Travelblog

Oslo, February 2012

2012-02-08T20:47:00.000Z

Oslo is a major tourist destination but, fortunately for me, not in February. The competition in the museums wasn't from coach loads (or, worse, cruise-ship loads) of camera-toting tourists, but from legions of back-pack-wearing primary school kids.

I decided to stick to my maritime tourist theme for this trip and after wandering along the snow-covered quay sides, found a bus to the museums ghetto on Bygdoy peninsula a few miles west of the city centre. In the summer there is a ferry across the fjord to Bygdoy, but at this time of year the 'only way is bus' - as the young women in the tourist office assured me. Since the bus is the only way, it's the route that the school groups take too. The seven year old (I'm guessing) sitting beside me was happy to chatter in English about his school trip to see the Viking boats - his English being very much better than my Norwegian.

I paid a quick visit Roald Amundsen and his polar colleagues - the five of them are cast in bronze and stand looking gravely down the Olso Fjord just outside the Fram Museum - before going to see the Fram, the ship that Amundsen used on his successful trip to the South Pole in 1911. The boat itself is very similar to the Discovery I've visited a few times in Dundee, but despite being out of the water the Fram is in a much more original condition than the Discovery.

Fram was declared a museum piece in 1925 and retired when it was still pretty much in its original state when Amundsen moved on to his next ship. The Discovery went through several users who changed it to meet their needs before finally being properly 'retired' back to Dundee. I have visited the Fram before (almost 40 years before) but my recollections are I think mainly from the family photographs rather than being 'real' memories. The Fram museum has been through a major refurbishment recently, now it includes sound and light special effects (wind noises plus quite good Northern or perhaps Southern Lights effects). As well as visiting the far South Fram still holds the record for the Northern-most point reached by a wooden ship. There is also a 'freezer' room in the museum with a moving deck to give the passing tourist the sense of what the weather in the far North (or South) might be like when on board. It's probably quite dramatic at the height of summer, but is of limited impact for someone who's just arrived from Stockholm in February. Having seen and heard the Scott Centenary events in the UK, marking both Scott's reaching the South Pole in early 2012, and his death a few weeks later, it's very noticeable that all the similar Norwegian hoopla and souvenirs go big on 2011 being the Centenary.

Just next door to the Fram is the Norwegian Maritime Museum, which covers about 2000 years of water-borne history from dug-out canoes though to specialist oil rig vessels and bulk carriers and has examples of some of the older, smaller boats plus fantastic models of the bigger and newer vessels. There is a really good video presentation that flies you along the Norwegian coast from the Lofoten Islands round to Oslo, and combines both modern (helicopter-shot) video footage with historical photographs from the early 20th Century.

A little further back towards the centre of Oslo is the Viking ship museum - which houses three original Viking longships from various parts of Norway. All three were used as funeral vessels, and were buried with everything needed for the next life. Two of the ships look as if they could, once the ice had cleared, be moved off to the closest fjord and sailed away.

Three museums is my limit for one day, so my final stop in Oslo was Akershus Fort in the centre of the city, with beautiful views over the harbour, the city and along Oslofjord too, which almost, but not quite provided a sunset.

Just to round off the maritime tone that the trip is taking on, I walked past a rather smart looking motor yacht called Norge just below the walls of the Akershus - it's the Norwegian Royal Yacht. I'm told that this is one of only two Royal Yachts still in service in Europe, the other one is Danish.

Stockholm, February 2012

2012-02-06T17:57:00.000Z

The ﬁrst stop in what could turn out to be a maritime themed tour of Scandinavia was Stockholm. A very quick train ride in from the airport on the Arlanda Express saw the temperature drop steadily from about 0C at the airport to -10C as we got into the centre of town.

I had been looking for somewhere to stay in the old part of Stockholm, Gamla Stan, which has lots of character and is very close to the main train station, when I came across the Malardrottingen. Originally called the Vanadis, this old motor yacht was the 18th birthday present for one of the members of the Woolworth family, it's now a small hotel moored on the island of Riddarholmen just beside Gamla Stan. Very comfortable, with a great view across the sea ice from the porthole in my cabin.

The sound of the sea ice grinding against the hull of the boat was probable less alarming for me than it was for the arctic explorers in their wooden hulled boats at the end of the 19th century. The further reminder of where I was each morning, was the sound and sight of a little icebreaker charging round the harbour breaking up the sea ice, so that the local ferries can get around.

The ﬁrst stop on my brief stay in Stockholm, was again maritime themed. I went (on one of the local ferries) to the island of Djurgarden which has lots of museums and other entertainments. My target was the Vasa museum. This award willing museum is built around the Vasa, a huge wooden warship from 1628. This warship had a pretty limited military career, in fact it sank about 20 minutes into its maiden voyage. This might have been pretty bad news for the Swedish Navy at the time (they tried at one time to blame Polish sabateurs, but eventually concluded it was just a bad design), but it's been very good news for Swedish naval historians. The boat spent about 330 years in cold mud at the bottom of the Baltic, which turns out to be a great place for preserving a wooden ship. The result is that there is a nearly completely intact 17th Century warship which tells us lots about both ship and the lives of the crew from that time. There is a great audio tour (in English) on the museum website, if you can't get to Stockholm.

As I got back to Gamla Stan I could hear a military band in the distance, this band accompanies the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. This ceremony seems to require a lot of drum banging, wearing of big hats and foot-stamping - and given the temperature the foot-stamping would seem to be a seriously good idea, although I suspect that the foot stamping happens in warmer weather too. I've been to London lots of times and never seen the changing of the guard - I guess there is probably drums, hats and stamping there too. My Stockholm afternoon was spent wandering around the snowy streets and waterfronts of Gamla Stan, and of course frequenting at least a few of the many cafes that line lots of the streets.

And to round off my day in Stockholm, A big plate of Swedish meatballs, it seemed rude not to.

Next stop, Oslo, by train.....

Shetland January 2012

2012-01-31T16:54:00.000Z

After very relaxed three Christmassy weeks in Oxford, it was time to head back to the south end of Shetland. As you might expect at this time of year there was lots of weather about, ranging from relatively warm dry weather, via pretty serious winds accompanied by horizontal rain, sleet and hail, through to bitterly cold clear weather.

These different weathers provided incentive to do different things. The winds bring both dramatic waves to the cliffs and beaches and interesting ships to harbour seeking shelter. The sea can be particularly photogenic (from the shore at least) in the days just after a big storm when there is still lots of energy in the waves, but it can be accompanied by good light.

The cold clear weather can provide mirror ﬂat lochs and lakes just crying out to be photographed. And if the weather is wet and windy, with low clouds and rubbish visibility there is incentive to stay inside in the warm and work on photographs and words from other trips.

The cold clear weather also brings the tantalising possibility that the Northern Lights might put in an appearance. The odds on seeing the aurora are better in Shetland than anywhere else in the UK, but a good aurora forecast still sets local media (both traditional and online) buzzing. Late January this year was marked by lots of sun spot activity, which led to quite a lot of aurora activity, including a couple of days when the aurora was directly over Shetland, rather than being far off to the North. And on one of these days the clouds cooperated too, clearing away for about 40 minutes late one evening at the south of Shetland, and providing a magniﬁcent view of the Northern Lights. After standing watching for a few minutes, nearly speechless (I wasn't actually speechless, but I was struggling to describe what I was seeing to my other half over the phone without going 'wow' every other word), I did ﬁnally have the wit to say that I needed to stop talking and take some pictures. Once I got round to sharing the images via twitter I got requests from both SkyNews and STV News to use the pictures online and on their TV broadcasts. One of the interesting aspects of my aurora watching was the role of online media, particularly twitter, both for sharing photographs after the event, but also for tracking what was happening during the evening as the aurora started to become visible. The aurora watching was very much a community activity.

The one thing I needed to miss out on in Shetland this January was the extra-ordinary event that is Up Helly Aa. This ﬁre festival is held on the last Tuesday in January each year, and is the chance for Shetlanders to get in touch with their inner Viking, to dress-up in clothes both traditional and esoteric and to spend the best part of 24 hours getting wasted in the 'Halls' of Lerwick. I've been on Shetland on the day after Up Helly Aa, and the only sound you hear is the wind (and people going "shhh" as you walk past the doors of their houses).

Photographing the Aurora

2012-01-30T23:16:00.002Z

Nikon D700, 10s, 24mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600

Over the last few days a few people have asked about tips on photographing the Northern Lights. So, although I can't really claim to be an "aurora veteran", I thought I'd say something about the settings I used to take my pictures.

I'm assuming that you've successfully got to somewhere where the Northern Lights can be seen overhead - this might not be entirely trival, see my earlier posting. I'll also assume that the weather both at high and lower altitudes has conspired to let you see something and that you're dressed warmly!
You'll need a tripod - you can expect to be taking pictures of 10 to (maybe) 40 seconds - and probably a cable release too. If nothing else, a cable release is much easier to use when you're wearing gloves.
Set the ISO setting as high as you can without letting the image get too noisy. This is going to depend on the particular camera you have. Most cameras will let you set ISO values much higher than is sensible. On my Nikon D700 (which has a full frame sensor) I can get away with ISO 1600, with smaller sensors you probably need to stop at ISO 400 (or maybe 800).
Put the widest angle lens you've got on the camera. The image above was taken with a 24-70 mm lens, at the 24 mm end of the zoom.
Switch the camera into full manual mode - and set the focus to manual too.
Select the largest aperture you can on the lens (ideally f/2.8 or better).
Set the focus to infinity.
You can do most of (3) to (7) inside before you put your gloves on and venture out into the cold and dark.
Point the camera at the Northern Lights. :-)
Start with exposures of 10 or 20 seconds - and lengthen (or shorten) the exposure if needed. The image above was a 10 second exposure.
Don't bring the camera back inside until you're sure you're done for the evening - bringing it back into the warm will ensure that you get a layer of condensation over all the glass surfaces.
Remember to spend a bit of time just looking at the Lights - they are magical.

Seeing the Lights

2012-01-24T16:56:00.000Z

Aurora over Shetland, January 2012

I’ve been looking for the NorthernLights for a while. I remember vaguely peering into theskies in the Cairngorms on Christmas and Easter visits during my childhood,but without any expectation that I’d see anything. However, over the last few years as myinterest in, and enthusiasm for, all things Northern have become stronger it’sincreasingly seemed like a gap in my “list-of-things-I’ve-seen”. When we first visited Shetland in 2007 (actuallyfive years ago this week) I did look optimistically out of the windows of theSumburgh Hotel and conclude that all I was seeing were the lights at theairport.

Tromso, fishing boats and Cathedral of the Arctic

Fast forward to late 2008. A seriousattempt to see the Northern Lights was needed. I decided that a good time to try and see the Lights was in the days betweenChristmas and New Year. To try and makethe most of the time available, I found the most northerly airport in Europe thatyou can fly to direct from London. It’sactually Tromso on the coast of Norway, deep inside the Arctic Circle, and wellknown as a good place for seeing the Northern Lights. The trip started promisingly.

Amundsen looking into the distance -
presumably for the Northern Lights

On the day I arrived it was bitterly cold,plenty of snow around and the skies were clear but there was no sign of theNorthern Lights. Things degerated afterthis. The cloud cover closed in, therain started (yes, it did warm up that much), and it quickly turned prettysnowy Tromso into slushy overcast Tromso. I didn’t see the skies again after the first day – and there certainlywasn’t a sniff of an aurora. And justwhen I got to point of thinking the trip couldn’t get much worse, I startedfeeling feverish. By the time I got hometo Oxford, I was decidedly unwell, and on the first day my doctor was back atwork after New Year I was diagnosed with pneumonia, told I’d had a very luckyescape, consigned to bed and signed off work for January. We’ll file that trip under ‘disappointing’.

Summer 2010. Not you would think a good time for seeing theNorthern Lights, but it is the next step in my quest to see the Lights. Thebest place in the UK to see the Northern Lights is Shetland - it’s 60 degreesNorth, and although the clear skies can’t be guaranteed, the Lights are visiblefairly regularly. The problem is the unpredictabilityof the aurora – you need a mix of the right activity in the upper atmosphereand the co-operation of the weather closer to sea level. The solution to the unpredictability is tobe on Shetland for lots of time. InSummer 2010 we bought a house on Shetland so that it is possible to spend timeup here waiting for the Northern Lights to appear.

Winter 2011/12. Amongst other travels to both far North and farSouth, this winter has given me some time to spend on Shetland. I was pretty disgruntled at a dramatic showof the aurora in September 2011, when Iwas still down south in Oxford. In lateOctober when I was up on Shetland there was one evening when with a bit ofimagination I could claim that the sky was brighter and greener that I mightotherwise have expected, but it was difficult to claim that I’d “seen theNorthern Lights”. My ‘patience’ wasfinally rewarded earlier this week when at 10:30 on a Sunday evening, throughthe kitchen window, I finally saw the Aurora Borealis. This was the Northern Lights doing exactlywhat the guide books enthuse about – green curtains waving slowly in the nightsky. Splendid. Can now tick that off the list.

Aurora Borealis over Fitful Head on Shetland - seen from the kitchen, January 2012

There are a few of my images from earlier in the week already on Flickr, and if I can add more I certainly will.

And as for what's next - I might get to see the Northern Lights again this winter either on Shetland or further North.

And then, it's probably time to start thinking about the Aurora Australis.

South Georgia, December 2011

2011-12-31T10:39:00.000Z

King Penguins, St Andrews Bay

South Georgia has been on my mindfor a long time. I visited theAntarctic Peninsula in 2007 and the Falkland Islands 18 months later – butSouth Georgia was the missing bit. Italked with lots of polar enthusiasts who had ‘done’ South Georgia, and theircomments were almost always along the lines of ‘fantastic place, shame we hadso few days there’. Most of these folkshad done the classic Antarctic ‘long’ itinerary from Ushuaia or Punta Arenas – spendinga few days in the Falklands, a few days in South Georgia and a few days on thePeninsula and quite a lot of days at sea going between the various points.

From everything I’d heard there wasa huge amount to do and see on South Georgia and a few days was never going todo it justice, particularly give the unreliability of the weather. It was clear to me that I wanted to find a trip that offeredmore than just a few days – eventually step forward Steppes Travel, who I metat Wild Photos 2010 in London, who were able to find me a trip that focussed onSouth Georgia and, better yet, did so starting from Stanley in the Falklandswhich both reduced the sea time and gave me the perfect excuse to spend time inthe Falklands before-hand.

Plancius, Stanley Harbour, Falkland Islands

The trip, 14 days starting andfinishing in Stanley, was run by Oceanwide Expeditions on a converted Dutchhydrographic vessel, now called Plancius, on this trip with 95 passengers onboard. The crossing from the Falklandsis about 780 nautical miles and even in good weather this does take around 72hours. This fact is rather glossed overin the pre-trip information which talks about two days at sea – and there wascertainly some restlessness amongst some of the passengers who I suspectthought they might be seeing mountains and glaciers when they drew back thecurtains on the third morning.

King Haakon Bay under clouds

We did finally see South Georgialate on the third day – almost exactly 72 hours after we steamed through TheNarrows at Stanley Harbour. Our firstsight of South Georgia (King Haakon Bay on the south side of the island) wasn’tquite the picture book view the guide books might have suggested – we had lowcloud and a decidedly unpleasant wind which meant that only ‘essential’ zodiacwork could be attempted. In the contextof this trip, the ‘essential’ zodiac work was off-loading a large group ofski-mountaineers who were planning to attempt to cross South Georgia (the Shackleton Challenge) emulating Ernest Shackleton. The rest of us we were torn between thedesire to be off the boat looking for wildlife and the relief that we would beeating hot food and sleeping in warm berths rather than fighting the elementsand sleeping in wet wind-swept tents.

Orca in South Georgia

Our first exposure to SouthGeorgia’s wildlife came very early the following morning but wasn’t theexpected fur seals or king penguins – it was the call of ‘whale’ over the shipsintercom. We found a pod of orca huntingin the waters off the north coast of South Georgia – the whales were between usand the shoreline, with the sun behind us. The mountains provided a back-drop,and the cold air ensured that the whales ‘blows’ were really clear to see. The trip organisers had certainly got all thechoreography just right.

Over the next seven days we had 12successful off-ship excursions – and probably lost four other excursions to theweather. These excursions were all onthe north side of the island – this is the more sheltered side of the islandsand also where almost all the wildlife is to be found. Sheltered is a relative term in this part ofthe world – some of the bays are wide open and the winds can whip across veryfast indeed. The ‘nightmare scenario’for all the expedition boats is putting 100 people ashore in calm conditionsand then being caught out by rapidly changing weather. On a couple of occasions we needed curtaillandings to ensure that we didn’t get caught, and on one other occasion theexpedition staff needed to resort to pulling the zodiacs onto the beach sternfirst to ensure that they were going to be stable enough to allow passengers toget back on. Over the course of the weekevery one got to fully appreciate the term ‘wet-landing’.

I’m going to pick out four of the sites we visited during the trip –three involved using zodiacs to get ashore, the fourth (Drygalski Fjord) was aship-based cruise along one of the deep fjords at the southern tip of theisland. There will be more about all thelocations I visited on South Georgia in the Place Notes site that I’m currentlydeveloping.

Our first big penguin colonylanding was at Salisbury Plain and it introduced us to lots of aspects of beingashore in South Georgia. We had a wetlanding, aggressive fur seals, wild changing weather and lots of kingpenguins. Salisbury Plain (named becauseof supposed similarity to central Wiltshire – although I couldn’t see itmyself) is a big wide sweeping beach with a hill behind it and fresh waterrunning down into the bay. This is idealterrain for seal and penguin colonies – but very exposed to the elements. Whenwe landed the weather was still and calm, by the time we’d been on the groundfor two hours the ship was disappearing in low cloud and the dry sunny weatherhad degenerated into horizontal rain. Wedid get to learn about the various techniques for evading fur seal (it involvesa lot of growling back), and we also got to know the king penguins and theirchicks. December is a really good timeto see lots of king penguins – at this time of year (early summer) all thepenguins are on the beaches. Last year’schicks are going through their final moults, the mature adults are eithermoulting or are getting into their courtship routines or are sitting oneggs. The one things the Kings aren’tdoing, is spending a lot of time out at sea – so the beaches and colonies arefull to bursting.

The landing at St Andrews Bay was,for me, the highlight of the time on South Georgia. We needed two attempts to get ashore here –the first attempt was scuppered by high winds. No one was saying this at the time, but the aborted landing was a goodthing. If we had got ashore on that daywhen the visibility was poor we wouldn’t have seen the colony in its realglory. As with the Salisbury Plain landing,we went ashore quite a long way from the main colony site, in this case at thenorth end of the beach.

We were then ledinland up towards an outlook point which looked down on the colony – steppingup onto the outlook point and seeing upwards of 400,000 penguins in front of meis something that I’m not going to forget anytime soon. One of the reasons for coming all the way toSouth Georgia was to see huge single species colonies like this. I’ve seen David Attenborough talking aboutthese sites on numerous television programmes over the years, I knew I wasgoing to be seeing a lot of penguins, but somehow really seeing it was still ashock to the system.

The Drygalski Fjord is the biggestinlet at the south tip of South Georgia – and it’s both big enough and deepenough to allow a reasonable sized ship to cruise in, and to go right up to theend face of the Risting glacier at the end of the fjord. So that’s what we did.

Our final landing in South Georgiawas at Grytviken and is the one place where it’s possible to wander round anold whaling station – and to send postcards and buy souvenirs. There were at one time seven active whalingstations dotted along the north coast of South Georgia. Some of those have been completely clearedaway, others (like Stromness and Prince Olav Harbour) haven’t been cleared buthave been declared out of bounds (flying debris and asbestos being the mainrisks). Grytviken has been made safe, soit is possible to wander round looking at the remaining buildings and some of the old, abandoned whaling boats – the mostshocking aspect is the sheer scale of the machinery.

