Spanish Arab cross, medium weight, fun ride. I didn’t quite get to grips with managing his head whilst hacking, if he was up front he was pretty well behaved, but when behind other horses he would want to rush and in trying to contain the rushing, resulted in him throwing his head about. I’m sure others would ride him better than me, I tried to ride him quietly, but didn’t always succeed. Brilliante, the dun, a cheeky teenager that Amanda is bringing on. He’s only around 6 years old, so still pretty young and developing his muscles for the long hilly rides, I’m sure once he’s fully fit he’ll be a fun ride! Mostly it was just me, Amanda, two horses and five dogs, riding different routes across the hills, in the cool of the early morning. It was so good to be riding again, the serenity of a nice slow hack belies the expense and work it takes to keep horses. If I was rich, I would definitely have my own horse, and keep it full livery somewhere! It’s not like a mountain bike that you can just shove in the garage when you can’t be arsed with it! I do enjoy the housekeeping, grooming etc, it is a labour of love, but very time consuming. Amanda schools the horses in a very kind way, nothing is forced. Understanding horse psychology and using it to hone a mutually respectful relationship between horse and human can be a very slow process, but she gets the results.

See my Vlog on this trip here The annual Formula One shutdown is a two-week closure for all teams, where no work, regarding the cars, can be carried out. Currently I’m on a short-term contract at Haas F1 Team in Banbury, my home town. It’s a shame to waste these two weeks lounging around at home as holiday is quite hard to take in F1, except for the odd day here and there. My choice this year was to go on a working ‘holiday’ in Spain. I hadn’t messaged via Helpx, but Amanda is a host of Helpx and I am a Helper of Helpx, so to all intents and purposes, I was Helpxing. And to be clear, Helpxing isn’t really a holiday, it is a working holiday, where you need to put in work for your accommodation and food, or whatever deal the hosts are offering. As usual I’d booked this trip late, only a week or so before flying. Not only does booking late mean the flights were expensive but being August, there’s the ‘school holiday premium’. The best I could afford was to get the 6am flight from Luton on Sunday the 5th of August to Malaga. Never again, if I can help it! It meant getting up at half one in the morning to be at Luton for 4am. Too bloody early! I’d booked long-stay parking, it’s a bit of a dick about as time is needed to park and get the bus to the terminal. I’d decided to take my mountain bike with me, so I wasn’t exactly travelling light. I was quite impressed with how EasyJet has improved over the years. Even though the airport was rammed, and the queue very long, it only took around 5-10 minutes to do the bag drop. The extra legroom seat I’d booked was great, and the bike drop-off was seamless, and Bay (my Specialized Camber bike) arrived in Malaga in one piece! My ride from Malaga airport to the mountains was from a friend that lives in the mountains, so he’d had a long drive to Malaga, around two and a half hours then back again. It was very nice of him to agree to pick me up, so cheers Rich! That’s the worst part of getting to the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras, the transfer from the airport to the mountains. Not so bad if you rent a car, but with my track record of driving on the wrong side of the road, I wasn’t going to risk it! We hadn’t made proper arrangements as to exactly where Rich would pick me up, so that was a bit of a faff, but nothing too drastic! It seems the only way to do drop-off and pick-up at Malaga is to park in the multi-story carpark and do it from there. The journey passed quite quickly, with lots of discussion on politics and general catching-up on affairs of Las Alpujarras! I hadn’t seen him since he came to my rescue after I’d had a car accident up there in early 2009, getting me from the mountains to the airport, all those years ago. I was a bit worse for wear at the time, with bleeding and bandaged arms, struggling to walk and struggling to breathe due to being hit hard by the airbag, and being under the influence of whatever drugs and drips the hospital had me on. Not nice memories at all, but Rich was great. That time I think that I was on a Ryan air flight, the Pilot was refusing to take off with me on the plane in that state but after some discussion and tears he agreed I could stay. Landing at Gatwick late at night, barely able to walk, was a nightmare. I got a train into London town then got the Oxford Tube bus to Oxford, then a taxi to my car which was parked at Renault F1 headquarters at Enstone, as I’d gone straight from a Jerez test to the mountains. Only to find it was really difficult to drive with my injuries. I’d had my fill of the mountains and decided to sell my cortijo and land up there as I thought I’d never return. What a mistake, I could kick myself. As it was, I didn’t return until 2015, staying six weeks, on my way home from Australia. Three years on and I was returning again, even with the bad memories, these mountains capture your heart. I think always I will have a longing to be there, sadly I’ve missed my opportunity to live there. Anyway, back to my journey, I messaged Amanda, the lady I was to be working for, when we passed the turning for Almejijar, as agreed, to say we was on our way. Literally the moment Rich dropped me in the village of Juviles and pulled away, Amanda arrived. It’s good when a plan comes together! It’s actually a little scary getting picked up by someone you know little about, taking you somewhere with no real address, perhaps foolish even. At this point I hadn’t researched Los Plumas on Helpx, although I had asked a friend that knew them, who had said Amanda and Andy were lovely people, which was good enough for me. My main fear of meeting new people is that I’m socially inept and end up saying the wrong things because I’m trying hard to fit in and be normal! The nearest village to Los Plumas is Castaras, once out of the village it is quite a way on an un-surfaced road to get to their parcel of land. The winding un-surfaced switch-backs of mountain road, dropping down deep into the valley are quite fabulous and rugged. It reminded me why I love this region so much. I was given the choice as to whether I wanted to stay in the main cortijo where Amanda and Andy live or in the casita just below it. Being a loner I chose the casita. The casita is built in the traditional Alpujarran style, lots of wood, shuttered windows, white-washed walls and a flat Launa roof. Consisting of a large bedroom, a sitting room/study with kitchen area and a bathroom. Out front and looking into the valley was a terrace, it couldn’t be more perfect! Arriving at the farm around 3pm, Amada and Andy gave me a quick tour of the farm. With five dogs and five horses plus three cats I had a lot of names to learn, continuing to get them wrong for many days! I was bushed after travelling for over 12 hours, so after the tour I had a siesta. Work started that evening, around 7pm we went down to the stables to turn the horses out into the paddocks for the night. The horses are kept in during the day, keeping them out of the sun and flies, so there’s plenty of mucking out to do during the evening turn around. Being high summer, with no green vegetation for the horses to eat, there’s also the matter of filling and putting up hay nets and giving the horses a hard feed too. Although the horses can wander for many KMs, with plenty of streams to drink from, there’s also a water trough to clean and fill. So that turned out to be a normal evening’s work, after, we would go for a walk with the dogs down the rambla. Occasionally Andy would join us, which was nice as I didn’t see an awful lot of him, except at meal times, or perhaps when he was working in the study in the casita. The rambla is an un-surfaced road at the bottom of their valley, that is used to get to villages the other side of their land, as opposed to the winding road we took from Juviles. A mountain stream runs alongside the rambla and crosses it, by my reckoning, ten times in the 2km stretch to an intersection with the main dry riverbed. It’s amazing that the streams are still flowing. Water can be a real problem in the Alpujarras, with summer droughts causing hardship to the farmers, even more so in the lower hills of the Contraviesa. It really can be quite desert like, with very hot summer months and little rain. When it does rain it can be torrential but tends to be a short sharp shower, which barely moistens the ground. There were many thunderstorms in the surrounding hills, but only twice did it rain in the Los Plumas valley, once torrential, lasting around an hour or so, barely having an impact on the parched ground. But enough to keep the mountain streams and water deposits topped up, which is so important.

See my series of YouTube Vlogs on this trip here It’s been a while since I blogged, I’d fully intended to whilst on my last trip but couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm on this occasion. So now, having arrived back in the UK Sunday and having returned to work Monday, I’m starting to assimilate what I’d experienced over the past two weeks. That sounds a little dramatic, after all I’d only been to Spain, yet for me this had been harder and more life changing than the trek to Everest Base Camp. Apart from feeling a strong connection to the Alpujarras region of Spain, I’m not quite sure why it made me feel this way. Perhaps it’s because it reminded me of one of my many big mistakes in life. In 2007 I’d bought a small cortijo with two hectares of land high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was intent on going to live there, off grid, away from the hustle of F1. Alas I had a big car accident up there in 2009, it was quite traumatic, and I thought I’d never return, so sold the place a year later. I so regret it now! Never will I get the opportunity to buy such a place again. To boot, I lost a lot of money on the transaction. When I saw a Facebook post by a friend of a friend, who was looking for help with her horses in the area during August, I had to take the opportunity! Amanda and Andy’s farm is deep in the rugged hills of the Alpujarras region. Las Alpujarras are on the Southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Sierra Nevada’s of Spain boast the peak of Mulhacen, mainland Spain’s highest point, at nearly 3500 metres on the Eastern end of the range, along with some other similarly sized mountains. The terrain on the East-West range in South-East Spain is quite varied, from Alpine covered hills, to rugged, eroded, iron rich rocky mountains. Geologically, I find these mountains very interesting even beguiling, the uplift caused by the African tectonic plate pushing into the Eurasian plate, starting around one million years ago. With the steep valleys and weathered and eroded gorges and peaks, it’s beautiful in a rugged and functional kind of way. How I’d love to return in a few million more years to see the Mediterranean close right up, pushing the mountains even higher. The rock is varied, from sedimentary to metamorphic, with considerable erosion having occurred over the years. They fascinate me, just a short walk can be mesmerising, and fills me with wonder. The uplift is so evident in the multi-coloured layers of rock. As usual, it is impossible to capture the essence of this so alive terrain in a photograph. The first two weeks of August are very hot, with the iron rich rocks soaking up and slowly releasing the sun’s heat, it can be considerably hotter in the valleys than in some of the surrounding higher villages. My destination, Cortijo Los Plumas, is in such a valley. Occasionally, when the clouds are gathering in the surrounding hills there can be a welcome cooling breeze but generally it is very still and hot. Sometimes humid too. Nestled into the hills are small villages with white-washed flat roofed houses, a fascination in themselves with their narrow streets butting up to the doorsteps of the houses. It’s like going back in time. You can still find the locals using mules to ride from their village house to their out-of-town small-holding for a hard day’s work on their crops in the rocky dry, yet fertile soil. Las Alpujarras is a historic area of Spain, evidence of ancient civilisations has been found and in more recent times it is thought to have been invaded by the Romans, around 2000 years ago. With the Berbers arriving around 1500 years ago, bringing the evident North African influence to the area. Throughout the centuries the area has gone through several changes in the ethnic origins of its inhabitants. Around 500 years ago, when Spain was predominantly under Muslim rule, the Moors were forced to retreat to the hills after conflict with the Christians. Currently the religion is predominantly Christian, but North Africans have started to populate the area again, travelling across the Med to work in the ugly greenhouses that populate the South Eastern foothills just inland from the coast. These greenhouses are where our fancy out-of-season fruit and vegetables are grown. So you can't complain! It had also suffered but wasn't conquered, during the civil war and the Franco era. These conflicts had until recently left Las Alpujarras more a back-water place to live. In recent years the Spanish youngsters have opted to move to the happening cities, leaving many buildings uninhabited and falling into disrepair. We always want what we haven’t got, the Spanish moved out to the cities, the city dwellers of other European nations have moved into the oldy-worldy Alpujarras for a slower pace of life. Very recently Las Alpujarras has had somewhat of a revival at the hands of the foreigners that have moved in. Attracted by village life or the hectares of land coming with the rural properties, the area has become a melting pot of British, German, Dutch, French and Spanish. Having reconstructed ruins and renovated dilapidated buildings, it has made quite a diverse community, and has brought some modernity to the area. With mains water and electricity in the villages, and off-grid living in the rural properties. Living outside of the villages can be quite harsh, with the summer very hot and dry. Water is at a premium. There are many mountain streams and springs, these are fed into the ancient and intricate network of aquifers criss-crossing the area. Water rights are an important part of selecting a rural property, South of the Alpujarras is the Contraviesa region, which is a very arid region, more so than the Alpujarras. The undulating rocky terrain can be isolating, you need a motor vehicle, preferably a 4x4, if you want to achieve any sort of normality of life. My chance to be there permanently has been missed, this I regret. Having this chance was just so perfect for me. It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s rugged, but it does have a magnetism that is hard to describe! If you get the chance, take a week or two in these mountains, you won’t regret it. You can book the hotel in Berchules, or a B&B in Mecina Bombaron, perhaps a remote AirBnB cortijo for a totally isolated chill-out. Rent a village house. There are many festivals in the villages, where you can sample the Alpujarran celebrations and Vino Verano! The area is famous for dry-cured pork, and other Alpujarran dishes. Hiking, Horse-Riding and Mountain Biking holidays available. Or go in winter, when there is skiing in the Sierra Nevada. The mountain roads are ideal for Road cycling and Motor cycling too. There are many options to have a chilled or active time! The med is an hour away, and it's nearly downhill all the way on the winding mountain roads. Info Mountain Biking in the Sierra Nevada Horse Riding in the Sierra Nevada Walking holidays in the Sierra Nevada Berchules Hotel that also supports Hiking holidays Mecina Bombaron B&B

See my YouTube of this trip here Being back in full-time employment and camping/riding at weekends was really tiring me out, so I took two weekends out relaxing at home to re-energise myself. We’re having a nice hot sunny summer here in the UK, it’s rained a little today in Banbury, the first time in around 7 weeks. And that was a heavy shower, but the heat keeps on coming. It’s fabulous, can’t believe so many people are complaining about it! For me, walking out of my freezing cold air-conned office into the heat makes me throw my arms in the air every time, praising the sun! I love it! After having two action-less weekends, I really wanted to get away camping and riding. I wanted somewhere within three hours driving distance, so I could leave straight from work Friday night and have enough time to set-up camp before dark. I wanted to take in a trail ride and a bike park ride. North Wales is too far a drive, so it would be somewhere south/west. I was keeping my eye on the weather patterns, and thought Exmoor would be a good bet, finding a campsite not too far from the beach. For a reason that I can’t remember, possibly because there wasn’t a bike park near by, I decided against it late Thursday night. And that I would return to the fab Middle Ninfa Campsite near Abergavenny in Wales. I was in two minds whether to go at all as rain was expected in the south/west late Friday afternoon and would continue into the night. Also another point was than when I contacted the the lady that runs Middle Ninfa on Friday morning, she said I couldn’t have the pitch I wanted. I really wasn't sure whether to go, I was thinking it would be a complete washed-out disaster. But anyway I set off from work around half five Friday, the traffic was atrocious. The M40 was stop/go, the M42 was stop/go and after an hour I’d not got far at all. It was like a bad omen, and that really I should turn around and forget it. As well as the heavy traffic it was raining too! I persisted with the journey, and although heavy traffic, the M5 was moving well. The rain was heavy at times. I arrived at Middle Ninfa Farm at around 8pm. It was raining when I arrived. The driveway up to the farm is a very steep concrete road, and it was wet. It took me around six attempts to get my car up it, with either the wheels smoking or my clutch slipping. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t make it! Again, with the rain and hammering my poor car, it felt like another bad omen and I was regretting coming out at all. Eventually getting up the drive, Rohan the lady that runs the campsite greeted me. She is a lovely elderly lady and sounds just like Hyacinth Bucket! So funny, it makes me giggle! She informed me that I could have my favourite pitch, Hollow Beech! My first bit of good luck, which boosted my resolve and I took my tent up in the wheel-barrow and set-up in the rain. By the time I’d got my two other wheel-barrow loads up to the top of the hill it was just drizzling. The parking arrangements at Middle Ninfa are quite strict, you can’t turn left into the parking field, you must drive up to the farm, turn around, drive back down the hill and turn right into it. I really wasn’t happy about parking in the field again as last time I got stuck. After telling Rohan how I’d struggled to get up the drive she offered me a parking space at the farmhouse. Another bit of good luck! By the time I settled at my pitch the rain had stopped, it was a cloudy moody evening but warm enough, and I could still see the Skirid mountain in the distance. I made a campfire, had something to eat then shut myself away in my tent. I can’t wait for bedtime at camp, I just love the feeling of locking myself away in my hermetically sealed pod, it makes me feel so content. I hadn’t decided where I would ride on the Saturday, I had a lazy breakfast and did a bit of research online to see where I could go. Cwmcarn is around half an hour away, it has some forest and downhill trails, so that was my likely destination alas there had been a forest fire there the week before and although it had said the trails were open, a Facebook post on MTB Divas had said they were closed. I tried to research the situation and got conflicting results, the uplift wasn’t running anyway so I decided against Cwmcarn. I haven’t been there and it’s supposed to be a really good riding venue, so for another time. Last time at Middle Ninfa, which is on the slopes of the Blorenge mountain, I had ridden to the top of the Blorenge. The Blorenge is part of a three-peak challenge, along with the Skirid and the Sugarloaf Mountain. I decided to ride the Sugarloaf Mountain, it’s the other side of Abergavenny, so I drove out there late morning. The mountain road up to the car park climbs up for around 5kms, it’s a surfaced single-track road. Often you come across cars coming the other way, so must reverse into a passing place every so often. Although a little cloudy, it was a very hot day. I made my way up the, at first, gentle slopes, on my trail bike, Bay. In between the clouds the sun was very hot, and there’s no shade at all. So it was a hot and sweaty two kilometres or so in the blazing sun, on the bridle paths, surrounded by bracken laden slopes either side. The views of the Black Mountains whist riding were quite beautiful. I was using my GPS software called Komoot, on my phone mounted on my bike. I’m not getting on that well with Komoot, it’s quite annoying, sometimes it doesn’t tell you when to turn, when you try to pause the program, it won’t! Bloody annoying! I actually rode most of the way, along the bridlepaths, as they weren’t too steep. As you near the main ascent the path narrows and is mostly a trail that has sort of footstep-type gouges in the soil like steps, they are quite deep, perhaps eight inches or so, it’s also rocky and gets steeper and steeper. Pushing a bike up them, as it was too steep to ride, was quite exhausting and I wondered if I’d actually manage to get to the top. But persisted and scrambled up the final part to the summit. There was around 30 people at the summit. It’s a long ridge line, so wasn't crowded like Snowdon, there's plenty of room up there. I took some photos for other groups of people, and a couple of them took photos on my phone of me, which was so much easier than trying to set-up the timer and get into a fun position! There's a 360-degree view of the Black Mountains from the top, quite beautiful in the sunshine and clouds. I’d forgotten to take any sarnies with me, so clambered around on the rocks at the top for a while before making my way down. I carried Bay down the first 20 metres or so, then rode the, at first rocky, then less rocky trail down. I’d lost my bearings on my way off the summit, Komoot was bloody useless, so I got a little lost, which spoilt the ride a bit, as I had to keep stopping to try and work out which way to go. Another problem with Komoot is that if you turn your phone off, which I did because I couldn’t stop the stupid program! When you turn it back on, it keeps trying to send you back to the summit, even though I turned it back on at the summit! So annoying! Anyway, it was a fun, and at times fast ride down, taking around half an hour. In all it had only been around three hours in total, from camp back to camp. I was planning on visiting my friend Maria in Abergavenny, but the clouds were quite dark by the time I started to drive back through Abergavenny. I didn’t want to have to go up the Middle Ninfa driveway in the wet, so decided to go straight back before the rain came, which had been forecast. As it turned out, it got very dark but didn’t rain at all at my camp, I had a fab afternoon playing my guitar and generally chilling. In the evening I lit another campfire, I wasn’t sure whether I should due to all the wild fires that had been burning in the scorched UK, but other campers had fires, so I guessed it would be OK. It was the most sublime evening, with the campfire, my guitar and not another person in sight, just the beautiful views. Sunday morning was another lazy one, again I hadn’t decided where to go, the choices were the Black Mountains Bike Park or Bike Park Wales. I’d been to Black Mountains three weeks prior, so plumped for Bike Park Wales. Wish I hadn’t though, bad decision, the Heads of the Valleys road is completely closed, due to roadworks, and the diversion is completely shite. It should have taken me less than half and hour, but it took an hour. It was the busiest I’ve ever seen it at BPW, it was very hot and sunny too. I sat and had a cup of tea and a Marmite sarnie in the car park, then got ready to ride. Whilst at the trail centre a lady came up and asked me if I was going up to the top and could she join me as it’s her first ride. So Jenny and I stuck together for the afternoon. There’s many new trails at BPW, but Sixtapod and Willy Waver are my old faves, and also I thought they’d be good for Jenny on her first-time riding, as both are flowy and have nothing scary on them. Neither of us had booked the uplift, so had to queue in the peasant’s queue, where you have to wait until the ‘booked’ queue is empty before the uplift guys will load you. The booked queue kept getting loaded, then more people would arrive. We waited for around half an hour, around eight to ten bus loads before we got on an uplift. But at least we had got on one, someone had complained of waiting an hour and a half! We had two fab runs of Sixtapod and Willy Waver, then went to the café, where Jenny ate and I had a cup of tea. It was around three o’clock by then, and I decided to call it a day, whilst Jenny went for another run. She's quite a fascinating lady, being an Instructor for BMW off-road motorbikes, and travels the world training BMW customers! This explains why she was able to ride BPW on her first mountain bike ride too, as any other beginner would struggle I think. Two runs may seem hardly worth going all that way for, but I’d had two fab runs, and was happy to finish there, with a three hour drive ahead of me. Last time at Black Mountains I way over-did it, and was falling asleep at my desk the week after, it took me a week to recover. So sensible head said go home. Which I did, the traffic wasn’t bad at all, and I made it in less than three hours, arriving home around 7pm. So another fall-free, perfect weekend was had, after my initial misgivings as to whether I should even bother! Such a lucky thing aren’t I!! Info Camping at Middle Ninfa Farm, make sure you read the blurb because it is not suitable for everyone - here

