Christmas in Cornwall

I had hoped to be able to spend Christmas with the family in St Agnes, and, for once, it wasn't me disorganisation, but rather not knowing whether I had to work after christmas that stopped me booking travel a reasonable time in advance when it wouldn't've been ridiculously expensive. When I finally convinced the boss to tell me that he didn't want me to work over the break, I went online to look for transport as quickly as I could.. then I baulked at the price.., then I thought about the cost of airfares from NZ, and not knowing when I'll next be in the uk and have a chance to see them, I decided that it was worth it. After too much fear of missing my flight, and the resultant long period of hanging around in the airport waiting for the flight, I arrived in Newquay at about 6pm, and found Ian and Jenny waiting for me. Half an hour later, We showed up at The Croft, where a glass of G'n'T appeared in my hand, and shortly later I was sitting at the table enjoying a delicous meal (prepared by means of argument between Rob and Richard)... and the wonderful company of 16 relatives.., (of varying distance)

After a night of fun, drinking too much, games (articulate) and catching up, I crawled off to bed for a good night's sleep, ready to explore an abandoned mine the next morning... morning came and went, and by mid afternoon, we were walking along to road to a location I probably shouldn't name, which was renamed to “another name I probably shouldn't mention” during the course of our exploration. Unfortunately, before leaving, I was warned that I would return caked in mud so I left my camera behind.., The mine was quite an experience... far more expansive than anything I've had the opportunity to explore in New Zealand. Lots of branching tunnels, some short drives with dead ends, and large caverns in other places where seems of Ore had been found. Pockets of foul smelling (and sometimes dizzying) air, clayey cave-ins, old propping and shoring, some of it intact, and some quite definitely collapsed.

After about 4 hours of wandering around underground, we climbed about 35m of steel ladders (some recent work had been carried out in the 90's) and emerged in the yard behind a factory, lights were turned off and stealthy progress made to the driveway, followed by ducking through a hole under the wire fence, and a scramble down the hill. After a couple of quiets at the local pub, we headed back to a hungry and slightly impatient crew at The Croft. We ate, drank, and headed into the village for a few more drinks at the pub before midnight mass at the church, across the road. High Church (or “bells and smells” as I fondly know it) is quite an experience to have whilst rather tipsy and carrying an over-inflated bladder.

Christmas Day started around 10am.., with a glass of Buck's fizz (bubbly mixed with orange juice), breakfast, and a quick trip to the beach for the local Christmas traditional swim... keeping up the Doble tradition of arriving pretty much when everyone else is getting out of the water. ...............

Boxing day saw us heading out to Gwethian to fly kites...trivial pursuit

the 27th was a bit of a detox day with less drinking and 3 hours of walking along the cliffs, althoguh we didn't make it as far as porthowan before, stopping for a picnic lunch, then returning via the beacon.

Sunday the 28th was my last day, and luckily I managed to squeeze in a quick bit of kiting before catching the coach from newquay to London at 3pm.

Edinburgh.., the lead up to Christmas.

After a few more weeks of blogging silence, I figure it's about time to post again. Things have been relatively busy.., possibly not especially interesting, but exciting none the less. Work's been a little slow coming into Christmas, although we did spend a couple of days delivering Christmas trees 35 one day and 46 the next.., ranging in height from 6 feet to 12. It's amazing to see the look of joy on the faces of a hall full of school kids when you bring their tree in, set it up, and cut the wrapping so it unfolds dramatically in front of them. Although, surprisingly, the looks of joy aren't too dissimilar to those on the faces of receptionists in offices and hotels.

Because Work's been slow, I have been able to spend quite a bit of time at the church/building site in Georgie. It's kinda surreal during the week, there's mess, painting, wiring, sawdust everywhere, but come Sunday morning, you'd never know, and it looks almost like a complete building. In the last couple of weeks, we've managed to transform an unpainted room with no running water, a few kitchen appliances and some bench space in it, into a relatively functional kitchen... (there's still work to be done as always seems to be the way, but we feel a lot closer to completion).., we've installed a pretty flash PA system, and continued the ongoing task of patching up all the holes here and there. The fact that the place has been able to function whilst still being built, is due to a lot of hard work by many parties., but in particular, Brian and Anne, he makes mess., (and we all help with this endevour) and she is the unsung hero who somehow manages to ensure that the place is spotless.

So, apart from swinging from scaffolding, knocking holes in walls, running round ceilings with reels of cable, and other such enjoyable pastimes, I've been enjoying the beautiful spectacle that Edinburgh becomes during winter. Because it's so dark for so long, people have a good chance to see the lights strung up in trees.., so, a lot of effort has been put into putting lights in trees. A walk down Princes St at night time is a pretty beautiful sight... if you can avoid the crowds in the winter wonderland..., (the whole of princes st gardens has been turned into a fairground, with an open air ice skating rink, ferris wheel, and other amusement rides, along with lots of stalls selling various foods, mulled wine, and I even spotted a fortune teller last time I was around there.

Chloe (from AURAC) dropped into Edinburgh for a couple of weeks, but I'm ashamed to say, I failed in responsibility to go climbing with her. We tried., and if it hadn't been for a terribly delayed bus, we would have managed a Sunday afternoon at ratho, but alas, it wasn't to be. we did, however manage to share a couple of good nights at the pub, and a great sunset atop Arthur's seat.., (the hill that overlooks the centre of town)

I've been trying (and failing) to climb once a week.., bouldering at alien rock 2 is pretty good, and easy to reach...., Ratho, on the other hand is unfortunately some distance out of town, and pretty hard to access without a car. but it is amazingly huge!!!, I think it's the bigest indoor wall in the world.., and they've just opened a new tilting wall, so the place now has a wee bit of real roof climbing.., (I didn't particularly like the routes on it, but that may be simply due to the fact that I've been eating too much, cycling rather a bit and not climbing nearly enough.

home, sweet home (for a couple of months anyway)

I've been in edinburgh for a wee while now, (over a month, I think).., until now I've been staying in a hostel.., a nice enough place, across the road from Haymarket Station... with a crazy Slovakian guy we called Adam, and a variety of other guests, each one there for a different length of time.., some semi-permanent residents.., who became like family, and others who came and went over weekends. Last night I moved into a flat in the north side of town.., Julie, a friend from church.. (a kiwi with a mohawk) has a house, and was looking for a quality flatmate, but didn't want to let just anyone into her lovely house.., so I showed up, and now I'm no longer sharing a hostel with alcoholics, kleptomaniacs, and crazy foreigners.

I came back to Edinburgh because I felt it was about time I stopped wandering around aimlessly spending money..., of course, I'm still spending too much money, and took my time getting a job... but now I'm driving a van, doing furniture & whiteware deliveries for a company who contract to a Christian trust involved in helping people get set up in houses. The pay's pretty light, but the hours are good, and the work's pretty easy.., (and better still, they gave me a bike!.., an early model Specialised Rockhopper... It's a similar vintage, and style to my first ever decent bike (any of you who have known me for a while, and ever mentioned bikes will, no doubt remember a rant about how dearly I loved that Marin before it was stolen) The bike I've got here is the wrong colour..., a subtle grey, not a gawdy bright orange, and the gear on it is a little basic and worn out..., (gripshift, anyone??)... but it's a nice light chromo frame, with rigid forks, and pretty quick, twitchy handling.