It’s difficult, from the perspective of the21^st Century, not to see this as anything other a monstrouslybarbaric industry, and to be thankful that the industry became uneconomicbefore the whale populations had been completely wiped out. It seemed that there was something symbolicabout our first real wildlife sighting of the trip being orca, and the finallanding was at a disused whaling station. The reminder that a species can recover from incredibly intensivehunting comes from the Antarctic fur seals that now occupy every beach in SouthGeorgia. These animals were reallyheavily targeted in the early 20^th Century for their amazing softthick pelts. I found how soft they wereby stroking a sample in the museum in Grytviken, I certainly wasn’t about totry and stroke a seal on the beach. Idon’t know if these animals were any more tolerant of man before we tried tomake them extinct, however these days fur seals are extremely aggressive andwill have no hesitation in coming after a Goretex-clad tourist. Their biteprobable wouldn’t actually kill you, but I gather that their dental hygiene leavessomething to be desired and disinfecting the wound probably wouldn’t be apleasant process. Grytviken and itsmuseum are fascinating places – and my only regret is that we didn’t get moretime to both wander the old station and to do the museum justice.

One of the things I learnt moreabout – and saw the impact of – was global warming. Like everywhere else South Georgia is gettingwarmer. The most visible impact of thisis that almost all the glaciers are receding, which has the potential to completelychange the environment on South Georgia. Until very recently almost all the glaciers did reach all the way to thesea, now quite lot of them stop short of the coast. Even just comparing guide book images towhat’s visible on the ground highlights how rapidly this change is happen. This change doesn’t make a huge direct differenceto a lot of the species on the island in the short term, but it does to therats! South Georgia has had rats sincepeople first got there (and got ship-wrecked there) – and where there are ratsthey have a really major impact on the ground nesting birds, and given the lackof trees, almost all the birds are ground nesting! At the moment the areas that the rats havebeen able to get to are limited by the glaciers, but if (or when) the glaciersrecede from the coast the rats will have the run of the island and would almostcertainly have a catastrophic impact on the bird populations. At the moment there is a pilot rat eradication programme underway on South Georgia with the aim of completelyclearing the rat population while it’s still constrained to limited areas.

Shackleton survived the Shackleton Challenge, but he
died on his next visit to South Georgia in 1922.

The other impact of the globalwarming is on people, specifically the group attempting the ShackletonChallenge I mentioned at the top of the article. When Shackleton did the ‘ShackletonChallenge’ in 1916 (he probably didn’t call it that, and he almost certainlyconsidered the 800 miles in an open boat to get from Elephant Island as the greater challenge) he had the benefit of much colder conditions that climbersget now on the challenge. Shackleton,Worsley and Crean were able to scramble up solid (and stable) ice – and totoboggan down a huge ice slide on their way into Stromness. Today challengers face a much tougherchallenge – much of the ice has gone so there a lot more rock to contend with,and where there is ice it is very heavily crevassed and therefore much moredifficult to cross. Of the 24challengers on the trip with me, only 5 (all with really impressivemountaineering CVs) successfully completed the challenge the other 19 came outvia an escape route. I wouldn’t go asfar as saying Shackleton had it easy, but global warming has certainly made thechallenge a very different one these days.

I started by talking about havinghad this trip in mind for a long time – did it live up to my hopes andexpectations? The answer is a prettyemphatic yes. I think we were prettylucky with the weather – we got 12 good excursions in our week around SouthGeorgia, and we also got to see how bleak it can be even in the southernsummer. I’m really pleased with some ofthe pictures I took, although I’m still working through some of them, and I’mreally delighted to have seen the big colonies that South Georgia has tooffer. The sight of so many animals onthe beaches is one that is very difficult to get out of my head. Would I have wanted more time on SouthGeorgia, again yes. If anyone isplanning a three week trip to South Georgia coming out of Stanley, sign me up.

There are two quotes floatingaround in the back of my head that relate to the trip. One of the Frozen Planet team assured me thatI’d really like South Georgia, “It’s like the Peninsula with the volume turnedup”. He was right. The other quote was from of the expedition staff. “If I had two weeks to live, I’d spend oneof them on South Georgia, and the other one getting there”. I think he was probably right too.

UPDATED 18/01/2012: More pictures are now online on Picasa and on Flickr

Falkland Islands, November 2011

2011-12-03T14:26:00.001Z

I don't have a good track record on going back to places - at the end of lots of trips I can be heard saying "I must go back there". The reality is that the attraction of things and places I haven't seen often, even usually, over-rides the lure of the familiar. The other problem is that if a holiday is really good, there is the risk (perhaps more percieved rather than real) that the repeat visit won't be as good and the memories of the first perfect trip will some how be sullied.

In early 2009 I spent an excellent two weeks in the Falklands, and this month I've just spent another fantastic two weeks island hopping in the Falkland Islands. In some ways this was a repeat of the 2009 trip, the key differences being that I opted to come south via Chile rather than using the MoD air-bridge from Brize Norton, and I've come much earlier in the southern hemisphere summer. The birds are either sitting on eggs or are tending to small chicks rather than contempating their autumn migrations.

As with the last trip I opted to spend longer periods on a few islands, rather than trying to visit lots of islands for small periods of time. I've spent time at Darwin and Stanley, both on the East Falkland mainland at the start and end of the trip respectively. It is possible to fly out to the islands immediately on arrival off the international flights, but it does require significant faith in the punctuality of the incoming flight (and in 2009 I was over six hours late). Most people spend a night or two within driving range of the main airport at Mount Pleasant at both beginning and end of the trip. Both Darwin and Stanley have some attractions and interest for both wildlife and history tourists, but for me the real Falklands is out in the islands amongst the wildlife. I had long blocks of time on two similar but very different islands. Sea Lion and Carcass Islands are similar in that they are small (i.e. walkable) islands with very good accommodation (including excellent cooking). They are different in that they are at opposite corners of the of the islands (one in the south east, the other in the north west), and in that Sea Lion is flat while Carcass is mostly rocky and hilly (with just enough flat space to land a FIGAS plane - although the owner of Carcass assures me that the RAF have checked out the ground around the airstrip to confirm that it would be possible, in emergency, to land a Hercules).

On Sea Lion, the stars of the show this time really had to be the orcas, who regularly put in appearances spectacularly close to shore, with a close second being the ridiculously cute gentoo penguin chicks. This, of course, in addition to the kelp and dolphin gulls, the rock and imperial cormorants and the huge number of snipe which lurk deep in the undergrowth where you can only see them if they move or decide to start announcing their presence.

On Carcass there were a lot of the same birds as on Sea Lion, however the Johnny Rooks were very evident, around the settlement at least partly because of Roldan's - the chef - habit of feeding them on a regular basis. I watched over 30 Johnny Rooks follow him down to the beach one afternoon - looking very much like the Falkland Islands answer to the Pied Piper. It was particularly good to see a pair of magnificant Crested Caracaras roughing it alongside their distinctly more rogue-ish cousins the Johnny Rooks (Striated Caracaras). However, my favourite birds on Carcass were probably the long-tailed meadowlarks and the Cobb's wrens, both very visible, and with a litle bit of patience ready to be photographed.

From Stanley, I now join the Plancius for a two week trip to see South Georgia. The boat is sitting in bright sushine in Stanley Harbour as I type, busily off-loading the current passengers to connect with the regular weekly LAN Chile flight.

Even as I sit contemplating South Georgia, I can't help thinking about when I'll be able to get back to the Falklands and what I'd want to do on that trip. Maybe February?

Logistics and thanks. I flew into the Falklands with LAN Chile via Santiago, and my local arrangements were sorted by Arlette Bloomfield at Falkland Island Holdays. In Darwin I stayed with Graham and Fiona Didlick at Darwin House. On Sea Lion Island I stayed at the Sea Lion Lodge with Jenny Luxton, on Carcass stayed with Lorraine and Rob McGill, and finally I stayed with Arlette Betts at Lafone House in Stanley. The UK end of the arrangements were made via Sue Grimwood at Steppes Travel. Thanks to every one who's looked after me over the last couple of weeks, without exception the accommodation and hospitality has been wonderful - and the food, in terms of both quality and quantity just amazing.

(Pictures eventually added in mid-January...)

UPDATED 18/01/2012: More pictures are now online on Picasa and Flickr

Shetland Autumn 2011

2011-11-15T10:53:00.001Z

Over the last few weeks I’ve managed my longest continuousblock of time on Shetland – this has let me get into some sort of routinerather than needing to think about the ferry or flight south as soon as Iarrived, and I did (as per my earlier post)just book a single fare to get to Shetland.

I had just about got into a pattern (mostly writing in themornings, then a walk somewhere in the afternoon), when the clocks changed fromBritish Summer Time to GMT, and it was suddenly getting dark at four in theafternoon. Despite not having to face the tyranny of commuting, I was surprised to find that this did change how I approached theday. The actual number of daylight hourshadn’t dramatically changed, but it now seemed to be wrong not to be upand about by the time it got light, and if I didn’t start my afternoon walkuntil maybe 2:30, there was a real risk that I might be finishing the walk inthe dark. Of course the real bonus is that you can go out and take sunset pictures, and still be home in time for afternoon tea and cake.

At this time of year, you can also expect to see every variantof weather on Shetland (although Shetland is capable to offering any or all ofthe four seasons on one day at any time of year). Over the last few weeks I’ve seenshirt-sleeves warm through to horizontal hail. From still air though to a howling gale. From bright sunshine to steady pouring rain. From crisp clear air to thick fog. This has provided lots of differentphotographic opportunities – as my daily blips and Saturday posts have shown.

One objective on this stay that I’ve hoped to achieve wasvisiting more of the islands. Since webought the house the visits have been very focussed on the southern mainland –but I’m afraid that on this stay I only ventured past Lerwick on two occasions,once to get up to Northmavine to photograph the lighthouse at Eshaness, andonce to go over to Bressay to see the lighthouse there. Must make sure that Muckle Flugga featuresnext time – at least that way I’ll see a bit of Yell and Unst.

Several themes have emerged in my pictures; wind- andwave-swept beaches, boats and lighthouses were probably pretty safe bets – theyare part of every Shetland photo journal. The other theme was ‘neglected stuff’. I found that I’d taken a series of images ofold boats, old building, and even an old phone box – all of which looked as ifthey’d seen better days. There are more images from the last few weeks on Flickr

Next time I'm back up it really will be winter - hopefully with the Northern Lights and Up Helly Aa to add some illumination.

It's not just Lighthouses...

2011-11-09T19:53:00.000Z

I little while ago I realised that there were going to be 27 Saturdays during my temporary escape from daily routine - and since I know that I'll be doing quite a lot of travelling on Saturdays (at least up to Christmas) I thought I'd set up an extra blog site for my six months away to report what I'm doing on each of the Saturdays.

So far I've done 6 Saturdays - one in Oxford, two in Sri Lanka and three on Shetland - and lighthouses seem to have been the recurring theme. I'm not sure I can keep the lighthouse theme going for much longer.

The new blog is http://amonthofsaturdays.blogspot.com/

I'll be writing each entry on or just after the day and trying to post as promptly as I can - but that might be a bit of a struggle in the next few weeks.

My Frozen Planet

2011-11-09T11:23:00.002Z

The BBC Frozen Planet series has already shown lots of amazing images on ourTV screens (in the UK at least) – and I’m sure there are many more to come overthe next few weeks. Never one to ignorea passing band-wagon – I thought I’d fall in step with David Attenborough and Co. and talk a bit about my version of the Frozen Planet. I’ve picked four places that represent MyFrozen Planet – two from the far North and two from the far South.

Port Lockroy, Goudier Island, Antarctic Peninsula (64.8S,63.5W)

I visited Port Lockroy as part of a short trip to theAntarctic Peninsula crossing the Drake Passage from Ushuaia. We visited a number of stations and camps aswe stopped off at various places around the peninsula, but only one was flyingthe Union Jack. Port Lockroy (named fora French politician!) was initially a whaling station, then a military base andfinally a research base for about 50 years up until 1962, when it wasabandoned. It was restored in 1996 bythe UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and is now a small museum plus post office andshop. It’s one of the few places on theAntarctica Peninsula were tourists can do tourist things like send postcards,buy souvenir T-shirts and get their passport stamped.

As well as a small group of summer residentslooking after the base, there are lots of gentoo penguins on Goudier Island. The penguins have been taking part in a longrunning experiment into the impact of tourists on penguin life. The island isdivided into two parts; one open to tourists and the other not. It appears that any negative impact thattourists might have on the penguins is countered by the fact that the presenceof people deters the scavenging skuas. Original blog entry.

Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands (52.4S, 59.1W)

This might not strictly meet the BBC definitions to beincluded in Frozen Planet – but it makes my list. Sea Lion Island is the southern-mostinhabited island in the Falkland Islands. It makes my list because it was where I was first able to get up closeand personal with gentoo penguins. Gentoos are creatures of habit – they follow regular paths from theirroosts down to the sea and they do this at pretty regular times morning andevening. These regular patterns meanthat they get to know their bit of the beach pretty well so they can spotchanges. If you just stop on one oftheir ‘highways’ they will look pretty disgruntled and either stop and wait foryou to get out of their way (and they can be very patient) or they’ll head offelsewhere. In either case you aredisturbing their routine behaviour and you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Much better is to find a quiet area on thebeach, at first light, and just sit down as low as you get (ideally to penguin height) and wait and watch. If you get lucky and sit still enough thepenguins will come and investigate the strange new rock on their beach. Original blog entry.

Ikateq, Eastern Greenland (65.6N, 37.9W)

Eastern Greenland is usually described in the guide books asbeing the ‘traditional’ or ‘undeveloped’ side of Greenland and by Greenlandersas ‘Tunu’ (the Back Side). I think thisis to make the distinction between the more modern parts of Greenland aroundNuuk on the west coast. The main town onthe east coast is Tasiilaq – you can tell it’s a town by the fact that thereare roads. All the roads stop at theedge of town, but there are roads in the town, and a few very rundown cars thatare only really of use in the summer. Thispart of Greenland would be pretty much unreachable by visitors (other than bysummer supply boats) were it not for the Americans and the Cold War. There is an airport in Kulusuk with a fullsize runway, built by the US military to supply their one-time radar station onthe island. This is just a short, but spectacular,helicopter hop from Tasiilaq. The othermeans of transport that comes into its own in summer are boats.

The boats get frozen in during the winter,but in the long summer days they provide ways to reach some of the other smallersettlements around the coast. I was ableto take a small boat from Tasiilaq round the southern coast of AmmassalikIsland to the almost abandoned settlement at Ikateq. This gave the chance to see some of thecoastline, and to get dramatically close to some of the icebergs that driftslowly south down the Greenland coast each summer. Original blog entry.

Holmiabukta, Svalbard (79.8N, 11.4E)

My final frozen rendezvous is the highest latitude stop –this is a largely unremarkable little inlet near the northern edge of Svalbard.However, in summer 2010 it was a magnet for both polar bears and tourists. The bears were there to pick scraps from awhale carcass that had been washed ashore, and the tourists were there to watchthe bears. Both sorts of visitors weredrawn from a big area – the bears by scent, and the tourists by expedition boatrumour mill. I wrote (and enthusedendlessly) about this trip at the time, but I still look at the photographs toremind myself how good the experience was.

We were able to spend many hours sitting in Zodiacs watching bears haulscraps from the submerged carcass which completely disappeared at high tide andwas revealed as row of huge still-connected vertebrae when the tide went out. Original blog entry.

And next

I’m just about to head back to the Falkland Islands,including Sea Lion Island again, and to South Georgia (described recentlyby one of the Frozen Planet team as ‘Antarctica with the volume turned up’). I can feel my passport and camera twitching. More blog entries to come as and when internet access allows.

A Taste of Sri Lanka

2011-11-02T20:17:00.005Z

To complement my earlier blog post about Sri Lanka, I've now selected a few more pictures from the large number I took last month.

These are now available in several places.

On Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossmackenzie/sets/72157627910716755/

On Picasa

http://picasaweb.google.com/102172062058878439747/SriLankaOctober2011

On Slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/ram65/a-taste-of-sri-lanka

And as an experiment

On YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6ItMGP9ss0

Sri Lanka October 2011

2011-10-26T10:12:00.000+01:00

I can’t explain why it’s taken quite so long to get round to visiting Sri Lanka. We first visitedIndia over 20 years ago – and I’ve been back there several times for both workand vacation over the years. I addedPakistan to my sub-continent collection a long time ago too, and more recentlywe added both Nepal and Bhutan to the list. But, somehow we managed to keep leaving outSri Lanka.

It’s not that we were deliberately ignoring the country –we’ve been to England Sri Lanka Test matches, and just after the 2004 IndianOcean tsunami we talked about visiting in response to the pleas for tourists tocome back to the country. Somehow otherplans and destinations kept getting in the way.

We didn’t even plan to go to Sri Lanka this year – we wereon the point of booking a trip to Japan, when the Tohoku earthquake and tsunamistruck – but after a bit of thrashing around we decided that Sri Lanka wasgoing give us some decent wildlife watching with a bit of culture thrown in.

We based our itinerary on a 10 day trip that WildlifeWorldwide offer,but decided that we were just going to stretch it a bit – so we added in anextra night in the Cultural Triangle (more culture), an extra night in the HillCountry (more cool), an extra night in the national parks (more wildlife) andan extra night on the coast (more luxury).

The Culture Bit

Rock Temple, Dambulla

Sri Lanka has an impressive inventory of UNESCO World Heritagesites – we clocked up six of these on our trip (Anuradhupura, Polonnaruwa,Sigiriya, Dambulla and Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy, in the Cultural Triangle)in the middle of the island, plus Galle down on the south coast). The first three, although impressive in some ways, didn’t really provide either much sense of inspiration orexcitement. I think this is partlybecause there were very few other visitors, either from Sri Lanka or overseas, around at these sites – and theyreally felt a bit unused and unloved. This changed as we got to the sites in the southern part of the CulturalTriangle. There was a definite buzz toDambulla, and a short but hot climb past the new Japanese-funded Golden Temple tookus up and into the old Rock Temple complex. This was the first site in Sri Lanka that both intrigued and impressed. A huge temple complex with hundreds ofmade-to-fit statues tucked into an over-hanging cleft in a cliff is a bitmind-blowing when you read about it – and still more mind-blowing when you getto wander round. The final culturalepisode was to visit the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. Our guide recommended that rather than visitthis late in the day (as our itinerary suggested) we would have a much bettervisit early in the day. I can’t commenton what we would have seen in the afternoon, but we managed (by goodco-ordination I’m sure) to get into the Temple just in time for the morningpuja, and were expertly navigated, by a local guide, around the various partsof Temple despite the huge number of locals visiting on a Saturdaymorning. Huge crowds of people, in aconfined space, can be a bit daunting – these crowds were so cheerful and goodspirited that the experience was thoroughly uplifting.

The Hill Country Bit

Gregory Lake, Nuwara Eliya

After the heat and the culture we headed a little bit southand up into the Hill Country in the middle of Sri Lanka. This is the area where you turn off theair-conditioning in the van, where the hotel rooms have extra blankets andelectric fires, where the locals wear woolly hats and where your guide asks ifyou have warm clothes with you. Ourthick high-latitude blood didn’t really register the climate as being cold, butit was nice to be able to wander round in shirt sleeves without dripping sweat,and to get a decent night’s sleep without the background roar of anair-conditioning unit. We were based in at The Grand Hotel in Nuwara Eliya for a couple of nights, and had a completely untimetabledday. This gave us the space to wander inthe local parks, to talk with the locals and generally just relax. I think this is the first time we’ve decidedto add in a ‘do-nothing’ day on a trip like this, and we’ll certainly do itagain.