See my YouTube of this trip here Even though I’d been camping and riding the previous weekend, and was still a little tired, with the promise of another sunny weekend, us in the UK have to take advantage of it! So I left work, popped home to pick-up my camp food, as I didn’t want to leave it in the car as it was so hot that day, which wasted around half an hour, then set off for Wales. I’d booked a pitch, last minute as usual, at a campsite named Middle Ninfa Farm & Bunkhouse. From the website you can see it’s a little different than other campsites, but I wasn’t expecting what I found! It wasn’t difficult to find, it’s around fifteen minutes out of Abergavenny. The only tricky part is following what the satnav says and turning right onto a very narrow road that looks like someone’s driveway! You follow this tight, twisty, steeply uphill, tarmac mountain road through woodland for around ten minutes. Middle Ninfa is one of the farms on your right. Driving up to the farmhouse, a lady checked me in, she was in the middle of her evening meal, so it was a quick whizz around, which suited me as I was tired and hungry. Middle Ninfa camping is different inasmuch there isn’t a large camping field. The land is undulating, with many hidden paddocks all on different levels, on their 20+ acre piece of land. With lots of trees, and small wooded areas. Each pitch has a name, as you can see from their website here I was booked into the Skirrid View pitch, but there had been an admin error and I had to have Hollow Beech, I’m so glad that happened, it was the best pitch there! With fantastic views over the farm, a forest, Abergavenny and the Skirrid. The paddock Hollow Beech is in is quite large, and the pitch itself is fenced-off within this paddock, which is grazing for a pony. The routine here is that you park up at the farm house, unload your car and wheelbarrow your camping gear up to your pitch, then drive back down the hill and park in a field on the right. Pushing three wheelbarrow loads from the farmhouse to Hollow Beech, uphill, over meadow trails, sometimes quite bumpy, was quite strenuous and certainly wouldn’t suit everyone. It’s a damn good workout though! I’d arrived at around 8pm and was setup and cooking my dinner by 9:30pm, it takes quite a bit longer than at a ‘normal’ campsite. But for me, it was so so worth the effort. On my first barrow load up I got attacked by a lot of horse-flies, luckily they seemed less prevalent on my subsequent two push-ups. Perhaps it was the time of night, or perhaps I had known to expect them and shush them away. That Friday night the setting sun had caused a beautiful orangy-pink hue across the horizon, over the Skirrid and distant hills. It was beautiful. I had a fantastic sleep that night, although was woken by the pony that decided to come and chomp grass just outside my little fenced off area, it wasn’t noisy, I’m just a light sleeper. So, I got up, made a cup of tea and gazed at the starry sky, and the views across a street-light lit Abergavenny. There are two wash-blocks, the one further away from my pitch has a shower and drinking water as well as a compost toilet and wash-up sink. This would be around a five minute undulating walk away. Slightly nearer, perhaps a three minute walk away was a block with a toilet and wash-up sink only and is the one I used. Although they are compost toilets, they're not stinky at all really, well perhaps a little bit! The site suits the minimalist camper, you could bring everything but the kitchen sink, but you’d have to haul it all up the hills, which would be quite tiresome. It was perfect for me. I woke early Saturday, it was a very chilly misty morning. With the top of the surrounding hills shrouded in cloud. By 10am the mist had cleared and revealed yet another beautifully sunny day. I was going to just sit and chill, but with all the hills around I was tempted to go ride my trail bike. There are three small hiking mountains, all part of a multi-peak challenge type thing; Sugar Loaf, Skirrid and Blorenge, all within easy reach of my camp. In fact the campsite is kind of on the slopes of Blorenge, so I decided to go take a look at it on my bike. And couldn’t resist going to the top! So much for my chill and rest day! Turning right out of Middle Ninfa, and continuing up the tarmac road, which goes up and up and was quite hard pedalling, but I did pedal it! Eventually you take a right turn onto a bridle path up to the Blorenge summit. This is sign-posted, and was too steep for me to pedal, so mostly I pushed my bike to the top. This trail goes mainly uphill, like the tarmac road, there are a few not-so-steep downs as well. The terrain is mostly earth, with sporadic rocky parts, and mostly is on a corridor through heavy bracken. It was so beautiful and sunny, the views, both local and distant were scenic and it really was an enjoyable push-up. I’d installed the Komoot GPS navigation onto an old phone, and was using that to navigate, which was very useful, and I would definitely have got more lost without it. I didn’t actually get lost, but Komoot kept telling me I was on the wrong path right near the summit, and it was probably right, as it was very rocky the way I went, and I had to carry the bike. There’s a large summit area, and on it is a large pile of rocks around 10 metres in diameter, which I climbed up, and although only perhaps two metres high, it was incredibly windy. Beware, some of the rocks wobbly around, I fell a couple of times, whilst swatting away wasps and horse-flies! After a bite to eat and some photo posing I headed down. There were a few pedally bits, but for the main part it was downhill. I’d gone out without any protection on at all, so pushed down the rockier areas as I didn’t want a fall onto my bare knees! I forked off the bridle path after a while and rode the singletrack trail, I’m not sure if it’s for bikes or not but there was no sign saying no bikes, so I guess it’s OK. I had a bit of a bush-nap, the trail is raised about a metre higher than the bracken running either side of it, I clipped a rock and ended up in the bracken. In falling, my bike seat got tangled in my shorts, and it took around five minutes to extricate myself not only from the bike, but up to the higher trail! No damage done though, a couple of bruises that's all. After that I realised I’d left my bike seat in the high position, I thought I felt a bit uncomfortable on the way down! From that point on I didn’t get any GoPro footage as I did my usual thing of turning it off when I thought I was turning it on and vice-versa! It was a fun ride, I’d like to do it again with some protection on my knees at least. Even the tarmac country lanes were fun, I got up some good speed but was always mindful that I had no protection on, and that cars could be coming on the singletrack road. After a rest and some food I drove to Abergavenny and picked up my friend Maria, returning to Middle Ninfa, where we sat in the shade and chatted all afternoon, whilst drinking tea! It was quite lovely. I’ve known Maria since 2001, we met under very sad circumstances. Her son (Anders) Magnus Jones was a young designer at Arrows Grand Prix where we were both working. He had a promising career ahead of him, he was a bright, lovely, fun lad. For sure, he would have become a Chief Designer one day. Alas on the fateful summers day of the 14th of September 2001 a car pulled out in front of his Westfield car on a country lane, whilst he was driving to work, and unfortunately, he was fatally injured. It was such a shockingly sad sad day for all of us at Arrows, but obviously more so for his family. We all have fond memories of our Magnatroid, a nickname given to him by another designer, rest easy Jones, as I called him. After taking Maria back to Abergavenny, I had to park my car higher up in the field, in very long grass, as more cars had turned up. I didn’t think anything of it. I had a nice chilled evening, and managed to light a rather good campfire, something I’d failed at the night before! It didn’t get fully dark until gone 10:30pm. Again, I had another wonderful night’s sleep. I was up early Sunday morning, as I needed to pack-up, get three wheelbarrow loads back to my car and be at the Black Mountain Bike Park for 10am. Luckily, I was well organised with a lot of time to spare. This paid dividends, when I went to pull out of the field, and found my car was stuck! I tried all sorts to budge it, resulting in clouds of white clutch smoke. I emptied all my bikes, camping stuff and other crap out of the car to lighten it. It started to move, around a metre, then it slew sideways, getting very close to the car next to it! At that point I went to see the campsite owner, who had a carpet to put down under my wheels. With a few pushers as well, I finally got it out of the rut, I reloaded and was on my way. I was so glad I managed to get out of the car park, as my breakdown cover had run out at midnight the night before! I wonder how many cars get stuck there, it must be bad in wet weather. Because the campsite have problems with campers running over their neighbours grass as they turn sharp right out of the field, you must turn left out of the car park, drive up to the farmhouse, turn around and go back down, that way negating the need to take the turn and run over the neighbours small grass verge. Something of nothing if you ask me, it’s a manky small triangle of grass. Why they can’t come to an amicable agreement to allow it to be used I don’t know! Getting up the drive to the farmhouse is difficult as it’s very steep and there’s water running down part of it, I failed to get up it a couple of times. Doing this every time you want to go out is a bit of a chore. But anyway, I’m a rule follower and I did it! Anyway, I arrived at Black Mountains around 10am. There’s no shelter from the sun in the car park, so I was glad of some clouds coming over now and again, it was very hot though. The uplift is different to other bike parks, they use tractors to pull a trailer which is much higher than the normal uplift trailers. I couldn’t lift Desmond that high, so had to get willing volunteers to lift him up for me. But it’s a good service, it takes quite a while for the tractor to get up to the top, perhaps 20 to 30 minutes. I was glad of the time it took as it gave me a rest before the next run, and I think it also gives good spacing between rider groups, and you never come across other riders, and they don't come across you, on the trail, which is good. I did four full runs of the blue trails, Rabbit Run onto Missing Link onto Well Oiled Weasel to the bottom. It’s a really busy trail with little time to rest, I was bonked half way down Well Oiled Weasel every time, I need to get fitter! But no matter, it’s such a good run, and you can’t help but smile all the way down, and back to the car park! I couldn’t be arsed with wearing my protective top and elbow pads as it was so hot, so I took it relatively easy. The only damage I sustained was a major pedal scrape on the bruise I’d got on my shin when I fell on the Blorenge! Which wouldn’t be so bad if it was whilst riding, but I did it whilst trying to get Desmond on the trailer! I finished up riding and left at around 3pm, by then I was totally knackered! With a near three hour drive ahead of me. The traffic was flowing, so it wasn’t a too painful drive home, getting back home around half four. It’s Tuesday now, I’ve been so very tired at work! I think I’m too old for all this action, but if the sun’s going to continue, I must find another venue for next weekend! As for this trip, I will repeat it at some point, from the campsite to the riding, it was one of my best mini-adventures!

See my YouTube on this here After visiting my younger brother in Cambridge two weeks ago, it really made me want to visit my elder brother in London. I usually only see him once a year around Christmas-time. We all meet at my younger brother’s in Cambridge. I thought it was about time I made the effort and visited him at his house. I started a new job last week, back in F1, at the Haas F1 Team in Banbury so wasn’t free to go where I wanted, anytime I wanted, which is quite hard to get used to, having not worked for seven months. As usual last minute I popped home from work at lunch time to load my camping gear, mountain biking gear and bike into my car, ready heading off straight from work……and called Paul to make sure he was going to be home. I left work bang-on 5pm that Friday and headed to London in the rush-hour traffic. As usual I had a saga finding my way! My car SatNav was sending me on the M40/M25 but looking at Waze on my mobile I could see the M25 was choca, so I decided to use Waze to navigate me. At some point my phone fell off my dash, and when I picked it up I must have pressed on the screen as Waze continually kept trying to navigate me home, which was a real pain. I just kept driving towards London, eventually my SatNav picked up the trail and I got to my brother’s in West Norwood, south of the river, dead on 8pm. It really isn’t very far at all, and even in the heavy traffic it had taken less than three hours including getting lost, filling with fuel and my usual faffing! My sister-in-law June had made a nice vegan dinner, and we had a good evening catching up. It was a beautiful day that Friday, and waking early on Saturday, it was another beautiful day. Even though they live in a densely populated area, they have a lovely back garden, completely blocking out the surrounding houses with trees and shrubs. It has quite the English country garden feel in fact. That morning we sat around chatting, and June introduced me to the game of Boule, which was fun. At around 1pm June left for her Saturday art class, so me and Paul took a walk to the main strip in West Norwood and grabbed some lunch. Paul’s a real café culture type and enjoys the hubbub! It’s actually quite nice around West Norwood, I can see why he and his family love it there and want to stay in London. We keep trying to talk him into moving into the shires. After popping into a few shops we took a look around a rather high-brow cemetery on the main drag, stopping to take a look at the final resting place of the inventor of the machine gun, Sir Hiram Maxim! I guess someone was going to invent it at some point, so you can’t hold it against him! Here’s some info on the cemetery, it seems it’s quite a big deal! I left London for the Surrey Hills at around 3pm. I’d not been able to find a campsite online, and was hoping, as I normally do, find my riding location then find the nearest campsite. Alas Surrey Hills is really really monied, I guess they don’t want scuzzy campsites cluttering up their expensive and beautiful hills! I came across a Scout campsite, that was about all. After driving around until nearly 6pm I settled for one I’d found online, but didn’t really fancy, Henfold Lakes on the Dorking road. I didn’t like the sound of it because it has fishing, and I thought it would be very fishy!!! But it was rather pleasant actually. The staff were friendly and got me checked in quickly. I so love my tent, I can’t wait until dark so I can lock myself in it away from the world! I dithered quite a bit, as I thought I could ride that night but realised I’d be pretty tired if I did, so decided to have a pootle around in the woods next to my pitch. I don’t think you’re meant to use these woods, it seems to be set-up and roped off in lanes for a ‘Tough-mudder’ type obstacle run. It’s on a gentle slope so after getting to the top there was some nice downhill runs, alas I didn’t see a rope which was at head height and rode quite quickly into it. Luckily it hit my visor and only burnt the side of my cheek, ear and neck. But it was quite scary thinking what could have happened! I rode for around an hour, and although it wasn’t dark in the camp field, the woods got dark very quickly, so I stopped riding around half eight and settled into my tent after having some supper. The camp field is quite big, and there was only one tent around 30 metres away from me, but they were quite quiet, so I had a really good sleep. After a beautiful sunset. The toilet set-up is rather peculiar at Henfold Lakes, in the field I was in there are three chemical toilet cubicles, but they have proper flushing toilets and a proper sink in them. There’s two for men and one for ladies. It was a little awkward in the morning, at 7am I walked across the field to the loos and I couldn’t see if it was occupied or not from the lock, so I knocked and asked, and got a reply from a bloke. I waited about five minutes for him to come out, and as he did he said something like ‘I don’t recognise gender’. Yeah whatever, I have no problem with that but the fact is men do stinkier poos and wees than ladies, so I’m not sure where I stand on that! Anyway I packed up and left at around 8am, and made my way to Leith Hill that was around twenty minutes away. The car park I had read about was called the Landslip car park, driving through the small village of Cold Harbour, turn right then right again and it’s on your right. There was only one vehicle there when I got there. It’s quite big, and even though it got busier throughout the day, it was never choca. It cost nothing to park and nothing to ride, although there is a donation box, which I didn’t contribute to, and looking at the other cars in the car park I’m sure others were in a better position to part with their cash than I was!! The Summer Lightning trail that I wanted to ride, starts at the monument at the top of Leith Hill. You take the hikers path to the top, which is quite steep in places, it’s not scrambling but it’s ‘heavy’ walking. I rode a little of the uphill, but mostly pushed. There is a section of downhill as well on the way up. It’s a very beautiful woods that you’re making your way through, very similar at times to the Wa’ahila Ridge woodland in Hawaii. Once at the top you have beautiful views across the Surrey Hills. There’s a lot of space for chilling, and a snack bar in the monument itself, serving food and drink. It was quite busy at the monument, but not ridiculously so. There’s plenty of space so it’s not crowded. You can buy a ticket at the snack bar to walk up to the top of the tower, which I didn’t do, but would imagine it’s quite a view from up there. I spoke to a few local riders, who gave me tips on how to find the Summer Lightning trail. There’s a bit sign at the top, but after that there’s very few pointers as to which way to go, especially after the short upper section. The upper section is really good fun, once you get to the bottom of it you need to push-up some way to pick up the lower section of the trail, that can be found on the left just after a cricket pitch. I was surprised to find that a lot of the trails are for hikers, bikes and off-road motorbikes! Although Summer Lightning is just for bikes. After picking up the trail again after the cricket pitch, I found my way OK until a large clearing with around six different ways to go! I chose one way, whether it was Summer Lightning I don’t know, but it was fun. And eventually it hits a tarmac road, where I turned right. This takes you to the village, turn right at the pub and it takes you back to the Landslip car park. So I wasn’t too lost. The trails in the Surrey hills cover a large area, and unless you’ve got loads of time and energy they’re pretty difficult to find a decent run on. So, it would be best to go with someone that knows the area. It was a surprise that the area is so pretty and so hilly, I know it’s called Surrey Hills, but I didn’t think it would be as picturesque as it is. Some of the roads are very tight and twisty, and with the area being popular with road bikers as well, you can be stuck behind them for a long long time! I had something to eat at my car then headed back up to the top again. I rode the upper section of Summer Lightning around three times then made my way to the car park via, what I thought, was the walking trail! I didn’t bother doing the lower section again as I couldn’t be arsed to get lost again, but I still got lost! I started on the walking track but had turned off it somewhere, which actually was a really good downhill trail. It existed the woods around 20 metres from the car park, so wasn’t a major setback! So that was my Leith Hill ride, I was finished by around midday and made my way home. I needed to get back early as I needed to get my work clothes washed and ironed. I started a new job last week, at Haas F1 in Banbury. I’m really enjoying it and it’s so fantastic to be back in F1, even though I said I’d never do it again!! It’s my third stint in the Haas building, I worked there when it was occupied by Ascari, back in 2003, then again in 2011 when it was Marussia, and now as Haas. I hope I’m not a bad omen for that place!! As I write this it’s a very hot and sunny week in the UK, such a shame I’m stuck in an iceberg of an office and have to wear jumpers! No matter, I need the money and am enjoying the work. And am thinking where to go next weekend! Info Surrey Hills Mountain Bike Trails - the best website I found is here Leith Hill – Head towards the village of Cold Harbour, the Landslip car park is signposted from there. Info can be found here Refreshments – There’s a nice looking pub in Cold Harbour and a snack bar in the Leith Hill Monument Costs – Nothing to park and nothing to ride, just donations!!! Toilets – I didn’t see any, I used the bushes!

You can see my YouTube of this ride here A few times recently I’ve got ready to ride but ended up not going anywhere because I couldn’t decide on which trail to ride, which is very annoying! I don’t know why I do this! Perhaps I should get some lights so it opens up going to trails that are open later. Early last Saturday morning I got ready to ride but couldn’t decide where to go. The indecision was compounded by the fact that the UK weather forecast was very rainy, and the later it got the worse the rain was and more of the UK was going to be wet. I don’t like riding in the wet if I don’t have to. I’d been messaging my mate Paul, who also wanted to ride, suggesting Woburn, Aston Hill, Stile Cop and Cannock Chase, but the later it got the more the northern trails would have been wet too. So, we finally decided on Woburn, which is around a 70 minute drive away. The Woburn biking trails shares two locations with horses and hikers. There is the Aspley Woods trails which is privately owned but managed by the Greensand trust, as is the other area, Rushmere Park, but that is owned by the council. You can find info on the Aspley Wood trails here I hurriedly bought three day passes online for me, Paul and Mishy. It’s only a fiver each for the day, not a bad way to sort out the payment, except they ask for too many details for each rider, such as name, address, phone number, email address, this makes it a bit onerous when buying three! We’d decided to ride the Longslade red trail in Aspley Woods. Arriving at the Longslade Lane car park at around 2pm. The trail markers are waist height wooden posts with red painted tops, sometimes there’s double posts, sometimes single, alas they are not consistently on the junctions so you have to guess which way the trail goes. For the first two hours or so, with asking other bikers and hikers, we managed to sort of stay on the trail, but it was a bit tiresome! The trail itself is very up and down and is also tight and twisty, with this combination and it being my first time riding it I didn’t get up much speed. No matter, this ride wasn’t about going to the max, more about riding with friends. And for that it was quite pleasant. There was one or two fun downs, but no epic descent! At times you’ll find yourself riding singletrack through the bracken, at others zig-zagging singletrack tightly through the trees. Occasionally there’s a bit of fire road to ride. After the first couple of hours we lost the trail, so decided to head over to the jump area, as we’d picked up the signposts for it. The jump area has a proper dirt jump park and many quite short downhill runs, all with jumps, quite often gap jumps. Some of the jumps are huge! We had a couple of runs on the DT trail, which consists of a couple of berms, a small gap jump and a table top jump. I actually quite enjoyed it, and will go back, as it’s an ideal small gap jump to practice on. We only stopped in the jump area for ten minutes or so, then tried to find our way back to the car park, this was quite funny, as even with GPS we couldn’t work out our way back, and continually kept getting further away from it, looking at the GPS! Strangely there are signs pointing back to the car park but we, for some reason, chose to ignore them??!!! Again we had to ask others which way to get back, clearly none of us had a good sense of direction! Arriving back at the car park at around 6pm we had something to eat and I got my camping stove out and we had a cup of tea before heading off home. It was nice to ride with friends, but I prefer to ride alone, as I’m slow feel awkward. Also I like to take time to chill in a forest, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. If we hadn’t got lost so often I guess there’d have been more time to enjoy the scenery. It isn’t the most beautiful of woodland, or the best signposted, but on reflection I did enjoy it, and shall return. In fact, the next day another friend asked if I wanted to ride the exact same trail, I was going to but changed my mind at the last minute as I needed to go and upgrade my phone as the camera had buggered whilst at Woburn. If you compare Aspley Woods to say forestry commission run sites, it has a long way to go. There are no facilities, except for car parks. Not that there is any pretence that Woburn is anything like that. I guess you ride what is local, when you can, and Woburn is local’ish and I shall return!

You can see my YouTube of this ride here What we saying about Thetford Forest for mountain biking? Well, for a trail centre in a non-mountainous region, it’s pretty damn good actually! Being in the area for other reasons, I wanted to fit in a mountain bike sesh. After searching online, I settled on Thetford Forest as it was the only trail centre that was ‘on my way’ to Attleborough. The High Lodge trail centre is further off the A11 than I thought it would be, and it has a very long (surfaced) drive, before you get to the parking area. I’d left a chilly and overcast Cambridge at around 1pm, arriving at the trail centre just before 2pm, and what a result, it was brilliant blue skies and pretty damn hot! I wondered why there was so many marshals guiding cars to the parking areas, turns out that night there was to be a Kasabian concert, so it was pretty busy. Each car park has a name, so you can easily find it again, should there be a concert when you are there, I parked in the Hedgehog car park. Possibly when there’s not a function on, you just park around the visitor centre car parks. It’s really well organised, with the driveway being a one-way system. I had no hold-ups in or out, and it was very busy with the concert traffic still arriving. The parking fees are well organised as well, which means you have to pay! They run a number plate recognition system, and you pay in pay-points outside the visitor centre when you’re ready to go, then just drive out, no tickets or barriers. It’s a little more expensive than other forest car parks, usually you pay around £7 for a day. My three and a bit hours cost £9.50. I suppose for how well organised it is, and for how well the trails are presented, it’s not bad for an afternoon’s entertainment! I’m thinking it’s similar to Whinlatter which has NPR and cost more than ‘usual’ forest parking. Some locals told me that you could park for free at Brandon Country Park, not sure where that is in relation to the trail centre, but worth looking into if you’re planning on going. Anyway, the trails, there’s a green, blue, red and black. I rode the Red, named Lime Burner, which is a 10 mile loop. I didn’t want to cycle the whole loop, especially in the heat of that day. Luckily at the trail head a young lad said he’d show me a short loop that he used, which included a really nice little bermy bit through the trees. You can find a full description of the trails here For a relatively flat trail, it’s pretty good fun, especially the bermy section. Unfortunately, it took me five goes to actually get a proper run at it. The first time I came upon a family, bimbling along, with no intentions of moving over, and it wasn’t possible to get by without disturbing them. I walked back to the start of the section, waiting five minutes then going again, only to catch them again within minutes. I know we all have to learn, but they could have been on the blue or green trail, in fact they could have just stood still they were going that slow! I walked back to the start again, then a bloody gravel roady bike man went on the trail, I left it five minutes, but caught him pretty quickly, so walked back to the start again……..a short way into my fourth run my bloody chain came off, so I walked back to the start again, and finally got a good quick run in! Was it worth it? Yep, I really enjoyed it, and I hate pedalling!! At the end of this bermy section, you can go straight on, which was still quite fun, I did that once, and did a bit of a loop. But the rest of the time I turned left at the end of that section and I think left again to get back to the start of the bermy section. I got around four quick runs in, I wanted to do more but needed to get going. There’s a few little jumps in the bermy section as well. It’s pedalling all the way though, pretty much flat not uphill, except a small section of a slight incline at near the end. The trails are really well marked, I didn’t get to any junctions and not know where to go. And a quick return to the trail centre is marked at most main junctions as well. So, I guess that’s where the money goes! Not only was it more fun than I was expecting, it was a whole lot prettier than I expected too. I don’t think it was just the beautifully sunny day, it was just really well presented, and was just a pleasure to sit and rest now and again. I lost one of my gloves on a fire road, it’s black and white, if you find it, send it to me will ya!! The same guy that said he had seen it, also told me that it’s best to ride in the evening during the week, if you want less people around. There’s good facilities; toilets, a café, bike hire etc. I didn’t use them, I’d made tea and some food on my camping stove to save costs. So can’t comment on them but they were all busy, so guess they must have been good! There’s walking trails, running trails, kids nature trails, sled dog trails, all sorts, even motorbike trails! But note, drones are not permitted at all. See the full list of activities here There’s also a pump track, it’s reasonably small, but it’s a really good run. The forestry commission have done a fab job! Get down there if you’re out in the wilds of Norfolk (or Suffolk) I believe the forest is in Suffolk, even though the town of Thetford is in Norfolk??!! I’ll certainly ride there again!