So, I'm currently enjoying a slightly quieter pace of life, not having too many adventures that will make exciting blog posts, but I am getting to know the city through the course of my job, and intend to continue having fun, exploring and writing about it when I get the chance, I haven't been taking any photos since I've been here, as I left my beloved camera at Reg's place rather than risk leaving it in the hostel, but now I'm flatting, I'll pick it up and try to snap a few more shots..., after all I am living in a pretty impressive, scenic and beautiful city.

Oh, and there are a couple of posts from europe I've still to put up, so look forward to those... and one day, hopefully photos from Verdon and Ceuse will make their way onto facebook...

Heidlburg

The Train from Zürich to Heidelberg didn't find its way to Zurich, so, instead, we caught a regional train for a couple of stations, then transferred to our “ICE” (the inter city express trains are Germany's answer to France's TGV, fast, streamlined, with a really sexy looking tapered front). The train we got was a local commuter-style train, which left us somewhat concerned about how long it would take to get to our destination... but they squeezed every bit of speed they could out of the overladen railcar, and by the time we reached the actual ICE they had waiting for us, we were only 20 minutes late, time which we easily caught up on on the high speed rails on the way into Heidelberg.

When we arrived, late in the evening, we headed to Jurgen and Manu's place, grabbed a bite to eat, and crawled off to sleep. The next morning, we slept in a little, and David showed me to the centre of town, with a little introduction to German bakeries, he then headed to the university, while I went to the laundromat. 2 hours of internet and a pile of clean laundry later, I was exploring a beautiful town, walking up toward its castle, walking along the banks of the Neckar river and taking a minute to check out the old weirs and not-quite-so-old run of river power stations under them. The day came to a brilliant end, watching the sun set from one of the bridges, where I was lucky enough to meet someone who had exactly the same idea as me, and the same camera.., she even had tried to take the same photos as me, (but of course mine looked better :P)

With various promises of rather exciting beverages such as the Varma Aple, (which translates into English as Warm Drake), I was somewhat nervous about how my evenings in Heidelberg would finish, but in the end, I only experienced some rather nice beer, and new wine.., an exciting seasonal beverage, fermented only for a short time, yeasty, slightly fizzy, and very sweet, making it very easy to drink far too much.

On the second day in Heidelberg, we got an early start, David gave me a whirlwind tour of a bit of mountain and showed me where he used to live, before he headed off to the university. I then wandered around a little more, stopping to watch a sand barge pass through the lochs at the end of town, and to take photos of a seagull looking a little confused while stranding on a piece of wood caught in one of the inlet vorticies of the power station. I then headed up the hill to check out the ruins of an old monestry, and the not-so ruined ampitheatre built for propaganda rallies during Nazi times.

Later that afternoon, I went into the KIP, (Kirchoff institute of physics), where David managed to find me a computer to spend my afternoon replying to emails, and I had a chance to meet some of his former colleagues... who all seem to hold him in high regard. with comments like “I was trying for three weeks to fix this problem, 1 hour with David and it's working.

That night we went to a pub where I tried the local specialty >>>>>>..., once again, completely saturated with cheese, (I love European food!!) and, of course, being in Germany, I had to try a couple of local beers.

My last day in town was somewhat less exciting, sitting in an internet cafe for most of the day, booking a ridiculously high priced train ticket, then joining David and the Physicists for a barbecue in the evening..... mmmm new wine...,

Switzerland in a day (and half a day's train ride)

now.., as anyone reading this is probably well aware, I'm terrible with names.., and equally terrible at getting round to doing things. I'd intended asking David to remind me of the missing names in this post, but I didn't get around to it.., by now I figure that If I don't publish this partly complete post, I'll probably never get around to it anyway.

Two of David's friends live in Switzerland, .... who did her postgrad diploma in Heidelberg with David and Simone, who was once an exchange student in NZ, and a keen member of the tramping club. The train from Rome to Zurich left at 8:30 from the main station, and crossed the border at the town of c...... the views through the snowy mountains were nothing short of spectacular, interrupted occasionally by a tunnel. (they are just in the process of digging a tunnel that will pass directly through the mountains for 10s of km, shortening the journey, but removing some of the most scenic traveling that I have ever done.
We arrived in Zurich having enjoyed a lunch of potato chips and chocolate and headed straight for ...'s place where we left our bags, and headed into town for a dinner of >>>>>>. a local speciality make of grated potato, fried and covered liberally with cheese. and of course, some local beer. Then cam a mission through town to find a beer for everyone else, and a hot chocolate for me. the beer proced easy to find, but the hot chocolate was a lttle more elusive. Eventually we found it, and not long after, we were crawling off to bed. The next day, we enjoyed a sleep in and a relaxed breakfast with .... and ...... leaving their house in time for a short walk around town

before meeting Simone at the train station at 1:30. where we decided to catch a train up >>>>> the closest mountain to town, complete with amazing mountain bike tracks (but I had no bike)) a viweing tower, amazing views across the alps and lots of other siteseers.

A refreshing walk down the hill, and various gossip with Simone about what's become of many of the old trampers, and we were at the other train station, ready to catch a train back into town, grab a hof chocolate at a cafe with cool playing card-like menus, bid farewell to Simone and head back to ...v and ...'s place for lunch/dinner before catching the train to Heidelberg at 7:30.

Rome

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”..., When we were in Rome, we did as the tourists do.

Upon arriving at the train station, and walking through the crowd of people telling us that they worked for the tourism office and could find us a hostel, down the road and into the real tourism office where we got directions to the camping ground in Ostia.

Ostia is a quiet seaside suburb of Rome, (formerly the port city serving rome) we were well out of town, at a spot that appeared as though it would be packed with drunken, sunburnt tourists during the peak months of the year, but all the resorts were empty in Autumn. The camping ground was pleasant, not too expensive, and not at all busy, unfortunately the bus from the train station only came every 45mins, so we caught it once, and made the 25min journey by foot every other time. By the time we found the camping ground, pitched the tent, and left again, it was 5:00, so we caught the train into the centre of Ostia, where we found a supermarket, bought the essentials; bread, cheese, beer, chips, and more bread, we took a brief look around town, and found that the beach was fenced off by various resorts, one of which had a small soccer field in a net. Of course, the beaches were empty, and all the locals were sitting on the pier, the closest one could get to the water without paying.

On our first full day in Rome, we went to Ostia antica (the ruins of the port town of roman empire times.) Entry to the city, (which is still an active archeology site, with ruins being exposed and preserved continually) cost about half what we would later pay to go to the ruins in the centre of Rome. The old city is fascinating, and while the buildings are smaller than those preserved in the centre of Rome, they were, mostly more intact, you could see the streets as they used to be, and know what the purpose of each building was. Of particualr note, (and engineering interest) were the baths, with underfloor heating and beautiful tiled mosaics on the floors, and the various temples and theatres.