The Wildlife Bit

Leopard, Yala National Park

After getting de-stressed in the Hills (after all, severaldays of full-on culture do need a bit of recovery time) we dropped down intothe low-lying southern coastal plains to spend four days in three of SriLanka’s showcase National Parks – Yala, Bundala and Udawalawe. These parks were everything we’d hopedfor. They were relatively quiet(particularly Bundala and Udawalawe) and the wildlife did its stuff. We got positively blasé about the number ofkingfishers and bee-eaters that were on display everywhere, and got wonderfulopportunities to watch lots of waders particularly in Bundala. The highlight of the first day in Yala wasthe large number of elephants around – the elephants are of course always therebut we got lucky in being in the right places at the right time. The star turn that didn’t show up on thefirst day were the leopards. Our guideswere clearly making leopard spotting the top priority on the second day – andwe spent a lot of time touring the areas that the leopards frequent. We had one fleeting glimpse of a leopard inmid-morning as it headed into the deep undergrowth beside one of the huge tanks(reservoirs) that are at the heart of the public bit of Yala – I was fortunateto swing my binoculars into exactly the right place as the guide shouted‘leopard’ and got an amazing view of a leopards back beautifully lit by thesun. Our next view of a leopard was manyhours later. One of our guides got a tip-off that a leopard had been seen closeto where we had seen the one in the morning, the down-side was that at thispoint we were about as far from this tank as it was possible to be inYala. As we hurtled at breakneck (notliterally) speed across the rutted park tracks we spotted other land-roversheading in the same direction – news of a leopard spreads fast! We were rewarded by seeing not just oneleopard gradually tracking his way round the tank, but encountering anotherleopard in the faded evening light. Thisis what wildlife watching is about.

Days three and four were in Bundala and Udawalawe. Bundala is a coastal park – which is WaderCentral – and a really important wintering place for migrants. The migrants were just starting to appear insmall numbers – our guide kept saying that we should here a little bit later inthe year. For me the highlights were theterns (particularly the Caspian tern, which is huge) and the “tickny”, whichour guide got very excited about. It took us ages to realise he was saying‘thick-knee’ – the other name for the stone curlew!

Udawalawe is back inland, and was createdabout 40 years around a new reservoir to ensure that reservoir water feedscouldn’t be disrupted by development activity. It is often described as being Sri Lanka's answer to the Africansavannah - it offers lots of elephants plus huge numbers of birds. EarlyOctober is the end of the dry season and the birds and animal are all concentratedaround the waterholes and the hugely shrunken main lakes. Once the rains getstarted the water levels in the lake rise by several meters. It’s more thanslightly tempting to go back later in the winter to see the transformation.

The Luxury Bit

Closenburg Hotel, Galle

To end our trip we decided to spend a couple of days inGalle (at the Closenberg Hotel) and Colombo (at the Galle Face Hotel). These were contrasting luxuryexperiences. The Closenberg oozescolonial style (and still has four-poster beds and colonial era electrics), and has the feel of acountry house hotel overlooking the sea. The only downside there was that we were the only guests apart from a50-strong French coach party (watching the end of the Wales-France World Cupsemi-final was a slightly tense moment!). The Galle Face Hotel (modern 5-star luxury in a fantastic location) was our pick to end the trip – our alternative tothe airport hotel originally proposed – this gave is the chance for a lateevening walk along the Indian Ocean waterfront on Galle Face Green – amongst hundred (maybethousands) of locals and a few tourists. I’d strongly recommend either starting or finishing (or both) a SriLankan trip by a day or two looking out over the Indian Ocean.

Surprises

In some ways Sri Lanka did exactly what it promised to do –there was a really rich mix of culture and wildlife. On this trip the wildlife did undoubtedlyleave the enduring mark. We saw a fantastic collection of bird life (well over100 species) plus many mammals and reptiles in the parks – particularly theelephants and, of course, the leopards. The people of Sri Lanka were incredibly welcoming, particularly when wespent time away from the main tourist sites, and were clearly pleased that wewere visiting their country. The biggestrevelation on this trip, however, was the food. I’d somewhat naively assumed that the food was just going to be ‘sort oflike south India’. The Sri Lanka versionof ‘rice and curry’ is a fantastic cuisine all of its own, and we also found(to our surprise) that the ‘international’ cuisine offered up everywhere from majorhotels right through to little lunchtime restaurant stops was also of anamazingly high standard. I’m not sureI’ll ever get to the stage of hiring my own cook, but if I do, I’ll start myrecruitment in Sri Lanka.

Next time

At the end of every trip I wondered about what we might havedone differently. In some ways a firsttrip to Sri Lanka needs to include at least some of the cultural places, but ifI was re-doing the trip now I’d cut out the few days at the top of the CulturalTriangle, and start around Kandy. An extraday in Yala would always be good, and on a return visit I’d want to add in theNational Park at Sinharaja and I’d try and time things so that whale watchingoff the south coast was an option!

Logistics

Wildlife Worldwide put together the itinerary and handed usover to Baurs (a Sri Lankan/Swiss company) to do all theground handling. Our local guide wasSunil de Alwis – who did a wonderful job in driving us over 2000 kms and insharing his knowledge and expertise about the wildlife of the island. We flew with Sri Lankan Airlines – who haveboth direct flights, from London to Colombo, and slightly-longer indirectflights that go via the Maldives. Don’tget too excited if you get on a flight with a Maldivian stop-over – they don’t letyou get off the plane, unless you’re actually due to spend time in theMaldives. Maybe next time.

Stop thinking like a tourist

2011-09-25T18:36:00.000+01:00

With the start of my temporary escape (henceforth just TE) from timetabled routine approaching, I'm still struggling to stop thinking like a tourist.

Over the last 30 years travels have tended to be largely planned around two, or in a few cases three, week blocks of time away from the lab or office. These blocks have had to be planned far in advance to allow things to be fitted around work projects and domestic plans and commitments (and in a few cases trip availability). I'm still thinking like this. Over the next few months I've got three 'slots' booked each of which could have been done in normal annual leave - although I certainly couldn't have done all three in a three month period. Part of the challenge is booking trips through the usual tour companies. Their bread and butter is mostly based around planning and selling trips to folks taking normal time off from work and returning on a fixed timetable, so a lot of their trips fit that pattern. And to be honest using these companies is generally the easy way to arrange to go places.

I hope that realising that this is how I'm still thinking will give me the chance to do something different later in my TE. My short term action has been to tear up all the ideas that would fit tidily into routine life, there will be chances to do these things in future years. Next step is to figure out something that I wouldn't find easy to fit into the timetables. That probably involves buying one way tickets rather than return ones, and being more relaxed about what comes next. The last time I can remember buying a one-way ticket ticket was when I came back to the UK from the US almost 25 years ago - it's high time I bought another one.

10 More Days

2011-09-18T11:45:00.002+01:00

After a couple of years of contemplation and a lot of time talking to people and following the blogs and tweets of various career-breakers, I’m about to join their ranks.

At the end of September I’ll be packing up my desk at the Open University, handing over the Learning and Teaching Systems reins to my colleague Paul (twitter.com/paulbeeby - I hope he’s going to start tweeting soon so I can keep track of what’s happening), and leaving Moodle and e-learning behind for six months.

The first three months are planned – Sri Lanka, Shetland and the South Atlantic - but although I’ve got lots of ideas for the second three months (including some places not starting with S), I have for the first time in a very long time got no firm plans.

One of my frustrations, over the last five years particularly, has been the lack of time to think about the trips I’ve been fitting in around work commitments. I’ve rushed off somewhat manically to the airport as soon as I could, and spent as much time away as possible – and then plunged back into work again. One consequence has been not enough time to go through the photographs I’ve taken or to put together the blog postings, or any longer pieces of writing, from the trips.

My hope during the six months way from the office is to have time to make the trips a bit slower than they might otherwise have had to be, to reflect on and to write about my travelling, to spend some longer chunks of time in our house in Shetland, and maybe get re-enthused about e-learning.

I'm not planning to update my work blog again until next Easter – I will be posting here, and I’ll be tweeting (twitter.com/rossmackenzie) when connectivity allows.

Sitting in my study in Oxford on a Sunday morning, I have lots of conflicting thoughts about the time away. Part of me can’t picture being away from the OU for such a long time (I first joined the University in late 1995 – and the commute to Milton Keynes is just part of what I do most days).

Part of me can’t picture doing anything other than returning to the OU in April. And yet another part of me can’t picture getting back into the formality of the daily commute again.

I'm certainly looking forward to the opportunities this winter will present - and I will give the occasional thought to the roll-out of Moodle 2 at the OU.

Back in the Wild North - Shetland September 2011

2011-09-15T22:37:00.001+01:00

Decided it was time for a quick gardening trip up to Shetland.

My work colleagues main pre-occupation ahead of the trip, aside from the observation that it was a long way to go to cut the grass, was that the weather was going to be bad ‘up there’. The stories of Hurricane Katia crossing the Atlantic to wreak havoc on Britain were all over the media – and that led to the assumption that if it was going to be bad in England, it would inevitably be worse in Scotland and, therefore, near apocalyptic on Shetland.

I’m pleased to report that Shetland came through the battering unscathed – indeed the weather was better (and certainly warmer) than when I came up for the Tall Ships in July. When I arrived the airport windsock was hanging limp at the end of the runway, and despite some rain over the weekend – the sun did shine, otters got seen, beaches got walked, boats in the harbour got photographed and the grass did get cut.

And when I turned up late back in Milton Keynes everyone just assumed I’d been delayed by the weather and had to spend an extra night on Shetland. No such luck. Flybe managed to strand me (and lots of other folks) in Aberdeen overnight by encountering “technical problems” with the plane coming up from Birmingham.

These and other photographs are on Picasa and Flickr

So where is Iceland?

2011-08-17T21:17:00.006+01:00

I’m reading Simon Winchester’s biography of the Atlantic at the moment ("Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories"), and thoroughly enjoying it. His enthusiasm for some of the undersea place-names has made me think back to a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago in praise of the inflight information system on Air Canada.

One of Winchester’s throw away lines at the start of the book alludes to the fact that he ‘must have transversed this particular body of water five hundred times’. Aside from the fact that this is just bragging, and I’m going to forgive him that he has also crossed ‘this particular body of water’ by boat, a journey that is still on my must-do-sometime list, this did start me thinking about how many times I’ve crossed the Atlantic.

I started by digging back through old passports. We Brits don’t get stamps when we come into the UK, but I’ve got a fairly substantial collection of US entry stamps – 21 that I can see, plus three for Canada and one for Chile – that 25 trips – 50 crossings. Easy so far.

Then we come the more difficult trips – how far across the Atlantic do you need to go to have really crossed it? The Falkland Islands are pretty close to South America (at least so certain Argentine lobby groups would have you believe). For the sake of this argument we’ll include flying from the Falkland Islands via Ascension as a valid transatlantic crossing (and coming back again). That gets me to 52 crossings.

Greenland might technically be part of Denmark (and therefore of Europe) but it’s awfully close to Ellesmere Island (definitely Canada), and only separated from Baffin Island (also Canada) by Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait. So I think I need to class my trip to Greenland in 2007 as having included another couple of transatlantic crossings. We’ve got to 54 now.

However, if we’re classing Greenland as having included a transatlantic crossing, what about Iceland? When I went to Greenland I went via Reykjavik, so when did I cross the Atlantic? My map of the Atlantic clearly shows the water between Iceland and Greenland as the Denmark Strait, and the water between Scotland and Iceland as ‘Atlantic Ocean’, so do I get to count my trip to Iceland in 2006 as an transatlantic crossing? Seems too easy. That’s 56.

But it doesn’t seem quite right. The Faroe Islands are on my wish list too – are they far enough away to count as a transatlantic crossing? Confusing business this travel lark.

The Photo-a-Day Habit

2011-08-13T22:36:00.004+01:00

I got a little bit of local fame (or infamy) last week.

Junior Photographer, c.1971

Completing a year of sharing my daily photo habit on Blipfoto got me a little item in the Oxford Journal. I did a short telephone interview with someone from the paper and an article based on the interview appeared plus a photo from my occasional 'Cafés of Headington' series and a self-portrait I took in Greenland trip a few years ago. The article was mostly right - although I think I might have over-estimated how early I got my first camera. The earliest picture I've been able to find where I have a camera round my neck was taken in the Alps in summer 1971, when I was 10. There's no point lying about my age any more, having been outed in the Oxford Journal as a '50-year old Open University IT manager'. I decided not to complicate things by getting into explaining what an educational technologist was during the interview.

Cafes of Headington. April 2011: Picture # 2298

The newspaper hook was the fact that I'd taken a picture every day for a year, although for me this was just a continuation of a much longer standing habit. I've been taking pictures regularly since the late 1990's, and I've documented holidays and trips with a camera for a lot longer than this. The move to digital in 2004 made me start to think a bit more about my photography, and the ability to experiment more and see the results immediately encouraged me to resolve to take a picture each day during 2005. Having made that resolution just before Christmas in 2004 there didn't seem to be any good reason to wait until the first of January to get started, so my photo-a-day sequence actually started on 24th December 2004, with a picture of an art installation taken from my office window at the Open University. I also set up this blog to share the images - in reality I don't think anyone else was watching, but the purpose was to provide an incentive for me not to break the sequence.

Modern Art - Open University: Picture #1

Once I got to the end of 2005, a year which had turned out to include a number of interesting trips both in the UK and further afield, the process of looking for a picture to say something about the day had become a habit, and I just kept going.

Persepolis, Iran, November 2005: Picture # 338

Although I was still taking pictures every day I stopped posting a daily image and this blog changed into my place for reporting on the many trips I was making and a place where I provided links to my Flickr and Picasa accounts. This was my routine until late July last year when I was encouraged to post my daily picture onto Blipfoto. 28^th July 2010 was my first day on blip, and also my 2043rd photo-of-the-day.

Riverside, Milton Keynes, July 2010 : Picture # 2043

Today was Blip number 382, and photo-of-the-day 2424.

Reaping & Sowing, Oxford, August 2011: Picture # 2424

Two of the questions that the Oxford Journal asked were essentially “What do you look for in the daily photograph?” and “Will you stop?”

I don’t think I’ve got an answer to the second question – I certainly can’t see a reason for stopping, although I’m sure something will happen one day to break my continuous run. The first question is more challenging. If I’m travelling or doing something unusual, I’ll always have a camera with me – on these occasions my problem is usually deciding which of the many images to post. On a more routine day, I might well need to go hunting for a blip. Sometimes I’ll have an idea that I want to seek out, on other days serendity will offer me something to blip. The urge to photograph boats one work-day lunchtime, resulted in my discovering that there was actually a marina (on the canal) just a few minutes from office. If I’m in Oxford (which was the angle that the Oxford Journal wanted) I’ll try to find a blip that says something about Oxford, perhaps people punting on the river or the gate to an Oxford college. Inevitably, the images say something about me and what I’m thinking as well as where I am. I’ve taken ‘pictures-of-the-day’ on every continent except Africa (an oversight that I must rectify). I’ve taken pictures when I’ve been happy and miserable – and even when I was laid up with pneumonia.

Oxford, August 2005: Picture # 248

Falkland Islands, February 2009: Picture # 1515

Greenland, August 2007: Picture # 956

My photo-a-day habit is a well entrenched one – over the next few weeks I’ll keep the Oxford, Milton Keynes and Shetland images coming, and after that there should be a few months of rather further afield images to add to the blip collection.

Shetland, October 2010: Picture # 2112

Update: The article in the Oxford Journal managed to find its way to the attention of the OU Communications team - and they (with a little input from me) produced this item on the Open University Platform.

Another Update: 28th October 2011. Picture # 2500

Quendale Beach, Shetland, October 2011: Picture # 2500

Photo a Day (mp3)

Tall Ships and Puffins - Shetland July 2011

2011-07-31T15:55:00.001+01:00

If you want to see puffins at close quarters, it doesn’t get much better than Sumburgh Head. I’m not sure if you can actually see puffins without getting out of the car – but it’s pretty close, and it’s only a few steps from the car park to the puffin-covered cliffs. July is also a really good time to see the puffins en-masse. In good years there will be lot of feeding of youngsters obvious, just ahead of fledging time. However, this year hasn’t been a good year for lots of the seabirds and there has been very little evidence of the puffins bringing in sand-eels for youngsters, for which read there aren’t many pufflings around – and the attentions of the bonxies and the hoodies will have taken a toll of the limited number of chicks around. This means that lots of the adult puffins are just hanging around on the cliffs waiting for the signal to head out to sea for the winter. The guillemot cliffs, usually alive with noise, are already bare – the poor breeding season leaving the birds no reason to stay around.

This July there was another reason for heading to Shetland – the return of the Tall Ships. These magnificent boats last put in an appearance in Shetland in 1999, so their reappearance was long overdue. The harbour at Lerwick is pretty picturesque at any time, but adding in the Napoleonic-era sight of masts and spars towering over the waterfront buildings really does make it special. There were almost 60 official Tall Ships in town, including 15 of the huge Class A boats (for those of the right age – think, Onedin Line), and lots more tourist yachts in town to see the festivities. During the few days leading up to the events in Lerwick, the ships were gradually turning up around the Shetland Islands – their progress being more than slightly impeded by the fierce (and unseasonal) northerly winds coming straight down from the Arctic. I'm not sure that the helicopter escort provided to the Europa was needed, but it did add extra drama to the images.

There have always been close links between Shetland and Norway. There is a still controversial story about Shetland being handed over from Norway to Scotland in lieu dowry at the time of a Royal wedding in the 15th Century. Over the years there have always been important trading links between Shetland and Norway. One of the reminders of this close link is the Shetland Bus memorial in Scalloway, commemorating the Second World War communications link into the Norwegian Resistance movement. The Tall Ships provides another reminder of close relationship between Shetland and Norway. Almost a third of the bigger boats were flying Norwegians flags, and these mostly crewed by teenagers. The breaking news from Oslo on the Friday cast a shadow over the event – every boat in harbour had flags at half-mast, and the Norwegian boats suspended their ‘open-ship’ tours on the Saturday.

No Wrong Weather at the South End - Shetland June 2011

2011-06-12T22:37:00.002+01:00

A week on Shetland can, at any time of the year, offer a huge variety of weather, and at the height of summer there is certainly plenty of daylight to enjoy the meteorological variety. The trick, if that's the right word, is to choose your entertainment to match the weather.

If the weather is bright and sunny there is no better entertainment than visiting Sumburgh Head. The road up to the RSPB Reserve and Sumburgh lighthouse is lovely, but you get an even better view of the sea and the Head by walking slowly up from the Sumburgh Hotel (an ideal place for a lunch stop) and Jarlshof. At this time of year you'll certainly get to see eider, oystercatcher, terns, wheatears, various gulls and maybe a bronxie (great skua) or an arctic skua, as well as gannets heading to or from Noss. On the cliffs as you get up to the Head you'll see guillemots, razorbills, shags and puffins. Out to sea you'll also see rafts of guillemots and puffins taking a break from nest duty. The downside of the bright sunny weather is that as well as being good for us, it's also good for puffins. So while there may be a few puffins sitting around the cliffs, most will either be sitting on eggs in their burrows, or will be out at sea.

If you come back on a wild and blustery day (which could very well be the next day), it may not be quite so pleasant to wander up the coastal path but your reward is likely to be lots more puffins. If the seas are rough, the fishing is much less easy, so if there aren't yet young demanding to be fed, the puffins not lurking in burrows will be sitting around the cliff tops very willing to pose for photographs.

But what if it rains? When the rains falls and the wind blows it's not very pleasant to wander around at Sumburgh Head. On days like this, the ideal antidote is to find one of the local voes and sit and wait for otters to appear. Wet, windy weather may not be ideal for us to be outside, but (provided you can find somewhere up-wind) it's perfect weather for otters and for otter spotters.