I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to take time out to visit family and friends that don't live local to me. I'm either doing my own thing and enjoying myself, working or sleeping, not much in between! But when I make the effort it's always a pleasure and I regret not doing it more often. The head shaped part of the UK is called East Anglia, this area includes Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, and is where most of my family and friends reside. Unfortunately for me East Anglia is mostly fen-land, which is very flat, it can be slightly undulating but there certainly aren’t any significant hills or any mountains at all. So not somewhere I chose to go mountain biking, although on this trip I learned that I can do that in Norfolk too. Norfolk is a much maligned county, often the butt of jokes by people that haven't actually been there. Of all the places I've lived, Norwich is my favourite city. 'A Fine City' as the sign describes it, is in fact true. It's moved with the times, there's lots to do, whether it be shopping, cultural centres, leisure activities or eating out. There's many fab beaches, open countryside, beautiful sunrises and sunsets. If you haven't been, plan a trip now! Since returning to the UK on the 15th of April, I’d been having too much fun camping and riding at some of the UK’s beautiful mountainous and hilly locations to want to visit the flat-lands of East Anglia. This meant I had been selfishly neglecting my family and friends, having not seen them since late 2017, before my trip to Australia. But no matter, I had a master plan….even if they had to wait a while! My old school pals, Chris, Julie and Mark had organised a year of 78 school reunion in the youth centre we all used to hang-out at back in the day. It’s been 40 years since we left school, argh how can that be, I don’t feel old enough…..most of the time! The 9th of June had been a firm date in my diary for the past eight months, where I’d need to be back in Sawston, south of Cambridge, where I grew up. I needed to make sure I wasn’t on another jolly, and always had it on my mind. My brother and his family and my Uncle John and Aunty Yuriko live in Cambridge, so it would be a multi-stop trip to see them too. I also needed to take the opportunity to visit my best friend Ruth who lives another 50 miles or so East of Cambridge, near Attleborough in Norfolk. Ruth and I had met over 30 years ago, we both raced our classic Ford’s in the Road Going Saloon series. Ruth in an Escort Mexico and me in my Cortina Lotus. Another 20 miles East, in Norwich, is an old friend of 30+ years, Bob Dance, that I really wanted to catch-up with too. No trip would be complete without some mountain biking, even in the flat-lands, so I started researching what was around. And settled not on a downhill venue, but Thetford Forest, which is midway between Cambridge and Attleborough, and pretty damn flat! I had no fixed plans for my few days back East, except for being at the reunion. I think anyone that really knows me, knows that I’m a last-minute type of person! Calling my sister-in-law only on the Wednesday before the Thursday I planned to visit but she was happy to have me stay with them in Cambridge for a couple of nights. A last-minute job interview scuppered going on Thursday. I couldn’t get my arse out of bed early on the Friday, so didn’t leave Banbury until around lunchtime, arriving in Cambridge less than three hours later. The road from Banbury to Cambridge is a complete bastard and is another reason I’m put off visiting the area. I go kind of out of my way, North then down, which makes the road all dual carriageway. Alas there is a major revamp of the Huntingdon to Cambridge section of the road, which has road works and a 40mph speed limit….until 2020, Yes twenty bloody twenty! The straight across route is only partially dualled, so on a Friday afternoon would be too painful to use. When I got to Huntingdon flyover I could see the East West A14 was at a standstill, so I diverted off into the fen-lands, returning to the A14 after the worst of the traffic, but still in the 40mph zone, very tiresome. But strangely it still only took me around two and a half hours. It was good to stay with Gary, my brother (who is a year younger than me) and Tracy his wife. They have four kids and eight grand-children, Gary runs a car repair workshop, and is always doing something to help his kids. He also does some funky soul sets in pubs and clubs, and spends a lot of time in his music room, late at night finding the latest tunes and organising his records. I'm not sure when he sleeps. Tracy is pretty chilled, and chilling and yakking is what we did until lunchtime on Saturday, then me and Tracy visited Uncle John. Aunty Yuriko is in Japan so we didn’t see her unfortunately, but seeing UJ was good. And we got far too engrossed in chit chat and didn’t leave his house in Cambridge until around 4pm which was an hour later than I had planned. UJ is 76 years old, he is a prolific social mediaist! He messes around on Facebook and has over 1200 YouTube subscribers, with thousands of views. Take a look at his YouTube channel here it's named John Whitehead. He’s clever and very funny. Although his YouTube is quite sensible, his Facebook is often rather sillier! Yuriko is very good at ‘photo-shopping’, so helps him out on his Facebook antics! We have a bit of a tradition at UJ's where we take photos with the camera on auto, and have to change position in the ten seconds between each one, which is so funny, I love it! I’d wanted to get to Sawston around 5pm, so I had time to visit my mum and dads grave, before going to help set-up the reunion. I was running too late, so had to skip the cemetery visit, going straight to the youth centre. I know it seems callous, but on reflection it was better spending an extra hour with Uncle John than being somewhere where no one would know I was there! I’ll have to go later in the year. When you get with ‘your people’, people you were moulded by, people you’ve known since you was a kid, it’s like there’s been no break, and you just pick-up from where you left off, a bit of catching up, and it's like you've never been away. We had a great time at the reunion, most of it was talking, with a little dancing. Around 50-60 people attended, which I think was a little on the low side, quite a few people couldn’t be traced. A few didn’t come, which is a shame as it was a fab night! Can’t wait for the 50th anniversary……not sure I’ll be around then tho! One teacher showed up, Mr Anstead, a memorable French teacher, I couldn't believe how well he looked, I thought he was a hundred forty years ago!!! He looked so much younger than I thought he would and he isn't doddery at all!! It was extra special him being there, as he knew my parents well. Most of the people I knew well at school are friends on my Facebook, but it was really good to reconnect in person with them, especially one particularly good school friend that I hadn’t seen for twenty years. I’ll make an effort to see her very soon. And perhaps catch up with some of those that couldn't make it as well. I only drunk water that night, I don’t need alcohol to have a good time, and I was driving. After giving the youth centre a tidy-up, around mid-night, I called it a night, which was late enough and way way past my bedtime! I had a nice chilled Sunday morning at my brothers, then made my way to Thetford Forest, arriving around 2pm. As I was driving along the very long driveway into the forest there was some very strange signs, ‘No Umbrellas’ and ‘Only two litres of drink per person’. I thought that was rather strict! It wasn’t until later I realised that the forest is used as a concert venue as well as for mountain biking and hiking! That night there was a Kasabian concert, with the musicians setting up the sound system all afternoon. The trails are all pretty much on the flat, with some slight undulations. But they were way more fun than expected. And the forest in the afternoon and evening sun was much prettier than I thought it would be too. And it is well sign-posted! I rode sections of the red Lime Burner trail, sessioning a nice bermy part through the trees, until around 5pm. The queues were building for the concert by then, and it caused a little disruption when riding back to the car park but nothing much, but I may have swore! I was a bit annoyed already as I’d dropped one of my gloves and was buggered if I could find it by retracing my steps! I called Ruth around half five, to see if she was home, and if I could visit. There’s been times I drive all the way to hers and find she’s not there, I wish I could plan, I just don’t like plans! Luckily she was home so we had a nice evening catching up. I ended up staying two nights. I had thought I’d find a campsite near Winterton-on-Sea, as it's my favourite Norfolk beach, alas had left it too late for Sunday night, especially as internet connections are rather rubbish in the wilds of Norfolk! Ruth lives with her partner Paul and their three dogs on a non-working farm, in a rural area. It's heavenly! On Monday Ruth’s partner asked if we’d take his camper van to Huddersfield to get a carpet fitted, it was a great opportunity to yakker being a four hour journey each way, so that was Monday done. We had a chilled Tuesday morning, then I left to visit my friend Bob in Norwich. Bob is a very well known Formula One mechanic. He is 83 years old and is still working. Currently still working with the Chapman family at Classic Team Lotus. He has worked in motorsport for nearly sixty years. More info on Bob can be found here It’s quite an achievement to remain working in motorsport so long. He has the most fabulous stories of his days with Team Lotus, Colin Chapman and many of the great F1 drivers from the sixties to the nineties, including Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Ayrton Senna and the like. Many of his stories are hilarious, he never fails to have me in fits of laughter. Bob still travels to race events and is invited to attend Lotus functions all over the world. A real ambassador for motorsport, a very chilled man, and very mischievous! It was fantastic to catch up with him, and he was looking so very well, long may it continue! I’m not sure why he doesn’t have an OBE for his services to motorsport, he really is a legend! After my visit with Bob, it was the long journey back to Banbury from Norwich. I don't know why I make such a fuss about it, I used to do it every week! On my journey home I popped back in to see Ruth as I realised we’d not taken any photos, and I did the same at my brothers, alas he wasn’t home, but Tracy was. Shame I didn't get any photos of Gary. It was an uneventful journey home, the traffic was perfect, even though I was travelling past Cambridge just after rush-hour. Visits done, catch-ups done, and actually England is looking rather beautiful and green. I'd have a fantastic time and will have to return very soon. But first I need to visit my other brother Paul who lives in south London!

My YouTube of this trip can be found here, and my ride at Haldon Forest here Leaving Truro around 9am, I got totally lost on the way to Exeter, travelling on A and B roads for around twenty miles instead of the dual carriageway I had intended to use, eventually finding it! I still wasn’t sure whether to stay away for yet another night and was considering going home, so dwelled upon the matter whilst having some lunch in a lay-by on the dual-carriageway. Don’t ask me how I manage to get so lost, even with Satnav. In my defence my Garmin is pretty shit, sending me in loops sometimes, but mainly it’s because I have no sense of direction and also I struggle to follow the instructions! It doesn't say turn left in 20 metres, it just says turn left, so if there's a turning before the one it means, that's where I go wrong! I eventually decided to camp one more night, and made my way to the Hennock Hideaways campsite, a twenty minute drive on single track, pot-holed roads, that needed to be taken very slowly or risk a head-on. There are a few passing places, but sometimes it involves reversing quite a way to let cars by, one time during which I scraped my rear bumper quite bad on a dry-stone wall, damn it! It was hard to find, my Garmin sent me in a loop, after the third time I realised, stopped and asked the way from a local. The site was a very large meadow, with only one other tent in it. It’s quite a casual campsite, as in it’s not overly-facilitised....I just invented that word I think! It's more a 'campers' site than a luxury site, which is just what I want. I met the owner, stopping at the cottage to pay her, she was a friendly welcoming lady, and it felt nice. And at just £7 a night what more could I ask. There’s a ‘tea shed’ at the top of the field where you do dish-washing, the toilets and showers are at the bottom of the field near the cottage. There’s plenty of drinking-water taps scattered around the field. I set-up my camp at the top of the field, with beautiful views of the rolling Devon hills and woodlands. I immediately got adopted by a Jack Russell on my arrival, he was really sweet and loved fetching a squashed ball. I was very tired, having not slept too well the night before, so had a nap, something to eat, then headed out late afternoon to Haldon Forest. It’s a good set-up, with visitor centre, café, Go-Ape and bike hire shop. The parking costs vary, peak rate and off-peak, a pound cheaper per time slot off-peak. When I was there the credit card facility wasn’t working on the Pay and Display machine, cash only, luckily the Forest Rangers office was still open, so I bought a ticket there, as I had no cash. I had a play around on the skills area they have there, then rode the top two sections of the Red Ridge Trail. This time I was riding Bay. There’s some pedalling to do on the trail but not an awful lot. The views from the forest are stunning, the trail is loose and fun. With the sun shining, it was two hours well spent. I only rode the two top sections, the lower trail looked like a very steep ride back up to loop back to the trail centre. When I hit the tarmac road crossing I didn’t continue down the trail, opting to ride the five minutes back to the trail centre, by turning right onto the road. I only did two runs of the two sections, but again wish I’d gone all the way down, as when talking to a guy parked next to me whilst packing up, he told me the ride up right from the bottom isn’t too steep after the initial section. Although I puff and pant at the slightest incline, I’m finding pedalling so much easier on Bay than I do on Stumpy. Stumpy is a medium sized frame, whereas I opted for a large frame for Bay, it’s so much more comfortable to pedal, I’m not all crunched up. Going by Specialized size guide I should be on a medium sized bike, but I think they forget people have different length legs and bodies. My legs, for a 5’8” gal are quite long, and I have quite a short body, I think that’s why the large suits me. So happy discovering this! Another chilled, beautiful evening was spent at camp, there’s no road noise at all at this site, in fact little noise at all, except for me practising guitar, as no one else was around! I had a nice relaxed morning pack-up too, setting off from Hennock at around midday, arriving back in Banbury only three and a half hours later. When going to the West, I always go up to Birmingham, which is miles out of the way, but for me the easiest as it’s motorway all the way, M5, M42 and M40. And it served me well this time, with no hold-ups at all. I’d been away seven nights, wishing I could have stayed longer, but felt I should get back to look for job opportunities. I had received an email on the first day of my trip, from one of the companies where I’d applied for a job, asking me to call them. I missed one of their calls later that day, I called them eleven times during my trip, but was unable to get hold of the lady, which was quite frustrating. As yet, two days home, and I still haven’t managed to get through. Perhaps they’ve changed their minds, my reputation does go before me after all!! The journey home was clear of any traffic jams, taking less than three and a half hours. I will definitely return to do this trip again sometime. And that was a fabulous camping trip over….I’m itching to get out again! Info Hennock Hideaways Campsite link - £7 per night for a small tent and one person Haldon Forest Park link

My YouTube video of this trip can be found here and of my run at Woody's Bike Park here My journey (back) to the campsite in Cornwall, that I’d mistakenly been too already, threw a bit of a curve ball, as my Satnav sent me a different way than I had gone originally, where I needed to cross an estuary on a ferry! Luckily even though it was around 7pm by then, it was still running, but cost an unexpected £5, for the five-minute journey! I arrived at the Penhale campsite, in Fowey (pronounced Foy by the locals!!) just off the Cornish coast. It was in a scenic location looking across the bay towards St Austell. The camping field, unless you paid extra for a levelled pitch, was on a slope, I spent around fifteen minutes selecting my tent location, settling on a combination of the most level area versus a good view, which turned out to be fine. Sleeping with my head at the top of the slope didn’t pose a problem at all. There was only a few other people on the site when I arrived Thursday night but come Friday night when school was out more people turned up. One extended family deciding to set-up camp right behind me, which I was a bit pissed about, they had a whole empty field but decided to set-up next to me, with potentially noisy kids. As it turned out they were actually very respectful and quiet. So I needn't have kept swearing about them under my breath at all!! The facilities were good, plenty of toilets, showers and washing up sinks. And plenty of drinking water taps. There is a little road noise, but not noisy enough to disturb me. And it only cost around £11 per night for a standard tent pitch, which is more like the price I want to pay. I had a nice chilled evening on Thursday, the night sky was stunning, opening my tent late in the evening, I got the beautiful surprise of a crescent moon and what turned out to be Venus, directly in my tent opening view. Each night provided a pretty sunset in the same view as well. I mooched around Friday morning, eventually taking a drive out to Polkerris beach, this is only a five-minute drive. There’s a car park just outside the village, it’s around £1 per hour between, I think, 8am to 6pm. And a short walk downhill to the beach. The tide was out in the morning, leaving quite an expanse of rockpools to explore, which I did for an hour or so. The beach cove is small but not too small to feel busy. There’s a nice pub/restaurant with large terrace on the left, and a funky bistro, also with an alfresco eating area, on the right. There’s also a snack shack, toilets and shop, selling the usual seaside buckets and spades, plus serious surf gear and tourist trinkets. All quite tasteful though, not cheesy. All these are right on the beach along with a water sports experience facility. I was tempted to find out how much a Stand-up Paddle-board lesson would cost, as I’m keen to try it. But after feeling how cold the water was, I decided not to! The ocean was only lapping on the beach, there were no waves to speak of, so I’m not sure that surfing would be possible there, but there was sailing, kayaking and SUP tuition available. In the afternoon I checked the Woody’s bike park website, and booked my riding for Saturday. They only do uplifts, that cost £34 for the day. Friday evening was beautifully sunny, I decided to walk from my campsite to Polkerris beach, across the fields. Around half of the walk is actually on the country lanes, the other half being on a footpath along the meadows. There was a lot of hay making going on, I guess this sunshine gave the farmers their slot, in what had been a rainy spring, to get the job done. The walk is uphill along the meadow, then downhill on the road to the beach. Some may find the beach road quite steep, remember you need to get back up it! The beach was busier in the evening, with people eating outside the pub and bistro. I think the snack shack and shop were shut. There’s a high sea wall to the left of the bay,(when looking out onto the ocean), local kids in their wetsuits were jumping from it into the ocean. The tide was in during the evening, where the rockpools had all disappeared. I’d have loved to have eaten in the bistro, I took at look at the menu, but it was far too expensive for me. Not having a job, I need to be particularly frugal with my activities, I only eat what I bring with me, and the same with drinks. No £3 lattes at filling stations or cafes for me! But I did break my rule and spend £8.50 on a chickpea curry at the pub, I'm just crazy like that! It was very nice btw. I had a chilled Saturday morning, driving to Woody’s Bike Park, the whole two minutes from the campsite! at around 10am. It was quite busy, I got some info on the easiest trails whilst signing-on, deciding I would ride the Blue Jump Line, named Cornish Coaster. It’s probably the best flow/jump line I’ve ridden. Steep enough to keep a heavy bike going without pedalling, but not so steep as to distract you. I got four runs in before lunch, the uplift runs from 10am, and stops at 12:30 for lunch, I think for half an hour. It’s an excellent uplift service and the drivers are very helpful, I struggle to lift Desmond onto the trailers, so always got help when needed. The jump line is jump jump, berm berm bern, jump jump, all the way to the bottom. There’s nothing scary on it, you can get as much or as little air as you can handle. But to ride it well you need to be really precise, getting one berm wrong impacts on the next berm, where you end up not quick enough for the next jump etc. It was a really friendly place, with lots of chat between groups having lunch on the grass in the car parking area. I got lots of comments from having my camping stove fired-up and making Marmite sandwiches! Most people had driven the ten minutes to the local filling station for some food. There's a cafe and toilet block being built, currently there's only a chemical loo. It was hot, sunny and dusty, perfect conditions for chilling and for riding. It would be quite exposed if windy and rainy I imagine. I got four more runs in on the jump trail in the afternoon, and I finished with one run on the other blue trail, it's got some super-fast berms, but is slightly tighter than the other blue. I didn’t really get to grips with it on that one run, that can keep for another time. I’ll definitely be back. My riding certainly improved throughout the day, clearing the jumps now and again, but I'm still too slow, which resulted in casing the jumps quite often. Never mind, I was pleased with my progress. I stopped riding at 3pm, the uplift continues until 4pm, but I was tired by then and had started to lose concentration, so decided to jack it in before I had a big shunt. Returning to the campsite for a shower and some food. I had a sudden burst of energy that evening, it was still bright and sunny, so I got Bay out and rode across the meadows back to Polkerris beach, this time not succumbing to the delicious food! It was tough pedalling back up the steep road from the beach, but great riding down the hill on the meadow. I’m sure you’re probably not meant to ride bikes on the footpath, but I don’t see what harm it could do, there’s no blind corners. Anyway too late! I was due to leave for home on the Sunday, but didn’t want to go as the weather forecast was for sun sun sun! I put a poll on face book, with nearly fifty votes, 86% saying I should stay camping! It would be rude not to, so I decided to stay at least one more day. I had a casual pack-up Sunday morning, after a beautifully starry night-sky again. I decided to drive to Lands End, I’d never been there and it was only an hour or so away, so seemed the ideal opportunity. There’s some pretty views on the journey, and the roads weren’t too busy either. I kept forgetting it was a Sunday, having totally lost track of the days and dates. It costs £6 to park at Lands End, it’s all very commercialised, with shops, cafes and activities available. It’s not too cheesy though, quite fitting for the area. The famous sign-post is cordoned off and you have to pay £10 for a photo, so I took one myself at a distance. You can have a personal message set-up on the sign when you have your photo taken. The wind was blowing and it was quite chilly up there, I had to put my down jacket on, often with the hood up. I mooched around the cliffs for about half an hour. There seems to be plenty of hikes up on the moorland, but I wasn't really in the mood for hiking so I left, driving on the country lanes, as near to the coast as I could, just to get some views. There wasn't many sea views along the lanes, but there was a few cream tea gardens and art studios, if that's your thing. I was really torn between wanting to stay another day and heading home. On the recommendation of a friend, there was a good place to ride near Exeter, Haldon Forest, so I headed generally in that direction, thinking I could go there for an evening ride, spend the night, then get home. Or just head home. On my Eastward journey, and lost as usual, I stopped at Carbis beach, where it costs £3 to park, taking my camping stove down there, having a late afternoon kwiknic and a cup of tea on the beach. It’s a fab beach, deep and wide. Whilst there I texted my friend Nicki, who lives in Truro, to see if I could pop in on my way to home. On arriving at Nicki’s, she offered for me to stay the night, which I gladly accepted as I was quite tired by then. We had a fab evening chatting and a lovely dinner, with her two teenage girls Lowenna and Issi. I last saw Nicki on Christmas day 2016, so we had lots to catch up on. She’s an amazing mother, and just gets on with single-motherdom with gusto and gumpf! I used to work with her at Arrows Grand Prix, where she was the Race Team Coordinator. Early Monday morning Nicki was testing Lowenna, in preparation for an A level exam later that day, I'm sure she'll pass as she knew all the answers! Good luck to her and Issi, who also had a test later that day too. Nicki runs her own company Right-Hand Woman, carrying out event planning and administrative work. Now back to Devon or home, I’m unsure as I leave Nicki’s. Continued in my Camping & Mountain Biking in Devon #2 blog Info Penhale Campsite link £11.50 for a basic tent pitch Woody's Bike Park link £34 for a day's uplift, that needs booking online

My YouTube video of this trip can be found here and my run at Gawton Gravity Hub here It had been around ten days since my Wales camping trip and I was getting cabin fever staying at home. But I needed to find a job, so being at home was important. I’d applied for two jobs, either of which I really wanted, so didn’t want to apply for more until I heard from those companies, so it was fine for me to go away again! That's my reasoning anyway!! On the Monday I had been on a trip out to the Specialized Concept bike store in Birmingham, with a friend, who bought a new bike whilst there. I so wanted a trail bike myself and was drooling over the new Stumpjumper that’s just come out. The one I want, the Evo, is really expensive and luckily isn’t available until October, which prevented me from loading up my credit card with a stupidly expensive bike. I spent all Monday evening thinking I really need a trail bike! So, scoured the internet for hours searching for something nice but cheap. Eventually settling for a low specification 2017 Specialized Camber. There was one for sale in Bath, at a small bike shop, I emailed them and asked them to let me know if the price drops at any point. On getting up Tuesday morning I’d received an email from the bike shop saying they’d reduce it from £1540 to £1470. This started me thinking, Bath is a couple of hours away and is half way to Devon, and I’d really wanted to visit a couple of bike parks in Devon and Cornwall, so phoned the bike shop asking if I could pick it up that afternoon, to which they agreed they could get it prepared that day. Luckily I have a routine on returning from a camping trip, which goes thus; · A cup of tea and some food · A nap · Unload the car · Wash the car · Wash my bikes · Wash my camping gear and biking gear · Shop for more camping gas · Shop for camping food · Re-pack my camping gear and biking gear The above routine makes it possible to 'just go' at any time and I made the snap decision at around midday to go for it. I researched the bike parks and decided upon my campsites. Hurriedly having to pay for and print a pass for the first bike park, online. Which meant I’d have to ride the day I booked, which was Thursday, Wednesday was forecast rain. I hurriedly gathered up all my camping gear and loaded it into the car, along with Desmond my Downhill bike, and set off for Bath at lunchtime, arriving at the little bike shop, Total Fitness, at around 4pm. Even though a low specification bike, the Camber was a perfect compromise. And on seeing him I named him Bay….not to be confused with the chavvy bae!! Sounds the same but is different, haha!! I made a big mistake on my journey to Devon, as I mistakenly put the postcode of the Cornwall campsite in my Satnav argh! I’m such a dipstick. So on arriving realised that I needed to go back an hour, which meant arriving at the Woodovis campsite near Tavistock, Devon just after 8pm. Arriving this late didn’t give me enough time to go elsewhere, as I discovered on checking-in it was going to cost over twice as much as a ‘normal’ campsite. Anyway, it was too late, so I’d have to stay there. I knew it was going to rain on the Wednesday, so made no plans, it would be a chill day. I set-up my camp, I was very hungry and tired after driving for over six hours. The site was quiet, with no road noise, so I had a fabulous sleep after some dinner. The rain started in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and continued at varying levels, from drizzle to proper rain, until around 6pm. I was really pleased with my Marmot Fortress tent, it didn’t get wet inside at all. The Woodovis campsite is a ‘proper’ holiday camp type site. It has pretty, well-tended grounds, lots of wild and planted flowers and shrubs. It also has excellent facilities. There's an indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi and sauna, a games room, wifi, laundry etc. They’ve thought of everything, even an electric car charging point! I spent the rainy Wednesday mooching around the site, they have a small woodland and a wild-flower meadow. There is an old style red phone box on site, that contains maps of the local hikes. The area, the Tamar valley is so very beautiful, so I considered going for a hike even if it was raining. Alas I remember purposely thinking before leaving, I’m not going to hike on this trip, so didn’t bring along my hiking boots, bugger! Trainers would have gotten too wet, so I didn’t go for a proper hike, just a mooch. After the rain stopped that evening, the skies cleared and there was the most beautiful sunset, and that night a wonderfully starry sky. It’s a shame that the campsite has waist level ‘street lights’ that don’t go off until 1am, so I had to wait to star-gaze until after then. It was worth the wait though. The next morning was bright and sunny. I was up early, being excited that it was ‘New Bike Day’. I planned to ride Bay at the Gawton Gravity Hub not Desmond. After packing up camp I drove the ten minutes to the bike park. On arrival at the bike club hut, there was no one around so wasn't really sure if it was OK to ride. I got my camping stove out and had a cuppa, watching the wildlife; a squirrel in the bin and a friendly Robin. Around 10:30 a couple of guys turned up, they were working on a re-vamp of one of the trails and gave me some info on the trails. When you go to a new downhill bike park you never know whether the car park is at the top of the hill or the bottom. This was at the top. There was no uplift available, so it would mean walking back up after riding down. An important thing when riding downhill is getting your bike seat really low. As Bay is more a general trail bike, I couldn’t get the seat down very low at all. I’ll need to chop the seat post down when I get home. It can be quite restrictive on jumps and drops, and can get caught on your legs or in your shorts. All the trails start from a rather impressive wooden start ramp. I decided I would only ride the easiest trail, named the HSD. It’s not really gnarly and is quite flowy, with loose ground. It starts with a small gap-drop, that I decided I wasn’t confident enough to do on Bay, there were two further drops, bigger than the first one, but not huge. Again, I decided to take the chicken-run on those as well. I did a few runs of the top-most section of HSD, I didn’t want to go further for a few reasons. One, I’d have to ride by the guys working on the Proper Job trail and was embarrassed about my rubbish riding! And two, that it was a hot sunny day and I couldn’t be arsed with the push-up! That was until another lady turned up. Polly was really friendly, which isn't usual with younger people, often avoiding old people like me! I was sitting making some Marmite sandwiches for lunch, she came over with her salad lunch, and we sat on the car park ground eating our lunch and chatting. She really was a lovely girl, from Plymouth, Gawton being one of her favourite ‘local’ bike parks. And as it turned out, she was a super fast rider as well. We both rode on our own that afternoon, as did a guy called Gareth, both of them encouraging me to go to the bottom! Eventually Polly said to follow her to the bottom, so I did. Then I wished I’d done it earlier as it's a fab trail! The push-up wasn’t too bad at all, although she wasn’t doing the third split sector, pushing back up after the second split. I did another run to the second split on my own, but my chain came off and spoiled my run a bit. For my last run of the day I decided to do the full run to the third split, the only full run I’d do. And it was fab. Again I wished I’d done it all day! I finished riding at 4, although I could have continued, but I wanted to do my bit and help the guys working on the Proper Job trail. It’s kind of an etiquette to ‘put-back’ and help repair trails. So, I spent an hour or so shifting stones out of the fast and flowy berms the guys were building. They bought some chips, my first chips for ages, they were so yummy. I finished with the guys at a quarter to six and made my way back up to the car park. Now to return to the campsite in Cornwall, that I had mistakenly been to already! ................ To be Continued in my Camping & Mountain biking in Cornwall blog, coming soon! Info Woodovis Campsite link £24 per night for a tent! Gawton Gravity Hub link - It is necessary to pay £5 online to ride here, a printed copy of your pass needs placing on your dashboard, if you are not a member.