After many hours of exploring the ruins, and almost passing out in the heat.., (whilst enjoying our lunch of potato chips) we decided that we would pass out if we stayed any longer, so we ventured into Rome. This seems to be a good moment to mention the tradition we established for our time in Italy..., one home made gelato or icecream every day. It may have been expensive, but hey.., when in Rome..., After our mid afternoon pick-me up, we went on to see a lot of the sights from the outside, get a feeling for the place, and realised that it is actually relatively small. We were getting hungry, so found a lovely restaurant, where we had a three course meal of pasta, chicken and dessert. The pasta was delicious, why does no one in NZ understand “al dente” the chicken was disappointing, being a re-constituted crumbed “fillet” but the cheesecake dessert made up for it. Shortly after we finished our meal and left the restaurant, we saw further evidence that Rome is rather small... my couchette buddies from the journey to Florence... In their somewhat inebriated state, they convinced us that we should follow them to the spanish steps, a walk that took us around the block twice and resulted in one of the girls buying a bag that she later didn't remember buying, We finally arrived at the spanish steps and found them plastered with tourists waiting to go on “the legendary spanish steps pub crawls”.., it's funny how if you call them legendary, people will go. We soaked up some of the night views of the city and agreed to meet the girls in the morning, to see the Jewish ghetto. When we met them in the morning, the girls were a little the worse for wear, so after a couple of hours of wandering around aimlessly we parted company, and headed into town to see the Colosseum, and other ancient ruins. starting with the other ancient ruins, we saw a lot of history, money and slavery sitting around us, but couldn't really get much of a feeling of what the place would have been like in its day. Unfortunately, we left after it was too late to use the other half of our ticket and go to the Colosseum. After a walk across the river, a chance to see the most streamlined island I've ever laid eyes on, and more gelato, we headed back to camp via Ostia to collect some ingredients for dinner. Which turned out to be Gnocchi with a tomato, courgette, Aubergine, and mushroom sauce, covered liberally with parmesan cheese. A little experimenting after dinner and I discovered a delicoious new way to prepare gnocchi. I'm not going to share my secrets online, but if you ask me nicely, I may just be inclined to cook it for you.

Our final day in Rome saw us head to the Vatican, where we

skippet looking at St Paul's (?) and headed for the Sistine chapel and museum. The museum was amazing, and the various small chapels we passed through on the way to the sistine were also beautifully decorated, but I was sad to say thtat the sistine chaple was a disappointment from being packed with tourists who wouldn't shut up... despite the signs banning talking, and took flash photos, despite the bans on any photography.

Rome is full of shops offering pizza, cut to length to order, delicious, and at a reasonable price, this was also true of the place we found in the vatican.

Our last meal in rome wis pizza from the camping ground, and we got up early the next day to catch our train to zurich with great expectations of cheap and tasty swiss chocolate.

Florence.

After my amazing time climbing in Spain and France, (and a great night at B's birthday party..., involving Scotch Whisky and a lot of climbers, but sadly no climbing) I headed off to meet my brother, David, in Florence, Italy.

The journey started with a short trip from Lyon to Dijon, followed by an hour of wandering around town, (the part of town that is within 1 km of the railway station anyway), buying some snacks for the 9 hour train trip I had ahead of me, and sampling the delicacies at one of the local kebab shops. Dijon appeared to be a nice city, but unfortunately I really wasn't in any position to judge it.

The train pulled in to the station, and when it stopped, a couple of American girls popped out the door for a smoke. I was in no rush to get on, so stopped for a chat, and it turned out that I'd be sharing a couchette, (or sleeping compartment) with them and another friend, along with a middle aged French couple). after much enlightening conversation, cheap French wine, and filthy humour (which I'm sure the French couple understood far more of than the girls thought they did) we eventually got to sleep, following some (admittedly deserved) comments about the odour of my feet.

We arrived in Florence over half an hour late (on time for Italian trains), I bid farewell to my couchette companions who were continuing directly on to Rome, and found David waiting patiently on the platform. I was tired after a less-than-peaceful night's sleep, and David was feeling a little sick, so neither of us had much energy. Wanting breakfast, we obviously walked into the wrong bakery, and ended up walking out with a small baguette, and 2 chocolate chip buns, 8 euro poorer. We then climbed up the hill (surprisingly steep when you're carrying 25kg on your back (David had kindly removed 6kg from my front), to the camping ground where David had already spent the previous 3 nights. A nice warm shower was a welcome relief, and we headed back into town without our packs.

Florence turned out to be a rather beautiful city, with some beautiful (and clearly expensive) churches and a lot of statues... a small taste of what was to come in Rome. After a day of siteseeing, offering the local beggars some of the bread we were eating, and being frowned at, and then trying the pasta at one of the shops in the market, we headed slowly back to the camping ground and dined on their delicious pizza before creeping off to sleep. The following morning we caught the train to Rome.

It was great to see David again, It had been over 4 months since I had las seen him, and apparently I actually missed him.

Aurac Reunion continued: Ceuse

After a long scenic sleep (oops, I mean ride) in the boot of Matthieu's car, we arrived at the camping ground in Ceuse. As I found, the camping ground is actually at the base of the hill that the crag lies atop. This would mean, much to my delight, that we'd be walking for an hour to the crag rather than driving, and I would be able to start the days feeling a little tired, rather than somewhat dizzy and nauseous. After realising this, we proceeded to drive to the nearest city, Gap, to buy groceries for the next few days, and to sample the local croissants and pain au raisin. The rock at Ceuse is sweet steep limestone..., a little like siurana was but colder, and cooler.

Now we were at a sport climbing crag, and we all felt a little more at home than we had been in the tall cliffs of Verdon. The view was still spectacular, but this time, we had panoramic views of the alps, rather than spectacular views down to the river at the bottom of Verdon Gorge. The first climb of the trip for all of us was a 6a, hoping to dip our toes into the new water gently. Both Gary and I took a little dogging to reach to top, whereas Matthieu managed it clean. over the next few days we were to try progressively harder climbs, take a few falls, and reach the climax of the trip with a dirty ascent of a 7b. At the end of our third and final day at ceuse, we managed to flash a 6b, letting ourselves think that we had actually improved a little during the course of our stay.

The camping ground was sweet, completely climber-orientated, with warm enough showers, toilets with seats and paper(a rarity in these parts) and a barn to cook in, (complete with horses, farm machinery, and a small bouldering wall for the rainy days which we were luck enough not to experience. The elevation was somewhat higher, and the temperatures were consequently lower. It was still warm enough to make the climb up walking tracks to the crag a rather sweaty experience, and to be relatively comfortable at the crag as long as the sun wasn't hiding behind clouds.

The setting of the crag is spectacular, to say the least with views through the mist across the alps, and the occasional moment when the mist would lift and show us beautiful snow-capped mountains. The climbing was moderately difficult, Gary and Matthieu went hard, and took a couple of decent falls between them, I on the other hand, was being my usual lame self, chickening out and doing too much down climbing.. with one exception, when the down climb appeared more scary than the fall.

After leaving Ceuse, we headed for Lyon (another chance to sleep in Matthieu's boot), knowing that we'd all love to return to Ceuse, but also knowing that it may only be Matthieu who will have a chance.

Aurac 2006; 2008 reunion, Verdon and Ceuse, France! part 1

Matthieu was an exchange student and former climber who visited Auckland a few years ago, and while he was around we reminded him that yes, life does revolve around climbing..., Gary and I just had to visit him to make sure he hadn't forgotten again. It turns out that Matthieu is now a dedicated climber, and has managed to find himself a lovely girlfriend who also shares his obsession with climbing..., it seems that Matthieu is another AURAC success story.