We had all these sorts of weather in a few days around the south end - and got to see puffins and otters, and to get sun-burnt too.

Update: There are more pictures on Flickr and on Picasa

Another update: A rather scrappy audioboo version of the post - still working on this aspect!

South end of Shetland (mp3)

More fun by Ferry, May 2011

2011-05-22T18:21:00.004+01:00

We’re at the start of National Ferry Fortnight. This is a campaign by the UK’s ferry operators to encourage us to go places by boat rather than just jumping onto planes.

This seems really relevant to us. Not only are we planning to go north to Shetland by NorthLink ferry in the next few days, but we’ve also decided to abandon our plans for a long haul trip in October and to instead spend some time using the many Caledonian MacBrayne ferries that frequent the west and north of Scotland.

There is something about going places by ferry that just feels more civilised than most forms of air travel – the pace of life is slower, there’s space to walk around (and to take pictures), you can eat and drink if and when you want to, and on overnight crossings it’s possible lie down in a real bed without needing to re-mortgage the house.

Ferries were always part of my younger travelling life. I can recall many crossings of the North Channel between Larne and Stranraer, and also lots of times when summer holidays involved ferry routes. Rosslare to Le Havre was always my favourite way of getting from Ireland to France, and some of the strongest memories involved using the Caledonian Macbrayne ferries to go to the Outer Hebrides. I can even recall quite a few Dover to Calais crossings when I was student – this was the direct route for weekends in Paris before the Channel tunnel was an option.

Once my student days had passed I seemed to rather abandon ferries and go pretty much everywhere by air. I can remember the excitement when we booked CalMac to go to Islay about ten years ago. I also realised that although many things had changed in the UK over the almost 20 years since my last long ferry crossing, the meals on the CalMac ferry were still pretty much the same. Mind you it is hard to improve on fish and chips or scotch pies.

Over the last ten years I’ve left the British mainland by ferry heading in lots of directions – I’ve been across the North Sea to Norway and to Denmark, I’ve gone south from Weymouth to the Channel Islands and I’ve revisited the Outer Hebrides and gone north from Aberdeen to Shetland several times. In the case of the Shetland route lots of time in the last twelve months.

Getting to Shetland by the Northlink ferry takes much longer than the air route (even on FlyBe’s bad days), but it always feels like a more satisfying (and authentic) way to make the journey. No matter how bumpy the crossing has been it’s always good to see and on rough crossings feel the ferry come into Bressay Sound as it approaches Lerwick.

This autumn I’ll be heading up to Shetland, but I’m planning to do this by one of the more indirect and ferry intensive routes. Rather than heading to Aberdeen and getting the direct ferry from there we’re intending to head to Oban on the west coast of Scotland then use CalMac to go North via the Hebrides.

The first leg of the trip goes through the Sound of Mull then across to Coll and Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. After a few days there we head north west across the romantically named Sea of the Hebrides to Barra on the southern tip of the Outer Hebrides.

From there slowly northwards to South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris and finally Lewis. When I first visiting the Outer Hebrides in 1975 that collection of islands would have involved lots of ferry crossings, now-a-days the Uists and Benbecula have been causewayed together so getting from Barra to Stornoway on Lewis only needs two short ferry crossings.

From Stornoway, the next step is eastwards across the Minch with CalMac to Ullapool then across Caithness and Sutherland to Gills Bay for the short ferry crossing to Orkney. Then finally picking up the Northlink Ferry for the overnight crossing into Lerwick.

As I've been putting these words and images together, I've realised how many of the routes I've mentioned have either changed or stopped operating altogether . The ferry from Stranraer now goes into Belfast rather than Larne (although there is still a Cairnryan to Larne), the Rosslare ferry now goes to Cherbourg and the Newcastle to Bergen service I used to get to Norway has stopped altogether. And one of the services I've always wanted to use - from Shetland to the Faroe Islands - has disappeared before I got a chance to use it.

In places were the services receive a life-line subsidy the services do continue to run, but in other places where market forces dominate the routes are more than slightly vulnerable. I hope that National Ferry Fortnight does succeed in encouraging more passengers, I'd be really sad to see any more services disappear.

Leeds April 2011

2011-04-16T09:55:00.002+01:00

Never look a gift trip in the mouth.

It’s all about overcoming prejudice. When it was suggested that I might like to spend a day in Leeds, my first reaction was close to “Great. What’s second prize? Two days in Leeds?”.

I was wrong. My two days in Leeds this month were entertaining, the weather was warm and sunny, the hotel was good and the food was excellent too. Can’t think where I got my anti-Leeds (or is it anti-Yorkshire) prejudice from.

I’ve been to Leeds, usually to visit the University, quite a few times over the years, but I think the most recent visit was close to 10 years ago. My overwhelming recollection is Bleak. I remember the place being cold and usually wet. It’s also an inconveniently long way North. I should clarify that things only qualify as being an inconveniently long way North – in my book – if they involve being in the North of England; Scotland, Shetland, Norway, Iceland fall in a different category. I’ve never claimed consistency on this point.

I wound up staying on the 14^th floor of the Park Plaza in the centre of Leeds – with a splendid view of the railway station, and far enough above it to not notice any noise – and spent most of my two days around the University. I was trying to find ways to describe the University campus, and I’m pretty sure I recognise bits of it from late 60’s sci-fi films or TV programmes. There are huge concrete buildings, fountains, elevated walkways linking the huge buildings and, during the Easter vacation, very few people. All it was missing was the cast of Doctor Who (I’m picturing the folks from UNIT and Jon Pertwee) . In the sunlight and with blue skies the campus looks really dramatic – but I bet it’s bleak when there’s a strong north-easterly blowing with some horizontal rain to accompany it.

Leeds April 2011

I guess my conclusion is not to judge places based on distant memories. It’s always worth revisiting places, particularly if you can arrange to revisit them when it’s sunny. Next time a trip to Yorkshire gets suggested I’ll ask about the third prize – maybe I’ll get three days in Leeds that time.

Being a tourist

2011-04-09T16:19:00.001+01:00

One of the challenges of being at home is that you don't behave like a tourist.

At home there are regular pressures around things like doing the garden, sorting the laundry, doing the shopping and (heaven forbid) going to work. It's no wonder that being on holiday is more fun - there's time to do things like go to museums, sit and watch the birdlife, take photographs, sit in a coffee shop slowly finishing a cappuccino and even (just occasionally) doing nothing. This second set of things are just harder to fit in when I'm at home.

I think it's time to try and get the balance right, or at least better, even when I am at home. I've been taking at least one photo a day for a long time, the last day when I didn't take a picture was 23rd December 2004, but I think there needs to be a bit more than this.

So today is a landmark. For the first time (that I can remember), I've abandoned the gardening and left the laundry and come out to sit in one of the coffee shops in Headington to have slow (large) cappuccino - and a croissant - and to sit and read one of the magazines that arrived this morning and to write a blog post about being a tourist just round the corner from the house.

And to add another image to my occasional Cafes of Headington series.

Shetland March 2011

2011-03-31T17:55:00.000+01:00

After Shetland in the snow in December and Shetland in the wind and rain in February, this was definitely Shetland in the spring.

The sun shone, the daffodils were out, the birds were starting to reappear on the cliffs and the wind didn't blow (too much).

I was really pleased to see the birds back on the cliffs at Sumburgh Head - fulmar, guillemot, razorbill and shag much in evidence and even one or two puffins putting in an early season appearance. And I can't remember ever seeing so many oystercatchers - in one field near Bigton I counted over 60 oystercatchers farming the field to the slight consternation of the six sheep who thought it was theirs.

One unexpected sight was the Smyril Line ferry Norrona passing close to Sumburgh Head on the Sunday afternoon. At one time the Norrona used to call into Lerwick regularly giving Shetland ferry routes to a Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands - this service got caught up in a variety of legal and logistical knots resulting in the ferry now by-passing Shetland most of the time, and leaving Shetland with ferry links only to Aberdeen. I'd be very pleased to see this service reappear.

Shetland March 2011

Room with a View

2011-03-28T11:58:00.000+01:00

I'm sitting typing this looking out of the ofﬁce window in Shetland. It's a beautiful sunny morning in late March - and the only domestic sound I can hear is the kitchen clock ticking in the background. If I push the window open I can hear the waves in the voe just below the house, and the herring gulls and fulmar crying as they swoop down over the waves. In the distance I can see Sumburgh Head and directly in the foreground the Scatness peninsula reaching down to Horse Island. A little further to the right is Lady's Holm and behind it on the horizon the outline of Fair Isle. After dark last night I could see the three ﬂashes of the Sumburgh Light and on the horizon the two ﬂashes of the Fair Isle North Light.

This week the waves in Quendale Bay have been very gentle, a real contrast to the energy we saw on the last visit. The big winter storms were a reminder that just along the coast was the site of the Braer disaster in January 1993, even my ill-educated eye can see how much of the beach at Quendale was moved around last winter.

We ﬁrst looked at the house 10 months ago, and ﬁnally bought it last summer. At that time it was a freshly refurbished empty house and when we stayed there it felt a bit like a very lightly furnished rental cottage not unlike the ones we'd stayed in on previous visits. Over the last eight months we've gradually ﬁlled up the house with our stuff - big furniture bought locally in Lerwick, smaller stuff brought up from the south of England in several car loads, and pictures unearthed from various cupboards down south have ﬁnally been hung around the house. It now feels like a northern home rather than just somewhere to visit.

My original plan had been to spend a lot of the summer up here watching birds and waves, and taking photographs as the days lengthened into Simmer Dim, and then gradually retreated into long autumn and winter evenings. I'm actually only going to be able to spend a few weeks here over the summer but I will be based in Shetland over the dark months next winter and with the exception of a few trips to the southern hemisphere to see some sunlight and to take some pictures on some other remote islands, I'll really be calling Shetland home.

One of the things I've always wanted to have in front of me is a sea view - this house has it in plenty. However I must admit I'd never given serious thought to the fact that the view might be a problem. My Oxford view is a relatively unchanging (or at least slow changing) street or garden view. My Shetland view is the constantly changing sea - each bird cry or crashing wave brings the possibility of something different happening, and even if there isn't anything dramatic the ebb and ﬂow of the tide ensures that even minute to minute things do change. It all makes it far too easy to look up from the keyboard, and then glance back and ﬁnd that 20 minutes have somehow disappeared. Maybe in the winter it'll be easier to concentrate on the computer screen - although the hypnotic lights from Sumburgh Head might still be a problem.

Ten Top Travel Experiences

2011-03-24T22:27:00.003Z

I blame the folks at Wanderlust Magazine – they sent a reminder that they’re asking for ten top travel experiences. This is ten I put together at lunchtime today. I’d probably pick a different set on other days. I can see two themes – one involves getting up early, the other involves wildlife – which probably explains why the first one is the first one….

Penguins at Dawn. Having gentoo penguins pecking my boots on the beach at dawn on Sea Lion Island while I tried to photograph them is a wonderful experience. Wide angle wildlife photography doesn’t get any better. (Falkland Islands, 2009)

Polar bears dining. Sitting in a Zodiac watching polar bears feeding on a whale skeleton – there were other people there but I was too absorbed watching to notice them. (Svalbard, 2010)

Lunch en route. Sharing lunch with a local family on a steam train from Coonoor to Ooty. The train was delayed – and the family travelling on the train with us produced leaves to use as plates and rice with serious pickles and insisted we share. Now referred to as a ‘Palin’ moment – if it has been included in one of his travel programmes you would have assumed that it had been staged. (India, 1994)

Seeing forever. Having read about how clear the Arctic air was it was amazing to arrive in Kulusuk and really see what this meant in terms of how far you could see. (Greenland, 2007)

Early Start. Seeing the El Tatio Geysers at dawn – required a very early start from San Pedro de Atacama and many hours being driven along unlit and in places very rough roads over high passes but arriving at El Tatio as the sun just started to strike the geysers was more than worth it. (Chile, 2007)

Tiger's Nest. First close-up sight of the Tiger's Nest (Taktshang Goemba) – it’s first revealed through the trees in the distance high above you and occasionally re-appears as you climb up the track, then after a long haul when it’s completely invisible you suddenly reach a turn on the path and the Monastery is visible bathed (if you are lucky) in bright sunshine. (Bhutan, 2008)

Tiger. After several days seeing fresh pug marks along the tracks finally seeing a tiger in the wild for the first time at Nagarhole NP. (India, 1994)

Nesting Albatross. Sitting on the edge of a black-browed albatross colony on Saunders Island. (Falkland Islands, 2009)

The Treasury. First sight of the treasury in Petra after walking through the Siq first thing in the morning with no-one else around. (Jordan, 2006)

Getting in touch with your inner Viking. Seeing Up HellyAa - everyone should do it at least once. (Shetland, 2007)

Back to the Candy Store

2011-03-06T11:32:00.001Z

My annual visit to the candy store that is the Destinations Travel Show – wasn’t able to make the London version this year (too busy travelling) so it was up the M40 to the NEC this time.

Felt like a smaller scale event than the London show last year – or the Birmingham version I went to a couple of years ago – and it felt like there were more ‘lifestyle’ stands (No, I’m not interested in a massage, a new bed(!) or a static caravan – this is a travel show), but at least I didn’t have a fight with anyone from nPower this year.

My aim this year was looking for inspiration for travelling in the first few months of 2012 – and particularly contemplating slower travel rather than just jumping on a plane, doing some tourist stuff and then heading back to Heathrow.

I’m not going to manage a top ten this year, but the ideas I came away from the show contemplating were:

More time in South America – maybe the long route from Santiago to Buenos Aries (via Ushuaia)
Africa – still an embarrassing gap on my travel CV – perhaps overland Nairobi to Cape Town via Namibia
New Zealand – earthquakes not withstanding southern NZ has been on my ‘to-do’ list for a long time
More Islands – but given the time of year they need to be southern hemisphere ones – Borneo or Indonesia sound interesting (and in a part of the world I’ve managed to avoid so far)

I resisted the temptation to book anything at the show – but the dining room table is now covered with a big pile of brochures. Difficult business this trip planning malarkey.

Shetland February 2011

2011-02-27T17:49:00.000Z

Finally got the chance to get back up to Shetland. It feels like a long time since I was shovelling away the Christmas snow.

This was also the first time we’ve come up by boat in winter. I’ve tended to regard the boat as the summer mode of transport and plane as the winter one. However the pile of ‘things to go North’ in Oxford was getting inconveniently big, so a car/boat trip was required.

After several days of ferries between Aberdeen and Lerwick being cancelled or delayed it was a pleasant surprise that the ferry left Aberdeen on time. The ‘pleasant’ bit lasted until we reached the end of the breakwater at Aberdeen Harbour – at which point we reached for the seasick pills and I retired to bed requesting that I be woken when Bressay was visible.

After a bumpy night – on a few occasions the boat seemed to keep rolling further and further (before eventually rolling back) - we docked in Lerwick pretty much on time. There had been warnings that the MV Hrossey would need to slow down if it got really rough - but it clearly that hadn’t been deemed necessary.

We spent several days (some of which were pretty wild, wet and windy) at or near the house at the south end of the mainland, getting a few walks and taking a few pictures. We finally saw some sunshine on our day in Lerwick, doing the things that need to be done there (i.e. coffee at the Peerie Cafe, lunch at Hay's Dock, and a wander round the fantastic Shetland museum). The current visiting exhibition at the museum is the Lewis Chessmen, I heard about them before but never had a chance to see them, and I'll try and get back to see them again before the exhibition moves on.

The ferry south was heralded by more dire warnings, and we had a fairly rough passage back down to Kirkwall – from there south it was at sufficiently flat for some sleep to be had. It was certainly a shorter return to Shetland than we had wanted – but we did get a bit more done to the house it’s now feeling much more like a northern home rather than just a house on Shetland. It'll soon be ready for visitors!

Next trip only a few weeks away – this time I’ll be taking the plane….

Shetland February 2011

Utrecht February 2011

2011-02-24T11:07:00.000Z

I’ve always felt a bit guilty about Holland.

I’ve had it on my ‘been to’ list for years, but I think that was as a result of going to a Sunday market somewhere just on the Dutch side of the Holland-Germany border many years ago. (So long ago that it was actually the Holland-West Germany border)

A meeting of the IMS Global Learning Consortium finally provided the excuse to properly add the country to my list.

Flying into Amsterdam Schiphol let me see how well joined up the air and rail network is in Holland – about 20 minutes from getting off the plane to stepping onto the train. Later reflection made me think about the complexities of not only combining this with roads and motorways, which many countries do, and with lots of waterways which is a bit more unusual.

Utrecht is a lovely small city, particularly the old part along each side of the canal. The canal provides a very easy reference point for navigation, whenever you get lost just head back towards the canal.

Despite the need to spend a lot of the time in meetings (always the drawback of work trips), I did get a brief chance to wander around with a camera. Pictures below.

At the end of the trip, I completely overlooked the efficiency of the Dutch rail network so I wound up getting to the airport far too early. This gave me plenty of time to visit the branch of the Rijksmuseum in the airport (splendid idea – don’t recall seeing a branch of the National Gallery or the Tate anywhere in LHR T5). And having done that I was able to tweet about it via the free wi-fi (again - don’t recall seeing any free wi-fi at Heathrow).

Utrecht February 2011

Little Horwood January 2011

2011-01-31T09:15:00.002Z

In travel terms, a slow start to 2011.

More than enough work to be getting on with and a lot of travel planning for later in the year. I’m delighted to have another trip to the South Atlantic in the diary for next winter – including time back in the Falkland Islands and on a boat around South Georgia.

The one overnight trip in January was a work related overnight meeting, with my Media Management Team colleagues, at Horwood House in Little Horwood deep in the Buckinghamshire countryside between Milton Keynes and Buckingham. A very picturesque location – a few images follow.

Horwood House January 2011

Shetland December 2010

2010-12-31T18:21:00.001Z

The days between Christmas and New Year provide the opportunity to watch old films and eat rather too much (no doubt in an attempt to keep the calorie in-take up to Christmas and New Year levels). And I’m very partial to both old films and eating.

However the “between-holiday” days do also provide a chance to do other things.

A couple of years ago I spent the “between-holiday” days in Tromso attempting to photograph the northern lights. That wasn’t a great success – it rained throughout the time I was there, and I went down with pneumonia immediately afterwards.

This year I opted to take the opportunity to go north again, this time as far as our house on Shetland. The weather offered every possible option – there was snow on the ground when I arrived, and over the next few days I saw gale force winds, heavy rain, fog – and a little bit of sunshine too. Although Shetland is capable of offering all of these over the course of a week a pretty much any time of the year. In between the showers I managed to get out to walk on a number of the beaches around the south end of Shetland - and to take a few sunset pictures too.

In Tromso, I needed to get used to there being nothing brighter than twilight in the middle of the day. On Shetland in December sunrise was just after 9 AM, and sunset shortly afterwards at about 3 PM. The plus is that you can get you sunset pictures and still get home for afternoon tea.

Shetland December 2010

Shetland November 2010

2010-11-30T18:45:00.002Z

Aiming to get up to Shetland for a weekend right at the end of November was always likely to be a little bit touch and go. I was picturing lots of wind, some heavy rain and very bleak scenery. I hadn't given much thought to snow - silly me. Towards the end of last week the weather forecasters started talking about the arrival of early winter, and on Friday there was some evidence, not much in the south of England but definitely further north.

On Saturday morning I had the entertainment of an early drive up the M40 and M42 to Birmingham airport. Not much traffic around but there was the occasional bit of white-out where there wasn't any evidence of lanes at all. The flight from B'rum up to Edinburgh was pretty much on time and I was delighted to see (as I hit third breakfast) that the onward connection to Sumburgh was on time too. I was starting to picture my walk on the beach and lunch at the Sumburgh Hotel. However the news from Shetland wasn't encouraging, lots of snow around and it was taking time to clear the runway to allow my plane out to get to Edinburgh.