I love roasted chickpeas, I know you can get them in health-food shops, but I'm keeping out of them at the moment, as I mustn't spend money! In Australia, Aldi have them, but not in the UK, or at least the Banbury branch, it seems. So I decided to make my own. Here's my YouTube of how I made them. They turned out very nice for my first effort. Next time I would cook them at a lower temperature. They're a really tasty vegetable based protein snack, give them a try.

After hiking to the summit of Mount Snowdon, I left the North-West of Wales late that afternoon, to make my way to the diagonally opposite side of the country, the Forest of Dean, near Monmouth South-East Wales. It was the Sunday of a Public Holiday weekend hence the roads were very busy. When it began to get dark I started to worry whether I’d be able to get a pitch at my campsite of choice. I couldn’t reach them on the phone to book-in either. I kept dithering as to whether I should find another site on the way, but I wanted to keep driving, and finally arrived at my campsite, in Coleford, after dark, just after 10pm. There were no lights on in the office, and I hadn’t booked, so I drove straight in and was shocked that the three fields were rammed! I found a spot in the far corner and pitched up. With a head-torch, setting up camp in the dark was so much easier than I thought it would be, and the site has an open-door shower and toilet block, so I could get washed. All turned out well after my worrying, paying for my pitch the next morning. I’d woken early, so enjoyed the peace and early morning sunshine. When the twenty or so kids arose, I went back to my tent for a kip. On waking I was pleased to find nearly all the other campers were packing-up or had gone already. Result, by lunchtime there was only four other tents there! I had a totally chilled day, it was beautifully sunny, I took a few strolls over the meadows surrounding the campsite. It was bliss not to have to do anything, as the two previous days I had been busy mountain biking and hiking. You can hire a fire-pit from the campsite, so I had a fire that night and cooked some baked potatoes, that I’d specifically bought from the local Co-op in Coleford town, hiking over the fields to reach it. The potatoes were gorgeous! And it made a change from the Super Noodles or Macaroni that I usually cook. I’d also bought some Avocados, and had them squashed on toast the next morning. During the night I woke at around 1am, so got up and made a cuppa. The night sky was beautiful, I could see more of the Milkyway than I'd ever seen in the UK before. And there was quite a few shooting stars. It was a quality time. I had another lazy morning on the Tuesday, the mist was very heavy that day, with the sun struggling to get through, eventually succeeding around 10am. I enjoyed just listening to the birdsong, watching the lambs in the meadow behind my pitch, and watching three squirrels scurrying about the campsite, like naughty little kids. I had planned to ride my mountain bike in the Forest of Dean that day, but was so happy to just sit and chill. I slowly started to get my mountain biking gear on, which took around two hours, as I just couldn’t be arsed! Eventually leaving the campsite for the Cannop Mountain Bike trail centre in the forest at around 1pm. I unloaded my bike, got all ready to ride, then realised I’d brought no food with me and that I’d forgotten my GoPro. So, I had to load Desmond, my downhill bike, back into the car and drive back to the campsite to get them. Still I had no time frame to work to, the car park doesn’t close until 9pm, so wasn’t stressed by it. On finally getting back and onto my bike I realised I’d left my gloves back at the campsite, damn it! I wasn’t going to go back again, so decided to ride with some mechanics gloves I kept in the car. I decided then to just pootle about as I’d cut both my hands, my left little finger on a knife, that was quite deep and gaping, that kept bleeding, and on the palm on my right hand, done whilst collecting kindling for the camp fire unfortunately positioned right where you hold the handle bars. If I was going to pootle there was no need for my protective gear, so took off, it was too hot for it anyway. Being on the downhill bike I was going to ride the downhill trails, there was no uplift that day, and I couldn’t afford it even if there was, which meant I’d be pushing-up to the top of the hill. I know where the push-up trail is, but still, I got lost and ended up high up on the other side of the forest. It had clouded over a little by mid afternoon, with a shower at one point, which made it a nicer push-up, as it's hot work pushing a bike uphill. I had three runs on the easiest one dot downhill trails; Countdown and Launch Pad. I’m still a bit wobbly and lacking confidence on Desmond, so it was so good just to do something really easy. I finished my day around 6pm and drove the 5kms back to the campsite. I had another lazy evening watching the sun go down. I’d saved two baked potatoes from the night before, so had them for my dinner. The next morning, Wednesday, I started to prepare to leave the campsite. Where I was pitched was in the early morning shadows, so I packed up my car, and moved my tent into the sunshine to dry-out, having a few cups of coffee while I waited. Leaving for home at around 10am, arriving in Banbury around half past midday. It was a perfect drive home, no hold-ups at all. And that was my five nights away camping done. I was sad to have to go home, but now I needed to knuckle-down and find a job! It won’t be long until I’m back in the Welsh hills again that’s for sure!

You can find a YouTube of the campsite here , a run at Antur Stiniog here and the Snowdon hike is available here After returning from Nepal I wish I had stopped off in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain for a few weeks, as a stepping-stone back to normal life! Alas I didn’t, and returning to my little house in Banbury, I found I couldn’t knuckle down into finding a job. The weather in the UK, different from the past three years, where we’ve had sunny weather in the springtime, was a combination of sun and showers, and sometimes cold and rain for days on end. Around these rainy weather patterns, I meticulously planned a tour of the Highlands of Scotland, camping with my mountain bike, and riding new-to-me trails. Bearing in mind I only have my downhill mountain bike, I had to plan around that also. For instance, there’s no point in going to a forest, that may have beautiful trails, but would involve pedalling. The weight of the downhill bike, and it's geometry makes it very difficult to pedal uphill. I was keen to ride the Glencoe downhill trails, which was to be my first stop. I knew there was snow higher up in Glencoe, and did think about learning to snowboard whilst there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out until the morning I was due to leave, Friday the 4th of May, that the Glencoe mountain bike trails wouldn’t be open until mid-June! So, I hadn’t planned so well after all!! No matter, I loaded the car as I'd decided I would go to Wales instead, riding a couple of downhill parks that I’d ridden before; Antur Stiniog and the Forest of Dean. By now it was lunchtime, a very silly time to set off on a road-trip, the Friday of a Public Holiday weekend! The traffic was atrocious, with traffic jams, not helped as I hit the rush hour later in the journey. I didn’t arrive at my first campsite, the Llechrwd Riverside Campsite near Blaenau Ffestiniog, until around 7pm, around six hours driving. This was a new campsite to me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find it lived up to its name, being set in a riverside meadow. The only downside to some people could be that there is some road noise, but not enough to bother me. I chose to pitch under a large tree on the river bank. I’d brought along my new tent, a Marmot Fortress, which was easy to put up, less than ten minutes. And as it turned out perfectly suited my use. It’s a two-man tent, and has two entrances, both with a fly screen, and a decent sized vestibule on each entrance as well. Again, the only complaint I’d have with it is that there is a rooftop vent, but it doesn’t have fly screen. It didn’t rain on my trip, it was mainly sunny, but there was a very heavy mist one morning, with the fly-sheet keeping the inner tent completely dry, so fingers crossed when I use it in the rain. After a good night’s sleep, not that my sleep in a tent in that good, I tend to wake quite often, I had a leisurely morning chilling by the river. Then the ten-minute drive to Antur Stiniog, a downhill mountain bike park. I’d seen on Facebook that some riding buddies were there too, as I drove in there they were! Sam, Mark, Tom and Ben, who were on a tour of North Wales with their bikes. Except for Sam, they were on trail bikes so had been riding the forests the day before. The other guys had booked a day’s uplift, where you pay to have you and your bike taken to the top of the mountain, so you can ride the downhill trails flat-chat! There is no option of a push-up there I believe, although I guess you could if you followed the road out of town, but it would be a bloody long way! So, I went to the park reception and bought an afternoon’s uplift pass, which would be enough for me anyway. I hadn’t ridden Desmond, my Demo8 Specialized downhill bike, since last August. My first run was very tentative, riding with Tom and Ben, on the Blue trail Jympar. This was my first run of the day, and Tom and Ben’s last, as they were off mid-afternoon to go and climb Mount Snowdon, something I had planned to do the next day. The guys left for Snowdon, and I got five runs in total, eventually getting running a little more confidently and faster. Really, I could have kept going, but the uplift stops at around 4:30pm. I was tempted to go back the next day, alas I really couldn’t afford it. Half a day was £23. That Saturday evening was perfect for the lads Snowdon climb, they’d planned to catch the sunset from up there. It was around a 30 to 40 minute drive from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Mount Snowdon. I’m not sure which route they took up, but they have some amazing photos, and the weather was perfect for them. I returned to the campsite, had a shower and chilled for the evening. A point to note, even though it was sunny, there wasn’t a mosquito or midge problem at this campsite. And it has a decent phone and data signal. Sunday morning, again another leisurely one, I packed up camp and drove to the Rhyd Ddu (pronounced hrred thee) car park near the pretty tourist town of Beddgelert (pronounced Beth-Galert). There is a campsite at Beddgelert, that I’d stayed at last year, as I remember it, it doesn’t have Wi-Fi or a phone signal at all and does have mozzies! Although a pretty site, with a shop and café. It’s a proper windy mountain road getting from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Beddgelert, so allow plenty of time, perhaps 40 minutes, as you can come across a motor-home or caravan travelling at one mile an hour! At the Rhyd Ddu car park, which costs £5 for the day, noting the credit card function wasn’t working when I was there, I just about managed to scrape together five pounds in cash from coins laying about in my messy car! By now being lunch time, I got my camping stove out and made some Super Noodles and had a cup of tea. I got togged up for the Snowdon hike, it was a warm sunny day with a slight haze, so I decided to go up in shorts and vest top. Being a worrier, I packed my rucksack thus: Rain coat, trousers, gloves, warm hat, 2 litres of water, snacks plus all the electronics! With my hoodie tied around my waist, which I only needed at the summit, once walking I was plenty warm enough. To get to the trail you walk, looking at the mountains, to the left end of the car park, and turn right, crossing the railway track, it’s signposted anyway. The first part of the trail is a fire-road, and on a gentle incline, so a good warm-up for the climb ahead. Passing through a few gates, there is one turning, which is sign-posted so you can’t go wrong there. It soon becomes rocky, and sometimes you’re walking up rocks with water flowing around them. It is steep, and gets steeper and steeper, with quite a bit of hiking on loose rocks. The terrain is varied, ranging from man-made stepping stones, to shale, loose rocks to earth. Around two thirds of the way up, you can see the summit of Snowdon, it’s way in the distance, with a high ridge and a steep looking final climb. There is a café at the top, and toilets I think, but it was so busy, completely rammed so I didn’t take a look. I moved quite fast, as opposed to the Himalayas, I wasn’t gasping for breath. Altitude isn’t a problem here; the summit is at an altitude of just under 1100 metres. It took me around two and a half hours to hike from the car park to the monolith at the summit, where I spent twenty minutes, mostly trying to find a spot where I could take a decent photograph, alas it was so busy, again being a sunny Public Holiday weekend, it really wasn’t the best time to go. I couldn’t get a decent photo of the scenic views, but no matter I saw them! Nearing the summit, the trail is on a very narrow path along the ridge, it was necessary to give way to those coming down, and to wait to pass slower trekkers. Having a poor sense of direction, I was grateful it was busy, so I could see the way to go, as in some parts the trail broadens over a very rocky section and it’s difficult to see which way to go. Going down, I mostly jogged, as it really is quite steep, I found it the best way to negotiate the terrain. I only got lost once! One thing I experienced, was that my boots hurt my feet, the same boots and socks I wore to Everest BC which were perfect for that trek. But I think because I was going so much quicker on Snowdon, that the friction was markedly increased. So, I must look for some new hiking boots for quick climbs! It took around an hour and a half to get down, with my feet quite sore, I was glad to get back into my flipflops! By now it was around 5pm, and I’d decided I’d go to the Forest of Dean next, which is in Gloucestershire on the border of England and Wales, near Monmouth. So, a long drive on country roads ahead of me. Really, I should have stopped at a campsite half way, but I just wanted to get to my favourite campsite in Coleford. The Snowdon hike was so different from the Himalaya hike, no altitude problems and a much faster pace. There were a few little kids going up, around 8 years old. You need a head for heights, as the ridge-line trail is quite narrow in places, but nothing dangerous, unless you’re really clumsy! You also need to be sure-footed, there is quite a bit of loose rocks hiking. If you have knee problems, you may find it difficult on the way down. All in all an afternoon well spent, and only costs £5!

You can see a YouTube of preparations for the hike here and my full hike here Here I will try to document some of the things that I hadn’t thought about researching before booking my trek. I've summarised at the end of this blog the questions I would ask next time, and the additional things I'd take. Overview My trip was with the very experienced trekking company, Himalayan Experience. With that experience came faultless logistics, everything but everything ran smoothly, from the hostels, camp set-up and food to the helicopter out of base camp, which was quite a complex operation in itself! Russ who runs Himex certainly knows his business. We left Kathmandu on the 26th March and returned on the 6th of April Group size I didn’t ask the group size before I booked. As it turned out there was 18 of us, including a Lead guide, Guide and Doctor. Each one of the trekkers was a friendly interesting character, and everyone got on well. There were two sets of father/sons, a married couple and two sets of friends, plus the ‘singles’, like me. The normal people socialised outside of their ‘group’, because that’s what normal people do, alas I’m a weirdo loner! Would I go on a trek with a large group again? No probably not, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad experience, I just don't prefer large groups. I feel like I bonded with the EBC group as much as I’m ever going to bond with a group, so would go with them again, and continue to be my hermit self, as they are now used to it! I don’t think I’d go with a different large group though, I’ll stick to going on my own or with just a one to one guided tour. Physical preparation Another worry I had with going on a group trek was that I wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace, thinking everyone would be at least half my age. I was pleasantly surprised on meeting everyone that it wasn’t the case. Although I was the second eldest, the approximate average age was 46, including the one youngster in the group, who was 21. Not that age had anything to do with physical fitness, the oldest member being a 66-year-old, who was always in the fast group! But it was a good indication that I wasn’t totally out of my depth! I didn’t do any fitness preparation for the trek, apart from a few mountain bike sessions and some short treks in Hawaii. From a fitness perspective, the hike to EBC shouldn’t be that difficult. That’s not to say it wasn’t difficult at times, because it was and it triggered my Tourette’s a couple of times! It’s hard to quantify exactly what made it difficult. For me I think it was just a combination of sticking to someone else’s schedule, the altitude and what comes with the affects of it, such as headaches, a little nausea, trouble breathing and lack of sleep. Each segment of the trek, if they were 3000 metres lower, would be no problem at all I think, each ascent isn't that bad. It’s just a combination of everything. The fact that I’ve smoked, on and off, most of my life, didn’t help, I’m sure. And, that I rush everywhere flat-chat, I couldn’t get used to remembering to do things slowly! Something you need to do up there. I'd stop to film, then rush to catch up, not something to do unless you're not affected by the rigours of the hike. A big factor is your own unique physiology, some are suited to altitude, some aren’t. I believe all members of our group, except myself and one other, took Diamox, the medication that helps your blood cope with the altitude. Perhaps I should have invested in some. But there are some side affects with that, I believe tingling digits! I would say do a little research on the symptoms of altitude sickness, I didn't. I didn't even realise I was collecting fluid around my eyes two days in, until at EBC. It was difficult to know why I felt so listless and ill, I thought it was my cold, but on reflection I had mild altitude sickness. I'm not sure why Himex didn't tell me, they must have noticed I was struggling. Another physical consideration is any injuries you’re carrying. The only one that affected me was the Mortens Neuroma in my feet, which did hurt when walking for several hours at a time. After the first instance of them playing up, I took better care of my feet, applying Fisiocrem twice a day and taping my toes together, which helped a lot Costs Himex were considerably more expensive than other trekking companies, but I was happy to pay the extra to travel with them, knowing how they operated. I can’t speak for the other companies, I just knew Himex would keep me safe. Beware of cheap imitations and do your homework when comparing trekking company prices. Unless you are a seasoned trekker and can make it on your own of course, or you don’t mind being less comfortable than I was! With Himex, just about everything was included once arriving at the airport in Kathmandu. Things that weren’t included in the $4500 fee was flights, tips, mobile phone, WiFi, any extra days at the hotel, lunch and dinner outside of the trek and bar bills. The sight seeing day on the first day in Kathmandu was extra. Cash You’ll need cash, in Kathmandu US dollars or Nepalese Rupees are the accepted currency. I think GBP and AUD also are, but didn't use that. Once on the trek you’ll need the funny munny (Nepalese Rupees). There are ATMs in Kathmandu and Namche Bazar, but none elsewhere on the trek that I saw. The Edelweiss Lodge in Pheriche did accept debit and credit cards though. If you’re in the posh Hyatt hotel, the porters and waiters will expect a tip, so you need cash for that. I tipped them $1 or NR100 (roughly you get NR100 to a US dollar), and they seemed very happy with that. You’ll need to check with your trekking company if you are expected to tip the support staff; guides, porters, chefs etc. Himex suggest a minimum of $150 paid to the company, that they distribute evenly between all staff. You may also want to directly tip any staff member you bonded with. Don't get caught out without any cash, it's awkward! I only had NR1000 to tip my mountain bike guides and I felt really mean! Sorry guys, if you're reading this, I'll make it up to you one day! Arriving at Kathmandu Airport Make sure you have some cash to tip your porters, I was caught out as my money was in my checked back, which was taken by someone else, so felt very bad. If arriving in a busy expedition period expect long queues waiting to get your visa. Many people travel with a soft shell hiking bag, the sort to carry on a yak. Someone had exactly the same bag as me, and took mine at the airport. I didn't get it back until late the next day, and had to return to the airport to collect it, when he exchanged it for his. Even though he had a 'marker' personalising his bag, he still took mine! If your bag is a North Face, Denali or any other popular make, personalise it in a highly visual fashion to prevent losing it! Phone and WiFi I bought a Ncell SIM card for my phone in Kathmandu, this cost around NR5000 for 10gb of data (lasting 30 days, not calendar month), I didn’t bother paying for calls and texts, a token amount comes with the data. The service was much better than I expected, and there was very little time that I didn’t have WiFi or a phone signal. The phone signal does get worse, and is on and off, the nearer you get to basecamp. But I’d say getting the local SIM is worth doing. You will need your passport, or a decent photocopy of your passport AND a passport photo to get a SIM card. Our passports were retained by Himex, and the photocopy was too poor for the phone shop to accept, so it was a bit of a saga. Another reason for needing some funny munny on the trek, for me, was to pay for phone charging and for WiFi. We paid around NR300 for a phone charge, more for a power pack charge. And NR500 for WiFi in the Lodges we used in Namche Bazar, Khumjung and Phortse, noting that's for each device. In Pheriche, Lobuche and I think Gorek Shep, the tea houses and lodges we visited used a system where you buy a coded card of 200mb to 1Gb and use the Everest Link WiFi. This costs NR600 per 200mb. We also had the Everest Link WiFi at basecamp, setup by Himex. Just bear in mind you can only use a card on one device, you can’t use it say on your phone and your tablet, you’d need separate ones for each device, that’s what I found anyway. Equipment I improvised on clobber and equipment, where I could, using my mountain bike gear. Your trekking company is likely to provide a list of required equipment, as did Himex. Stick to the list, you don't need loads of extra stuff. Ask if you can borrow or hire the more expensive items if you don't have them. Clothes I’m always cold, unless I’m expending energy, when I’m expending energy I’m particularly sweaty! So, if you’re like me, the following may be helpful to you! A typical day's dress would be: Hiking boots (I used some I’ve had ages, they are US Air force mountain boots and were perfect) Woollen walking socks for long hikes, lightweight walking socks for the shorter (up to 4 hour) hikes Long Johns, always Light weight hiking trousers (jeans for the first two days, which were too hot with long johns) Short sleeved thermal Tee shirt (sometimes long sleeve, but for no particular reason) Long sleeve lightweight top (jogging hoodie) Medium weight down jacket Woollen hat Lightweight scarf/buff Normal knickers and a sports bra When walking I’d take my down jacket off and stuff it in my rucksack. Also, often I’d take my hoodie off, and tie it around my waist. They’d both go back on when we stopped, it soon got chilly. So, enough room would be needed in my rucksack for my jacket. Rucksack My Evoc rucksack is a 20 litre, and it was just big enough to use as a day pack. If I did the trek again I’d use a 30 litre, simply because it would be easier to pack! We carried only a small day pack (rucksack). Everything we didn’t need on the hike, would be transported to the next camp or hostel by yak. Our trek was at the end of March, the weather was chilly. I don’t actually know the temperatures, but there was no rain and the ground wasn’t wet. There was some snow falling whilst trekking, but nothing heavy, and the trails were mostly clear of settled snow, and where there was some, it wasn’t enough to worry about. Basically, it was dry weather and dry ground, therefore I can only comment on those conditions. We only hiked in day light, the sun was up by 8am, which could get warm. At a guess I’d say the ambient was around 0 deg C, plus the direct heat from the sun. In my rucksack would be the following: Lightweight rain jacket Fleece top (I never needed this during a hike) Baseball cap (occasionally worn instead of woolly hat) Lightweight gloves (occasionally worn) Sweets Pen knife (I never needed this during a hike) Camera Phone Tablet Power supply and leads GoPro Water bottle (slightly less than a litre, and I found that enough for all hikes) Hydration pack with two litres of water (that I rarely used) Down jacket (sometimes) Snowboard trousers (I never needed these during a hike) Sun cream Lip Salve Tissues, and some un-rolled toilet paper Hand sanitiser I was constantly worried whether I had the right stuff in my rucksack, but was never caught out, as it turns out I didn’t need the extra trousers and top at all. So perhaps 20 litres was fine. But remember I didn't get wet at any point, you may not be so lucky with the weather. Also there's no point in worrying, unless disaster strikes, it's only going to be around eight hours before you're back with your kit bag, if it goes by yak! Equipment list items On the Himex equipment list, and that I bought but never used, was walking sticks, gaiters and snow gloves. These items cost me around $400, so turns out was a waste of money. But remember the weather and ground was not wet for our trek. It could have been a different story, so worth being prepared. It would have to be pretty extreme conditions for me to use the sticks, I just don’t like the thought of having to negotiate rocks and think about where two sticks are as well as my feet. In fact, it looked like a whole lot of extra work to me! There was no terrain rough enough for me, a 56 year old Doris, to need them. And to confirm what a pain they can be, there was a group of five guys, we call the Kiwi group, on the same trek but one day behind us. One of that group tripped over his stick and broke his ribs on day one and had to fly home to New Zealand! If your kit bag is going on a yak, you need a soft, lightweight hold all, mine was 100 litres and was plenty big enough. I borrowed two sleeping bags off Himex, they were high quality, down bags, not sure what rating but very puffy and warm. I’d get into my polyester sleeping bag liner and just lie in one un-zipped bag, with my clothes for the morning inside it with me, laying the second sleeping bag on top of that. I think our temperature went down to minus 12 degrees C, I was never cold. I also borrowed some down pants off Himex, because they was on the list, but never used them. I had brought some snowboard pants with me, which I wore in the evenings, but never for hiking. There is a lot of equipment for sale in Kathmandu and Namche Bazar, surprisingly there are some quite fancy mountain gear shops in Namche, so don’t fret if you forget something. There’s even a North Face store there! As well as some other high-end stores, as well as non-branded shops. I didn’t see the prices, so can’t help you there. Two sets of gear is enough, plus the cold weather stuff and some tidier clothes for at the hotel. Rarely did I change my clothes on the trek! Toilet facilities In the hostels the toilets can be a bit smelly, other than that satisfactory. In the tea houses it was a different story sometimes, I opted to hold on! In the Himex camps they always made an effort to make alfresco pooping and peeing as civilised as possible. Himex provided us with a roll of toilet paper each, using our own at all toilets, at camps and hostels. I bought a She-wee, but never used it, I could wait until morning! It was all quite civilised actually! Washing facilities In most of the hostels there either was a rudimentary shower, or one which you needed to pay extra for hot water, around NR500 I think for a showers worth. I didn't shower for 11 days, it’s so cold generally that the thought of a shower really isn’t something most people wanted to do. Himex also provide one at base camp I believe, but definitely too cold for me to even think about! I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and had a quick wipe around with baby wipes. Take baby wipes with you, they are very expensive in Namche Bazar, around NR700! Also take dry shampoo with you if you’re not going to shower, I wish I had! Everyone’s in the same boat, and you soon forget about what you look like! Himex provided a bottle of hand sanitiser and had a few around the camp. The best bottles were those you can hang off your rucksack. It’s worth having a couple handy, and using it often, to minimise the risk of getting a dodgy bottom. Electronics Running a blog, YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram, I needed to have my devices and power available. I didn’t take my notebook computer with me on the trek and seriously regretted it. Data-storage on my phone, tablet, GoPro and camera was all on SD card, which proved to be a nightmare. I so wish I had taken my notebook and a small hard-drive with me, as I lost at least one SD card with a day’s photos and movies, pinging it across a room never to be found. I also lost a lot of photos and movies when I had thought they’d downloaded to my cloud on my return to Kathmandu, when in fact they hadn’t, and I’d deleted them from the SD card. So, I’d say turn your cloud off, to save data usage, and take a small 1tb hard drive with you, which is what I will do in future. So much time was wasted dicking with SD cards, moving data around from one to the other. I took two Pebble Explorer power packs with me. They’re designed in England, made in China, 8400mA, and an excellent piece of kit, costing around £50. I’ve had one of them for around 2-3 years and bought another just before my trip. They were sufficient to keep my devices charged the whole trek. With a recharge of the power packs when I could, at hostels and lodges. In the hostels and lodges we stayed at, there were no power points to do your own charging. You will need to pay for charging and leave your things with the reception, so they can do it for you. This means you need to get into a routine if you want to be economical about it. I charged my devices in the early evening using my power packs, then left the power packs to charge overnight in reception. This worked well, and I had no problems with lack of power. Another thing I would do differently would be to invest in a small camera with a good zoom, I only had a cheap camera with a 6x zoom and it just wasn’t good enough to capture the beauty of the mountains. Food Himex chefs are ‘Western’ trained, so we had a combination of Nepalese and western food, all of which was excellent, and not junk type foods either. Once we had pizza, and a couple of times there were chips, but all homemade. There were always potatoes on the menu, whether roasted, mash or spicy, along with perhaps pasta, rice and fresh vegetables. I didn’t eat the meat, but it was available. I’m not sure you could expect this with all trekking companies, so do your research. Drinks wise, the only drinking water should be bottled water, ours, all supplied by Himex. There were constantly hot flasks with an option of Lemon tea, black tea or hot water to make instant coffee or speciality tea, with powdered milk available. Again, check out drink when doing your research, if not included in the price it could get expensive. Be fastidious over hand sanitiser use, do it always before eating. Gift Purchases There are gift shops or stalls everywhere, if I went again I’d buy from the villages on the trek. I did buy from a street seller in Kathmandu, which meant she followed me around for three hours, pestering me to buy more. So, use your discretion if you want to be left alone! Remember before you buy, think about whether you can take the item back into your country! Your lungs! I wish I'd have worn a dust mask or buff over my nose and mouth more often, both in Kathmandu and when hiking dusty trails. I still have a cough, three weeks on! Also wearing one may have prevented me getting the cough and cold that appeared on the second day of the trek, which really dampened my energy, performance and enjoyment of the trek. I hope this information is of use to you if you’re considering trekking to EBC. It was an amazing experience, and still I can’t believe I was there, so do it if you can! Summary of things to research Size of group Demographic of group Physical training Diamox and Altitude Sickness Taking care of any existing injuries Look after your feet, get a pedicure before you go What is included in the trekking fee Get Nepalese Rupees from Kathmandu or Namche Mobile phone Data and network coverage Take a few extra passport type photos with you, you'll need one on arrival in Kathmandu for your visa, and another one if you want a SIM card Find out what you are expected to carry on the trek Rucksack and Kit bag sizes Rationalise the clothes you take, stick to the recommended list Toilet facilities at camps Toilet paper, you can buy it in Kathmandu or Namche Keep toilet paper in your pocket, so you’re not caught out Hanging hand sanitiser bottles Baby wipes, a large pack is enough for two weeks Dry shampoo Towel (not shown on our kit list) Power packs and USB leads Turn off your cloud if you pay for data Take a small hard drive and an interface to download SD cards to it Decent camera (I don’t have an iPhone, perhaps they are good enough?) Check the menu Check if food and drinks are all included in the price Invest in a decent dusk mask Find time to do a tour in Kathmandu, the Monkey temple is worth a visit at least If you're making a movie of your trip, think about when you're going to film, so you're not constantly having to catch up on the hike Synchronise your device charging with power packs and where charging will be available