At around 6-7pm, just as it was thinking about raining, I was walking along the road looking for a campsite, when I got a call from Gary saying that he an Matthieu had arrived in Moustier, so I told them to meet me at the police station, and turned around to walk back to town. Since I had given them a difficult place to find, I was able to make it there 5 minutes before them, and direct them toward the much anticipated public toilets.

Matthieu's car is set up for carrying loads of construction materials, and tools, rather than back seat passengers, so the ride out of Moustier saw us driving past a police station with Gary and me cosily sharing one seat. After the first night's camping, (a welcome rest, and a nice hot meal, thanks to some generous campers who actually had the correct type of gas bottle for our cooker), we headed out to sample our first taste of Verdon climbing. We passed through the town of ........ where we picked up the essentials for lunch; 2 baguettes, some cheese and some ham. along with chocolate, snacks, and a couple of bottles of water. We then realised that we had just missed the Vertigo climbing festival in Verdon. It may have been an amazing time, but we were thankfull to have plenty of space on the cliffs without other people getting annoyed at how terribly slowly we were climbing.

On the way to the crag, we stopped to ask for a little advice, this was a mistake, we had previously chosen an interesting route to start on, but had another recommended to us, little did we know that we would spend hours searching for the top of the route, and eventually abandon any hope of finding it in favor of climbing a single 50m pitch, with a 50m and a 70m rope. This would turn out to be a lead climb that Matthieu will never forget, swearing and screaming for slack while we told him he couldn't have any, and becoming a great source of amusement for the climbers on neighboring routes. The climb was scenic, in fact, beautiful, and quite an experience. That day, we had woken relatively early, in the hopes of getting plenty of climbing done, I didn't start my ascent until after 5:00pm. We learnt a lot that day, the value of good rope management, the difficulties one can face approaching routes from the top, and most importantly, how vital it is to carry you lunch with you, even if you're only climbing a short route that will be finished well before lunchtime.

That night, we went to a new campsite, and entertained the owner firstly when I appeared out from the boot of the car, and again when Gary had to unroll the tent to find his wallet. We enjoyed another welcome meal and sleep, waking late the next morning and heading for a somewhat easier to find route, Learning from previous experiences, we ate lunch before starting the climb, and only carried a (surprisingly heavy) bag with water, shoes for Gary and Matthieu, and warm clothes. That day ended happily, lotsa photos later, and thankfully, the large teetering block of rock in the carpark did not fall and crush someone's car.

That night, we were made aware of the climbers' camping ground, so our last night (and the only rainy evening) was spent at a camping ground decently equipped with a cooking shelter, and, normal toilets (we were getting somewhat sick of squatting to do our business) We were thinking of leaving the next morning, but thankfully we were convinced to have a go at a properly long route before driving to Ceuse. We started the day at a reasonable hour, drove to some of the most impressive, easily accessible cliffs I've ever seen. This time, we decided to risk leaving lunch until after the climb, a risk that paid off in the end. but we were still sure to carry some heavy water and some snacks. A long series of 4 abseils was followed by 100m and 5 sweet pitches of relatively easy climbing, (although a pack on your back, or a pair of full ropes does weigh you down somewhat, making the seemingly easy grade of 6a seem a little more challenging than it should have.

Easy pitches, with 15m runouts, heavy ropes, long days, and the discovery that “if It's run out, that means it must be easy” summaries a wonderful time at Verdon,, and Ceuse can wait for the next train trip.

Moustier

I only spent half a day in Moustier, but it was such a beautiful little village, (and I took so many photos) that I figure it deserves its own post.

Moustier is an old village, possibly as close as the bus will take you to the Verdon gorge, (or perhaps, the nice people in the visitor information places misled me... The village is pearched on the side of some pretty steep and impressive rock, with a stream flowing out of the mountains and through its middle.

I arrived at the bus stop, and the bus driver kindly pointed me up the hill toward the village. I l wandered up there, and the first thing i saw was hundreds of middle aged tourists... once I had fought my way through them, found the all-important boulangerie (eventually I saw a man carrying a baguette and harassed him until he told me where he he'd bought it) and then the information centre, where the Lady was kind enough to let me leave my large pack, gave me a map, and recommended some tracks for me to walk around. I started out on the 3 hour loop, (which would have taken me about 1 hour if i hadn't stopped for a couple of hours in a chapel half way up the hill, and then continued walking up the valley where none of the other tourists seemed capable of venturing.

When I reached the top of the hill, I had time to eat some bread and ponder a little.., after some pondering, I decided that i should actually look at the map I had been given, and quickly realised that I was no longer on it... I did, however, read a little local history, the story behind the star hanging over the valley, above the chapel. While imprisoned in some far away country during a war, one of the villagers swore that if he ever returned to the village, he would hang a star above it. Since the day that he returned, there has always been a star hanging there. every 50 years or so, the chain rusts, and a new star is erected, varying in size from 60cm to 1.5m. (I'd hate to be under the star or chain when it rusts through.)

I had been going to meet Matthieu and Gary at around midday, but as was the way for this trip, they didn't end up arriving until after 6pm. I enjoyed some much-needed “alone time” that day, and really didn't mind the delay.

Fly-by tour of Montpellier, Avignon, and Marseille

another "pics to come later" episode..., sorry...

After leaving Siurana, Katie had a couple of days to absorb as much French culture as possible while still making it to the airport on time. I had a few days to kill before meeting Matthieu and Gary. We started our French experience by arriving in Montpelier at 11:00pm, and finding a lot of hotels with “Complet” hanging in their windown. The city was beautiful, felt pretty safe and was still alive and exciting, with people kicking a ball around in the city square. Eventually, we walked into a hotel displaying a complet sign and the nice man phoned around until he found us a somewhat small and expensive hotel room, about half an hour's walk away but we were happy to eventually have a roof over our heads. We figured that we had the next day to do a little exploring before heading for Lyon, but then we missed the last train to Lyon, and there were no vacancies at all in Montpelier that night, so we went to nearby Avignon where we arrived in the rain, spent the night in a big, but fairly grotty IBIS hotel room, and paid through the nose for the privilege. The next morning saw us working out how we were to get on to our next destinations, and left us about one hour for exploring..., really not enough time to do anything.

Last night, I had a comfortable bed in a friendly hostel in Marseille, and now I'm on a coach to Moustier, a small village in Verdon The driver's playing Bob Marley and we're speeding along the motorway through the fog.

Montpelier seemed like a pretty cool town, with nice friendly people and at least one really good bakery (we must have spent at leat 15 euro there, and extended our waist lines no end. I can see why Amy would live there. Avignon was cool, but the only area we saw was inhabited by what appeared to be over-monied teenagers/uni students.(but the wall looked cool! Marseille is a big city, and I only saw a very small part of it. no one in the train station seemed to spenk English when i arrived, and the information centre is a 20minute walk (or 40 minute metro ride if you include waiting for the train to arrive), from the station, down by the port, where lots of people have rather a lot of money tied up next to the wharves.

Now I'm going to be jammin, and trying to snooze a little before I reach my destination.