Delays stretched out ( and my plans, in my mind, changed too). The walk went first, leaving a restock trip into Lerwick as the priority, eventually I realised that even doing this was going to be a challenge with the closing times and this was before I realised I was actually heading into something that looked like an arctic winter. Finally picked up my very small rental car, and headed gingerly around the airport slithering and just made it up to the local shop at the south end of Shetland for an emergency restock before it closed.

Then headed to a very cold wee house, which is on a much steeper hill than it was on when we were last in residence. Of course I didn't realise how steep the hill really was until I was part way down it - when it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to get back up without assistance. I found a suitable place to abandon the car and trudged through the snow to the house and got into the thaw-out process. The real downside of storage heaters is that they need advance warning, so there isn't much scope for instant heat. Did get one room reasonably warm, and ate my tea there, before unpacking the sofa bed for the first time and went to bed fully dressed (including Fair Isle hat) making use of all the available duvets. Even had to fight with the fridge - it had decided that the kitchen was too cold to bother, and it was only when I set the fridge on its arctic setting that it would do anything at all.

First light revealed how much snow there was on the ground - 6 or 7 inches of really light powdery snow blowing around at the slightest provocation, and more still falling. I could briefly see Fair Isle in the distance completely covered with snow. After porridge made with a slice of milk (a consequence of the arctic fridge setting), the main morning amusement was a long walk along Quendale beach watching the fantastic changing light - a black, grey, white and orange pallet. Looked as if the sky was on fire at times.

Post-walk, the car rental company came to haul me back up the hill - next time I'm getting a 4x4. Throughout the day I'd been aware that normal plane noise was missing - my 16:30 flight to Aberdeen was feeling like a real longshot. However the airport folks encouraged me to assume it would go as planned, and surprisingly it did, followed very shortly by a much earlier Aberdeen flight whose passengers had spent several hours sitting at the airport.

This all seemed good until about half way to Aberdeen when the pilot came on to say that the airport had now closed again, but that they were working on it, and we would just slow down a bit - how much can you slow down a plane? It all sounded OK until he said that we still had plenty of fuel - I hadn't thought about fuel until that point.

Aberdeen airport was full of people waiting for flights some clearly settled in for the long haul. My return flight to Birmingham was only 45 minutes late - and the pilot was happy to point out that Aberdeen was his warmest stop of the day (and that had included a visit to the Channel Islands).

The entertainments of winter travelling.

Shetland November 2010

Shetland October 2010

2010-10-31T16:05:00.000Z

Exploring the South end.

We spent the first half of October getting to know the house, and getting to know the south end of Shetland mainland better. Over the last few years we've spent a lot of time around the south end staying either at the Sumburgh Hotel or at the Pool of Virkie - somehow the trip was different this time, we were exploring our new patch.

There are several bays, beaches and headlands either within walking distance or a few minutes drive away.

The real local area is the beach at Quendale - which was pretty reliable for both seals and porpoise, in addition to various and numerous seabirds - even in October.

Further west from Quendale are Garths Ness (where the Braer ran aground and broke up in 1993 - shedding 85,000 tonnes of crude oil into the water and onto the beaches) and Fitful Head. Fitful Head, like all the high points around the southern end of Shetland is topped by both warning lights and radar stations. One to ensure that planes can find the airport at all, the other to ensure that they avoid the hill tops on their approach. The need for the warning lights is demonstrated by the memorial to the crew of a Halifax bomber that flew into the cliffs below Fitful Head in March 1942, heading back from Norway to their base at Kinloss. Fitful Head is probably the only place from where it's possible to see both Fair Isle 25 miles to the south, and Foula 20 miles to the west.

Due south of our cottage is the Scatness head land - we visited there briefly a couple of times on previous trips but had not had very satisfying visits. I can't recall why we weren't taken by it then - this time it was different. We spent time watching the waves and picturing what life must have been like living in the old block house at Ness of Burgi.

Sumburgh Head and Compass Head are the southeastern corner of Shetland – Sumburgh Head grabs the headlines with its lighthouse and RSPB monitored bird cliffs (even in October there are a surprising number of fulmars still around, presumable staking their claims for the prime nest sites next year) but Compass Head is actually higher and has the expected lights and radar installations – and an excellent (close to pilots eye) view of the airport. If you follow the coast north from Sumburgh Head you cross Compass Head, and then drop down to Grutness where the Fair Isle ferry sails from. The little headland beyond Grutness is another beautiful spot to watch the waves at this time of year, and to dodge the aggressive terns during the spring and summer.

My other final favourite spot is St Ninian’s Isle – the island is linked to the mainland by a magnificent shell sand tombolo – and is dramatic at any state of the tide, and at any time of year. It was recently voted Scotland favourite beach – it not hard to see why.

No trip to Shetland would ever be complete without talking about the weather. A pretty major storm stopped the Northlink Ferries at Lerwick just before we were due to travel north, so we wound up getting there 48 hours later than planned. After that the weather was splendid – several days of strong winds from the south meant dramatic seas and blue skies, and after that the winds dropped and eventually swung round to come from north. To spend two weeks on Shetland in October with hardly a drop of rain must qualify as pretty fortunate.

A few photos from this trip are linked below.

Shetland October 2010

Slovenia September 2010

2010-09-26T18:33:00.000+01:00

It’s confession time. Until a few weeks ago, I knew very little about Slovenia and really only had a pretty limited grasp of where it was. My school-acquired knowledge said things like it used to be part of Yugoslavia and it probably wasn’t very far from Italy. Or was that Slovakia?

I’m delighted to report that I know a bit more Slovenia now, I’ve certainly figured the difference between it and Slovakia – and it’s a splendid place to spend a few days, particularly in September.

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the BBC don’t know where it is either – before I went their weather forecast was that it was going to be damp and cool, and after I got back the forecast for Ljubljana was pretty much the same. However, when I was there it was warm and sunny and most folks (perhaps excepting those relying on BBC weather forecasts) were wandering around in shirt-sleeves.

I was trying to find a way to sum up Ljubljana in a few words – “cafes” and “bicycles” are the first two that came to mind, and “carnivore” is probably the third. This trip (I should say that I was actually in Ljubljana for an ASPECT project management meeting, before anyone gets the idea that I was on vacation) was the first one where the standard hotel booking included bed, breakfast, internet access and bicycle hire. The centre of Ljubljana is pretty much entirely pedestrianised and every one appears to get around on bicycles, and (with the exception of the castle up on the hill overlooking the river) the city is flat enough to encourage cycling.

The centre of old Ljubljana definitely still has a “Hapsburg” look about it – the similarities with Prague and Vienna are certainly pretty strong, but here the river is well marshalled through the centre of town – with lots of bridges - and each side of the river is lined by cafes. The huge number of cafes and the absence of motorised traffic give a really calm and relaxed pace to the centre of a fairly major city. I’ll certainly be trying to get back to Slovenia again – I think it’s probably an ideal place for a long weekend (at least in the summer or autumn), and next time I’ll try and make sure I’ve got time to get up into the mountains or down to the coast.

And the carnivore bit – the traditional restaurant menus leave you in little doubt that meat is big is Slovenia. I sidestepped the stallion steak, but did have vension, wild boar, and what looked very much like Slovenian haggis.

Slovenia September 2010

Shetland August 2010

2010-09-24T22:24:00.000+01:00

A Tale of Two Bank Holidays

In May we spent a couple of weeks on Shetland – some of the time was spent touristing with a group of knitters we’d encouraged up from the South, much of the rest of the time was spent house hunting.

We looked at lots of houses – some needed an awful lot of work, some we just didn’t like and some we fell in love with, but none of them were right. We pretty much gave up on the exercise – we filed it in the “we’ll do something about this next time” box. Then we screwed up reading the arrival time of a flight at Sumburgh Airport where one of our knitters was due to appear. Sumburgh Airport is pretty small, and on this particular day had a seriously wobbly electricity supply so we couldn’t even get a coffee while we were waiting. So as wondered what to do with the couple of hours we had to spare, we recalled seeing details of a house about 5 minutes drive from airport. There couldn’t be anything to lose in having a quick look at one more house – it really was the last one we were going to get time to look at - after the long list we’d already seen and discounted.

Of course this house was different – freshly refurbished, a view of Sumburgh Head and Fair Isle in the distance, and within budget. All this was happening on the Friday evening of a Bank Holiday weekend. To cut a long story short – by 4:55 pm on the Bank Holiday Monday, we’d had a look at the house from the inside, been through the survey, found a local solicitor (a lawyer in American English), discovered that someone else had made an offer on the house, made our own offer and had it accepted.

On the Friday of the August Bank Holiday (about the time we’d seen our house on the May Bank Holiday) we were driving North out of Oxford with a very heavily laden car – camp beds, camping chairs, a folding table plus a selection of other household essentials ready to move up North. Over the next few years I’m expecting to drive up from Oxford to Aberdeen to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick quite a few times. This time our emotions ranged from disbelief (Do we really own a house on Shetland?) via excitement (We’ve wanted a house somewhere remote for a long time) to trepidation (Did we really sink most of our savings into a house we looked at for about 15 minutes?).

The driving was fine (for a Bank Holiday weekend), the ferry crossing was smooth and the house was everything we’d hoped it was going to be.

For most of the week, the sun shone and the winds were light. We walked on the beaches at Quendale, West Voe and St Ninian’s Isle. We sat in the front room and looked out towards Sumburgh Head and to Fair Isle. And from the bedroom window we were able to see curlew in the fields and both gannets and porpoises (or were they dolphins?) in the bay in front of the house.

Around the domestic stuff (figuring out how the electric and gas worked, sorting a phone line, ordering kitchen appliances and furniture), I spent some time taking pictures and my other half networked with the knitting fraternity at the In The Loop conference.

We’ll no doubt have trips up to Shetland when the weather is foul, and the ferry crossing is deeply unpleasant, but on this visit everything was perfect. If you’d told me that my ideal holiday would involve ordering fridges, buying paint and weeding, I might not have believed you. On this trip it did, and it was.

I’ve also needed to revisit one of my blog postings from earlier this year. In May I asserted that North started at 60 degrees north – I’ve changed my mind. North now officially starts at 59 degrees and 52 minutes north. That's just about where my new front door is.

Shetland August 2010

Svalbard June 2010

2010-07-15T23:04:00.002+01:00

Travel guidebooks and, indeed, tour leaders have a predilection for adjectival overload.

“Svalbard is the destination for an unforgettable holiday. This wonderous archipelago is the world’s most accessible piece of the polar north and one of the most spectacular places imaginable” [Lonely Planet]

“The islands of Svalbard comprise an Arctic wilderness where nature reigns supreme” [Bradt guide]

“A journey around the spectacular Arctic region of Norway's Spitzbergen Islands takes you into a remote land of dramatic icy peaks and glistening glaciers.” [Exodus website]

“..this will be a very special expedition.” [Exodus/Quark Expeditions trip notes]

And these all understated the trip.

I (and about 100 other fortunate individuals) were lucky enough to be able spend 11 days on the Akademik Sergey Vavilov exploring Svalbard – over the course of the 11 days we covered about 1500 nautical miles, had ten zodiac cruises plus three landings, saw at least 22 species of birds and watched walrus, seals, dolphins, whales, reindeer and arctic foxes. And saw and photographed a huge number of polar bears. As each day passed the adjectival overload got more extreme – and hearing haggard (and some not so haggard) arctic veterans waxing lyrical about what they’d seen on each outing really did start to help us “high-arctic novices” realise quite how good our fortune had been. There was a real sense of disbelief that things could go on at such a pace – but they did. The bar talk (often huddled around laptops) allowed everyone to enthuse about what they’d seen and to share superlatives with someone else who’d seen pretty much the same thing. By the end of the trip the enthusiasm was being tempered (just slightly) with discussion about how much space was left on memory cards – and whether it was reasonable to delete a perfectly exposed and framed image of a polar bear (now just a “PB”) because it happened to have one eye closed at the moment the shutter was pressed. At the start of the trip every PB was getting extended photographic attention, by the end of the trip it wasn’t really worth slowing the zodiac unless it was mother with at least one cub, and preferably two.

The trip started at Longyearbyen and headed south towards the southern tip of Spitsbergen. Our polar bear spotting got off to an early start with a single bear spotted at the end of Hornsund. With hindsight one could have suggested that this sighting was staged by the expedition staff to let us see just how challenging it was to spot a slightly-ivory-coloured bear over a mile away across fast ice at the front of a glacier. On day two the bear spotting got easier, much easier. The intention had been to spend the day cruising along fast ice looking for bears, in fact one of the expedition staff sitting in the bar spotted a bear in the water just after breakfast and cautious manoeuvring of the Vavilov allowed us to get close enough for a clear look at the bear swimming before it headed off onto the ice and into the mist. The decision was made to just sit still and see what happened – eventually the curiosity of the bear (a young male) got the better of it and it choose to come back out of the mist and to have a good look at the ship at close quarters. It didn’t quite get as far as trying to head up the gangway, but it was clearly very interested in learning a bit more about us. Having had a close look at us, and done a few of his party tricks, he opted to head back off into the ice, and our expedition crew got to make one of the harder calls of the trip.

We were told that the ship had been given a really ‘hot’ tip, and that despite the fact that we had already been very fortunate in the southern part of the islands, we were going to spend the next 24 hours steaming north as fast as we could, to an undisclosed destination. Speculation ranged far and wide – there was a mother and cubs to be seen, a whale had been washed ashore, we were heading to the pub in Ny Alesund to watch the England – Germany match. The crew and expedition staff said nothing.

Early afternoon on the third day saw us just outside Holmiabukta near the northern tip of Spitsbergen island – and finally getting the chance to see what the hot tip was. We were rewarded almost immediately with a single bear on the water’s edge, then another adult with a cub in tow, then on the far side of the bay another adult, and another female with cub. The sequence just carried on, on both sides of the bay until we’d seen at least 9 different bears. Eventually the crew called for a return to the Vavilov for dinner, before a return trip in the evening by which time the sun had shifted, and the tide had gone out (tides are apparently very difficult to figure in/around Svalbard). The evening light revealed a bear plus cub on the ice at the foot of the glacier at the end of the bay, and the falling tide revealed the remains of a whale that was clearly the real driver for the bear-related activity around the bay. Above the waterline was a picked-clean whale spine, below the water was clearly enough rotting meat to provide for a lot of bears.

From the “Bay of Bears” we headed on northwards to Woodfjorden, and the Andoyane islands. The islands are mainly bird reserves – and gave fantastic views of Red Phalaropes and King Eider, but the PB’s just wouldn’t let up and we found a freshly washed bear around one of the islands – this time even more dramatic against a dark island background.

Leaving the bears behind for a few days we forged further north crossing the 80 degree line (it’s always good to clock up another geographic landmark) to be greeted by a group of walrus near Moffen Island – finally dropping anchor in Sjuoyane, the northern-most part of Europe (80.6 N). This really did feel bleak, the bright sunshine that we’d been enjoying continuously since leaving Longyearbyen disappeared into the mist, and it wasn’t difficult to realise that we were just a few hundred miles from the north pole.

As we headed southwards we stopped back at Holmiabukta to see if there was any more bear action. This turned out to be the most dramatic photographic day of the trip. We spent about 8 hours in zodiacs around the bay in two extended sessions, watching bears (and cubs) in every direction – pretty much just getting on with being bears. From solitary older male bears, to a mother nursing a young cub. From the antics of a small bear as it tried to get scraps its mother had pulled from the whale skeleton to an indulgent mother watching her two curious cubs investigating our small flotilla of zodiacs.

The trip provided truly amazing opportunities to see polar bears in their natural habitat, doing what bears do – I’ll be picking through the pictures I took for many weeks, and I’ve not said much about visits to bird colonies, the chance to see walrus, reindeer and arctic foxes in the wild and the fantastic scenery around many of the glaciers.

The pre-trip puff had promised “a very special trip” – but I think it far exceeded even the wildest imaginings of the crew. Paul Goldstein infected everyone with his photographic expertise and enthusiasm (and adjective collection) and ensured that we all got back to the UK feeling pretty seriously sleep-deprived but with amazingly good photographs. Woody and Annie and the rest of the Quark Expeditions crew (and the captain and crew of the Vavilov) provided fantastic access to the wildlife, and Ian Stirling both interpreted what the bears were doing for us, and ensured that we weren’t influencing the bears behaviour adversely.

It was also a privilege to spend 10 days with so many fantastic photographers – I learnt a huge amount just by talking to other people and seeing what they were doing, and how they were doing it.

This was my first trip on the Vavilov. It won’t be my last – the only question now is whether to book a return trip to Svalbard next, or to head back to Antarctic.

I also took far too many pictures - a few that have grabbed my attention as I've started to go through them are linked below.

Svalbard June 2010

Shetland May 2010

2010-06-20T20:07:00.001+01:00

"It’s going to be a bit lumpy today". There are certain phrases that just aren’t good, and the lumpy phrase is way up there. From the kitchen it suggests that the custard might not be up to scratch (not a phrase I hear at home, I should add), but not a real problem. When the grinning skipper of the Good Shepherd IV says this standing on the pier at Grutness, it definitely falls into the problem category.

The Good Shepherd IV is the maritime lifeline that links Fair Isle with the rest of Shetland. There is an air service too (at least when it isn’t foggy) but all the heavy cargo, and the more intrepid travellers, go via the Good Shepherd. This Good Shepherd has been shuttling back and forwards between Fair Isle and Grutness harbour on the southern tip of Shetland for about 25 years. It carries 12 passengers and up to one car (although that needs to be winched on) and pretty much all the supplies that the island needs. The Good Shepherd was purpose built for the Fair Isle run, and is reputed to be able to cope with pretty much any weather that the seas around Shetland can throw at it , I’m not sure that the same can be said of this group of passengers. The skipper was true to his word on this trip - after 45 minutes I thought we were all going to die, and after 90 minutes I was pretty sure that death was the preferred option.

The trip on the Good Shepherd was the start of the second part of our Shetland trip for this summer. We’d spent the first part of the trip house hunting (more about that roller-coaster in a later post), and for the second part of the trip we’d been joined by a group of knitters from Oxford, London and Edinburgh all of whom wanted to learn more about knitting on Shetland and Fair Isle. There’ll be more about the knitting trip on my others half’s blog in due course.

The Fair Isle leg of the trip was based with Kathy Coull and provided lots of "craft-in-croft" experiences, and gave me time to walk round the island photographing the bird life and just enjoying being out in the fresh air (as well as trying my hand at spinning).

One of the most striking things about the trip was the weather, during the seven days that our friends from the south spent with us we saw no rain at all. For these folks, most of whom were visiting Shetland for the first time, dry, warm, mostly-windless weather is ‘typical’ Shetland weather. I suspect their subsequent visits might not be quite so benign.

On the Mainland part of the trip, we spent time around Nesting, Sumburgh and Lerwick - as well as going over to Bressay and up to Hillswick and Eshaness, and to the woollen mill at Sandness. It was good to finally get a chance to look at the wonderful new museum - our previous attempts to do so had got derailed by (i) its opening ceremony, and (ii) fog delays on a previous return from Fair Isle.

On the mainland we stayed at Heart Stones in Lerwick - a lovely flat really close to the Museum, and it will be very convenient for Mareel once it's finished.

As always it was good to be back above 60 degrees North - and a real joy to be back on Shetland.

I’ve added a few more photographs to my Shetland collection on Picasa - just click the thumbnail below.

Shetland May 2010

Barcelona May 2010

2010-05-20T22:26:00.000+01:00

An annual trip to Barcelona is a good idea.