YouTube of this ride can be found here This blog has been published courtesy of stealing WiFi from my good friend Jayne Williams, thanks bird x Most of our trekking group took a chopper out of Everest basecamp, this resulted in us being back in Kathmandu five days early. Even Cassi and Nicole, that walked out of EBC, arrived in Kathmandu one day earlier than expected. Arriving earlier than expected meant either moving your flight or paying for accommodation. It was cheaper for me to pay for accommodation than buy another flight, which was a bit tiresome, as I was totally out of money, especially cash, which you need to do anything in Nepal. And I felt particularly mean as everyone expects a bloody tip, which is difficult without cash! I was happy to just chill and rest for the five days, but thought I should really take the opportunity to sample the mountain biking around Kathmandu, if it wasn’t too expensive. I found Himalayan Single Track online, and arranged a day with them in the Nagarkot trails for $150. Nagarkot held the latest round of the Asian enduro championship a week or so beforehand, so I knew it would be good. As it turned out, HST couldn’t accept a credit card payment, which was a real pain having to use cash, but I knew if I didn’t ride, I’d seriously regret it. So the budget crept yet again. HST picked me up at 8am, they usually set off at 7am but I didn’t fancy that! They arrived in a Mahindra pickup truck, the driver and two guides. I opted to ride in the back of the truck with Anish, the manager/guide, and the three Giant bikes. It was a really long ride from the hotel to the hill top, the first half hour was in the dust and pollution of Kathmandu city, then out into the country side. I think the ride was longer than usual because half way up the mountain the road was impassable, so Sankey, the driver had to divert and find another route. The sights, the mayhem, the randomness of the journey up the mountain provided a thousand photo opportunities, alas in the back of a truck on the rough roads there’s no chance of getting a stable shot! Just to ride up in the truck is interesting enough, it really is, you just can’t express in words or film what you’re actually experiencing! The Nagarkot hills really are alive, with small villages, bustling towns, crops growing on every spare patch of terraced mountainside, mopeds,motorbikes, Nepali army troops training, army barracks and even goats on motorbikes! There’s also a geological survey campus and an observatory. Plus many hotels, even a bus station. Why this is astounding is that getting up the mostly un-surfaced mountain road to the top of the near 2200 metre mountain is no mean feat in itself! It’s very dusty and I’m regretting not wearing my dust mask now! Not only are the roads mostly not surfaced, there is a lot of building going on, or I should say rebuilding, still, after the earthquake a couple of years ago. It seems that women do most of the heavy building work too, I wonder if this is cultural and expected of them or if they’re pissed off with waiting for the procrastinating men to do it!!?? We passed through Nagarkot town, and continued on for some time further and arrived at the hill top, where there are all sorts of small shops and food stalls. I understand the area is popular for the Nepalis to picnic. It’s a shame they don’t take their rubbish away with them, the surrounding area is quite littered, but I guess litter is the least of their problems! In between the stalls is a flight of stairs up to the Nagakot View Tower, we took a look up there. It’s a paved clearing at the top of the hill, with an iron tower that you can climb up to get a better view. The day we went, the distant views were shrouded in fog, although we could see across the immediate valley to the next mountain, most of the time. Apparently after the rainy season, visiting in October/November will give you fine views of the Himalayas, including Everest. A quick cup of tea from a stall then onto the riding. I believe we was all riding Giant Trance bikes, custom builds from a frame by the HST team. Kiran, the super talented young gun was the lead guide, with Anish coming up behind, to make sure I didn’t disappear! And pick me up when I’d rolled into a ball! With hind-sight what we should have done is start on an easy flow trail, so I could get used to the bike. I hadn’t ridden for nearly four weeks, and had only ridden Stumpy or Desmond ever. The front geometry felt quite alien, compared to my Stumpjumper, with little feel from the front wheel. This was just something I’d get used to quite easily, but the fact the front brake was on the left and rear on the right, took a bit more thought to get over! I nearly went over the handlebars a few times in a rear brake panic, pulling on the front instead! Anyway the first trail we did was far too difficult for me to get down the tekky parts not on my arse! But I’m a big girl, if I can’t ride down it, I will get down it, and that’s how I always approach trails. I think because I struggled, only with the tekky parts, on the first trail, I think Kiran thought it was too difficult for me and on the next two trails, he went a lot slower, which was a too slow. I could seem to get it across that even if I struggle on the tekky parts, I wanted to go fast on the non-tek sections. Still both trails were a good ride. The last trail, the longest we did that day, Kiran speeded up, which was much more fun. I’ll post a YouTube of this run, when I get some WiFi! Poor Anish had to second guess my sudden stops, which I often do for no reason! I think it's lack of concentration! And he also had to preempt when I was going to fall next, and not run me over. Well done Anish, you must be psychic! I’d had at least three falls that day, the first one just a low side on the first trail, then I rode quite hard into a tree on a steep section on the second trail, just out of control type of thing. I think I managed not to fall on the third one. On the last run, on a steep and rough downhill part, I must have been too far over the back, as I believe I went right over the back, on the rear wheel up-side-down type of thing. I’ve never done this on Stumpy, although I have on my Demo8. Really I think I was just out of control, and I didn’t care because it was such fun. What I really loved about these trails is that there wasn’t any gnarly rocks to fall on, so I didn’t care if I fell. We are talking proper loam here! I’d only recently ridden in Australia, where it’s really rugged and rocky, and also in Hawaii, where the rocks are even sharper. I’ve come away from Nagakot with more scratches and bruises than in my past five months of riding on the two other continents, put together! The terrain was pine forest or Nepali jungle, mostly downhill with a few short pedally bits. And the trails were all proper singletrack. It was dry the day I rode, I would imagine it could get quite slippery and fun in the wet. Most of the steep parts were short chutes, that had become rutted in places, and had small drops, which made them interesting! I’d love to have done all the trails again another day, as I think I could have ridden most of the tekky bits that I chickened out of, and ridden better and faster the ones I did do. Riding behind someone as good as Kiran really helped my riding. And what I noticed watching him, apart from him being a billion times more skilled than me, is that he can stand fully on the bike, which is something I can’t really do, not sure why, so I’m gonna investigate if perhaps I need a large frame or perhaps my posture isn’t right. Anyway that’s something for the future. Just watching him was really good for me, and if it taught me nothing else, that is not to go so fucking slow, and just bang down the rough stuff! We finished the day with the ride back to my hotel in the Mahindra, driven by Sankey Shrestha. He’d done a fab job, locating us at the bottom of each trail and shuttling us back to the top again. His driving wasn’t crazy, so it wasn’t scary in the back of the truck, although I am amazed that I haven’t seen one accident, at all, in the midst of the motoring mayhem on the Kathmandu roads! Nameste Info Himalayan Single Track link Tips Wear a dust mask when in the truck! I’m still coughing nearly a week later, just from the road dust.

Friday 6th April 2018 - Day 11 Returning to Kathmandu My YouTube of leaving EBC can be found here The helicopter ride out of BC would be in three sections; BC to Pheriche, with just two passengers at a time, then Pheriche to Lukla where four passengers could go at one time, then Lukla to Kathmandu, which is the longer flight of around 45 minutes. The eight of us flying out said our goodbyes to the summiters, the Kiwis, the chefs, the porters, the doc, Little Boss, Nicole and Cassi, then took the ten minute walk to the helipad. It took some time for the first chopper to arrive but in no time he’d been to Pheriche and back three times, returning to take me and Kurt, the last to leave BC. After the chopper’s third trip, and before returning for me and Kurt, my emotions suddenly took over and I heavily sobbed, I’m not sure why, perhaps for the achievement or perhaps because I’d never be here again, I don’t know but it was deeply upsetting. Just trying to stand near the helipad when the chopper was taking-off or landing, with the strong wind and icy rocks under your feet was tricky, and it was easier to lie on the rocks. Whilst we was waiting for our chopper ride we could see the Kiwis taking their hike out to the Icefall......I was slightly jealous, as it really is such an iconic natural obstacle that man has mostly conquered, the mountain Gods willing. The chopper runs ran like clockwork, the chopper being loaded, unloaded, weights adjusted and passengers sorted without drama. We had a bit of a wait at Lukla airstrip, which was great, it’s a dangerous take off and landing, so watching the planes come in and out was fab. There was also constant chopper activity, with perhaps 15 take offs/landings in our hour there. It was amazing to see the miles of trails we had hiked on our way up, they all brought back memories, some of severe tourettes moments! Arriving back in the polluted dusty air, noise and mayhem of Kathandu was a bit of a shock after the peace and clean air of the mountains. We hit heavy traffic on the dusty ride from the Airport to the Hotel, it was bloody hot in the small car with five of us in it, especially as we were still in trekking gear, Long Johns and all! I’d never felt so drained of energy on the whole trip as I did when I hit my comfortable Hyatt hotel room, I think I’d been running on adrenalin the whole time. Such a contrast, this luxury compared to four hours before when we were still at BC. The whole trip. Just amazing. My blogs skim over what was a crazy ride, I’ll blog again on the ‘human’ side of the trip, and the considerations when deciding whether to embark on this trip yourself. Great thanks to Russell and his team for this amazing experience, one that for me shall never be surpassed.

Wednesday 4-5th April 2018 - Day 9 to 10 My YouTube of our time at EBC can be found here and here This, our last hike to get us to BC, was to be around 11kms. Russ was rather quiet as to how hard it would be, and it’s a good job he was, I prefer a tough hike to be a surprise altogether, and not be told it’s easy when it’s not! And this was tough, harder than the previous two hikes by a long way. We left Lobuche camp after breakfast, where it was already snowing across the vast plateau we had been camping on. I was always up and out my tent by around 5am, so took the opportunity to clamber over some of the rockfalls on the perimeter of our large ‘crater’. I’d watch the sky and take some photos. The moon sets and the sun rises around 6am, when the sun rises the welcoming life-giving heat, an everyday occurrence all over the planet, but a special treat when you’re down to the basics! We all set off, up over the hill adjacent to camp, the hill that everyone except me and the summiters had climbed the day before. Many were feeling the affects of the near 5000 metre altitude, yesterday some climbed without backpacks, so found it a little more difficult today with their day pack on. As usual it was a case of asending hills and descending valleys, quite busy and quite tough hiking tbh. And seemed to go on for ever. We stopped at a tea house in Gorak Shep for a cuppa, thinking this was quite close to BC, but no, no it bloody wasn’t The hike went on and on. One of Russ’s porters ran from BC to meet us with some tea and biscuits, from here BC was in sight, but way in the distance, and on the other side of the valley. I’m not a fan of tea breaks, the thought is nice, but my body seems to shutdown and struggles to get going again. I’d much rather keep on trekking! After trekking on, you can see our camp directly on the other side of the valley, it’s the first one in Base Camp. The enormity of this hike hits home, as I was running on fumes by now and it becomes apparent the only way to get there is to keep walking along this side of the valley until there is a crossing to the other side, then walking all the way back the other side of the valley. I can’t remember if it was a natural or man made crossing, but eventually we crossed to the other side, then hiked back along and to the camp. Again Russ’s porters and chefs had been there some time already, a different group than at Lobuche, and had set up a fab camp, very similar in format to Lobuche, but this time it was on the undulating moraine, and slightly difficult to walk anywhere. Base camp takes around an hour to hike along end to end. The terrain is up and down, up and down, and is on a moraine surface, which is basically ice with rocks on top. The rocks can be loose, and where you think it is a wet surface is actually ice, and is very slippery so you have to watch your steps carefully. Basecamp is on a bank above the Khumbu Glacier and runs along side it as though it were a river bank. Our camp was the furthest away from the Khumbu Icefall, but right on the edge of the bank above the Khumbu Glacier. It’s such a privilege to camp there, it is not something a ‘normal’ BC trekker can do. We were there for two nights, now at just over 5300 metres, which doesn’t sound much but that’s getting on for 18000 feet! The first morning, due to my normal getting up early, I was keen to get close to the glacier, I climbed down the bank and walked towards the house sized chunks of ice, but turned back as I knew it was dangerous. It’s a good job no one else was up, Russ would have had a flip-out if he’d seen me! No one is allowed on the Khumbu Icefall without a permit. And we didn’t have a permit for this, only the summiters would have the ‘privilege’. You can’t imagine nor capture in a photo, the sheer size of the ice chunks on the glacier or icefall. It is vast, with massive chasms to fall in and never be seen again. For me seeing the Glacier and Icefall was the cherry on the top of this experience. Even the summiters can’t get through the Icefall alone, first the Icefall Doctors, as they are called, a group of fearless Shepas, bridge the vast chasms with aluminium ladders, sometimes four or five roped together. They mark out the route for all summiters to take. This process was underway as we were there in early April, which is spring time in Nepal. No attempts on the summit would have been made yet, not until the Icefall Doctors had done their work. From BC you can only see the Western flank of Everest, and the summit behind it, with the South Summit and Hillary Step in view. I wish I’d borrowed a telescope and took a proper look! The sun rises right behind the summit of Everest, it is beautifully amazing, if that’s your thing! The sun comes around the high peaks and around to the glacier slowly at around 8am. The glacier glistens once the sun hits it, with the ancient ice reflecting a sweet light blue hew, truly awe inspiring! Seeing this has made my trip. It had started snowing around lunchtime on our second day in BC, with it snowing all night. At some point during the night I was woken by heavy winds, but not that heavy to be scared of blowing into the Glacier! Another thing that woke, the already broken sleep, was avalanches, you could hear them crack off like distant thunder, some were prolonged and it was a bit scary. But what an experience, there’s not many people that have had the privileged of sleeping in BC, and hearing and seeing such wonders. I really do feel truly honoured. At the altitude of basecamp, just rolling over in bed could send you into a gasping for breathe episode. I kept forgetting to do things slowly they whole expedition. Running up and down stairs in the lodges and hostels would take your breath away, it’s the trying to remember to slow down that I found hard. The same on the trails, I'd stop to film, then rush to catch up. So on awaking to our first full day in BC, we had an option, climb Kala Pathar to see better views, or hike the length of basecamp. I chose the latter, as I was so keen to get as close as possible to the icefall. It takes around an hour to hike end to end, with the terrain being moraine, and undulating, making it very slippery. In some places would be a boulder the size of a car, sitting on no more than a plinth of ice, I can imagine as summer comes the ice melting and the boulder slipping off and falling down into the glacier. Goo, pictured above has been trekking to raise money for research into a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. Take a look at her JustGiving page, and support her if you appreciate her efforts and cause, you can find a link to her page here Any amount will do, don't feel under pressure because others have pledged more than you can afford, give what you can! Poor Russell and his guys had again setup two dining tents, one for the summiters and Kiwis, and one for the trekking group, alas it was requested by some of the trekkers that we all dine together! So whilst we were out hiking the BC or Kala Pathar, they we re-arranging the dining tents. Of which the main tent had been sectioned off for Russ to have his ‘mission control’ office for supporting the summiters, which had to be dismantled to make the tent big enough for everyone. By now the Kiwis had arrived, even these fit men had found the hike from Lobuche heavy going, I think some of them may have even taken an afternoon nap! We had our evening meal that night, our last night, with the whole gang. Celebrations were with a ‘Basecamp 2018’ cake for dessert, and a little wine and whisky. I didn’t want to drink alcohol and went to bed around 8:30pm, the party pooper that I am leaving the others to keep chatting, which they did until the early hours! As usual at dinner, Russell briefed us on the next day’s activities. The advertised trek was to walk to and from Basecamp. Seven of the group had already booked a helicopter out of BC back to Kathmandu as they had other plans or needed to get back to work after already two weeks away. This left only three to walk back, including me, but with a spare helicopter seat available, I nabbed it, leaving only Nicole and Cassi to walk back with the Doc and Little Boss. So a slightly earlier start the next day 8am at the helipad, and I was ready to go by now, my cold was taking its toll, and I was looking forward to being ill in comfort!

Monday 2nd April to Tuesday 3rd April 2018 - Day 7 to 8 My YouTube of this part of the hike can be found here We awoke to another cold morning in Pheriche, today wasn’t to be our longest hike, but it was to be the hardest so far. The previous one was 11kms, this was only 6kms. The difficulty on this trek was to get up a hill nick-named Heartbreak hill. There’s an option when setting off from Pheriche to go up and along the ridge, as opposed to keeping low then hiking up the whole ‘hill’. Hiking up and along the ridge saves around a third of Heartbreak Hill’s punishment, and luckily that’s the one Russ decided we should take. The hike was standard Himalaya stuff, up and down, up and down, then one big bastard up, before dropping into camp, quite rocky, quite dusty and tough on the lungs. Before we left the Edelweiss Lodge in Pheriche, we said goodbye to another team member, Dave. He hadn’t the heart or will to go on once he knew his mate Adrian wasn’t returning to the trek. I understand where he’s coming from, you have to really want this! With funds and helicopters, it's too easy to quit. So he flew back to Kathmandu whilst we set off on the hike to Lobuche. Heartbreak Hill was a complete bastard, just going up up up. Not only do you have the altitude, rugged steep terrain and any ailments you may be suffering from to contend with, on some of the popular hiking trails you need to keep an eye on traffic, giving way to porters, yaks and hikers, going in both directions. Where possible, Russell tried to use less popular and more interesting trails, I think secretly they are harder than the popular routes! But it is nice to be where no other hikers are, alas Heartbreak Hill is a busy trail. Russ may be in his sixties, but he skips up these hills, so be cautious when he says something like “just around corner”, “not very steep” or “it takes two hours”!! The porters and chef’s would already be at the camp, either leaving before us or leap-frogging a stay to get to the next camp early, so everything is setup for when we arrive. A two man tent each, a dining tent for the main group, a dining tent for the summiters and Kiwis, rudimentary ladies and gents toilets and a kitchen, there’s a lot to be done. Russell has organising an expedition down to a fine art, it’s quite amazing just how much goes into this. The individual tents already have a foam ground sheet and a mattress, so by the time you put your own thermarest down on them, you are well insulated from the cold earth. As we dropped into what was to be our first camp site, it started to snow. At least we didn’t have that to contend with on Heartbreak Hill. I had a heavy cough, cold and headache by the time I arrived at the Lobuche camp, and a very sore nose from constantly blowing it. I was on my last legs, and feeling quite ill. By now we we at just over 4900 metres. Gabby and Goo could see I was unwell and offered me some kind words, unfortunately that upset me, and I had my first cry and went to take a nap. The yaks were un-tacked and sent off into the mountains to graze. We had our usual evening meal, a bit of chatter and to bed early after that demanding climb. On congregating for supper, I was clearly ill and slightly disappointed it took many asks for the doctor to give me a once over. Which he did when I got up from the table to go to bed. Everyone except myself and Goo had taken the altitude acclimitisation drug, Diamox. Ni, the doc tested my oxygen level to see if I had more than just a cold and that my illness was altitude related but at 78% whatevers he didn’t think I needed them, so he supplied me with some ‘cold’ tablets, that in fact neither helped me sleep, nor stopped my headache or cough. The next day I saw him again and asked for some cough medicine, which he gave me along with some paracetamol. The cough medicine didn’t seem to work either, it made me cough a whole lot more, and kept me up on our second night in camp. So I’d just have to suck it up and wait until I naturally recovered. Even though a smoker on and off for over 40 years, currently a vaper, I’d not had a persistent cough like this for quite some time. Not covering my nose and mouth on the dusty windy trails probably didn’t help. It’s kind of a vicious cycle, don’t cover up and you get a cough, get a cough and it’s harder to breath, so you can’t cover up, and so it goes on. The temperature through the night was around minus 6 deg C, but the tents were nice and toasty. If I hadn’t been coughing all night and keeping myself awake, it would have been perfect, possibly nicer than a hostel! Except for the fact that if you wanted to go to the loo, you’d have to go through the palaver of jostling about in the tent, getting your shoes and headlamp on and negotiating the terrain outside, which wasn't easy due to the low cloud. I think the girls were split into two groups, one that used a ‘she-wee’ and pissed into a bottle in their tent, and others like me and Goo that just waited until morning!! I had bought a she-wee, it was a waste of money as I was put off using it by hearing one of the other girls’ tale of pissing all over her tent as she practiced using it! The ladies had a wee toilet tent and there was a joint men's and ladies poo toilet tent. It’s harder to split the two bodily functions than you can imagine! Everything has to be taken down the mountain, so I guess that’s why they need to separate the poo from the wee…….I just like saying poo and wee actually, poooooo, weeeeeee!! The next day was a rest day, again I abstained from any additional hiking, of which the three summitters took a climb up to 5325 metres of the Nangkar Tshang peak as part of their acclimitisation procedure, whilst the main group took a hike up one of the surrounding hills. Another night was spent in the tents, a little more snow fell but again it was perfectly fine under ‘canvas’, and if you got up early enough some beautiful skies were to be seen. The following morning the yaks were herded back to camp, god knows how they find them as they’d disappeared off into the mountains. They were give some hay whilst we ate our breakfast. After, the yaks were loaded up, and we all set off to Base Camp. We met up with the four remaining 'kiwis' if we stayed at a camp for more than a night, they arrived at Lobuche a day after us, and leave a day after us. It's a shame we're not all together as they're a great bunch of guys!