Siurana

Once again, keep posted, pics will come sometime soon..., sorry guys

Oh, and sorry I've been pretty slack on the posting lately, I've been travelling round here and there with lots of people and haven't had time to do much interwebbing

It was with great sadness that I watched the sun set over the Pyrenees on the train ride from Barcelona to Montpelier The scene was truly beautiful, but the windows of the train were filthy.... I was only in Spain for a short time, and the time in Siurana passed far too quickly. I had just started to get to know the place, found the swimming hole, and spent one day climbing some reasonably hard routes when it was time to leave.

When we told people that we were leaving Monserrat, they said we had to go to Siurana... they were right!. I had read that it wasn't worth going if we didn't have a car, but that was completely untrue. After leaving Monserrat, we caught the train to Barcelona, spent too much time online, then caught the train to Tarragona. a relatively small coastal town, quite beautiful. where we ended up in a hotel... expensive, but not too bad, and a worthwhile stop. the next morning, we caught the bus to Reus, and since it was the public holliday in which the Catalyn people celebrate loosing the war with spain (or so we were told by Toni at Siurana) most of the shops were closed, and we missed catching any bus to cornidelia (the village at the base of the mountains which are home to siurana), so, facing the possibility of spending too much money on accomodation in a not especially exciting city, we caught a taxi to Siurana. upon arriving at the camping ground, we met the owners, a retired couple who had been persuaded to open the campsite by their son, Toni, who was pretty much resposible for making siurana what it is today. 20 years ago, Siurana was an almost dead village, now, it is a climbing, and siteseeing destination with over 20 full time residents. After checking in, we wandered down the road to the village of siurana, had a bite to eat, and returned to the camp with a five minute walk along a ridgeline through an impressive electrical storm. The rain wasn't heavy, but the lightning and thunder was loud and close. Once we got back to the camp, we went to the bar for a drink, and spent the next hour talking to Toni, while climbing videos played on the Screen. The bar was packed with climbers since Thursday was a holiday... and i guess a lot of people were sick on Friday....

The next day, Katie and I walked for a couple of hours down to Cornedila to buy some groceries whlie quiviok hung around at camp. Cornedellia was a quaint little village, with a few shops which all seemed to sell the same items. We left the village with a 5 euro 2Lplastic bottle of wine a 7 euro glass bottle, the biggest loaf of bread I had ever seen, and a variety of other groceries, including 1L of olive oil, and a litre of vinegar.., fortunately, it wasn't hard to hitch a ride up the hill, and soon Toni was giving us a lift back to camp. In the afternoon, we sampled Paella.., a Spanish Risotto filled with seafood, and finished the day vowing to climb the following one.

The Rock in Siurana is lovely limestone. very different to the conglomerate in Monserrat, but not generally quite as juggy as the stuff in Paynes Ford and Mangaokewa. The holds are mostly small.., (with the occasional huge pocket), the routes are steep, with some amazing underclilngs and reaches up to mantle ledges. We only climbed at 3 crags (of over 10) in the area. My first climb there was 6c, (I'm not so good at reading sketches copied out of guide books, so it took us a couple of hours gto find the crag (20 mins away from camp) and was hoping to start out on a 5.., so a little dogging later, and I was up the top of a climb that neither Katie or Quiviok had a hope of completing. but I had an introduction to the rock, and loved it. Later we found our way to another crag (where we caught up with a nice guy who we'd met at Monserrat who had agreed to drop Quiviok in Reus), I had some fun on a couple of routes there, a 6a which Katie seconded, and a 6c+ which i did half of before returning to the anchors of the 6a..., a very fun climb which I would greatly enjoy completing (but sadly, I couldn't as we were running to catch a lift back to camp.

Climbing on the wall next to the Siurana village carpark was sunny, long, hard, and best of all, pumpy!!, We climbed there with Andy and Yasmine, a couple of Austrian medschool grads who were kind enough to leave top ropes on a couple of 7b/c routes for me, and met 3 english climbers, (one of them claimed to be German, but she wasn't fooling anybody). Half way through the day and half a dozen routes after arriving, we left the crag, in search of food, water and shade. We found all of these at camp, and then departed once again, this time in search of the swimming hole, which we eventually found, and enjoyed..., but by the time we had finished there, we no longer had any time for climbing.

Our final day of climbing was back at the first crag we had visited, trying a few other fun routes, but sadly, I didn't get a chance to make another attempt on the route i had dogged up on the first day. That afternoon, we spent too much time on the internet trying to work out how we were going to get out of Siurana, finding that the only bus from Cornedelia leaves at 7:30am, and deciding that we'd have to try to hitch our way to Reus, the next day.

Luckily, not long after packing up in the morning, we discovered that the owners of the camping ground were driving to Reus, and could offer us a lift there, true climbing hospitality!

The whole experience of Siurana was amazing, Camping was brilliant with a wonderfully friendly climbing atmosphere, from our first night in a chalet, the 2nd night in a caravan, and subsequent nights after Quiviok left, in a tent. The number of English speaking climbers left you never having to battle to be understood, my only complaint would be about the ferral cats who ate a hole into the tent and stole a salami and some delicious cheese.

I hope that one day I will be able to return to Siurana, and climb some of the thousand routes that I didn't, but even if that does not happen, I'm still thankful that I was able to experience what I did.

goodbye edinburgh

I'll try to upload some pics to go with this soon...,

also, keep an eye out for my adventures in the isle of mull..., (I lost the post i'd written a couple of weeks ago.)

I arrived in Edinburgh expecting to spend a week or 2, and left 6 weeks later. The hospitality i received from Reg and his flatemates, Annalise, Julia and Patrick was wonderful, and the community of Destiny Church Edinburgh were simply amazing.

Normally I would go into a place, and come out thrilled about the scenery, rocks, and other things, with a whole heap of spectacular photos to prove my point. Edinburgh has some nice old buildings, a few rocks here and there, and i went on a couple of outings a little further north to see some pretty exciting countryside, and had some days of beautiful clear skies and lying round in the park but much of the time, it was raining, and i didn't take many photos of exciting places... Yet, my time in Edinburgh has touched me more than i had ever imagined it would.

When i arrived, Annalise mentioned that Destiny were fitting out a new building in a suburb called Gorgie, having reached capacity in their existing building in leith, (with most seats full at 3 services every Sunday) So, I figured that it could be fun to go there for a couple of days and help out with construction. (I figured i'd spend a day or 2 there, and perhaps volunteer at the Edinburgh bicycle...., a very cool charity set up with the intention of providing bikes to people who couldn't otherwise afford them. Unfortunately, i never made it there... On my first day at Gorgie I met a few cool people who made me want to return..., so, on the next rainy day, i was back. I figured i'd spend about another week in Edinburgh, siteseeing on fine days, and building on rainy ones..., It seems that I was meant to be building, Edinburgh has just been through one of the wettest summers anyone can remember!

I assumed that helping at Gorgie would leave me feeling warm fuzzies when i left, but i didn't expect to meet such earnest, people, or to be spiritually challenged to the extent that i was.

I don't have room to mention everyone who I'm going to deeply miss, and i wish i'd managed to get a lot more photos of people while i was there, but that shouldn't matter, as when i was saying goodbye yesterday, everyone seemed convinced that I'll be back sometime soon, and they could well be right. After all, I've done hand stands, head stands and cartwheels in plenty of church buildings in my time, but last Sunday was the first time i've ever done a head stand in the middle of the sermon.., (and possibly the longest one i've ever done too, I was pretty close to passing out by the time i'd finished. Sunday was lovely way to finish my time in Edinburgh, hanging out with cool people all day long, eating baked potatoes, going to a cool little galery...and the fact that they went out of their way to put on such an amazing fireworks display, just for me, was incredible!