It's 12 months since I was last there and this time (Icelandic volcanoes not withstanding) I got to be a tourist. On my previous trips I managed to grab a few hours to be a tourist, this time I had a whole day to just wander around town. I spent lots of time on La Rambla and in Port Vell (probably my favourite bit of Barcelona). My plans for a quiet dinner on the Sunday evening were rather disrupted by Barca winning at home to retain the Spanish League title - it made for a rather boisterous and very photogenic few hours in the Placa Catalunya.

Eyjafjallajokull did it's best to disrupt my return flight - but the disruption was rather less dramatic than in April. I had briefly hoped that I was going to get struck in Barcelona for a few more sunny days. Maybe next time.

Barcelona May 2010

Looking North

2010-05-09T16:49:00.000+01:00

I’ve been thinking about the North again, reflecting on my previous trips, and anticipating the two trips I’ve got to the far North over the next couple of months. Before I go much further I’d better define "North". I toyed with using the Arctic Circle as my definition of North, but eventually decided that 60 degrees north made more sense. 60 degrees means I can (just) include the northern extremities of the UK in North. Lerwick (60.2N) on Shetland is just north of the line, there’s even a sign on the side of road between Sumburgh and Lerwick to mark the spot.

I first got to 60 North in 1972 when I toured southern Norway with my parents - we went through Bergen (60.4N), and the most northerly point I can find evidence of is Eidsbugarden (61.4N) in the Jotunheimen mountains.

My next trip that far north was in 1984 - this time a skiing trip to central Norway, flying to Oslo (59.9N) then getting the train to the area near Vinstra (61.6N). My recollections from that trip are very vague, and most of the photographs from the time seem to include evidence of a significant amount of alcohol which might be a factor in the quality of recollection.

It was almost 10 years before I ventured north again. It was June 1993 when I spent a week (notionally working) in St Petersburg (60.0N). It might be just stretching a point to include St Petersburg itself, but we did go out along the coast towards the Swedish boarder one evening which certainly took us over the line. That was the first time I was conscious of the "White Nights", when it never really gets dark and I was able to take photographs of the Neva at 11 pm.

After that it wasn’t until 2004 that the North came calling again, and since then I’ve made 8 trips that have crossed the 60 line. 2004 involved a return trip to Norway, again crossing to Bergen, this time rather than heading cross country towards Oslo the trip was much more north focussed. We turned left out of the ferry gates in Bergen and headed north through Alesund (62.5N) and Trondheim (63.4N) until we reached the Arctic Circle (66.5619N). That felt like an important landmark, and it really was a struggle to make myself turn the car round just after we crossed the Circle.

2006 was my first visit to Iceland, flying into Keflavik (64.0N), then spending time in Reykjavik (64.1N) before heading along the south coast as far as Hofn (64.2N) and up to the original geyser at Geysir (64.3N). At some point we must have gone straight past the Eyjafjallajökull (63.6N) without giving it a thought.

In 2007 I stepped up the pace somewhat clocking up three trips which crossed my North boundary. The first two were both to Shetland, spending some of the time just south of the line at Sumburgh (59.9N), some time in Lerwick (60.2N), and getting as far north as Hermaness (60.8N) on Unst. The British Isles pretty much runs out at that point. The two Shetland trips were also at extreme points in the year. First in January, when the Shetlanders get back in touch with their inner Viking for the Up-Helly-Aa festival, and then in June when there is the Shetlandic equivalent to the "White Nights", the "Simmer Dim". A little later in summer 2007 my inner Viking took me back to Iceland, again to Reykjavik (64.1N) this time as a stepping stone to eastern Greenland. I spent time in Kulusuk (65.6N), notable as being one of the very few places on the east coast of Greenland that has a real runway - a leftover from the American Cold War activities, and at Tasiilaq (also 65.6N), one of the few real towns in eastern Greenland. You can tell it’s real town because it’s got proper roads, you can’t go anywhere on the roads, they stop at the edge of town, but they are there.

I kept the pace up in 2008, again clocking up another three North trips, back to Shetland again - Virkie (59.9N), and Lerwick(60.2N) - in the height of summer to watch the puffins and gannets, and to Helsinki (60.2N) in November and Tromso (69.7N) in December. The Helsinki trip was a city break, with the only goal being to enjoy discovering the city. The Tromso trip was a thwarted attempt to see and photograph the Northern Lights. It rained and I failed on both counts - and got a souvenir case of pneumonia to mark the occasion. I did however get a little bit further up the coast to Skjervøy (70.1N), marking my first crossing of the virtual line at 70 degrees north.

Since then I’ve not managed to get to the North, but the next few weeks should remedy that. We’re heading back up to Shetland again. We’ll certainly get as far north as Lerwick (60.2N) and maybe a little further. Shortly after that I should (volcanoes permitting) be heading up to Longyearbyen (78.2N) in the Svalbard archipelago, and hopefully as far north as the 80 degree line.

So what keeps dragging me back to the North? Aside from wanting to get in touch with my inner Viking. My father’s family come from Tain (57.8N) in the north of Scotland - maybe there are genes from further north there too. I’ve got at least two theories about the pull of the North. The light is fantastic (at least in the summer), there is daylight for most of the 24 hours and the air is usually (Icelandic volcanoes not withstanding) amazingly clear. One of my strongest memories from the Greenland trip was getting off the plane in Kulusuk, and realising how far I could see - that clarity really came through in some of the pictures I took. The other factor is people, or more critically the lack of people. Southern England is full of people and the roads are full of cars - the further north you go the quieter places are, and the pace of life is slower too. There also isn’t much sign of wilderness here in Oxfordshire (51.8N) - and a little bit of wilderness always leaves me feeling better.

I’m looking forward to my upcoming trips to the North, and I’ve got a really strong urge to plan some more.

The North

NOT Barcelona April 2010

2010-04-18T12:33:00.000+01:00

Today should have been my day for blogging about my latest trip to Barcelona and perhaps for posting a few new pictures from Las Ramblas or the waterfront - Eyjafjallajokull saw that off.

I’m going to pass on speculating about whether this is the Icelandic economy getting its revenge or even whether this is really how the Gaia hypothesis is going to work.

The ash cloud from Eyjafjallajokull has, for me, had a few positive consequences, although various friends who are either stranded overseas or have long haul trips in the very near future are probably struggling to see any positives. It’s given me a chance to play with the new camera I eventually got via Amazon last Monday (the last mile really does still challenge the online shopping process), to buy a decent lens to go with the camera (from a bricks and mortar dealer), and to reflect on the assumptions I make about the ease of air travel.

Over the last three years I’ve made something like 30 international trips that involved flying. At the slightest provocation I’ll head for an airport clutching my passport and, despite grumbling about the fact that yet again I’ve not got a free upgrade, I’ll sit back and wait for the plane to push back and look forward to the new sights I’ll be seeing in a few hours.

The extended closure of UK (and most of northern and central Europe) airspace for the last four days with the prospect of ‘normal’ service being a considerable way off really does start to challenge assumptions about being able to do this. A number of travel bloggers have started talking over the weekend about the "end of air travel for several months" or even a "return to the 1900s (but this time with Web 2.0)" - this might be a bit over the top but it does provoke thoughts about doing stuff more slowly. I'm not quite sure that my soul moves at the speed of a camel, but the assumption that heading off around the world should mean long haul flights and jet-lag might need to change. In recent months I’ve mused about going round the world by train or going on safari by boat. Both of these examples are quite do-able now although the competition for the limited spaces might get a bit tougher and I'm going to need to ask my boss for much longer vacations.

In the short term, I’m certainly looking forward to heading for my next US conference by liner from Southampton, rather than by Airbus from Heathrow.

Or more likely attending by video conference from my desk. :-(

North Devon April 2010

2010-04-11T23:00:00.001+01:00

There’s nowhere we’ve been to more often than North Devon. Despite my habit of keeping notes of where I’ve been, I really don’t know how many times we’ve walked along various bits of the North Devon coast, particularly around Morte Point and the Bull Point Lighthouse.

I started my regular Devon visiting in the mid-80’s when my wife and I would visit a somewhat eccentric elderly aunt (of hers) who lived in a slightly run-down wooden cottage, a building that was once apparently the Woolacombe golf course club house before it was - somewhat implausibly - moved onto the cliffs just outside Mortehoe.

For us, Mortehoe was the default place to head to in both spring and autumn, not too far from Bristol where we were living at the time, but far from the crowds (at least if we were there out of season). When Freda passed away we thought about buying her cottage but decided against it because it seemed at the time to be a bit too far from Oxford but that distance hasn’t stopped us returning regularly since.

We try and get back to Mortehoe every couple of years (although we missed out on the 2008 visit) now staying at the Watersmeet Hotel which really is on the coast between Mortehoe and Woolacombe. The Watersmeet is a slightly old-fashioned country house hotel "built in 1907 as an Edwardian Gentleman's residence by the sea" (as it says on the website). The location is fantastic with every room promising (and delivering) a sea view, and the spectacular dining room faces west, looking out to sea giving you to chance (weather permitting) to watch the sun dipping into the sea as you dine. After a long walk in the sea air and a good dinner, the sound of the waves at high tide on Coombesgate Beach pretty much guarantees a good night’s sleep.

As usual when staying in Mortehoe we walked to both Morte Point and Bull Point, and walked for miles along the beach at Woolacombe. On some visits we‘ve had only the occasionally dog-walker on the beach for company, on this occasion (we were there for the Easter weekend) the beach was littered with hardy picnickers (windbreaks, fleeces and woolly hats) and surfers (wetsuits clearly needed).

Being in North Devon for the Easter weekend also gave us the chance to see things that aren’t on offer at other times of the year - the lambing at Borough Farm, and the Exmoor Border Morris dancers outside The Ship Aground in Mortehoe. A fantastic weekend, and the weather even decided to co-operate.

We’ll certainly be back in Mortehoe again - maybe we don’t need to wait until 2012 to do it.

Devon April 2010

Estoril March 2010

2010-03-14T22:32:00.002Z

A short break from the UK winter - and a chance to add another country to my list. Somehow I hadn't managed to get round to visiting Portugal before. I also hadn't realised Estoril's place in English literature - both Graham Greene and Ian Fleming spent time here - and Fleming's Casino Royale was inspired by his espionage activities in and around the casino. I didn't see any evidence of spies, maybe they've moved on to other more glamorous gambling locations, but I definitely did enjoy the chance to have early morning walks along the sea front. Getting up at 06:30 is so much easier if there's a sea front walk on offer before breakfast.

Estoril gets a place on my (long) list of excellent seaside destinations to visit out of season - most of the time I only had sea-birds and the very occasional slow-moving jogger for company.

The real reason for being here was for management meetings linked to the EU-funded ASPECT project - a follow-up to the workshop in Budapest last November, but I did take a camera to keep me company on the morning walks.

Portugal March 2010

Cairngorms February 2010

2010-02-28T16:54:00.002Z

A holiday in the north of Scotland in winter is always a bit of a lottery - the temperature can vary from close to double figures (in centigrade) down into the teens below zero, the cloud cover from clear blues skies to heavy cloud (along with persistent rain - or snow - that can last for days on end) and can offer anything from dead calm through to gale force winds. Sometimes all in the space of a couple of days.

The last February holiday I had in the Cairngorms was about 25 years ago and despite lugging skis all the way up from Bristol on the overnight train I and my companions spent our time walking in the mountains since the high winds had blown away most of the snow. My recollection of that trip was that it was clear and sunny and also bitterly cold - our real challenge was how to chop up the frozen logs so that it was possible to get them inside to thaw out.

This time round we again started the trip with almost implausibly blue skies but with almost no wind - and temperatures falling overnight to -15C, which was more than enough to freeze solid anything left in the car. Apples survive freezing and thawing much better than bananas - although deep-frozen bananas would appear to be an ideal healthy dessert. At least we didn’t have the challenge of log chopping - the Grant Arms Hotel in Grantown-on-Spey provides very effective oil-fired central heating.

During the first part of the week we visited Loch Morlich (where I once went canoeing, was solid enough to walk on) and Lochs Garten and Mallachie in Abernethy Forest (again both more suited to winter than water sports). We also did woodland walks around both Nethy Bridge and Grantown. All of these walks were in glorious sunshine with lots of beautifully crisp snow underfoot. We also took advantage of the clear sunny weather to go up Findhorn Bay and to briefly visit Culbin Sands. The most spectacular scenery was on the road north from Grantown and the A939 towards Tomintoul (often described as the first road to shut when the snow comes).

Around mid-week the weather changed pretty much completely - temperatures jumped to just below zero, the cloudless skies filled in and the snow started falling and just kept going - during the first snow-day we were able to keep moving around and visited both Anagach Woods and got at least as far as the bird feeders at Loch an Eilean if not to the Loch itself. By the morning of the second snow-day there was about 30 cm of snow on the car and on pretty much everything in/around the Cairngorms - and although we had another walk through part of Anagach Woods and looked at the Spey it wasn’t possible to do much more than that - and certainly very few of the cars in front of the hotel moved far.

After snowing for about 48 hours continuously (dumping a total of about 50 cm on the town - and well over 2 metres on the ski slopes, sufficient to bury the ski train) it did eventually relent allowing us (and several other folks in the hotel) to decide that it was time to try and head south. At this point the A9 was closed in both north and south directions, and the various hill roads out of Grantown to the north and east (the A939 had indeed shut first) certainly weren’t passable in anything other than a high clearance 4x4. The escape route - once we’d been helped out of our own personal snowdrift - was to head west, going down the A9 to Kingussie then across to Fort William on the west coast. This isn’t the most obvious route south from the Cairngorms - but was open and very dramatic in places particularly through Glen Coe and over Rannoch Moor. A 10 or 12 point stag standing in open snow-covered ground near road beside the Glen Coe ski area was particularly spectacular - shame there wasn’t any way to stop and take pictures.

As we got further south the snow mostly stopped - and by the time we made it to Edinburgh it had become messy persistent sleet.

In an effort to prolong my trip a little longer I went slowly through the snows south of Edinburgh, before spending a fantastic few hours at the WWT Reserve at Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth watching huge numbers of whooper swans and barnacle geese. The swans spend the winter in Scotland and head north to Iceland for the summer. The geese follow a similar itinerary but go to Svalbard in the summer – hopefully I’ll get to see them again later in the year.

Cairngorms February 2010

Types of Snow – the Inuit are suppose to have names for lots of types of snow – how many have the Scots got?

Snow

Notes.
1. We stayed at the Grant Arms Hotel - and the Bird Watching and Wildlife Club there provide lots of really useful information about what’s around and where - and encourages residents to log what they’ve seen too.
2. Our bird list for the 4 days in the Cairngorms got to 31 species – I was particularly pleased to see Crested Tits in Abernethy Forest.
3. Next time I go to the Cairngorms in winter I’m going to turn up in a 4x4.

The Stuff of Dreams

2010-02-25T16:17:00.000Z

Life is always full of dreams - some get fulfilled but others somehow don’t and remain with us, sometimes for many years.

I left my childhood with three unfulfilled dreams. I wanted to join the British Antarctic Survey, I wanted to join a Norwegian brass band and I wanted to get stuck in Aviemore.

The Norwegian brass band idea was probably not really my thing - and almost certainly had more to do with location than any deep understanding of Scandinavian music or of brass bands for that matter. I did manage to get mixed up with a group of other kids of my age from a Norwegian band on the ferry from Newcastle to Bergen - and still wonder what might have happened if I’d run off with the band rather than joining my parents on a caravan tour around southern Norway.

I’m not altogether clear why the BAS thing didn’t happen - I did fill in all the paperwork when I was finishing my physics degree but never quite got round to sending if off. This meant I spent the next three years of my life sitting in small dark rooms playing with computers and microscopes in Bristol rather than wandering around the ice in the far south. Maybe recent trips to the Antarctic and the Falklands have got this out of my system, at least a bit.

Getting stuck in Aviemore was always The Big One. Year after year my family would spend either Christmas or Easter, and sometimes both, staying in one of the hotels in Aviemore and depending on the weather spend the days walking or skiing on or around Cairn Gorm or Ben Macdui or even canoeing on Loch Morlich (that was one late and strangely warm Easter). On every trip I would hope that we were going to get stuck there. One year we managed to not get there at all - the snows prevented us getting north from Edinburgh, another year the road was closed just behind us as we went south, and to add insult to injury my school headmaster at the time got stuck in Aviemore - which meant that I got home in time for the start of term but he didn’t. But in all those visits we never managed to get stuck in Aviemore. With the benefit of hindsight, I was probably picturing a very particular sort of getting stuck - the sort where it’s not possible to get home but where all the local facilities remain fully operational.

Which brings me to now. I’m sitting in a hotel room in Grantown-on-Spey about 14 miles north of Aviemore - snow has been falling steadily for about 24 hours and is forecast to continue doing so for another 24 hours, the car had about a foot of snow on it this morning and when I last looked the snow gates on the A9 were closed. By most definitions we are stuck here. We’re actually due to try and head south tomorrow but most of the locals seem to think that this latest fall is going to carry on for a few days yet and that getting south (or north or east or west) isn’t a great idea.

So is this the stuff of dreams? Maybe I am going to get an extra day or two up here which might even put off going back to work at the start of next week. We did get out for a walk this morning in a mild blizzard which was fun when the wind was behind you but a bit bleak heading the other way. We did get to see goldeneye and goosander on the Spey this morning both seemingly oblivious to the snow, but standing watching them was only really realistic for a few minutes. And the fantastic scenery we were able to both see and get out into a couple of days ago is now pretty much inaccessible (and certainly invisible).

This is clearly one of my dreams coming true - it looks like I really am going to get stuck in or near Aviemore but like lots of dreams it’s not going to be quite as good as it might have been. However I can finally cross it off the list.

Which, I guess, just leaves the brass band - should I try the cornet or the trombone?

Big Kid in a Candy Store

2010-02-14T11:09:00.001Z

Recently I spent some time at the Destinations Show in London - I hadn't been to the London version of the show before having previously only done Birmingham. In lots of ways it's a seriously dangerous place for me to be - my enthusiasm for trips almost inevitably bubbles over learning about new destinations and contemplating revisiting places I've been too before, and I can feel the credit card twitching in my pocket.

There were a few companies (and places) I expected to see represented and others I didn't expect to see there. I probably do need to apologise to the nPower employee who tried to engage me in a extended conversation about my domestic energy provider - but really, what where nPower doing there? I was much more interested to find out about trips by jeep up the Karakorum Highway or heading across Central Asia on horseback than to contemplate gas and electricity. And no, I really don't know what I pay for my electricity each month.

In the "missing" category I was hoping to see the folks from Discover the World again, and the RMS St Helena - and I was hoping that the Falklands Islands Tourist Board would be there to back up the heavy advertising they've been doing in the UK.

The region that surprised me most (by the scale of the presence) was South America - and particularly Colombia. I was still picturing drug barons - but I was quite taken by the slogan "The Only Risk is That You'll Want to Stay".

Like lots of people - e.g. Wanderlust - I felt a need to put together a list of 10 new/reinvigorated travel ideas from wandering round the show (so in no particular order).

1. Eagle Festival in Mongolia

Thought the scenary looked fantastic - and Mongolia definitely fits into my pattern of heading off to places that most other folks don't want to go to. I'm pretty keen to try and get to the Altai Eagle festival - would have some really good photographic opportunities. The folks from Panoramic Journeys were very enthusiastic about this being a good place to visit in the autumn, and were also pretty sure that I really needed to stay for a month (or "maybe six weeks") to really see everything that Mongolia had to offer a photographer. I wonder if gers are anymore comfortable than yurts.

2. Monks and Rhinos in NE India

I've been to India a few times before, but only to the 'main' part of India - and I hadn't really given much thought to the Assam area (I might have been able to point to it on a map but not with much confidence). Travel the Unknown weren't a company I'd seen before - but some of their rather less usual destinations do appeal. Their collection of trips to Assam and Arunchal Pradesh has certainly got my attention - with an interesting mix of culture and wildlife.