Saturday 31st March to Sunday 1st April 2018 - Day 5 to 6 See my YouTube on this blog here The Phortse to Pheriche leg of the trek was going to be a wounder and it didn't disappoint! Most of the hike was along the top of a ravine, with the trail getting far too narrow for some of our group's liking! Around 400 metres below was a rumbling mountain river, crystal blue with a white-water froth, so very beautiful. We left the hostel in Phortse on Saturday the 31st of March. With our normal routine of breakfast at 8am, leaving our kit bags out for the yaks beforehand. We had our breakfast and watched as they started to get loaded. I’m fascinated by them, they’re so placid but happy looking, and are very important to their herders. After around two hours we stopped for a cuppa at a tea-house, I was busting for the loo but didn’t fancy using what was on offer. With lunch another hour and a half away, I could wait. As normal, it was heavy going, ascending the mountains, then descending into the valleys, up and down, up and down. The limit for my Mortens Neuroma to start becoming painful seems to be two hours of hard walking, so has been playing up. With the left foot worse than the right, I kind of have to alter how I step up and down, using my right foot for the hard push-ups. Eventually stopping for lunch at another Tashi Friendship Lodge, this time run by another sister of Phurba Tashi Sherpa. The usual excellent fayre was on offer, and soon after eating we set off again. Some of the group thought this was our stop for the night, quite a disappointment when they learnt we had another two hours to go! This stop gave the yaks time to overtake us. Catching up with them some time later on the narrow ravine edge, which I loved for two reasons, one is they are slow and two they are so fascinating. The terrain changed to open moorland for the last hour or so and was steeply uphill all the way, eventually descending into Pheriche, then a short walk up to the Edelweiss hostel. It had started snowing just as we arrived, Pheriche's fourth snow of the season. It was a cold night, with around 50mm of snow. My headache returning at this altitude, which woke me, to see the most beautiful clear full moon lighting up the peaks surrounding the hostel. To reach here we'd been travelling for around seven hours, six of them hiking. It was pretty hard going, for the last two hours I was running on fumes and bloody minded determination. Two of our group were taken ill on this hike, with the doctor having to attend to both of them. By morning both had felt recovered, alas on taking a short rest day hike on Sunday morning, which I abstained from btw, one of the guys had to turn back as he was still exhausted. Jacob, Dan and Ross, the three that are attempting an Everest summit, took a more difficult rest day hike, up to the top of one of the many summits surrounding Pheriche, using it as part of their acclimatisation procedure. Pheriche has a helipad, and choppers are in and out quite often. The Himalayan Rescue Association is run from here, with a well equipped clinic being on hand. The next day, a rest day, whilst the trekkers of the group took a short hike to 5000 metres, I decided to stay at the hostel to rest and blog. I could have done with the 5000 metres acclimatisation but I know my body, and rest is what it needed. The guys got back for lunch, and the rest of the day we either slept or chatted. The four remaining guys of the satellite group turned up late afternoon. They will have a rest day hike tomorrow. Currently on this Easter Sunday, we are all sitting having dinner!

Friday 30th March 2018 - Day 4 See my YouTube on this blog here We left Khumjung after our normal 8am breakfast, heading for Phortse. Before we left we had to wave goodbye to Adrian who was being choppered to hospital in Kathmandu. Writing this on Easter Sunday in Pheriche, we have heard Adrian has decided not to return to the trek, he's sunning his ass by the pool at the Hyatt, Kathmandu after being released from hospital! Which is a great shame, and everyone is gutted he's not returning. It's understandable, as you need every ounce of will power and physical energy to cope with what this throws at you......no one said it would be easy, and guess what, it's not! The married couple from the US are returning to the states and aren't rejoining either, both were suffering from altitude sickness so was the right thing to do. And the Kiwi from the satellite group has returned to NZ today also. Waking up early Friday morning to thunder, lightning, hail and snow, I wondered if we'd leave for Phortse. Things change quickly in the mountains, by 8am it was blue skies and sunshine. It was good to see the yaks being loaded, they are the crucial form of transport in these parts. The trek to Phortse was probably my favourite so far, hiking up hills and down valleys, gaining altitude then rapidly losing it. A welcome tea break was taken at a tea-house mid morning at around 3900 metres, after this climb, we started descending to cross the river, having a little rest at the crossing before doing so. It was quite a trek, around 4 hours, the worst part being arriving at Phortse village, thinking we'd finished, only for the lodge to be nearly at the top of the village! As we wound our way through the drystone garden walls, four tiny children pestered us, shouting chocolate, chocolate, grabbing at our bags and generally being little buggers! I nearly gave them some sweets, until I was reminded that without dentists in the region, bad teeth really are a problem. Kurt gave them an apple, they didn't look impressed! Some of the other ladies in the trek had the forethought to bring crayons, colouring books and small toys, to hand out to the children. Our hostel in Phortse was again a Tashi Friendship concern, run by one of Phurba Tashi Sherpa's sisters. It as very similar to the one we left in Khumjung. My headache had finally lifted completely, but sleep was still evading me. Two of the ladies had had decidedly dodgy bottoms since Khumjung, so had to hike feeling somewhat under the weather. My bottom was not good either, it had me giggling my way along the trek due to the explosive trumps I was doing....luckily enough none of them ended in disaster!

Tuesday 27th March to Thursday 29th March 2018 - Day 1 to 3 See my YouTube on this blog here and here On Tuesday the 27th of March we left the luxury of the Hyatt hotel in Kathmandu. Usually on an Everest Basecamp trek you would fly, by plane, to Lukla then trek to Namche Bazar. Our tour was different! We arrived in Namche Bazar in spectacular style, by chopper, swooping onto a postage stamp helipad on a cliff top just above the town. We should have flown there directly but due to the weather conditions we first stopped at Lukla airstrip. The ride was awesome, giving us our first view of Everest, albeit just the summit in the distance. There are sixteen of us in the trekking group plus Jacob a guide and Russell the boss man. Due to the amount of kit we all have to take, the passengers have to be weighed with all their luggage, then it is decided who will be on which flight. there's not much method applied to how this data is gathered and it's all a but if a faff. With only 5 people in each helicopter, and two helicopters at our disposal, there would be many runs. Some of the group had a 0600hrs hotel departure, and had a lot of waiting around. I was lucky, with a 0730hrs hotel departure. Eventually we all met up at the Namche helipad, and we all hiked to the Kala Pathar hostel together. It didn’t take long, perhaps half an hour. With being in Namche as an altitude acclimatisation rest, at 3400 metres, there was no trekking until Wednesday afternoon, we all chilled and explored Namche Bazar for a day. Himex the expedition company, bring their own chef and foreman, Ghanu and Lacssu, to try and ensure their clients have hygienically prepared food to minimise the illness risk and to ensure things run smoothly. The food is very good, three meals a day and plentiful lemon tea! These guys are the best! So diligent, and friendly. Lacssu is affectionately known as Little Boss, with Russell being the Big Boss! Lacssu has worked for Russell for 20+ years, he is always working but always has a big smile for you, I love him! Most of the group didn’t get much sleep on the Tuesday night in the Namche hostel, for various reasons, several including myself were suffering from headaches and nausea due to the altitude. For me, during the day the headache subsides, but returns in the evening. At first I thought it was my sinuses playing up, but with this pattern continuing for nearly three days, I had to concede it was the first signs of altitude sickness. As things stand on Friday morning, I only had a headache from around 2am to 5am, so I’m hoping I’m slowly acclimatising, we are now at around 3600 to 3800 metres, in Khumjung. We set off for our trek from Namche to Khumjung straight after lunch on Wednesday, a bit too soon after lunch for my liking! I had a big appetite and was stuffed. That morning we’d had to pack our kit bags and leave them out for the porters to load up on the yaks, so they could be taken to the next stop. There is so much organising and coordination that goes on, F1's got nothing on this! It’s quite amazing that by the time we arrived at Khumjung our bags were there. The weather had started to close in for our trek to Khumjung, with an eerie mist creeping up the mountains. As is normal here, the views were spectacular, even with the low cloud. We were told to take it easy on the trek and not push ourselves, especially as Jacob, Ross and Dan are acclimatising for an Everest summit bid, so they need to follow strict procedures. I was glad to hear we were going to go slowly but it became evident Russell’s slow trekking was not my slow trekking! He and a fast group disappeared off, I was somewhere in the middle, with a slow group coming up the rear. Russell waited at two intersections to make sure the slower people took the right one, but then waited no more and disappeared off. So with my terrible sense of direction I hadn’t a clue where to go. Farnie, a younger guy in our group helped us with selecting the right trail, but at some point he must have stopped and waited for some others and I continued, but then found myself in the mist, with not a person in sight, I was quite frightened and had no idea if I was going the right way, I didn’t want to wait in case I was on the wrong trail so kept going, eventually some trekkers came the other way and pointed me in the right direction. We all met up eventually, and dropped into Khumjung together. We were staying at the Hostel owned and run by the legendary Phurba Tashi Sherpa. He has summited Everest 21 times, along with many other 8000 metre plus mountains. The Khumjung village is serene, functional and beautiful, as was Phurba Tashi's own hostel, it really is just perfect. Russell and Phurba Tashi have worked together for many many years. The hostel is run by Phurba Tashi and his family, Russell is like family too. Russell and Himex have been instrumental in bringing infrastructure to Khumjung, they have piped water, electricity and telecommunications, plus many other benefits of modern living. Himex also built a cultural centre at the school. You can't stop progress, like everywhere else in the world, kids leave the villages for a university education and greater employment opportunities. The cultural centre runs a program to teach the kids the traditional ways of the region, and this class is part of the curriculum. The school is attended by kids from as far away as Namche Bazar, and walk there each day, alone! I didn’t see any form of motorised vehicle in the village, everything is transported by human or yak. Khumjung is in a national park, I'm hoping it progresses sympathetically to their culture. Where Kathmandu is mainly Hindu, the Khumba region is all Buddhist, so the temples, monasteries, stupas and mani stones are all Buddhist. Which I like very much, having got quite into Buddhism around ten years ago. We were staying at Phurba Tashi's for two nights, leaving for Phortse on Friday after breakfast. Thursday was a rest day to acclimatise to around 3600-3800metres, depending whether you believe the maps or apps. There wasn't much rest on the rest day, we woke up to the regions first snow of their winter, it's actually spring, but it's their first snow, just 30mm or so. This day was Gabby's 50th birthday, and she had been talking about riding a yak, so as a surprise Phurba Tashi saddled up his lively beast and took Gabby for a spin. That she thoroughly enjoyed. We went on a sight seeing trek, to catch a glimpse of Everest from a viewing point. On the way we walked through Khumjung to the school, it was great to see that snowball fights and making snowmen is a world wide activity on first snow! We arrived at the viewing point, alas Everest was shrouded in cloud. We then moved on to trek to Sir Edmund Hillary's memorial above Khumjung. Russell gave us a talk on Sir Edmund's achievements, and basically his summiting Everest was just the tip of the iceberg. He took the region to his heart and dedicated himself to bettering the lives of the locals, with schools, hospitals and infrastructure. That is his legacy, to be the first to summit Everest along with Tensing Norgye was what enabled him to do this. The memorial needs a bit of attention, I hope the authorities have plans for a restoration. We then moved onto the Everest View Hotel at 12999 feet it isn't quite at the highest altitude for a hotel, but the third highest. Being Gabby's 50th birthday, so not only did we stop for coffee, we also had champagne! The cloud kindly cleared to expose the summit of Everest, so our second view, the first from the helicopter, again in the distance. Dave is doing the trek to raise money for a special needs school, that is close to his heart. Having flown out with his best mate Adrian for the trek, unfortunately Adrian had to pull out in Khumjung, due to illness. Dave has been struggling to continue, and is having to dig real deep to keep going. If you'd like to boost his morale, a donation to his charity would certainly help! Even a fiver will do! You can find a link to Dave's just giving page here It was a lovely hike through the snow, on the return journey the sun was hot and the snow was melting. I could have done with the rest really as due to the headache, I'm getting little sleep, but I was chuffed to see the Sir Edmund Hillary memorial. We returned to the hostel for some lunch, then took a short walk to the beautifully restored Samten Choling monastery in Khumjung, that had been damaged in the earthquake a couple of years back. It is said to be the second oldest Gompa (Buddhist building) in the Khumba region,apparently built by early sherpas originally. It is now a satellite monastery, where monks visit on special occasions. It's very colourful and beautiful, and is rich in religious artefacts and scriptures. The Gompa also has on display, the scalp of what is said to be an abominable snowman, a Yeti, something which is used in religious festivals After this we returned to the hostel for some rest! I had planned to edit a YouTube video, alas my tablet had pitched, deleting all my apps including Movie Maker, so I won't be doing any editing or publishing during this trip. Which is rather annoying! The next morning, Friday, we were due to leave for the next leg of our trek, to Phortse, so sleep was needed as it's a steep up, down, up trek. Unfortunately after Thursday's activities, two of our group were feeling unwell, probably symptoms of altitude sickness which the Natasha had had from the off, but her husband Mike also started feeling very bad. They were escorted back to Namche Bazar on foot by a porter and Ni, the doctor that accompanies us. Another of our group, Adrian, had to be choppered out on Friday morning from Khumjung, due to some sort of urinary infection. I hope he gets fixed up at the hospital and returns to the trek. We also have a satellite group of five trekkers, that we affectionately refer to as 'the Kiwis', four are from New Zealand, one is from the US. They are also trekking under the Himex banner, but are a day behind us, so we keep bumping into them on our two day stop-overs. Alas one, named Tea Bag?? has had a nasty fall on their rest day in Khumjung. Some sections of the trail are quite steep, we await an update on his condition. Info Kala Pathar Lodge, Namche Bazar The few toilets smell, sparse shower facilities, two beds per room, no heating or electric points. There are two electrical points in the communal room, which doesn't have heating. 500 Nepali Rand for WiFi, which is OK at times, 200 NR to charge one device. Having said that it's a decent lodge, with duvet and pillow being supplied. Tashi Friendship Lodge, Khumjung The toilets don't smell, no shower facilities that I saw, two beds per room, no heating in the rooms or electrical points but a wonderful stove in the communal room. 500 for WiFi, which is OK at times, 200NR to charge one device. A nice place to stay with amazing views. Note a pillow is supplied, no duvet.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that my trip to Nepal would be done on the cheap, after all I had economised when in Australia and Hawaii by not eating out, not hiring a car, staying in a hostel etc. That economising was party due to the fact that my budget was getting blown booking a trek, with what I considered the best company that organises treks to Everest Base Camp. Kiwi Russell Brice runs Himalayan Experience, his company runs expeditions to the summit of Everest amongst other mountain summits also, so this trek isn’t a biggy for him. I was first made aware of Russell when watching the TV docu-reality show, Everest - Beyond the Limit. Take a look on YouTube, all the series are available and they’re a compelling watch. Anyway, whilst watching the programs I was impressed with how Russell didn’t take any chances with peoples lives. If you was 300 metres from the summit of Everest, and he thought, for whatever reason, you’d die on the descent, he would call you back. That’s a big call especially when you consider that these people pay around $60k to summit Everest. I could have trekked alone, I could have paid a quarter of what I’ve paid Russell, but I didn’t because I wanted to thoroughly savour and enjoy the experience, so I’d let someone else do all the organising for once. Even with all the preparations Russell makes, my bag of trekking gear still got nicked from the airport by someone with an identical kit bag, I got it back, but if I’d not had his support it would have been a whole lot harder, so I’m happy to be part of his expedition. And I believe if there is a disaster; earthquake, avalanche whatever, that I stand a better chance of getting out alive with Himalayan Experience, hence making the financial sacrifice and booking with them. If you think I’m typing this blog on my second day in Kathmandu in some dingy dirty hostel, think again! Russell has his guests ‘shacked-up’ in the best hotel in Kathmandu, the 5 star Hyatt Regency, a rather fab place! I’m working class, I’m a grafter, I don’t really enjoy people kowtowing to me. On first checking-in, I was wishing I was in a more understated hotel, where I could be inconspicuous. I also thought that it’s pretty disgusting that Nepal is still recovering from the massive earthquake two years ago, and I’m in this plush oasis in the midst of their suffering. But I realised one thing when I took a walk to the shops. One of the waiters was walking merrily up the drive, in his funky civvies, and I thought there an then, he wouldn’t have been afforded the opportunities that he has if the hotel wasn’t there. Building this five star oasis has created hundreds of jobs, directly and indirectly. Therefore it is a good thing for Kathmandu and it is a good thing that these people are earning money. I hope they are paid a fair wage, but have now got accustomed to tipping to help them out. I’ve some US dollars leftover from my Hawaii trip, and this currency is accepted in Kathmandu, I’m not a big tipper, just one dollar at a time, but it’s something! One dollar is around 100 of the Nepalese Rupee. You’d be paying around 1600 rupees for a main meal dish in the Hyatt. So that gives some idea of what 100 NR is worth to them. For our trek I’ll need to get some Nepalese Rupee currency, for any extras I want to buy. The trek cost includes everything, except when in the Hyatt it doesn’t include lunch and dinner. But meals, drinks, snacks, transport for the whole 21 days (except your air fare) is included in the $4500 fee. I’ve spent an additional $450 on Global Mountain Rescue, if there is an incident I have access to the means of extraction with this insurance. So ensconced in the luxury of the Hyatt from Saturday night the 24th March, I’ve just been chilling, in the gym, drinking tea! And generally doing sod all. And I’m really enjoying it, you wouldn’t believe you are in Kathmandu, the hotel complex is vast for a city hotel, the interior design and the grounds are tastefully and simpathetically landscaped in accordance with the Nepali culture and tradition. Last night Sunday the 25th, all members of our trek met up, there’s around twenty of us. Remembering all the names is difficult, but I’ll get there. I’m not good in crowds, so am slighty out of my comfort zone, but will work on being less gobby and more socialable……not sure that’s gonna work actually, but anyway I’ll try! Russell also met with us, and ran through the next two days activities, making sure we understood what was going on and when, which bags we need to have what in, plus answering any questions we had. When you book with him, it is very well organised; making sure you fill in all his forms, making sure you know what to do on arrival at Kathmandu airport, such as how to get your visa etc, and making sure you have your equipment, which is detailed on a list that he provides. It’s now Monday morning on the 26th March, Some of us are meeting at 10am, to go on a tourist run around Kathmandu in a bus Russell has organised. It’s now 9am, so I best get moving! Catch you soon!

See my YouTube of this trip here For my flights from Albury to Kathmandu, I'd specifically booked Qantas/Cathay Dragon as I definitely wasn't going to risk crossing the ocean in an Air Asia or Malaysian Air flight......to be never seen again! My early morning flight from Albury to Sydney barely gets up to cruising altitude before it's making it's descent! Taking just an hour, and no real problems were experienced, except the check-in assistant wanted my Nepal visa number, and I didn't have one because I was getting a visa on arrival in Kathmandu. She was saying I would have to get my baggage and check-in again in Sydney. Eventually she skipped the input box for the visa number and I got my tickets for the whole journey there and then, which means there's no collecting baggage until the final destination, which I love! There was a ginormous lady on the flight, with a bum at least twice as big as the seat. The seats are tiny on these little turbo prop planes. Strangely, they'd seated her next to an over-weight man, luckily a slim lady offered her a seat swap. But why sit them together in the first place?? One of the mysteries of life I guess! Even if the random seat allocations can't tell the size of people, surely the air stewards can see! Why not have to enter your weight when booking a flight, so the seat allocation or selection algorithm can take it into account? Arriving at Sydney airport around 0730hrs, I had three hours to kill, so messed around in the shops and was a general nuisance really! I did take time, for the first time ever, to go and get a tax refund on purchases made in Australia. The rules are a bit strange, you have to have spent a minimum amount of $300, at the same retailer, in the last sixty days to qualify for a refund. The only item I could claim for was this laptop, the queue was huge, but getting a $90 refund was rather nice! Definitely worth the half hour queuing! Unfortunately, even though I'd bought a GoPro, a mobile phone and a camera in Australia, they didn't qualify for a refund humph! Next time, I'd do it on the refund app, which was a much shorter queue. My flight to Hong Kong wasn't due for boarding until 1050hrs, unfortunately the plane was still being cleaned at this time and we didn't board for another hour. The flight was to be around 8-9 hours to Hong Kong. On all my long-haul flights this trip; London to Sydney, Sydney to Honolulu, Honolulu to Sydney, I've had at least three seats to myself, with flights not being busy, in fact coming back from Honolulu I think everyone on the flight had a few seats to themselves! Unfortunately on the flight to Hong Kong, normal service was resumed, but luckily I was on the window seat of a row of three, sitting next to an elderly couple who were visiting HK to visit their daughter. I hate it when I sit next to someone who, because they don't want to be pestered the whole journey, aren't friendly at all, to send out that message. You know what....I don't want to chat either but a hello and some pleasantries would be nice! And that's how the flight was with this couple, they were very considerate, waking me for food etc and having a brief chat. I was getting worried on the flight as I realised that although the pilot had made up time, we was going to land at a 1745hrs and boarding for my Kathmandu flight was at 1820hrs. We landed, and by the time we were off the plane it was just around 1800hrs. So a twenty minute dash to catch my Cathay Dragon flight to Kathmandu. It was a nightmare, a huge airport, having to pass through security, a kind man let me cut-in the very long queue. Once my bag had gone through the xray machine, they told me to remove my power supplies, so I did, then the bag took forever to go back through, when it did they were still deliberating, and asked me to take more things out, and dicked about a while, all this time was eating up my twenty minutes and I was getting just a bit pissed with them! I ran through the airport, onto a train, off the train, up escalators, down escalators, on travellators arrrrgghhhh, when I arrived at the gate, boarding had been delayed ten minutes so luckily I made it! Phew I was so glad I did, I certainly didn't want the hassle of sorting out a hotel for the night and booking another flight, even if it was courtesy of Qantas! The Cathay Dragon flight was just over 5 hours, all very pleasant. I'd been travelling for around 22 hours by now and had 'done' my jet lag on the flights, keeping awake for the last leg, so I was nice and tired on arrival at Kathmandu at 2200hrs. Which wasn't helpful, as I'm a grumpy traveller when I'm tired, the airport was hectic and the queue for paying for a visa was huge, it took around half an hour, which to be fair to the clerks, was better than I thought it would be. They should really consider, for certain flights, having more Visa processing clerks, there was only three, and havng less customs clerks, there was around eight of them sitting in their booth with little to do as they were waiting to check visas and passports! I was quite late getting to the baggage carousel and immediately spotted my bags, which were quite near each other on the carousel, I pulled off my suitcase, then pulled off my bag, which felt strangely light. My first thoughts were that some of my things had been stolen, then I noticed a padlock on the bag, checked the ticket and realised it wasn't mine. It was in the surname of Newton. I waited until all the baggage had been off-loaded, and my bag identical, as what turned out to be Sam Newton's bag, never turned up. So I went to the baggage administration department, and was pleasantly surprised by their professionalism. We soon realised that Sam Newton must have taken my bag, as he never claimed his. I filled in the forms etc, and would have to wait for a call the next day. By now it was getting on for midnight, and I was upset and tired. The missing bag contained all my new trekking gear, and everything I needed in Nepal. The bag I did have was just my mountain bike gear and stuff I didn't need in Nepal!! Dang! Anyway, I met the Himalayan Experience representative, it was all a bit of a kerfuffle, there seemed to be three people, the meeter/greeter, another bloke and the driver. One wheeled my suitcase literally 100 metres then wanted a tip, which I was a bit annoyed about, as I didn't have any Nepali currency, not realising that I could have given him US$. But still, it was all a bit unnecessary, and I was too tired to be messing around. Arriving at the hotel, getting checked-in and into a nice bed was marvellous though, and I had a really good sleep. I was excited to wake the next morning to see what delights Kathmandu held!

You can see my YouTube of this ride here Having planned to ride last Sunday with my daughter Sam, at perhaps Bright or Fall’s Creek, we kind of failed at the first hurdle of getting out of bed early enough! I loaded the car with both bikes and the usual junk, but Sam wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about going, so I said if you don’t want to ride just come and take some photos of me riding, as I have hardly any pictures of me actually on a bike. So that’s what we did. We drove to Nailcan Hill Gap Road entrance, and Sam took some photos of me riding a small part of the Home Run trail, it was quite fun, just wish I had some speed and steeze! It was a very very windy day, it hasn't rained in Albury for some weeks, so the ground is hard-packed with a dust layer on top. Where the dust is thick, the grip is quite predictable, where it's a thin film of dust, the grip's a little more inconsistent and can catch you out! I learnt something from this little outing, and that's riding Nailcan doesn’t have to be an epic climb to ride No More Secrets or the other trails from the top. The Home Run start is only a five minute pushup from the Gap Road parking area, so you can session it without getting too knackered with difficult pushups. If you pushup the full Gap Road entrance to the top, it’s a killer! And the Home Run is quite a tricky little bit of downhill, pretty rugged with a new drop near the end, which I chickened! To finish off our session, I rode the full Home Run down to the bottom, and Sam drove the short way to meet me in the lower car park. Fab little ride, wish I’d thought of it before……damn! Info Take Gap Road out of Albury, as you go up the hill there's a layby on the left. Push a short way up the fire road for the start of Home Run on your left. Or push all the way to the top of the fire road, and turn left at the top for Terminated on your left. Or turn right at the top to find Castle, No more Secrets and Glock on your right. All are good, rugged trails.