Edinburgh

Sorry for the long gap since my last post, I've been busy, sociable, and otherwise not blogging. i got half way through a post a while ago, and have just picked it up some time later... (also, I'll try to get some photos on this post tomorrow.., as it's time for bed now)

After a nice relaxing train ride from Birmingham (did I mention it only cost 4 quid) I arrived at Waverly station (after changing trains on the way because the one i was on was running late... surprise surprise), After wandering around the train station and finding the right exit, I walked up the the stairs and heard the sound of bagpipes resonating down the street.On the way down the street, I passed the busker, and heard another one a couple of hundred metres down the road. After the forth bagpiper and a belly dancer, I got to the end of the road, turned left and walked down to find Reg's apartment and met his flatmate, Annalise.

The buildings in Edinburgh have been well made, and since there don't appear to be many earthquakes in this part of the world, there are a lot of relatively old buildings. Reg's is no exception, stairs have worn somewhat, and the front profile of the steps is a rather smiley shape, sloping making it somewhat odd climbing the stairs with a heavy pack.

Since then,I've been wandered around town a bit, (I found that what appeared to be the high density centre of the city actually goes on forever, until the city runs out and you're in the countryside.) From an urban design point of view, this city's wonderful.., you can ride pretty much anywhere in town in 10 minutes, or walk it in 30. Buses seem to work, and the best part is they've managed to achieve this without everyone living in a shoebox. The city may have formed the way it has purely as a result of the cold climate, (and people's unwillingness to travel long distances to visit friends, or the pub) along with the fact that people didn't have cars when the city was established.

On my second day here, I discovered the art gallery and museum, and that evening, Reg took me to the local bouldering crag. quite a nice spot, one I've visited a couple of times since.

About an hour's train journey out of Edinburgh, there's a small coastal town called North Berwick, home of a Puffin colony, and various other excitement, none of which were a priority while i was there. The reason I went was to climb. On North Berwick Law, the only hill in the area, there is an abandoned quarry, with a few routes on it. The easy routes were easy, and the medium routes were fun. The routes I should have been able to do were too hard, and the hard routes looked very cool. Unfortunately, when Reg and I arrived, there was already a small crowd there, around 10 people (which may not sound like many, but when there are only 8 climbs there it makes for slightly crowded climbing and a little waiting for climbs).... then after we started climbing, a few more people showed up, and in the end, it was getting late and i didn't have time to climb the route I particularly wanted to.. one short attempt and failure before we realised we had missed the train left me a little unfulfilled.., (on the plus side, at least we managed to get a lift back with some of the friendly climbing crowd.) A short drive out of town, is Ratho, a small town, with a big wall, In fact the highest indoor climbing wall I've ever seen, 40m in parts. Most of the lead wall leaves you wondering where all that rope went when you reach the ground. (the shortest climbs are about 23m)

I've managed to get out of town a couple of times, once was a trip most of the way to the highlands, but not quite there... for burgers, which, while rather pleasant, weren't anything out of the ordinary.. of course, the location, and scenery were something amazing.

On my first Sunday here, I ended up at Destiny church, (the Edinburgh one, not to be confused with destiny NZ, or any other church by the same name) I met a handfull of interesting people, and discovered that they're in the process of fitting out a new building as a church... so the next day i went along and have spent a fair bit of time there since, hanging Gib board,framing up walls, moving chairs around,

Last Monday was Reg's birthday, so he, Maeghan and I went on a road trip to the isle of Mull.., a little way north, and a long way west. but that can wait for the next exciting and beautiful blog post.., (for those of you who are interested, the photos are already up on facebook)

Aber

After leaving the rain in Llanberis, I embarked on a wonderful 5 hour bus trip to visit Michaela in Aberstwyth, a university town on the west coast of Wales.. right in the middle of welsh heartland country. a place that took me quite some time to learn how to spell and a good place to be a New Zealander rather than a Briton. Michaela met me at the railway station after a long hard day in the field... After a strenuous 2 minute walk, we were at her flat enjoying a nice dinner and catching up on old times and gossip. After a couple of games of cards, I went to sleep on a relatively comfortable air bed which became somewhat less comfortable as it deflated During the course of the night. On Friday, it turned out that i could be useful helping to keep people from nicking or disturbing survey equipment (although I'm not too sure how much good i did apart from protecting the pavement from an almighty dumping of guano), So I headed out to Borth with Michaela and Jack to do some lazer scanning of the beach and adjacent street. Before we left Aber, Kyla had mentioned that the department did have some very nice toys, and she wasn't joking. Lazer scanners are essentially a ground based equivalent of Lidar., surveying the ground (and building) profile at very high resolution, to build a 3D model of the area. (If I'm allowed, I'll post an image of the data collected while we were there.)

On Friday night, i had the opportunity to check out Aber night-life, minus the students, as they're currently on holiday. After a drink at Scholars, we headed down to Witherspoons, possibly the best value restaraunt/bar in town, and oddly, located at the train station. After a burger and a pint, we wandered on to Rummers, in the hopes that some lively, upbeat music would wake us up. The music was good, but sadly not very awakening, and we ended up calling it quits at around 12:00.

On Saturday, Kyla had more work to do, so we wandered up the hill toward uni and I split off to explore a nice wood. very interesting in that the tracks there had clearly been made by mountain bikers, before they were banned, and now there are lots of intertwined flowing walking tracks with no sign of tire marks. In the afternoon, I had a guided tour of the southern end of the coast and then saw “The Hulk” at the Commodore Theatre. Going to the movies in Aber is quite a different experience. They close the doors shortly after the previews begin, and the atmosphere in the theatre is more like a living room, with people relaxed and chatting. Before the movie starts, the curtains close, lights come back on, and a refreshments booth opens in the corner of the theatre. The end result of this is that, by the end of the movie, you feel like you've had a really good night out,

Sunday saw the only truly beautiful weather during my stay, clear blue skies (somewhat of a rarity in these parts) so we walked over the hill to Borth, (where we had been on Friday), and along the beach to Ynyslas, where we caught the bus back to Aber for drinks and dinner with some of Kyla's colleagues/partners.

Sadly, all i achieved on Monday was a bit of a wander around the ruins of the castle and a lot of time on the internet.
(with the result of finding a 4 pound ticket from Birmingham to Edinburgh early tomorrow morning..., (so I'm writing this on the train to Birmingham, which i spent too much to catch, because i was disorganised.., and i probably won't get cheap accommodation in Birmingham because i'm running late... but it all seems worthwhile given the standard price from Birmingham to Edinburgh looked more like 70 pounds..

Llanberis and the mighty Snowdon.

I stumbled into Llanberis because I found a reasonably priced bunkhouse behind a pub about 1 mile out of town.. and a climbing wall about 3 miles further out than the bunkhouse. It turned out that the walk into town is rather beautiful, and the local population of chickens are rather friendly.

It wasn't until i arrived that i realised quite how close Llanberis actually is to Mt Snowdon. On the way into town from betws-y-coed, I actually changed busses at pen-y-pass, the place where most people (or at least the ones who don't catch the train) start their walk up Snowdon.