3. Eastern Bhutan

I really enjoyed talking with the folks from Blue Poppy - we'd used them via Cox and Kings when we went to Bhutan a couple of years ago. It was interesting to hear a bit more about the eastern end of Bhutan - which we didn't manage to get to on our first visit - it's further off the usual tourist circuit (is any part of Bhutan on a usual tourist circuit?).

4. Karakorum Highway in Pakistan

Long long ago I did manage a trip to Pakistan - spending a few days in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, before going up to Peshawar and not quite making it to the Khyber Pass. Peshawar is pretty much off the tourist route at the moment - but it was good to hear from TravelPak that some parts of northern Pakistan are good to go to at the moment. I was particularly interested to hear about a possible trip up the Karakorum Highway towards the Chinese border - almost joining up with the trip from Kashgar last year.

5. Self-guided touring in Japan

I first found out about self-guided tours in Japan at a Destinations Show a couple of years ago - I'd always assumed that language meant that Japan (outside the big cities) was only doable on a group tour. However there are a number of companies offering self-guided tours - everything is booked and planned - and you get a phone contact to bail you out if you need it. The companies I talked with this time were InsideJapan and IntoJapan.

6. Faroe Islands

This has been on my list for a while - but it was interesting to hear more from Atlantic Airways who fly direct (in the summer) from Stansted to the Faroes. Atlantic Airways did fly from Stansted via Sumburgh in the Shetlands - but I gather they needed to stop doing that because it was often too foggy to let them land on Shetland and they kept winding up with stray Shetlanders on Faroe. National Geographic Traveller came up with the label of "The World's most Appealing Islands" - the pictures and descriptions would support that. Looks like a really strong candidate to to add to my island collection - and not too far away.

7. National Parks in Tanzania

Another destination that was already on my wish list - there were a number of companies making really interesting pitches about visiting various of the Tanzania National Parks - everything from pretty basic tented camps to seriously expensive camps and lodges. The two companies I talked for longest with were Simply Tanzania Tour Co and Cox and Kings (who we've used on several previous trips to India and Bhutan).

8. Photo safari in Sri Lanka

We'd wondered about Sri Lanka a few years ago - post tsunami when there was a lot of push to rebuild the tourist industry. There were two reasons why Sri Lanka attracted my attention this time - firstly that the island is now said to be safe to visit all over (which certainly wasn't the case a few years ago), and a fun sounding Exodus photo safari looking for Whales and Leopards - there can 't be too many places that combines these. I'm due to do a photo trip to Svalbard with Exodus later this year - maybe Sri Lanka as a my photo trip next year.

9. Whale Watching in the Azores

Picking up both the whales and atlantic islands themes again - the Azores sounds like a good bet - offering whales all year round. Again lots of people offer this - I talked with Sunvil Discovery.

10. Wildlife Tours in Iran

I've been to Iran before - a week long visit to Shiraz, with a chance to have a look at Persepolis, and while I had thought of visiting there again I hadn't thought of Iran as a place for a wildlife holiday. Persian Voyages had other ideas and have at least one interesting tour combining natural history and Iranian culture.

I talked with lots of other people too - and my brochure stack also included Jordan, Cape Verde, Nova Scotia, Chile and the Trans-Siberian Railway. The folks from Promote Shetland were there too - trying to cope with the volume of interest driven by Simon King's Shetland Diaries. I don't really need my interest in Shetland encouraged - we're already due to be up there for (at least) a couple of weeks in the summer.

So many possible trips - so little annual leave.

Flights of Fancy (and other means of transport)

2010-01-31T19:05:00.000Z

One of the problems with the UK is that it's just too small. I can drive from Oxford to the southern-most tip of Cornwall on the same day, I can make it to northern Scotland in under two days, and even our blessed train companies can match sort of range in a couple of days. Maybe this is why I've got a fascination with long journeys - and particularly with trying to do more ground based travelling. When we first visited India nearly 20 years ago we pushed our travel companies really hard to figure out ground-based itineraries (and when one of the trips coincided with a pilots strike this turned out to have been a really good idea). The plus for us then was that we got to see a lot more of rural and village India than we would have done otherwise - and the food on the journeys was certainly better. It was probably better for the environment too - but I don't remember that being talked about in 1991. When did we acquire 'Carbon Footprints'?

In the 'maybe' pile at the end of my desk I've currently got plans and ideas for three long, mostly ground-based, journeys. There was a fourth idea - involving the Silk Road and the Karakorum Highway, but the trip to Xinjiang last year seems to have got these out of my system (temporarily at least).

The first long journey doubles as an ego trip (Is this where the term "ego trip" comes from?). I thought it might be fun to go to the Ross Sea via Mackenzie Country. A little bit of investigation suggested that while it is possible to get to the Ross Sea via South America and the Antarctic Peninsula it is only occasionally possible and is stupidly expensive, so it would make more sense to get to the Ross Sea from southern New Zealand (that's how Captain Scott and all the other early Antarctic explorers got there), and if I'm going to have to go to New Zealand I might as well spend a bit of time there in Mackenzie Country too. Getting to New Zealand is pretty difficult these days without spending some time on planes - even the Man in Seat61 only offers a few suggestions about looking for passenger places on freighters, but there are ways.

The second folder hooks into my desire to spend some time talking photographs of wildlife in Africa - the easy way is to jump on a plane at Heathrow and fly due south for 10 or 12 hours. A much more entertaining way to contemplate this (in my book at least) is to look to the last Royal Mail ship still in regular service which shuttles regularly between Ascension Island, St Helena and South Africa - with the occasional loop back to Portland in southern England. The added bonus would be the chance to spend a bit of time on Ascension Island or St Helena - I spent a few hours on Ascension last year but didn't manage to leave the airport, next time it would be fun to stay a bit longer. The real attraction of this would be to spend a bit of time seeing what life was like on a really isolated island. St Helena is due to get an airport at some time, but the current economic climate means that it won't be any time soon.

The third folder (which is actually at the top of the pile at the moment) is mostly about Japan, which is ideal for train-based travel - with the observation that it ought to be possible to get there by train (and boat) too. The Eurostar link is the obvious first step (snow in Kent permitting) - then sleepers across Europe to Moscow and then the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. In theory at least it's possible to get a scheduled ferry from Vladivostok to Japan - but I gather that it's actually pretty challenging to book a passage on it. So maybe I'll agree to fly for the last leg of the journey if I've done the first 12,000 km by train. I did wonder about completing a round the world rail trip by finding a way to get across the Pacific, and then crossing Canada or the US by train (another 6,000 km) before heading back to the UK.

The real problem with all these journeys is the time they take (and the money too) - Phileas Fogg and Michael Palin both gave themselves 80 days to get round the world - and I suspect that doing any of these trips without resorting to jumping on a plane to get home who take this sort of time too. A friend recently suggested that going round the world on 80K would be a very pleasant way to do the journey - I wasn't sure if she was talking in dollars, pounds or euros. I don't think it would take quite as much as £80K to do any (or even all of these) but it's going to cost more than a couple of weeks in the Med.

I haven't quite figured how to break the time-money conundrum (I'd like to have both), but I'm working on it. Then I'll figure out if there are enough blank pages in my current passport.

Big Garden Bird Watch - early

2010-01-24T12:07:00.000Z

Most years we do the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch (this year it's 30th & 31st January), but this morning turned into a rehearsal. An hour peering out of the windows produced a huge amount of bird life, no doubt some of it provoked by the fat-ball bribes we've been distributing around the garden since the cold weather started.

Today's list was 2 chaffinches, 2 redcaps, 2 jackdaws, 5 house sparrows, 3 long tailed tits, 3 goldfinches, 4 blackbirds and half-a-dozen starlings plus a couple wood pigeons, a wren, a dunnock, a great tit and a collared dove.

There's nothing particularly spectacular in the list, but it was good to see some goldfinches back (no idea where they went in the snow), and it's been a while since we've seen long-tailed tits in the garden.

We'll be doing the BGBW next weekend - but it probably won't result in nearly such a good haul.

Another Snow Event

2010-01-06T14:14:00.000Z

In what seems to have now become another regular event - the country (at least the bit I'm in) has ground to a halt again under a layer of snow.

At the moment there is 8-10 inches of snow on the ground (with drifts significantly deeper than this in places) - the most snow I've seen in Oxford in the 20 years we've been here.

The presence of lots of snow certainly makes everyone more friendly, and makes the place much more photogenic.

Headington Snow January 2010

The Moleskine Promise

2010-01-03T16:27:00.002Z

The turn of the year is an obvious time to reflect on the last 12 months, and to give some serious thought to the next 12. It’s also the time when I move from one Moleskine to the next. To the uninitiated the Moleskine is just a (usually) black notebook, but for me (and others I’m sure) it’s where I capture my thoughts about my travels, including where I've been, where I am and where I’m contemplating for future trips. I’ve tried a few notebooks and travel journals over the years, but the Moleskine is The Real Thing. It slips into pockets and bags easily, is just the right size for boarding passes and my passport and it can cope with the wear and tear that travel can inflict. It may not be very Web 2.0 - but it is one of my travel essentials. It’s my aide memoire to help me label photographs after the event, it’s where I capture scenes when I can’t use a camera, it’s my companion when I’m eating on my own, and it’s my travel planner when I’m sitting in airports or on planes.

The just-retired Moleskine (with the FC sticker on it) took me as far east as Beijing, as far west as Montreal, as far north as the Cairngorms, and as far south as Sea Lion Island in the Falklands. On 10 trips it and I have clocked up about 40,000 air miles, and spent 67 nights away from Oxford (including 2 on boats, 4 on planes and 2 in yurts).

As I flick through the old Moleskine I very quickly get pulled back into the experiences I’ve had over the last year and the people I met up with on my journeys.

There’s a little map showing where I abandoned my car in a blizzard at Brize Norton airbase (which I did need to find the car again). There’s a reminder of the glorious heat on Ascension Island (a contrast after being literally stuck to the runway in Oxfordshire - the wheel-chocks were frozen to the ground). There’s a reminder of the excitement of sitting amongst the Gentoo penguins on Sea Lion Island, and amongst the black-browed albatross on Saunders Island. There’s a reminder of the impossibly salty curry served on Alderney, and of the just inedible breakfasts offered along the Silk Road in Xinjiang (I’d never fantasised about muesli and cold milk before). And the observations on how Budapest has changed since 1997 - then lots of US-style burger bars, now lots of US-style burger bars plus western coffee shops albeit with significantly better cakes than we get in the UK.

I also got a bit caught up in visiting places beginning with B. Barcelona, Beijing, Bishkek, Boston, Budapest, Birmingham and Bromsgove.

There are reminders about the fun (and frustrations) of travelling with groups of people. I’ve enjoyed meeting up with people who make my travelling efforts look positively amateur, and talked enviously with folks who make a living travelling. I’ve also enjoyed having time to absorb being in new places without the distraction of crowds and companions.

There’s also a slightly smug entry about being able to get into a Business Lounge during a long lay-over at Istanbul airport where I was able to have a shower and get a bowl of cereal with cold milk. Sorry.

And there are even a few cryptic notes about work in various places - mostly ramblings about IMS specifications and about OERs.

The notebook also highlights my satisfaction in getting to places and doing things that have been on my to-do list for years. I got to travel along the Silk Road and (at least) some of the Karakorum Highway (I’ve got old guidebooks for these dating from 1993 and 1996). I got to photograph hump-back whales breaching off the Boston coast - and my bird photography came on leaps and bounds (OK - it’s difficult not to take decent bird photos in the Falklands).

So where is the new Moleskine promising to take me this year?

At the moment two trips are booked (to Shetland and to Svalbard) - so I should get further north this year than last but other than that the plan is blank. I’d like to get to Japan - and it would be fun to go by train and boat rather than plane. I also feel that my travel pedigree is a bit lacking since I’ve still got one continent missing (Africa). I’ve also got a real hankering to get back to Antarctica & the Falklands (and to visit South Georgia for the first time) and to see more of Bhutan. And I’ve not been across the Pacific Ocean. And I’d like to spend more time in the Middle East....

Probably won’t get to do all of these this year. But where-ever I do get to will be captured in my Moleskine.

Happy travelling in 2010 - and may all your journeys be long haul.

P.S. In 2008 I came to the conclusion that my travelling carbon footprint was something like 16 tonnes of CO2 - in 2009 this dropped to just over 11 tonnes (7 from flying and 4 from driving).

Denmark December 2009

2009-12-31T17:48:00.003Z

Finished my travelling for 2009 by spending a week in western Denmark - which got the same heavy pre-Christmas fall of snow that hit southern England, but where low temperatures ensured that the snow covering persisted to Christmas and well beyond.

The Danes have a much stricter definition of a 'White Christmas' than do we Brits. In Denmark (I'm told) there needs to be 1 cm of snow covering 90% of the country - rather than the occasional snowflake floating around somewhere in the country at some point on the 25th December. 2009 was the first Danish White Christmas for 14 years.

I learnt lots about what makes a traditional Danish Christmas celebration - there's plenty of food and drink involved - and huge amounts of rice pudding. :-)

We had a very picturesque arrival in Esbjerg as the ferry needed to push it's way through lots of sea ice to reach the harbour, bringing back images from both Greenland and the Antarctica. Are DFDS ferries ice rated?

The most dramatic landmark near where we were staying is Elia (www.elia.dk) - a modern sculpture / lightning conductor / artificial volcano which occasionally spouts forth flames. It declined to erupt while we watched.

Denmark December 2009

Cairngorms National Park December 2009

2009-12-07T21:45:00.001Z

Big Cat Diary - Scottish-style: Lynx, Amur Tiger and Highland Wildcat. These are three of the attractions currently in the Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park. My only previous visit to the Highland Wildlife Park was sometime in the mid-70's just after the park opened, at that time their focus was to showcase wildlife that would (at some time at least) have been visible in the Highlands. The Park is now part of Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and has seen several recent migrants come up the A9 from Edinburgh Zoo.

The Park now has a family of Amur Tigers and most recently a polar bear called Mercedes in residence, and I gather there are plans to move more 'tundra' species further north too (presumably on the assumption that the Cairngorms are a little closer to tundra than can be realistically achieved in Corstorphine).

My brief trip up to the Cairngorms was driven by the desire to see a Highland Tiger (aka Wildcat) - as a result of sponsoring one earlier in the year, and by the need to fit in at least one trip to Scotland in 2009.

The light wasn't great for photography, but a few snaps follow. I'll try and get back early next year when there is some snow on the ground.

Cairngorms December 2009

My guides around the park were GoWild-Scotland - thanks to Aaron for his guidance in making the best of the available light.

What makes a photograph interesting?

2009-11-29T17:57:00.009Z

I put most of the pictures that I want to share onto Picasa, but I've been putting a few onto Flickr for a while, mainly because I liked the geo-tagging that Flickr supported - and seeing the red dots littered across the map. I spent a while this weekend playing with some of the other features that Flickr offers, and came across the concept of "Interestingness". Serious Flickr users debated this feature years ago but my exploration of it did start me thinking about what makes a picture interesting and why I choose some pictures to share and not others.

The twenty most interesting (according to Flickr) pictures include eight from the Falkland Islands, three from Antarctica, a couple each from various Scottish Islands and Argentina - I don't particularly disagree with any of these choices but I am intrigued about what put these ahead of others in my collection. These aren't the most regularly viewed pictures nor the ones that others have flagged as favourites - and I must admit I haven't yet gone off to look at the various patents that Yahoo have filed in this area to understand the ranking.

I put pictures onto Picasa (or Flickr) for a variety of reasons. They're there as my 'been there' flags, pictures that represent the geographic extent of each trip and the "famous" places I've visited on the trip. Although my visit to Beijing a couple of years ago was in the summer and the visibility was lousy, I was always going to put up pictures of the Great Wall even though if I wasn't particularly proud of them. I also put up pictures that I particularly like or which evoke strong memories. These are often wildlife pictures - I got a real buzz out of the whale pictures off Boston in the summer and the bird pictures from the Falklands earlier in the year. These two reasons are really just reasons why I would put pictures up, but not really reasons why anyone else would want to look at them never mind contribute to any concept of interestingness.

The third reason for putting pictures up is (I hope) slightly more altruistic and potentially more interesting to others - it is to give a flavour of the experiences I've had, the places I've been seen or the people I've been visited. I think this is particularly true of the places I think of as unusual - I do tend to opt (when given a choice) to go to places that most other folks don't go to, and I see part of my "role" as sharing my experience with others. Part of my criteria for "interesting" would be to highlight things I want to talk about after the trip. From the Central Asia trip I felt a real need to talk about what's happening to the Uighur people in Xinjiang in western China, but I didn't want to share some of the people pictures just in case there were implications to my doing this. My compromise on that trip was to include pictures of the various bits of Kashgar Old Town as they still are alongside the freshly bulldozed areas being cleared by the Chinese authorities in the name of progress.

When I'm enthusing about the places I've been to, I also occasionally catch myself thinking that I don't really want lots of people following me there. Places like the Falklands and Bhutan are fascinating places to go and visit and I'll be going back to both of them, but part of the interestingness of these places (and hopefully my pictures) is that they are relatively unusual destinations. However neither of these places has a big tourist infrastructure and a huge influx of visitors would certainly change them. In these cases I get torn between offering interesting pictures and wanting to keep the secrets to myself..

My 20 most "interesting" pictures are linked below

Interesting Pictures?

Watching The Albatross

2009-11-22T21:39:00.001Z

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as Robert Cushman Murphy who in late 1912, asserted that he now belonged to "a higher cult of mortals" because "he had seen the albatross", but I do consider myself to be lucky to have seen a variety of albatross over the last couple of years.

My first sighting of the albatross was from MS Fram heading south from Ushuaia towards the South Shetland Islands in November 2007 - on that trip I saw four different species (Wandering, Black-browed, Sooty and Grey-headed). However, I saw all of these at a distance and, truth be told, I was pretty reliant on the accompanying naturalists to confirm which I was seeing.

Those first sightings were enough to encourage me to head back down to the Falkland Islands earlier this year so I could get a look at one of these species at close quarters.

I spent a few days staying at the Neck on Saunders Island in the northwest corner of the Falklands. The attractions on Saunders include colonies of gentoo, magellanic, rockhopper and king penguins, as well as Johnny Rooks (striated caracaras), king and rock cormorants - but the real draw is the huge breeding colony of black-browed albatross. These awesome birds nest on mud-turrets on a steep hillside facing northwards towards South America - and I was able to sit close to the colony (which they share with both rockhoppers and cormorants) watching the adult albatross sweep dramatically back in from the sea. They stumble through a landing process, most charitably described as ungainly, before going through their welcoming rituals with their partners and then turning their full attention to childcare. The beak-tapping ritual reinforces the bond between the adults - but the real magic is the delicacy of touch demonstrated after feeding when the adult's huge curved beak is used to pick away left-overs from around the chick's head.

I was at the colony in February when the down-covered chicks are not yet quite ready to fledge, but are almost the same size as the adults. The chicks spend much of the day sitting balanced high on their mud look-out posts waiting for the adults to return with another load of freshly caught squid. One of my strongest recollections is walking along the tracks high above the colony aware that many pairs of chick eyes were following me - and if I dared cross the invisible line that the chicks considered to be the safe distance they would very vocally encourage me to take a few steps back up the hill.

A few of the photographs I took around the colony are linked below.

Saunders Albatross February 2009

I spent several days on Saunders Island, and was privileged to be able to spend a lot of hours just watching the comings and goings at the colony, particularly watching the chicks waiting for the adults to return from their long-range foraging trips. This makes the activities of the Albatross Task Force even more important in my mind and I'll be encouraging folks I know who are interested in bird-life to help support the project. We (collectively) need to do everything we can to help protect these magnificent birds as they search for food across the Southern Ocean - I'm trying to figure out how and where I can get to see other albatross up close, but in the meantime I'll continue supporting the ATF.