You can see my YouTube of this ride here I was leaving Australia in four days time, and with not being able to take Stumpy back to the UK with me, I wanted one last ride. So decided to cycle from Lavington to Wodonga, which in itself is quite a pleasant ride, on many cycle-ways and through parks, and really not too far. Alas, Hunchback Hill Mountain Bike Park is completely the other side of Wodonga. Crossing Wodonga is when I started flagging! In total it was just over 22kms to the bike park, not a big deal on a road bike, but on a mountain bike a little more difficult! The ambient temperature was around 30 deg C, with bright sunshine, and little shade on the ride. It was either cover-up and sweat or peel-off and burn! I did a bit of both, alternating top on, top off….vest top underneath of course! I stopped off for photo opportunities on the way, in all it took me around two and a half hours to get there. Once you get onto Felltimber Road in Wodonga, you discover it is very long! It’s quite a pretty ride with a few hilly scenes. Hunchback Hill Mountain Bike Park entrance is quite understated, it’s just a gate, by the side of it a larger gate with a trail map. That’s it. Location-wise riding from Wodonga out of town down Felltimber Road, where the tarmac road goes sharply left uphill, the layby for the park is on your right. Anyway, it was a hot sunny day, on arrival I sat and rested for a while and had a sarnie and a drink, then started the pushup on a Blue, I thought it must be the blue, like there was only one! Not the blue I wanted, as it turns out, I was hoping to find the Quartz trail, pushup then ride down, and perhaps do it twice. But I got completely lost. The trail signs aren’t much help if you’re as dippy as me, they just show Blue, Black or Green and a direction, no trail names at all. So you can come across two signs together, both Blue, pointing in different directions, which was no use to me! I will invest in a decent GPS device for my bike, for next time I'm in Australia. It’s a fab trail if you like pedalling; rugged, technical in places with many switchbacks on the way up, I pushed most of it. It took me around an hour, then I spent a further hour trying to find the Quartz Trail. In the end I gave up, I was hot, sweaty and dusty and just wanted to get a decent descent. I’d found a Blue sign pointing down, which after 20 metres turned into a Black Trail, weird huh! Anyway I took that one, and because it was a black I was going quite tentatively as I thought I’d get caught out by some hideous drop. But nothing, except where the Black splits and there’s an option to do a gap jump or chicken it, which obviously I chickened!! I’m not sure I stayed on the black all the way down, it seemed too easy to be black. But it was a really enjoyable trail, except for around three time where some pedalling uphill was required, if you wasn’t carrying a load of speed, like me. I took this trail until it hit the small jump line in the skills area. The skills area has a couple of jump lines with berms and also a small but fun pump track. So I had a little play, then a cool down. I phoned my daughter at around four o’clock, to see if she would pick me up when she finished work, which she was fine with and would be there around 5pm. Giving me an hour to climb as far as I could up the hill and take another run down. I kind of did the same trail again, except I was intrigued by all the slick rock that’s around, and started from a steep and large piece, then went onto the bottom half of what I think was the black. The terrain is fantastic, being the start of Autumn, with having had very little rain the trail was dry and dusty. It's a lot slipperier than you think on very very dry trails, it can catch you out. The landscape is very rugged, with rocks, trees, fallen trees and rock slabs on the trails, that are very narrow singletrack. Quite fabulous! It’s actually, if you like pedalling a really nice place to ride. It was a little too pedally for me, but perhaps that's because I didn’t find the right trail, still I had a fab last ride of Stumpy with no dramas, getting lost is standard! I was so glad I got a lift home, I have Morten’s Neuroma in both my feet, but particularly bad in my left foot, so anything after twenty minutes pedalling and it’s really painful, I don’t think I’d have got home! Definitely worth a visit, perhaps with someone who knows the trails. Info Facilities: Trail map, Trails, Pump track,kills and Jump area There was no water or toilet facilities that I saw. No costs to ride, that I saw anyway! Directions Riding from Wodonga, out of town down Felltimber Road, where the tarmac road goes sharply left uphill, the layby for the mountain bike park is on your right.

After visiting my daughter, Sam, in Australia for Christmas 2014, it had been nearly three years before I got the chance to visit her again, that being Christmas 2017. Working factory-based in Formula One, the whole year is busy, but it’s particularly busy in the off-season, so having any time off over the UK winter period just isn’t possible. My daughter also works in motorsport, and her best chance of taking time off work is in December and January. And that is why the Christmas period is the perfect time for me to visit. A conumdrum for sure! Working at Manor GP since returning from my 2014 trip, until it folded in January 2016, wasn’t the greatest experience ever! And I felt a great deal of frustration that although it was going bust in November, instead of going through the motions of working long hours on the 2017 car build, that I could have been visiting my daughter. And this frustration and overwhelming need to see Sam stayed with me throughout 2017. After losing that job I took a short-term contract at Honda F1 from March until the end of November 2017, booking my flight to Australia for the 4th of December, purposely early to make sure I got to see Sam that Christmas, and that I couldn't be persuaded to stay at Honda. I was asked to extend my contract, and felt quite mean to decline, as my boss, Taniguchi-san was such a lovely guy. I fully engaged in the project I was hired to work on at Honda, and also took on another project, processing the 2018 Energy Store design, that kept me busy! I’m not really sure what the Japanese Honda folk made of me, the older I get the battier I become!! Unexpectedly I was very sad to leave their employ when the time came at the end of November, for the first time ever I was very upset at leaving a job, which speaks volumes of the people at Honda. I hadn’t realised that we had started to gel as a team. I often wonder where I’d be if I’d not had the flight booked! My flight from Heathrow to Sydney was uneventful except for the £800 excess baggage I got stung for. Clearly I had brain fade and packed incorrectly as it should have cost nothing, damn it! That was a big part of my spending money gone before I even got there, what a nincompoop! Getting from the international to domestic terminal, with only an hour between flights was a bit tricky with the bike bag and luggage. Why I chose to go up the escalator and not use the lift I don’t know. I very nearly had to let go of the bike, yelling down to people below to watch out! I just managed to hold on to it, falling off the top of the escalator in a heap, jeez it was close! I was getting quite flustered by now, luckily an airport worker saw I was struggling, he helped me up and took my bike to the domestic terminal for me, big thanks to him, what a star. The flight to Albury, NSW took around an hour, with Sam picking me up at the airport around 10am. Seeing her, for real, after such a long time was pretty emotional, especially having had a cancer scare in October 2016, I had thought I’d never see her again. And it was those events that had driven my desperation and near obsession to see her for the past year. The moment I held her in my arms, all those fears melted away. We spent two weeks working on Sam’s garden which was mostly a weed patch. She’d had a house built, but couldn’t afford the landscaping so had been doing a little now and then when she could afford to. I’d forgotten just how hot it is in Albury, in December it was around 35°C, I over-did it a bit in the first week, for an old bird, and had to take it easier the second week but was struggling to recover and find energy….I forget I can’t physically work as hard as I used to, especially in the ridiculous heat. Not just the ambient heat, also the relentless sun rays blazing down on you from 8am. I’d been planning a holiday within my holiday, for months. Two weeks away over Christmas and New Year, so Sam got a proper holiday too. With accommodation booked way back in September, we set off on the 19th of December for the first leg of a two week tour, a week in a Ski-lodge in the Thredbo ski resort, over Christmas. After a week in the mountains we headed for the coast, I’d booked a beach-house in Bundeena, where we had five days of relaxation. The period over New Year was planned for Bondi, this time a hotel right opposite Bondi Beach. I have separate blogs on each of our holiday stays that can be found in the blog menu; Thredbo, Bundeena and Bondi, for our Christmas and New Year's vacation. After our two week holiday we returned to Lavington, Sam returned to work the following Monday. I was lucky enough for my main concern to be what I was going to do for the next few months. I can only stay in Australia for 3 months at a time, I had wanted to join a trek to Everest North Col Base Camp on the 25th March, so that would mean getting out of Australia on the 4th March and taking a ‘short’ break somewhere. I didn’t want a short break, especially with the cost of flights, so I decided upon a month in Waikiki, after two months in Australia, then returning for three more weeks, which would give me enough time to make my plans and purchases for my Nepal trip. Australia is vast, everything is bigger than in the UK, including the distances between towns……which they call ciddies (cities). I didn’t have transport, only my bike, which is worth too much to leave anywhere whilst shopping etc. My daughter offered her car, if I dropped her at work, I did that a couple of times, but with the combination of it being an automatic, me not knowing my way around and knowing if I dinged it I’d be in real trouble! I found it too stressful. So being transportless, and on a tight budget, once back in Lavington, I needed to make the best of what was available locally. My days were spent cleaning Sam’s house and garden, updating my blog, YouTube or social media, recovering from the day before’s activity or I’d be on a local mini-adventure. As I said, here in Lavington the heat is relentless, especially in January where it is 40+ degrees C nearly every day, dry hot sunshine mainly, but occassionally humid before a rain storm. So with this heat, which seems to affect my energy levels immensely, I had to plan carefully……alas I didn’t want to get up early, so that made it a little more difficult! I’d walk into the shops in Lavington and explore the local parks. I’d love to just meander and look at the tropical front gardens on my way. A couple of times I’d stopped to chat to an old man, Bill, who was sitting on his veranda, my attention attracted by his yapping minature terrier Princess! He was a typical, old school aussie, always had a story about a useless pom! Sometimes I’d catch the bus into Albury, which is the next town and is bigger than Lavington. I’d just wander around looking at the ‘civilisation’ that is small town Australia. It’s a wonderful place, it has everything you could want, except for being near the ocean! I loved to just wander around the streets looking at the old buildings, all very colonial. A great deal of Australians seem to drive SUVs, but there would often be a fantastic old classic V8 burbling around town! The bus service is very good, in a limited sort of way, and by that I mean the buses go to the ‘normal’ places, but not the places I wanted to go, like Mount Buller or Falls Creek or Bright to ride the downhill trails!! There is a beautiful old colonial style train station in Albury too, but again the trains don’t go to the mountain bike trails! Come on public transport of Albury, get your shit together!! I really regretted not hiring a car, so I could take day trips to the mountains, most of the good downhill riding spots are only between an hour and two hours away, by car. I really had to draw limits on my expenditure, it would have been easy to go wild and hire a car, but I knew in the long run for short-term gain, that I’d regret it. Next time I visit, I will buy a car, definitely! As it is niggling me that I haven’t had some epic decents with a motorised uplift!! After my trip to Hawaii, and starting surfing lessons, I’d also hankered after getting to the coast. Riding the trails was limited to Nailcan Hill and Hunchback hill, the former being around 7km away, the latter 22kms away. So by the time I’d ridden to the venue, in the sweltering heat, I’d be pretty knackered! But still I had some fab rides and some fab failures! From Sam’s house you can see a hill, known locally as Tower Hill. It’s actually private land, and closed off, that means climbing over a gate to access its slopes, rather naughty but I just had to get to the top of it! I spent the month of February in Hawaii, again without a car, everything had to be by bus, foot or bike, so it was pretty much the same as in Australia, except it was cooler, most of the time, so that much easier to have mini-adventures. You can see my many Hawaii blogs on this site. As in Hawaii, back in Australia, being on a tight budget, I didn’t often eat out or buy a coffee. Which is a shame as there are some fantastic cafes in Albury, serving just what I like! Healthy, plant-based fayre. I’d cycled out to Lake Hume, to take a look at the dam and for a swim in the warm waters of the 20000 hectare reservoir. Also taking rides out to swim in the lifeblood of the region, that is the Murray River at Noreuil Park in Albury. On my return to Australia after Hawaii, my daughter had gained a lodger, a 19 year old university student, Laura, and her pretty puss-cat Jasmin! It was lovely to get to know them both and spend time with them. I’m so out of touch with the younger generation! As I write this I only have one more day in Australia, early morning, the day after tomorrow, I fly to Nepal. I’m slightly scared, with thoughts of plane crashes which are reasonably frequent there, avalances and earthquakes, but pretty excited about seeing Mount Everest. I only hope I don’t have any medical emergencies that prevent me seeing the mountain, or it being poor visibility due to the weather! So with one day left here, I’m rather sad that this trip is over, and that I won’t see Sam for quite some time again. I’m also sad that I am having to leave my mountain bike Stumpy here, as I can’t afford the additional baggage charges to get him to Nepal then back to the UK. I only have a 30kg baggage allowance, and need to take all my treking gear, that I bought here, along with all my mountain bike gear and normal clothes. Tomorrow will be spent trying to get my baggage down to that limit! So-long to endless blue skies and sunshine, cold and snow here I come. Onwards to new adventures!

Bob Marley's Three Little Birds will never have more meaning to me! The large TV in the communal area, if not on a specific channel, would often be playing Bob Marley YouTube videos, so apt for a totally chilled place. My British tourist visa for Australia requires that I only stay there for a maximum of three months per visit. I can exit Australian borders, then return for another three months. Due to having another trip booked, outside Australia at the end of March requiring I leave from Australia, it kind of clashed with getting out after three months, so I exited Australia after two months to enable me to return for a comfortable period before my next adventure, which is going to need additional planning and shopping! My first choice for a visa break was Bali, because my best mate Ruth is going to be there in March, and it is a relatively short flight, but the dates didn’t fit with my plans. The next best was New Zealand. I’d only been to Rotorua before, so there was much more of the North Island to see, and also the south Island, and I'd love to return to see Celia and John. But a Qantas ad for cheap flights to Hawaii caught my eye! $400 each way and only a 10 hour flight. The baggage allowance was good also, two bags 23kgs, which meant I could take Stumpy (my bike) with me as one piece of luggage, in his bike bag he weight 23kgs. I did some research, the choice was to go to the Big Island's Hilo airport or O’ahu island’s Honolulu airport. Being on a bucket list binge, going to the Big Island was attractive as I could see an active volcano and tick that off, but something was drawing me toward O’ahu, in particular Waikiki. It took me a couple of weeks to firm up my plans; how long, where to stay etc. I investigated camping but was put off by all the mozzie stories, and so glad I didn’t as it rained. A lot! And I still got mozzie bites, when out hiking and cycling, again a lot! I also looked at HelpXing, I read up on a couple of places but they were all a bit arty farty dippy hippy. I didn’t fancy treading on egg shells worrying whether I was being ecologically safe enough. Not that I don’t agree with looking after our planet, more I didn’t want to feel like I was being watched! And I wanted more of a complete rest, so started looking at cheap hotels, then found the Polynesian Hostel on Lemon Road, Waikiki. It took a bit of email ping pong with the Poly Hostel to organise a dorm where I could keep Stumpy with me. Shelley the manager, must have thought she had some right weirdo turning up, but she was most patient and accommodating, and organised a dorm that I could keep Stumpy in. The last quandary I had was regarding a car, should I hire or not, I was planning to, it would be $1000 for a month. I couldn’t decide so I held off booking. Which was good because I needed to buy a new laptop just before I left as my old one died, so the money was gone. So all booked, Poly Hostel in Waikiki from the 4th February to 4th March, flights booked, transfer booked, no hire car. From Albury NSW, I needed to fly to Sydney then take another flight from Sydney to Honolulu. The flight out was great as the bike and bag would be transferred by the airline, so no rushing between domestic and International terminals with the bike, which is such a pain as there’s never enough time between flights not to get flustered! I love having Stumpy with me, but it is a right kerfuffle at the airport. I left Albury at lunchtime on Sunday, was flying/stop-over for around 15 hours and arrived in Honolulu at around 8am on Sunday, which was weird having my Sunday morning again! The time difference between Australia and Hawaii is Australia is 21 hours ahead of Hawaii. I was surprised just how busy Honolulu airport was, I hadn’t realised two things, one is that all Hawaiians don’t speak English, and secondly that Hawaii was a popular tourist destination with the Japanese and Koreans. They even have their own buses! The airport was pretty damn crazy, with people rushing in all directions. I can’t work out if the aireport is a new build in a retro stylie, or whether it’s old. It's a whole lot bigger an airport than I thought it would be for such a small island. Stumpy took his time coming through over-size baggage, I was starting to get worried, eventually he arrived, coming up in an elevator. My transfer bus driver was a bit grumpy, he was moaning that I had a bike and hadn’t told them. I tried to explain that there wasn’t anywhere on the booking site to enter over-size luggage but couldn’t get a word in, miserable sod. Aloha to you too! In fact now I’m wondering if perhaps Hawaiian men are domineering, and aren’t interested in women’s opinions at all, just a thought, I shall investigate! Anyway the guy dropped me at the hostel and I checked in without a hitch. The Polynesian Hostel Beach Club, to give it it’s full name, is well positioned, just a five minute walk to the beach. The area it’s in isn’t rough or run down at all, but it’s not the posh end of town. The more you go towards Honolulu the more expensive the hotels, restaurants and shops are. Two things I didn’t do whilst on O’ahu; one was eat out, and two was go on organised tours. Both would have eaten my money far too fast. There was one trip I was planning to take, a helicopter ride to the Big Island, on a lava spotting tour, alas I spent all my money on surfing lessons! I took a few hikes, alone. Rode Stumpy a few times. And had surfing lessons. I have blogged on all of these mini-adventures, so please take a look. Also I made several films of my trips out, so please take a look at my YouTube…….give us a thumbs up and subscribe, pretty please, even if you didn't like them, just for my effort hey! The rest of the time I was chilling in the communal area, writing blogs, editing YouTube films or sleeping! At times, a mixture of all! Even though O'ahu is a small island, there are literally hundreds of organised tours, ranging from Hiking a Ridge to Snorkelling with Turtles, Sky Diving over Pearl Harbour to Swimming with Sharks, Whale watching to Sunset Helicopter rides, Polynesian Culture events to Zip-Lining Ridge to Ridge. It’s endless, I’m so glad I couldn’t afford to do these activities, as I’d never have been able to decide which to do! I don’t feel as though I missed out, I saw so much, and enjoyed myself, I don’t have any complaints at all. I only wish I'd had a 'proper' camera, as it was impossible to capture the awesome views on my phone camera. I saw most areas of the island, covering a lot of it on a road trip with Marcy, which was a loop North-West to the North Shore, and back down the East coast. I also went to the UFC Gym in Honolulu, seeing quite a lot of street art on the walk up. I took a look around the huge and rather fancy shopping mall at Ala Moana, it's kind of outdoor, so isn't as plastic as other shopping malls.....I didn't buy anything btw. I saw lots of chickens roaming around! and sadly in Waikiki I saw many homeless people, who in many cases looked in poor health. Call me a palestine (joke), but I didn’t make any effort to learn about Polynesian culture, just not my bag. Not that I don’t respect their culture, I’m more into doing than watching. When it comes to the hostel, I have no complaints either, I have a blog on the hostel, so you could take a look at that if I don’t cover something you want to know, it may be there. The workers at the hostel played hard, and worked hard. They were all characters, all fun to be with, and I’ll think of them often. I think some of them probably got pist with me, because I kept tidying the kitchen, I'm sure some appreciated it! I did this for many reasons; it was something to do instead of look at my phone or computer, I wanted to be able to cook and wash-up without it being like playing jenga, I’m a freak with an OCD, you name it. It just wanted to do it, get over it! The reception is manned 24/7 so there are around 10 guys that work there; Billy and Nicole, on the night shift, JR, Robert, Tanya, Brian, Sara, Ann, the Professor, Jon, Jesse and Shelley….and a guy that did the early shift who I didn’t get to know. Being socially inept, I’m not good in groups, but loved hanging-out with these guys. There's free pancakes for breakfast at the hostel btw, I only indulged in them on my last day, and two other occasions, as I'm trying to get rid of my jelly belly! The pancakes were usually made by the Professor, and sometimes Jesse, and were so goooooood! I only got to know a few of the other guests; Marcy, Aisling, Steve, Pedro, Lena. Which was a conscious thing, I didn’t want to get into drinking, and I didn’t want to compromise what I wanted to do. It’s all about me time! I did have quick chats with many others, which is where you learned about what was going on and where to go etc. Again some interesting characters, I loved listening to their stories and exploits. I remained in the same dorm for my four week stay, which was so good. People come and people go, I think there must have a been around 100 different people in my dorm over the four week period, some I got to know, most I didn’t. All nationalities; American, Venezuelan, Argentinian, Canadian, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Hawaiian, French………and Germans, loads and loads of Germans! It can be tiresome, with all the late night arrivals, getting woken at midnight with a new arrival, only to get back to sleep and get woken again by another new arrival at two in the morning. Some people are considerate, some aren’t. You’ve just gotta suck it up, and call them arseholes under your breath, oh and huff and puff a bit! I found that if friends joined the dorm, they tended to be noisy, but if individuals joined the dorm they were generally respectful and quiet. The bus network on O’ahu is on point, I could get everywhere I wanted to go, with Stumpy, no problem at all. It’s just $5.50 for a day pass to ride as much as you want, so pretty cheap, and most days that is all I spent. Google maps tells you which bus to get, where to get it, where to change etc, so easy! Food-wise, I shopped at the Kings Village farmers market or the ABC store, but mostly at the Food Pantry, eating as healthy and fresh as possible. I only ate out once and that was a plate of cheesy nachos, that was it. Same with drinks, all in the hostel. The hostel provides a very good, free WiFi, and for data on the move you can get a T-Mobile SIM, with unlimited data, texts and calls, that only lasts one month, for $50. It was a really good service once the lady set it up correctly, after initially finding it useless and returned to the shop after two days to complain! The weather, February is mid-winter in Hawaii. At a guess I'd say around half the time I was there it was sunny, the rest over-cast. It was never really cold, even when it’s raining. And when over-cast, it can still be hot on the beach strangely. A couple of times the rain was prolonged and torrential. Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the weather forecasts can’t be relied upon, except for the hour or two ahead when using the Doppler forecast. So sometimes you just have to get on with things, as often the rain predicted doesn’t materialise. I rode some fab trails; St Louis downhill, I’d love to get there again to learn the trails and ride it well. Also the Ohana Trail, which I’d like to ride again and not get lost! The hikes were good; Diamond Head, Koko Crater, Manoa Falls and Wa'ahila Ridge. You could hike every day for four weeks and still not do them all, there really is so much to do. For my MTB mates, I’m not sure how the Poly hostel would cope with a whole sprocket of bikers. They’re not particularly well equipped for groups of bikers, there is a bike rack, but I wasn’t going to risk leaving Stumpy out in a common area to get damaged or nicked. You would need to contact Shelley and find out what could be done, should you want to go. When it came to leave I was sad, and also sad on the plane. The Honolulu to Sydney leg was uneventful but I missed my connecting flight from Sydney to Albury. Qantas arranged for an overnight hotel and put me on another flight the next morning. I left the hostel at 6am Sunday, and arrived in Albury at 2pm Tuesday....I'm totally confused as to where Monday went! As I type this I am so tired, I just need to get to bed! It's good to be back in Albury, to 30 degrees C and blue skies. As for Waikiki, it's a place I'll never forget, and it will hold a special place in my heart.