Rain seemed to be a general theme for my time in Llanbeirs.., (apparently it doesn't always rain there.., (I've seen photos). When i first arrived it wasn't raining!, but i was tired and lazy, so unfortunately i wasted the few spare hours i had that day. The next day, when i woke up, it was raining.... then it fined up a little but still looked menacing so i headed off to the climbing wall..., it was a longer walk than i'd expected, but still worth it. The beacon climbing center (complete with panoramic photos on the website..., ) isn't in the biggest building out there, but there is plenty of wall space, over 100 good bouldering routes (I was climbing at about the middle of the difficulty range there. Lotsa space for leading, (but since i went there on a week day, there were a few pairs of people climbing, and a whole pile of kids groups. so i didn't get any opportunities for belayed climbing. They did, however have one steep bit of wall with an autobelay on it and by the time i'd spent 3 hours climbing just about every variation of the 4 climbs on that rope, and bouldering , i couldn't get up a 6b (~19ish) so i felt it was ok to leave. (all this “not climbing” and eating is really taking a toll on my strength.., I don't think I've been this weak since I was 16..

The next day was sunny so i decided to head up the mountain, but unfortunately, it was the same day that i realised that the place i was staying at has wifi., so by the time i started walking it was 12:30, and the weather was starting to turn to crap. since i'd started so late, i cheated, just like everyone else, and started the climb from pen-y-pass, and was at the top 2.5 hours later after a reasonable amount of mucking around scrambling on rocks at the side of the path. The number of people on that mountain is quite outstanding., it makes the Tongariro crossing look like a back country wilderness experience..., (and i was there on a rainy day, mid week, and when the summit train wasn't operating because the cafe is currently being rebuilt.) Every man and his dog were up there.., I'd guess that 2000 people and 50 dogs, of all shapes and sizes climbed that mountain the day that i did (and did i mention the seagulls at the summit??. While i was up there, I did see a route i want to try, following ridge lines up to the peak and back down. rather than the paved tracks to the summit.
On some of the bussier tracks in nz, you see sacks full of gravel that have been dropped off by helicopter for track maintenance, but here they have sacks of large slabs of rock, it's both a testament to the geology of the area and the sheer volume of traffic it recieves.

The economy of Llanberis seems to rely heavily on outdoor “adventure sports” with the river full of school groups canoeing and all the small crags at the base of the valley also packed with kids.., (which somewhat limited my soloing opportunities) just at the south end of town, there is a small industrial area, including the DMM factory.., those who don't know what DMM is, probably don't care, but they're the only manufacturer of climbing gear made in the UK. they also make gear for wild country and Mammut, and have developed some ingenious designs like the I-beam construction for lightweight carabiners, carabiners with a built-in pulley to reduce rope drag, and the belaymaster (a specialist extra-safe belaying carabiner) to name a few. As a result, the local climbing shop, V12 receives a lot of cosmetic seconds which they sell for a slightly reduced price... and they stock a comprehensive range of full priced gear as well.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to still be in Llanberis on Wednesday night when large numbers of outdoorsy people converge on a hotel at the end of town for pizza and a pint... which costs a chiefly sum of about 6 pounds, depending on what toppings you choose for your pizza.., (ok, it's more than I'd spend at some greasy takeaway, but it still works out as pretty good value) and during the course of the night i managed to talk to kayaking instructors, climbing instructors, and a variety of other outdoors obsessed people.

On Thursday morning, I bundled up my life, bouldered for a while on a slab of rock that once sheltered secret meetings of the miners union while they were banned from meeting anywhere on land owned by the mining company. A mat and spotters would have been a welcome bit of security, but I still managed to play on some sweet lines. before heading in to town to catch a somewhat indirect bus to Aberstwyth.

Cymru

Wales is an interesting place, culturally defined by the fact that It's not part of England... All the signs are in Welsh and English, at first it's difficult to tell whether a given word is a place name, or if you're not allowed to park under the sign it's written on. There seems to be an ongoing fight between The English Language rolling in, and a strong defense from Welsh.

The country, or at least what I've seen of it so far is incredibly beautiful!, lots of rocks poking out from the ground, rolling hills, sparsely dotted with sheep and deep bush-clad valleys. I arrived in Wales to Richard, Rob and Katie's late mother's cottage in Glen Ceriog, a small village just over the hill, (and about 40 mins walk) from Llangollen, a tourist town centered around a picturesque river and railway. The cottage itself is perched on the side of a steep hill (Rob's Toyota Yaris couldn't get out of 1^st gear climbing the hill with 3 of us in it).

Our time at the cottage could be defined by the delicious barbecues and the amount of tennis we watched on T.V..., but I did manage to run away for a wander around the local valleys, and out to a little town called Pandy, with a small crag overlooking it. The potential for Mountain biking in the area is astounding!, perfect bush for carving some sweet lines through., (and no doubt there are already some pretty decent dedicated tracks around. One afternoon, Phillip drove into the Berwyn ranges and sat contemplating his gall stones while Rob, Richard and I went for a walk across the ridge line of some exciting looking hills, through the typical welsh mist. and a little real rain, mixed with rather a lot of wind. This, naturally was followed by a delicious meal at “The Hand” a nearby pub.

On my first trip over the hill to Llangollen, I looked up, and saw the ruins of an old castle.., but my gaze rapidly diverted to the lovely bluffs stretching on and on into the distance. So, the next time i got a chance, Richard dropped me at the end of a road where we met the farmer, and i jumped the fence and ran uphill. Endless, sweet limestone was all that confronted me... most of it isn't that steep, (but some was), none of it has big flowstones, or other jugs, just exciting climbing on relatively small holds, varying from slab to -5 degrees I started out scrambling, then dropped my bag and boots and moved on to a little bare foot soloing.., (most of the routes are only around 6-10m high, but the landings are steep enough to make falling a less-than-enjoyable concept.., added to by the fact that if you didn't damage yourself landing, you'd still roll through a lovely mattress of nettles and thistles... It was after about an

hour of playing around scaring myself, that i saw a little bit of webbing hanging from the rock..., at first I thought “crag booty!!” but, no, it was just a thread, and another thread,..., and some bolts!!, .. and some more bolts!!.., if only I had someone to climb with... I guess I may have to return sometime to see if i'm good enough for some short, small, but very hard welsh climbing... (as I walked on, there appeared to be a few easier routes)

Then we said goodbye to Rob the night before he headed back to cornwall at 4am, and Richard and I had another afternoon wandering round on the tops near/in/? the Berwyns. (we had planned to take a nice path through the valley, but after we found we were 2km past the turnoff we had intended taking, we slogged our way through a pine forest (douglas fir??) up to the ridge and followed it back down to the hand for another lovely meal.

Today I left the house with both my packs, and remembered how much fun it is to walk around with over 30 kg of gear... especially when over 10 kg of that gear happens to be pinky and the crabs.. (a rope and a stack of quickdraws and carabiners that are yet to be used in the UK. :(

A nice slog up and over the hill, and a chat to the lady in the information centre at llangollen saw me getting onto a bus to Bets-y-coed, another bus to a saddle just below Mt Snowdon, and another bus to Llanberis. Bets-y-coed seems like a lovely little tourist hole.., (it is beautiful, nestled at the junction of 4 river valleys) It appears to have plenty of everything you could want.., mountain biking, climbing, kayaking, etc... so long as you're prepared to pay for it. I might try to return if i get hold of a bike, (and possibly a car...). The bus trip from Bets-y-coed was nothing short of spectacular; lush valleys, and the steep hills, (in fact I'm almost prepared to call them mountains) of Snowdonia.

Now I'm sitting in a bunkhouse 2 miles out of Llanberis, typing away, and feeling just about ready to get back on my feet and walk around outside for a wee while... I'm secretly hoping that it will be rainy tomorrow, so I'll be justified in heading down the road to the local indoor rock wall.. (and hopefully will meet someone there who's prepared to belay me, or, better still, take me out climbing the next day.

Cambridge

Finally, the family have managed to get rid of me :). I've enjoyed a very comfortable, relaxing time for the last week and a bit with Philip Baddeley, (also the same generation as me, but only slightly younger than my parents).

After arriving in Cabmridge with Rob and Richard Jefferies. (waiting for a lift up with them was what kept me in Cornwall.... not the amazing place and other people...) I met Phillip, a rather eccentric entrepreneurial type of guy. He thought he was suffering from food poisioning as a result of some prawns, and wasn't too well for the whole time i was with him..., as it turn out, it looks more like he is suffering from gall stones. That night we headed out to Katie, (Rob and Richard's sister)'s place where all her friends were getting ready for a good night out on town... a last drinking session before graduation. The company was good, the booze was good (apart from the bottle of old sherry we pinched before we left Philip's place. ) and the Baileys-chocolate slice was delicious! We then headed out to “Secret Disco”, a funky little soul music bar in the middle of town. When we arrived, at about 11:00, the floor was all ours(about 10 of us), so the dancing began. by the time i left, at around 3 there were 6 of us and 80 other people. a great bit of fun, with the standard Baddeley/Jefferies dance moves going strong.

Back at Philip's place, there was a certain lack of space in beds, so a permanent challenge was laid down to try to find somewhere else to sleep for any given night, although i won't comment on anyone's success.

The next day Katie took us punting on the river., a very traditional experience, On the way down the river, Richard gave a wonderful demonstration of why you don't attempt to just get that last push in before you reach the bridge, with a spectacular lifeguard-like swan-dive/belly-flop into the murky water, gallantly rescuing the pole. When we got to the downstream end, I suddenly found it was my turn, to punt upstream.. but a lot of bank-hugging and a couple of doughnuts later we were back where we started, I was still dry, and we hadn't made too many enemies in the other boats. Sarah arrived that afternoon, and of course, we went into town again that evening.., although it wasn't nearly as exciting as the previous night.

The graduation day itself was a spectacular celebration of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. Naturally, i was the most under-dressed person present, but running around all day with my camera made me feel like i was meant to be there, even if most of my photos were kinda average. The ceremony itself (which i didn't have tickets for) was a very formal, yet quick affair when compared to Auckland University graduations. Only one college at a time (Cambridge graduates in it's residential colleges, not faculties), and with only 80 people in the college, no clapping, no singing, etc. the whole formal ceremony is over in 30 mins.

After the ceremony, there was a lunch in the garden of Katie's College, the highlight of which must have been Rob's parachute,
we then walked on to a lovely garden cafe, (Someone email me if they know the name of it)... where we enjoyed scones and Pims..,. after the walk back through many kissing gates we were ready to head back into town for dinner with the families of some of Kate's close friends..., which, of course, was followed by heading to the pub for our last night out in cambridge, Any rumours of brothers splitting generations are purely hearsay, I assure you.

The following day, after helping Katie move the last of her posessions out of her room, we headed up to wales., and since I'm nearing the end of this bus trip, Wales can wait for my next blog post.

Goodbye Cornwall

Right now I'm sitting in traffic on the M25 (otherwise known as London's biggest parking lot) but really, it's no worse than Auckland's North Western carpark. Finally, I've left St Agness and Cornwall, and it is a sad departure. I've had such a wonderful time there. The hospitality I received from the Dobles was exceptional. The locals are amazingly friendly, prepared to take time out to chat, give directions, or help you out in any way they can.

I arrived not knowing anyone, and left 2½ weeks later, (2 1/4 weeks later than i'd expected) saying sad goodbyes to friends who I'm already missing, and incredibly indebted to many people, both family, and their friends, for the amazing time i had.

I was very lucky that Mawgan let me borrow his mountain bike pretty much whenever i wanted, Without it, i wouldn't have seen half the things I did, and experienced riding on some amazingly sweet trails, from the clifftop coastal track which runs the whole way around the perimeter of the Cornwall peninsula on rough, loose, and at times steep gravel... to the the old mining tram route running from one coast of the peninsula to the other... and who can forget yesterday's ride in _____ wood, an area pretty much ideal for mountain bikes.., it offered a riding experience with elements of Riverhead, vegas and craters'.... (there wasn't any sand, astroturf, or wood, so I can't draw any parallels with woodhill) the tracks are all relatively short, linking or coming off the two main paths in the wood (frequented by walkers, some with dogs) Some tracks were well formed, smooth and flowing, some were more horse trails, rutted and lumpy.., some were full of blackberry or a similar thorny bush, to bring out more of that good ol' craters feeling, and associated bleeding..., some plantation conifers and some more natural looking plants and a stream running through a beautiful gulley completed the package. Unfortunately i was riding alone, with an expensive camera in my pack and a 9 mile road ride ahead of me, so i only found part of what the forest had to offer, and didn't push myself too hard., how I'd love to return with company, more energy and a helmet.

Last Friday, i managed to tag along on a fundraising effort and walked on fire in the carpark of the local hospital, and on Saturday, the weather was a little cloudier, with rather strong winds, and i got my first opportunity to get dragged around by a power kite. (ok it was only a 3m stunt foil, but it did drag me a bit, and i managed to break a 75kg line.) On Sunday, we, quite by chance, returned to the same place as I was climbing 2 weeks ago. Sunday afternoon saw us eating too much at Hugh's birthday bbq. and on

Monday evening we went to Newquay to see Hannabeth's band play..., following that, for some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to visit a delightfully sinister club in Truro called “The loft". It was an eye-opening experience, 1.50 cover charge, and drinks all cost less than 1.50. After getting over the fact that i felt like a dirty old man..., (think back to leftfield back in the days) i had a great time, and probably ended up more drunk than i can recall ever being before.

Sadly, I didn't learn to surf while i was there, in fact, i only had one attempt, and I only went swimming around 5 times. I didn't jump off any cliffs into the water, and I didn't experience Cream teas, but it's gotta be good to have a few excuses/reasons to return to Cornwall.

This episode of my travels was fueled by “Doble Quality Foods”, the quality food provided at the Doble residence (including home grown eggs and pork), and many visits to the St Agnes bakery.., I highly recommend their breads, yeast buns (raisin buns, to be distinguished from safron buns which are also raisin buns, but made with safron.., equally delicious, but a little more expensive :)), and their flapjacks. Combinations of the above fuelled many of my biking adventures.

Now I'm off to Cambridge to meet the Legendary Uncle Phillip, and loiter around the outskirts while Kate Graduates. Then my next chapter will in Wales.