See my four YouTube films relating to this blog here Surfing is something I’ve always wanted to try but never got around to. I’ve always had a fear of the ocean, and hadn’t swam in it until a holiday in Ibiza at 52 years old. I'm now 56, even though reasonably fit, I'm feeling the passing of time and the aggravation of past injuries on my joints. My four week stay on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, specifically Waikiki, was the ideal opportunity to have a go. There are many board hire and lesson providers on Waikiki’s beaches, I knew that a lot of them just want to ‘give the tourists a go’ but I wanted more than that. I stopped off at a life-guard station on the beach and asked the guy if he had any recommendations, he said he knew just the man, Louie Ferreira, one of only a handful of licenced and certified Surf Instructors in Waikiki. Louie came down to the beach to have a chat, and we arranged to meet later that day. My first lesson went well, Louie got me up on my first run, and all subsequent runs that session. I was super stoked, and thought perhaps I’ve found the one thing I’m OK at! At the end of each run I was meant to get down on the board then paddle back, alas often I fell into the drink, which isn’t a big deal except that there’s a rocky reef in Waikiki bay. Getting down onto the board is easier said than done if you’ve lost your balance. It really is the luck of the draw if you fall awkwardly on the reef, and I learnt the hard way, to always try and land on my feet, which are protected to some degree by reef shoes. During my first lesson I hit the reef with my left butt cheek, hard, it took a few days for my bum bone to stop hurting, and I couldn’t cycle that week which was a pain, as I’d planned to get to the trails. The lessons are $80 an hour, although Louie doesn’t clock watch at all, usually I tell him when I’ve had enough, on my first session I only did seven runs before my arms were shot, and I’d hurt my bum. It’s a lot more strenuous than it looks, and the longer your run on a wave, the further you have to paddle back to the instructor, and that’s what knackers you. My second sesh with Louie was with Marcy as well, a Canadian lady I met at the hostel, she was around ten years younger than me, but we got on really well. The lesson fee reduces for two people to $60 each, which makes it a little easier on the wallet! Marcy did great, she was a natural. I don’t remember how many runs we did, but Louie just keeps them coming, no time is wasted with waffle. As soon as you paddle back to him, he’s already spotted the next wave for you to ride. I had a terrible session, I was feeling very nervous and over-thinking things and couldn’t focus on the job in hand. I was glad when it was over, as I felt shit, it was such a disappointment after my first lesson, to realise I wasn’t any good at all. We called it a day when I was tired and also Marcy had hit the reef with her elbow, jarring an old injury on that shoulder, so had had enough too. I’d been recording my sessions on my own GoPro, but this time mine had died that morning so Marcy and I shared Louie’s GoPro. We haven’t had that footage through yet, so I have nothing from the second lesson to show you how rubbish I was! Louie’s a native Hawaiian ex-pro surfer, now retired from competition but trains anyone from beginner to improver through to current pros. His style is like this; listen to what he says, do what he says when he tells you. And that’s it. He doesn’t want to know how you’re feeling, or your excuses, he just want’s you to do what you are meant to do. And he doesn’t want questions. Just listen and do! At first I found his manner a bit harsh, but now realise he is in fact an exceptional trainer, and he just doesn’t want to waste time on any degree of snowflakedom. Plus, especially when there’s more than one of you in the lesson, he has a big responsibility to make sure you stay alive! Along with seeking out the waves for everyone, turning the GoPros on and off, observing whoever’s on a wave at the time and giving feedback plus watching the rest of the surfers, it’s pretty intense for him. I'll have to say, in my opinion, some of the other lessons going on didn't look as under control as Louie's! It’s dangerous for sure, if the bay is crowded with other surfers, you really have to obey his instructions or you’re gonna get hurt. I like his method, which is clear, honest and straight. I actually don’t like him telling me I’ve surfed well when I know I’ve surfed shite, but I suppose he means in the cosmic scheme of things! My third session was just me, until a young girl, Christin, who was flailing about on a rented board, not catching any waves, came into our riding area. Louie kindly took her under his wing and she joined the session. She did brilliantly and I did shite! Finally on my fourth lesson, which was with a young German girl named Lena from the hostel, I started to see an improvement, but not until the second half, when I got angry with myself and started to properly focus. Yesterday was my fifth and last lesson, which was with Christin again. She had had a bad second lesson a few days before this one. Neither of us were going well until later in the session. The bay was very busy as the surf in Waikiki had been good for the past few days. After my last lesson I realised just how much I’d progressed, in just five hours riding over four weeks. I’d actually surfed, gone to a smaller board, was getting up from lying instead of kneeling, was paddling into waves and riding bigger waves. So I’m happy with my progress, and really thankful to Louie for his persistence, as I know I annoyed him. A lot! During my last session I experienced some of the dangers, the bay was very busy. I got T-boned by someone else's board (from another lesson), bang on my elbow, after they had fallen off, I got stung by a Sea Urchin and fell hard on the reef on my other arse cheek. As well as the surf being bigger and experiencing the power of some of the bigger waves (not big by Louie’s North Shore standards btw), getting flipped over on my paddle-back a couple of times. Watching back the footage is so important, I can see what I’m doing wrong, but applying the correct technique and posture at the right time hasn’t come yet. I realised quite early on that I need to ride every day, for some time, to become at ease with the sea, the board and my body. I’m very stiff, my balance is rubbish and I move slowly and awkwardly. I need to do some yoga before each session to loosen up my joints, and also to practice my get up from lying. I will certainly work on that at home, as well as my balance. I was a little scared before each lesson, it took me way out of my comfort zone. It would have been easy to quit and be happy that I'd tried it! I'm so glad I persisted, although I haven't scratched the surface yet, so much to learn! All done, I’m really sad that I won’t train with Louie again. I’d love to continue and progress, so I’ll have to find a way of doing that. I am gonna nail this, fitness and finances permitting! Louie contact details email surfwithlouie@gmail.com or Instagram @surfwithlouie

See my YouTube on this ride here Two bus rides are needed to get from Waikiki to the Ohana Trail, with some road riding each end. It’s mid-winter in Hawaii hence the weather has been unsettled. It has been very very windy in Waikiki for the past few days, not a bad thing as the wind’s brought some good surfing conditions when not choppy! It’s not all bad, there have been many sunny days, and it’s never cold, even when it’s raining. Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the weather forecasts can’t be relied upon, except for the hour or two ahead when using the Doppler forecast. So sometimes you just have to go for the ride and hope for the best. As I got nearer the East coast on the bus, the weather conditions deteriorated, with rain and fog, which really wasn’t what I wanted! As it happens, the rain had stopped by the time I arrived at the bus stop, leaving the surrounding ridges shrouded in cloud, and a moody sky above. The trail head wasn’t too difficult to find, around a twenty minute cycle ride from the bus stop. See directions at the end of this blog. I didn’t complete the ride, as usual I got lost, and rode the last third on random trails to a different finishing point the other side of the ridge. Apparently the last section is steep downhill, alas no epic descent for me this time. The ground wasn’t quite as sandy as on other trails I’d ridden on Oahu, so from all the rain, the surface was a little muddy in places, but only in the form of scattered puddles. Other than the puddles here and there, which someone had raked out that morning, the trail is in very good condition. Every so often on the trail, you'll find a red rake, I guess, to use to tend the trail, such a good idea. The first part of the ride is up-hill, mostly via bermed switch-backs. Due to the high winds over the past few days, there were a few branches across the trail. The terrain gets increasingly varied the higher you go. It’s all single-track, and even for a non-peddler like myself, it was fab riding. There’s nothing scary or too technical, a little off-camber riding, a few small rocks, the rest is just winding on the mountainside or through the rain forest. A very nice flow trail in fact, with many berms. The uphill riding is interspersed with some short downs, and the downs increase the further you go up. I rode some nice downhill sections, with the a small jump opportunity here and there, but no drops. I didn't get to the ‘proper’ descent before getting lost, so can’t comment on that part of the trail. I read somewhere that the trail had been rated easy, and saw a complaint that it should be upgraded to intermediate, which it was. In my opinion, for a not-too-skilled mountain biker, it was really nice, and if I think it’s nice, then it’s easy, remembering that I didn't ride the last section. I wouldn’t mind taking a fit first timer up there on a hard-tail or full sus. Again I don't know how difficult the last section is. I wouldn't call it gnarly, sketchy or rowdy, it was just a really good fun ride! I stayed on the trail until a small yellow bench to the right of the trail, with a small viewing area to take in the fab view of the ridge and down to the pacific. After that I rode some more ups and downs, but when I came to a signpost, totally misinterpreted it and ended up off the Ohana trail. I got deeper and deeper into the rain forest, it was really nice riding for a while, especially as I thought I was still on the trail. I did hit some signs further along, but they were quite ambiguous, and again I took the wrong road! When the trail became very muddy, with only horse hoof prints in the mud, I realised I was lost. You know how it is, you keep riding hoping to pick-up the trail again, alas it got muddier and muddier. Eventually I got my phone out and looked where I was on the GPS, which was a long way from the Ohana Trail. I turned around and tired to follow my footsteps, but got more lost and eventually was getting further from the trail. And I was getting worried! At one point I'd dropped my phone face down into the mud, which sent it into a partial re-boot, it wasn't until the next day I realised that my GPS wasn't working properly and had to do another re-boot to correct it. So I may have been nearer the trail than I thought. At that point it was 5pm, with it starting to get dark at 6pm, I decided to abandon my efforts of getting back to the Ohana Trail and make my way out, reaching a road not long after. Thank god for mobile phones and GPS, it would be impossible for me to do anything without it! My actual route! Bus route in blue, Bike route in green. It shouldn't have been a round trip! It was annoying to not get the epic descent after all the pedalling, but still I had thoroughly enjoyed the part of the trail I did do. I’d recommend seeking this trail out if you’re in the area, I’d call it a chill trail, even with my swearing at the uphill pedalling, which normal people wouldn't do! One important thing is take some bug repellant, my arms and legs are covered in bites! The custodians of the trail do a really fantastic job, it’s in very good shape. If I had any criticism, it would be make the signs foolproof for dipshits like me!! I’d intended to do some tidying myself, but with getting lost, it was not possible. It was a pleasure. Put it on your wish-list folks! Info Driving directions - High way 61 toward Kailua Take highway 72 Ride the busy dual carriageway, you pass a correctional center Turn right onto Old Kalanianaole Road The trail head is on your right where the palms end, opposite what looks like a council highway compound. Bus directions from the junction of Kailua and Uluoa bus stop Take Uluoa then turn right onto Ulumalu (be careful, all the road names begin with Ul) Turn right onto the footbridge and cross the highway Ride the busy dual carriageway, you pass a correctional centre Turn right onto Old Kalanianaole Road The trail head is on your right where the palms end, opposite what looks like a council highway compound. Facilities None that I saw, except the exceptional trail!

Having spent three weeks hiking, surfing and mountain biking, my 56 year old body along with the injuries accumulated over those years needed some straightening. I'd also had a two day lay-up due to catching a cold and sore throat that is going around my hostel. I’m a believer in trying to heal yourself, although my shoulder injury will only properly heal with surgery, having a muscle detached from the bone, from a mountain bike fall. I can keep it under control by limiting what I do, how much I do it and practicing yoga and stretching. I’d been to the Sydney UFC gym, and it was a great experience, so when I found that Honolulu have one too, I just had to go. It’s only a short walk from the bus stop, and an interesting one at that, with many buildings being adorned in street art. Only $15 for a day pass was great value, more if you want to do any of the many classes they hold, and you can stay there all day. The cafe serves excellent smoothies, snacks and meals, so no need to leave for a lunch break. The Honolulu UFC gym, named after the Hawaiian born champ BJ Penn, may not have as fancy a building at the Sydney one, but that’s made up for by the, in my opinion, fantastic facilities. From equipment, space, cafe to merchandise, this gym has it all. There are resistance machines I’ve never seen before! And don’t get me wrong, the building isn’t bad, it’s just not as modern a building as the Sydney gym. No need for a warm up, the walk had gotten me ready, as I tend to march everywhere like I'm on a mission. I started with some yoga in the grapple room, which was so good for an old skinny bird, as no pressure on the joints. Then some further stretching and gym ball work. After the yoga and stretching for around an hour and a half, a few runs around the huge grapple room and I was feeling better already. My shoulder had gotten back into position, it feels like my shoulder blade gets tangled in my back ribs when I put it out. Bloody painful! So feeling straighter, I planned to only work on my arms, as I'd done plenty of leg work whilst having fun, but hadn't worked my arms particularly hard at all, a little whilst mountain biking and paddling back during surfing. I started out with three sets of ten on six of the arm resistance machines. I didn’t feel like doing free weights, as I’m not always sure if my technique is good and didn’t want to undo what I’d achieved thus far. Then I did another two sets of ten on the resistance machines. After that, a few rounds on the bags, with no gloves and having not punched a bag, except for a quick go in Sydney, for four years, I totally lost the little technique I had! But still good fun. I tried not to kick, as I’ve an injury in my hip/bum joint from Muay Thai, that I didn’t want to aggravate, but it’s difficult not to, when presented with a full length heavy bag! A quick cool down stretch then shower, I stopped off at the cafe, and sampled their Muay Thai smoothie, it was so good…..except for the brain freeze! I was tempted by the reasonably priced salads, but resisted as I had food back at the hostel. So that was me done, nearly four hours later, I was ready for the walk-bus-walk home, feeling two inches taller. I can’t recommend the Honolulu UFC gym enough, it’s a cheap days entertainment, with the bus fare, smoothie and day pass I'd spent around $25.

A down day today, no action, just blogging from the beach at sundown. With a YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and a Blog to maintain, I spend most of my time updating social media.....it's a full-time job!!

See my YouTube of this hike here This is the hike to take if you want to get away from the crowds, I saw about 10 people whilst taking this hike. It’s scenic, it’s rather strenuous if you go at any sort of pace, especially if you continue after the 'trail ends'. It can be technical but so much fun. Taking the number 14 bus up to the top of St Louis Heights, and following the signpost to the Wa’ahila Ridge Recreational Area, brings you to the start of the trail. You will find a restroom in the recreational area, make sure you go before you start the hike!! And take water with you. Following the sign pointing to the Mt Trail brings you onto the first section of the hike, which is rooty and starts climbing immediately. The rooty theme continues throughout the hike, as you further progress, the boulder and rock climbs get more difficult. After a short walk up and through the forest you are eventually walking on a metre-wide ridge, with a valley to each side, one looking down on Waikiki, Honolulu and the Pacific, the other looks across to other ridge lines. It’s not scary at all but can sometimes reduce in width for short distances, there’s plenty of trees to catch you should you fall! You won’t fall, it’s really fine. Eventually you come to a sign-post which tells you the Wa’ahila Trail is at an end. If you want to continue to Mount Olympus you take the right-most trail at this point. The terrain gets steeper, with the rooty and rocky theme continuing. The first rocks to clamber up are reasonably easy, but get increasingly steep as the hike progresses. There are some anchored ropes to help you up and down the steeper rock climbs, and steeper inclines. I only used the ropes on the way down as I was in a hurry, but you don’t have to, there are plenty of roots to cling on to. You will come to two or three small grassy landings, around 5 metres in diameter, these are not the ‘clearing’ everyone speaks of, the clearing is around 20 metres in diameter. From this clearing you have a 360 degree scenic view. There is an up-draft of very hot air coming from one direction and a cool wind coming from the other. This combination of winds is new to me and so cool. It's a fab spot to have something to eat and drink, before continuing or heading back. On a sunny day there is shade you can shelter in, but you will need sun protection as most of the hike is in the sunshine. We had had rain all day, with a torrential downpour, thunder and lightning the day before I hiked, with localised flooding. Even though I hiked just the day after this, the ground was not muddy at all, my trainers were barely dirty. The soil seems to be sandy and very quick drying. But note, trainers, sneakers or hiking boots are required, not flip-flops. I made the mistake of leaving for my hike too late, taking the 12:41 bus. By the time I reached the clearing it was gone four o’clock, with another hour to the summit of Mount Olympus. As the sunsets around six, I didn’t have time to get to the summit and out of the park by sunset, so I had to turn around and make my way back from the clearing. I wouldn’t want to negotiate that climb in the dark without a head-torch. Even though I failed to get to Mount Olympus, this was the most enjoyable hike I’ve done thus far, better than Diamond Head, Koko Head and Manoa Falls, by a long way. Not only due to the scenic view all the way up, but due to the technical difficulty as well. It’s quite strenuous, you’d need to not have knee problems to do the extended hike, there are some large steps to negotiate. Perhaps just up to the sign would be OK if you are not too fit. I managed to get down from the clearing in just over an hour, but was running most of the way, which was fun. I think if you didn’t keep stopping to take photos, you could get to the clearing in less than two hours. But really this hike deserves a day of your time, giving you enough time to take in the sights, perhaps a picnic at the clearing and making the summit of Mount Olympus. Which btw you can see from the clearing. Another must-do hike when on Oahu! Info To find go to the Wa'ahila Ridge Recreation Park, it’s on Google maps. Keep walking up the hill until the car park ends, a little beyond there you will find the Mt Trail sign. Get there by bus take the number 14 all the way to the turn around point at the top of the hill Facilities in the recreation area Clean toilets Water fountains Picnic tables and benches Fab views! Costs Nothing! To park or hike There are no facilities on the hike, make sure you use the restroom and take plenty of water with you and some snacks.

See my YouTube of this trail here here and here excuse the language! Having brought my trail bike to Hawaii and not having a hire car, I needed to find the local trails. A guy in a bike shop mentioned the St Louis trail and whilst searching on Pink Bike’s Trailforks website, I managed to find out roughly where the trail started. From Waikiki it’s a 20 minute bus ride on the Number 14, caught just five minutes down the road from my hostel. Around here the buses have a really easy to use bike rack on the front of them, I did fail the initiative test the first time I went to use it, once shown how it works, by the bus driver, it’s now easy to load up. The bus drops you off nearly at the top of the hill in a residential area, keep the noise down or you'll spoil it for everyone! This drop-off gives you a fab view of the Diamond Head Crater, the Waikiki coastline and down on to Waikiki city. Directly opposite the bus stop you will see a sign pointing to the Wa’ahila Ridge Recreation Area. Make your way down this road, it’s not far perhaps a kilometer at most, and you reach the car park. It’s such a peaceful place, very soothing with shade being provided by large pine trees. The view across to the next ridge, and beyond, is awsome, and you nearly want to ditch the bike and hike the trail. Something I plan to do when the rain stops! You’ll find picnic tables, a sheltered picnic area, toilets and water fountains, all in the rustic setting of the large pine trees. It really is an unassuming place but nicely maintained, probably my favourite, even more so than the beach, to just sit and forget the world. My first time up at the rec area was mid-morning on a Sunday. It was so nice, I just sat and pondered for quite some time. I had no idea where to find the trail, and would never have guessed it headed back the way I came, albeit on a side pavement. I couldn’t follow any of the instructions on Trailforks site because I’m a dipshit when it comes to following directions! I noticed a group of downhill bikers congregating around a picnic table, so went to talk to them, to find out where the trails were as I had no idea. I was a little intimidated, they were all on downhill bikes, some real nice rigs; S-works Demo, Trek Session, YT Tues, so I was wondering just how difficult the trails were! I was lucky because they'd decided to ride on a Sunday instead of Saturday. The first person I spoke to was Skip, and as it turned out he was a real cool guy, and offered to show me down the trail. I felt a little awkward, as I knew it would spoil his ride having a gumby like me tag along! But he was great, waiting at every junction, he showed me a good ride down, unfortunately I didn’t take any of it in, I was like a rabbit in the headlights! At the bottom of the run Skip offered me a ride back to the top in Russ’ truck (cheeky!!), which was so cool. Stumpy looking the odd one out with their DH rigs staring menacingly out the back of his truck! On my second run, on my own, I went completely the wrong way, which was a little rowdy but enjoyable enough with a few fucks thrown in. Little did I know that there was an even gnarlier trail, which I accidentally got on the second visit I made to the ridge. It is, I believe the one they call the World Cup run, it was mental, and not something I could ride on Stumpy. Stumpy could do it with a good rider, but I couldn’t, I’d have attempted some of it on Desmond (my Demo8) Before the run when I ended up on the ‘World Cup’ trail, I’d been guided down by another kind local named Derick, who was super fast on a trail bike, and again I didn’t take any of it in, hence when I went on my own, ending up on something I couldn’t ride. It really wasted a run, as it goes straight down the ridge nearly to the bottom, of which I walked most of it. If you’ve not got an uplift, the walk to the bus stop to get back up is around 15 minutes, mostly up hill. It get’s quite humid at times, so you can end up tired and sweaty before you get back to the trail. But it's nothing like the Aston Hill or Nailcan Hill pushup! And getting on the air conditioned bus is a good rest. If you’re going to visit this trail, I’d say go on a Saturday and meet up with Skip, Russ, Randy, Dave or Derick, and take some advice from them. These guys built the trails, so know them really well. They’re in really good condition, and they’ve obviously put a lot of effort into them. The runs are really cool, all single track, quite long, what that means I don’t know, just in my mind they’re quite long!! At my pace it’s around 20 minutes top to bottom. I made that up as well, I don’t really know!!!!!! Just long. The soil is kind of quick’ish draining and sandy, being soft, they can cut up easily, so if you’re going there, be respectful of the work that’s gone into making these abfab runs. There are no braking bumps, so let's keep it that way! From the mid section down, the terrain is more and more pumice, which is sharp and jagged. I’d wear body protection, falling on that is gonna cut. I’ve been to the ridge twice, doing two runs each time, which was enough for an old bird. I’m itching to get back to make some improvements to my riding. I need to go down slowly and stop and observe the rockier parts to work out a route down without stopping. Stopping just ruins your run, and my tourettes sets in once I get flustered! There’s been a lot of rain, particularly yesterday when there was a big storm, causing localised flooding. The second time I went was two days after some average rain, the trail wasn’t too wet, a little sloppy on the bottom section. It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re on Oahu. Big thanks to Skip, Derick, Russel, Dave and Randy for their Hawaiian welcome to DH on Oahu, top guys. Info To find go to the Waahila Ridge Recreation Park, it’s on Google maps. To find the trails take the left-hand footpath down, it becomes the rooty section. Once you see two large telegraph poles on your right you then need to decide which run to take down. Again I’d suggest meeting on a Saturday with the locals. Get there by bus take the number 14 all the way to the turn around point at the top of the hill Facilities in the recreation area Clean toilets Water fountains Picnic tables and benches Fab views and friendly locals! Costs Nothing! To park, ride or hike

See my YouTube of the hike here Another bus ride, this time the 22 from opposite the Honolulu Zoo, Waikiki, that takes you all the way to Hanauma Bay Reserve in around 35 minutes. From there it's a 10 minute walk to the Koko Crater Trail. Koko crater is an ancient tuff cone, dormant for tens of thousands of years! It rises just under 400 metres, of which you are climbing most of that on 1048 steps. Approximately two kilometers each way. The trail goes straight up the ridge, on a dis-used World War Two railway track. The wooden sleepers are mostly in reasonable condition, some have rotted away, some have been replaced or repaired. The trail isn’t too steep for the first half of the hike, then it becomes steeper and steeper. One section crosses a shallow ravine, meaning you have to tread carefully, otherwise you could fall through! You don’t need to be super fit to get to the top, but to enjoy it I think you'd need to be in reasonably good health. It's a good cardio workout if you walk at any sort of pace. There are a lot of impacts to your knees on the way down, and I would give it a miss if you have dodgy knees. I didn’t make a day of it, all told I was back in Waikiki within four hours. If you wanted to make a day of it you could visit the Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve, which has picnic, snack and drink facilities. There is also a fab looking beach in the reserve that you look down on from the top of the ridge. Also locally there is a blow hole and a Botanical gardens as points of interest. Once at the top, you need to walk a short distance on rocks and un-surfaced trails to get to the three main viewing points on the ridge. With a 360 degree view, to the West you can see the Diamond Head Crater, Koko Head and the Hanauma Reserve with Waikiki and Honolulu in the distance. In the opposite direction you are looking down onto the Koko crater and across the headland and onto the Pacific. To the North there are views of the ridge line that dominates the south of the island. All quite stunning. There’s plenty of room at the top, you could stop for a picnic. I didn’t see any picnic tables up at the summit, but there are many picnic areas in the grounds of the Reserve. Going down, you need to watch your footing, you certainly wouldn't want to fall. Some people were running up then back down, I wouldn’t be so bold, for fear of falling! As I said, with each step there’s an impact and you can feel it on your knees…….well you can when you’re an old bird! I don’t think I’d do it if I was clumsier than I am, or if I had dodgy knees. It takes around an hour and a half to get up and half an hour to get down, at an old bird pace, so quite a short hike. It was hot and humid when I went, and there is little shelter from the sun so some form of sun protection is required. You’ll generate quite a bit of heat getting up there, I’d say wear gym kit or the like, that will wick away sweat. And take at least a litre of water. It was dry when I went, I have no idea how slippery the wood gets when wet, so take that into consideration. It’s definitely trainer or sneaker territory, not flip flops! And to note, I saw three little kids, around 6 years old making their way up and they seemed quite happy to be doing it. You’d definitely need to supervise kids well on the hike, there's not much room for getting it wrong! With the opening hours you could catch the sunrise or sunset, but not sure I'd want to negotiate the steps in the dark! There's a strange tradition of hanging a pair of trainers from the power line, I'm not sure what that's all about! Info Website Free to use the trail Parking fees apply, I believe just $1 but am not sure Opening hours 4am until 11pm Water available at the Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve Snacks and drinks available at the Reserve Take water with you, there isn't any at the top My visit was Mid-Winter, Mid-February

See slideshow for this trip here During a chat in the hostel communal area with Marcy, a lady from Toronto, we discovered we both wanted to see the big surf on the North Shore of Oahu. I’m not sure if she offered me a lift or if I invited myself! We made arrangements to go the next morning, and set off around 9:30am, in Marcy’s fabtastic grunty Mustang convertible hire car! We took the highway out of Waikiki for a short while, then we headed for the Northwest coast, and followed the coastal road 83 around, in a clockwise direction. I shan’t waffle on about every time we stopped, you can see the journey we took on the map below. I don't have the words to describe the vistas. Around every turn there was another dramatic view. It could be an ocean view, a ridge view and sometimes both. We stopped around ten times to take in the views and/or have some food and drink, continuing at a leisurely pace between stops. There are quite a few spots for grabbing some quality fresh food, Marcy having shrimp tacos, while I had the Gnarly nachos. We had some fab locally grown pineapple and ice cream at another stop. Sampling the locally grown pineapple is a must do, they're so cheap and so so juicy and sweet. We were out around eight hours, poor Marcy having to do all the driving, while I savoured the views! And boy were there some awesome views, they just kept coming. I gave up taking photos as I just couldn’t capture the beauty of what we were seeing. Our main objective was to see the big surf at a few spots on the North Shore; Sunset Beach, Waimea Bay and Banzai Pipeline. We stopped at a couple of these, not sure which to be honest. Parking wasn’t too difficult but the roads were quite busy, so we went where we could park-up. The big waves just kept rolling in, they all look the same to me, but the surfers wait for the perfect one. Ten surfers were, at a guess, a kilometre out, waiting, perhaps 20 minutes to catch the right wave for a good run, and it was totally rad when they all crested at the same time. Seriously Hawaii-five O theme music time! With a phone camera it was impossible to get a decent photo unfortunately. The surf forecast on the North Shore was for 10-12 feet waves the day we were there. I had arrived in Oahu a little too late to catch the finals of the Volcom Surf Pro at Banzai Pipeline, being held the same day I checked-in. The waves were monsters that day, 18-20 feet, so wish I’d seen it! We continued our trip, down the east coast then back across to Waikiki, and still the fab views kept coming. Totally pumped, tired but content. Such a mega day. If I could only do one trip out on the island, a road trip would be the one to do. Perhaps take two days at it, to catch the West and South East, view some craters and drive some mountain roads. But this was enough, with what I’ve done already, to not hanker after getting out on every experience or tour available. I usually like to do things alone, so there’s no compromise in what I do and at what pace I want to do it. Sometimes I'm chillin the next minute I'm on one. Everything aligned when I met Marcy, we have some similar traits and got on really well with no compromise, I hope, on either side. Just to say I swear more but she’s somewhat crazier than me……having sky-dived over Pearl Harbor the day before! Thanks for the ride Marcy!