Travel Envy...

2009-11-16T14:06:00.001Z

Envy is a terrible thing. My first real pang of travel envy was when I was 12 or 13 - I and my family were on holiday in Aviemore in the Cairngorms. It happened that my school headmaster was on holiday there too. When the snow closed in towards the end of the holiday season my family got out towards the South just before the roads were closed, but the Head and his family got stuck. I made it back to school in time for the new term, the Head made it back several days later. Felt very unfair at the time. Still does.

Had similar thoughts today seeing the news reports that the Kapitan Khlebnikov has managed to get stuck in the sea ice near the Antarctic peninsula. I'm already envious that these folks are getting to travel to Snow Hill on the KK before it's retirement - and the bonus of getting safely stuck will give them serious bragging rights when they get home...

Bromsgrove and Birmingham November 2009

2009-11-11T22:51:00.001Z

There's been something of a pattern to my trips this year - Barcelona, Beijing, Bishkek, Boston, Budapest - and Bromsgrove and Birmingham fit right into that pattern.

These two trips (both work-related) covered different aspects of my work role.

The Bromsgrove trip was to spend a while talking with a group of Open University Associate Lecturers about the range of collaborative tools the OU makes available to them now, and to speculate about the new tools that might become available in the next two or three years to either complicate what they're doing further or to help them manage the torrent of information. I enjoyed the session - and I hope my audience got something from it too.

The Birmingham trip was a visit to the Brave New World of the JISC/CETIS Conference - last year I made a comment about being surrounded by twitters this time I was one of them. As always this meeting brings together a really good mix of new technology experimenters and folks responsible for running production systems - and provides plenty to think about.

Budapest November 2009

2009-11-11T22:35:00.001Z

My last visit to Budapest was in June 1997 - the city has changed since then. One of my strongest memories was that we couldn't find any of the traditional Budapest coffee shops we'd been promised - they all seemed to have been converted into western european (and US) burger bars. This time it had all changed - and the US burger chains have all been supplemented by Starbucks and Costa Coffee - not traditional perhaps, but at least I was able to get a reasonable cup of coffee. The bonus was that alongside the cappuccinos and lattes it was possible to get some decent local cake.

I was in Budapest for a two day workshop on standards for exchanging elearning materials - and (I suspect) as a result of good planning by the organisers, the one point during my time there when there weren't sessions to attend coincided with a time when the skies cleared and the cold drizzle stopped.

I walked the length Andrassy ut on the Pest side of the river - from Heroes' Square (which was in mid-rehearsal for Armistice Day) down towards the Chain Bridge, then along past the Parliament Building. Budapest has more than it's fair share of statues - the most moving I saw were the Shoes on the Danube by Gyula Pauer - commemorating Hungarian Jews shot and thrown into the Danube in 1944.

And it was a useful conference too!

Budapest November 2009

Cordoba October 2009

2009-10-31T13:20:00.006Z

The trip to Cordoba wasn’t just a quick break in the autumn sunshine clutching a camera, although it was fantastic to be able to wander around in shirt sleeves and to eat outside late in the evening. This trip was about writing rather than just being a tourist. Over the last few months (which have significantly more sedentary, in travel terms, than earlier in the year - 30-something days annual leave each year just isn’t enough to feed a serious travel habit) I’ve been contemplating writing more about my trips in addition to documenting them with pictures.

Searching for some assistance, I signed up for a long weekend course on travel writing with Travellers Tales . The location (based in Seville and Cordoba) was certainly an attraction - I’ve been to Spain three times over the last couple of years, but never ventured south of Madrid.

In hopes of keeping the carbon footprint of the trip down we looked at trying to get to Andalucia by train - perfectly doable (See the Man in Seat 61) but it does take time and it we just couldn’t make it fit into the work diaries. Heading south would have been OK, but getting back north required too many train changes and more time than we had available. Our second option, in an attempt to keep out of the clutches of Ryanair (other budget airlines are available) was to fly to Madrid and use the AVE (the Spanish high-speed train service) to complete the journey. The AVE is a delight compared with most of the UK domestic train companies, but figuring out the quirks of the RENFE website is an art form all of its own (Seat61 has lots to say on the subject). The trick being knowing when to stick with Spanish version of the site, and when to jump into the English version. I’m still not quite sure why the tickets south in ‘Turista’-class cost significantly more than the tickets north in ‘Preferente’. Having criticised the Spanish railways website - I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Spanish-language version of the TrainLine website.

The Travellers Tales course was extremely good - a mix of tutorial/seminar and research in the streets, alley-ways and buildings of Cordoba, writing time (and time to read what you’ve been writing to tutors and fellow students) and lots of time to talk about travelling and writing. Highly recommended.

I did take a few photos in Seville and Cordoba but a return trip to spend more time behind the camera is certainly in order.

Cordoba October 2009

If the writing here is any better than before Jonathan, Dan and my class-mates get the credit - if it’s no better (or even worse) I take the blame.

Orbis September 2009

2009-09-14T21:48:00.003+01:00

Haven't managed a trip recently but did need my passport to get airside at Stansted Airport recently to have a look at the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.

Orbis September 2009

I've been supporting Orbis for a number of years - ever since I came across their plane at an airport somewhere on the Indian Sub-continent (either in India or Pakistan, I guess), but this was the first chance I'd had to have a look at the plane (a very heavily modified DC-10) close up. The plane is a mixture of lecture theatre and teaching hospital with wings - capable of both delivering and teaching modern eye surgery. It's a really inspiring project both technically and educationally - and I wish the volunteers every success on their next trip (to Rajasthan in India).

The organisation have fund-raising offices in several countries, including both the US and the UK. The UK branch website is at www.orbis.org.uk

Solomon August 2009

2009-08-11T22:22:00.002+01:00

Missing a Muse

Over the last five years I’ve taken at least one photograph every day – when I’ve been travelling there have been lots of different things to photograph. When I’ve been at home I’ve taken pictures at work, in the house and round the garden.

However my fallback has always been to take another picture of the exceptionally photogenic cat that we acquired when we bought our house just over 11 years ago. At that time Solomon was five or six years old (we were never sure which), and had always lived in the house. Solomon finally passed away on Sunday morning, he was probably 17 years old. Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the huge number I’ve taken over the last few years.

Solomon

Boston & Montreal July 2009

2009-07-18T15:11:00.007+01:00

Spent two really good weeks in the US and Canada. First week at the Sakai Conference in Boston, and the second at the IMS GLC Quarterly Meeting in Montreal. These were both really good meetings and were in two of the most european cities in North America (and that's a compliment).

Did manage to find a little bit of time to take a few pictures in/around Boston and Montreal, and went whale-watching during the weekend between the conferences.

Boston July 2009

Whales July 2009

Montreal July 2009

A Whole New Geography July 2009

2009-07-07T19:06:00.003+01:00

My blog posts are mostly about places I've been - this one is about places I've only just found out about, and I don't expect to be visting them any time soon.

The in-flight info system on my trans-atlantic Air Canada flight (where I'm sitting typing this - although I'll post it a bit later) tells me more about where I'm flying over than any other in-flight system I can remember using - it feels like I've discovered a whole new layer of geography (apologies to my geography teachers from many years ago if they told me this).

I've just passed over the Porcupine Bank - and I'm now heading towards the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. Some of the other places I can see on screen are the Immarssuak Seachannel and the Great Meteor Tablemount. I knew there were lots of geographic features under the North Atlantic - I've just never known what any of them were called, and since this is an Air Canada flight, I even know what some of these features are called in French (Rive de Porc-epic, Chenal de Immarssuak and Butte du Grand Meteor).

Suddenly there are an awful lot more place names to think about.

Wimbledon July 2009

2009-07-07T19:03:00.002+01:00

A real bonus - an offer of Centre Court ticket on Men's Final Day very gratefully accepted. The silver cloud from Andy Murray's semi-final loss to Andy Roddick.

Sat in the middle of a 15,000-strong collection of tennis fans and celebs, ranging from Alex Ferguson and Richard Branson to Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, to watch the marathon match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. For the first four sets it really wasn't apparent how Federer was going to complete his 15th Grand Slam title - which must have been worrying for the folks who turned up in the "Federer 15" shirts.

During the fifth set it wasn't clear how either player was going to prevail, other than as a result of the other collapsing from exhaustion. That was pretty much what happening - as Federer won in the 30th game of the final set I couldn't tell if Roddick was reeling from disappointment or exhaustion.

As the final set rolled on a number of the folks around me made apologies and needed to head to the airport to catch flights - I was starting to worry about whether I was going to be able to make my flight on Tuesday morning.

My seat was in an ideal position (in terms of the light) to take photos - a few are below.

Wimbledon July 2009

China and Kyrgyzstan, May/June 2009

2009-06-26T13:47:00.012+01:00

My second big trip of 2009 – after the coastline and wildlife of The Falkland Islands in February this trip was about as far from the sea as it’s possible to get – Urumqi claims to be the ‘city farthest from the sea in the world’.

We flew into Beijing, spending just a few hours there before flying back west again to Urumqi – then we took to the road heading west along the northern side of the Takla Makan desert through Korla, Kuqa and Aksu – then south across the desert to Hotan before tracking the south side of the desert to Yarkand and Kashgar. From Kashgar we briefly went south along the Chinese section of the Karakorum Highway, before turning north over the Torugart Pass into Kyrgyzstan. We spent a couple of nights in the mountains staying in yurts before finishing up in Bishkek.

I’ve included links to a selection of the photographs I took on the trip – just click on the images below to see more from each section.

	Places
	Markets
	Takla Makan
	KKH
	Kyrgyzstan

Highlights

Seeing and crossing the Takla Makan. Peter Fleming did this by horse and camel and took several months, we went across one of new ‘desert highways’ in an air-conditioned bus in about 6 hours. The Takla Makan really does fit all the desert stereotypes.

‘Doing’ at least part of the Karakorum Highway. I bought the KKH guidebook in the early 1990’s when I visited Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province – so it was high time I travelled along at least part of the route.

Seeing Kashgar before all the old bits get demolished. The name (for me) conjures up images of camels and a dusty oasis town – there are still a few camels, and it’s still dusty in places, but there are now an awful lot of new buildings too. A lot of building and demolition work going on at the moment involves removing big chunks of the (mainly Uighur) old town – lots of 500 year buildings are being bulldozed as potential earthquake hazards. They can’t be that vulnerable to earthquakes if they’re been there for 500 years.

Learning about Uighur culture. I didn’t know a huge amount about the Uighurs before we booked the trip – it was fascinating to learn about the culture and to meet lots of very friendly and welcoming Uighur people.

Staying in a Yurt These are the traditional tents used in the high mountains in Central Asia – I’ve now spent two nights sleeping in them. And I remember at least some of the reasons why I retired my tent and promoted myself to places with hot and cold running water.

Having a city-break in Bishkek. OK, it’s a long way from the UK for a city break – but Bishkek is an fantastic place to spend a few days, a mix of Central Asian cultures, Soviet-era architecture and western comforts.

Lowlights

Chinese Breakfasts. I love Chinese food – and almost all the evening meals were either Chinese or (more commonly) Uighur, but I really can’t manage Chinese breakfasts. The group got to the stage of fantasising about muesli with cold milk – and the reaction on discovering that we would get the option of porridge once we crossed the boarder into Kyrgzstan was close to hysteria.

Long-drop toilets. There are some occasions when I feel the need to offer thanks that I have a really awful sense of smell – this holiday provided many such occasions.

My other half has posted some of her thoughts on the trip http://susannareeceknits.blogspot.com/

We did this trip with Explore! – ‘Crossroads of Asia’ – and thanks to all our companions, to Ali and Olga our local guides – and particularly to Craig our Explore! Tour Leader.

Barcelona May 2009

2009-05-17T17:51:00.002+01:00

My first IMS trip of the year - and for change on the eastern side of the Atlantic - i.e. not too much travelling time and no jet lag. Excellent meeting and lots of really good Spanish food to accompany it. Despite the full programme did grab a couple of quick outings to take a few pictures.

Barcelona May 2009

Alderney March 2009

2009-03-29T10:31:00.003+01:00

Once more onto the Beach. After three weeks back at work it seemed like a good time to head to the coast again – this time not quite so far south. We were repeating a holiday from 1994 – using the same airline and staying in the same hotel. Aurigny still fly the same Britten-Norman Trislanders between Southampton and Alderney – the stretch version of the Islander I used in the Falklands. The Belle Vue Hotel is still run by the same folks that were running it in 1994 too. The island really didn’t feel like it had changed too much since 1994 (but perhaps that’s related to flaws in my memory!). One thing which hadn't changed was the weather, we had splendid weather in April 94 and during our March week this year we had blue skies every day too.

We spent a splendid slow-paced week walking along the coasts and paths of Alderney – saw over 40 different bird species although they weren’t quite as amenable to photography as the Falkland ones.

Alderney March 2009

Only problem now is that I can’t see how to keep up this work:vacation ratio for the rest of the year.

Falkland Islands February 2009

2009-02-28T21:34:00.003Z

When the snow lies deep and crisp and even across Oxfordshire, it’s a good clue that it’s time to head south. I headed pretty much as far south as I could get on a direct air link from Oxfordshire specifically to the Falkland Islands flying on the MoD air-bridge with a brief stopover in the Ascension Islands. After trudging through deep snow at RAF Brize Norton it was rather pleasant to get to spend a couple of hours sitting in the sun on the ‘Transit Patio’ on Ascension Island before flying on south to Mount Pleasant near Stanley.

The Falkland Islands aren’t (at any time of year) as warm as Ascension but it was a very pleasant 16-18 C in mid February – and on most days the sun shone and the wildlife was amazingly accessible. I never visited anywhere where the birds are so co-operative. Many centuries of seclusion from ground-based predators has made the birds, particularly, easy to see. Back in the North I rather expect any passing snipe to either hide in the undergrowth completely or at very least to disappear into the distance at the slightest provocation – with the magellanic snipe I encountered on Sea Lion Island their idea of an evasive manoeuvre was to jump about 2 feet then carry on feeding.

I spent a total of 11 day in the Falklands – three days on Saunders Island, four days on Sea Lion Island and the rest based in Stanley.

I was fortunate to get to spend my time on Saunders staying at the Cabin at the Neck – a magical place to stay within sight and sound of gentoo, magellanic and king penguin colonies and very close to a rockhopper penguin and black-browed albatross colony. There is also a huge elephant seal colony just a few miles up the coast on the appropriately name Elephant Point. The guide books suggest that the Cabin is going to be pretty primitive, but they’re out of date! These days the Cabin has hot and cold running water, central heating and mains electricity – I’ve lived in worse. I wouldn’t hold out much prospect for Room Service though the nearest other buildings are 10 miles away (which here equates to an hour in a Land-Rover – the vehicle of choice for most people in the Islands).

After Saunders I travelled by FIGAS (Falklands Island Govt Air Service) down to Sea Lion Island on the southern edge of the Falklands. This was the first time I’ve stayed at a hotel with an airstrip but no car park. Sea Lion was major change from Saunders – it feels less remote and rugged but in fact it’s much less disturbed than Saunders Island and still has lots of the tussac grass that once covered most of the Falklands – this provides shelter for lots of smaller birds as well for a few larger mammals such as sea lions (you’d expect that given the name of the island) and elephant seals. Neither of these animals take kindly to being stepped on – and they’re both impressively large with lots of teeth and in the case of the elephant seals spectacularly bad breath.

The bird-watching on Sea Lion is something I’ll remember for a very long time, and the undoubted highlight was lying on the beach just after dawn as the gentoo penguins came to investigate the new arrival on the sand. Having established that I wasn’t good to eat they opted simply to stand watching me watching them – wildlife photography with a wide-angle lens is a whole new experience.

The other real characters on both Saunders and Sea Lion Island are the Striated Caracaras – one of the world’s rarer birds of prey (except on the Falklands). These birds are very confident and incredibly curious (a combination which probably explains their rarity) – they will attempt to carry off a substantial camera bag should the opportunity arise and they are well able to move a heavy bag even if they can’t get off the ground with it. This strength is put to rather better effect (from the caracara’s perspective) at other times by pulling the heads off penguins!

Back in Stanley I had the opportunity to visit a major King penguin colony at Volunteer Beach – this is described as being the most accessible King Penguin colony in the world – which meant that it required a hour on gravel roads, then 90 minutes in a Land-Rover with a very good driver to reach the colony (all assuming you’ve already got to Stanley). I had a wonderful couple of hours at the colony and on the beaches nearby before the crowds descended! My guides (Arlette Bloomfield from Falkland Islands Holiday and Tony Smith from Discovery Falklands) had wisely advised that I needed get to the colony as early as possible before the cruise ship crowds arrived – they were absolutely right. The guidance I’d been given about keeping your distance from the penguins and waiting until they came to you clearly hadn’t sunk in with at least some of the cruise ship passengers. What’s the penalty for harassing a penguin?

The Falkland Islands are now firmly on the cruise ship itinerary – there are economic benefits to the Islands in this but there are downsides too. A big cruise ship can easily double the population of Stanley when it arrives and completely transforms the town – local advice was to either leave town or stay in doors. In addition to this any attempt to get significant numbers of people to a site such as Volunteer Beach is clearly going to be problematic. As we drove to Volunteer Beach it was clear how much damage had been done by 4x4’s to the ground between the road end and the penguin colony. On the day I visited the colony there were well over 40 vehicles parked up near the beach and something like 120 or 130 people milling about amongst the penguins – I can’t see how this is sustainable!

My first trip to the Falklands was a fantastic experience – at one time (many years ago) it was just somewhere in the South Atlantic where we fought a minor war, for me it’s now THE place to go and see, hear and photograph a fantastic range of wildlife. The only real question that remains – on my next trip do I revisit Saunders and Sea Lion Islands or do I make time to get to some of the other 700 islands?

I’ve put together three collections of photos from this trip – a small selection from the vast number of images I took.

The first set will I hope give an impression of what the Falklands Island is like at this time of year (early autumn in the southern hemisphere).

Falkland Islands February 2009

The second set is a collection of penguin pictures from Saunders and Sea Lion Islands and Volunteer Beach.

Falklands JustPenguins February 2009

The third set is my attempt to put together an illustrated bird-list for the trip – there are 37 different species shown here. I saw a few more but they didn’t hang around for long enough to be photographed!

Falkland BirdList February 2009

A word about logistics – I organised this trip through Falkland Island Holidays in Stanley who sorted out all my local flights with FIGAS, the accommodation throughout the trip and even my ‘meal packs’ on Saunders Island. I sorted my MoD airbridge flights with the Falkland Island Government Office in London. On Sea Lion Island I stayed at Sea Lion Lodge, and my chauffeur and guide to get to Volunteer Beach was Tony Smith of Discovery Falklands.

Useful URLs
Falkland Islands Holidays www.falklandislandsholidays.com
Falkland Island Government Office www.falklands.gov.fk
Sea Lion Lodge www.sealionisland.com
Discovery Falkland www.discoveryfalklands.com
Falklands Conservation www.falklandsconservation.com

Snow Event February 2009

2009-02-07T21:51:00.002Z

I'm not quite sure how much snow (and associated disruption) is required to make a Snow Event - but that's what the media have been calling the weather in the UK over the last few days.

It's made the commute from Oxford to Milton Keynes much more entertaining, and provided more photo opportunities than a typical February week.

Snow Event February 2009

Oxford January 2009

2009-01-29T17:51:00.006Z

Travelling this month has pretty much been limited to browsing the guide book collection.

However several weeks of enforced inactivity (flu & pneumonia) has given me the chance to reflect on the statement I made in early January last year - "I don't think I'll be doing quite so much travelling in 2008".

So how did I do...

It depends how you measure - in 2008 I "only" clocked up 65,000 airmiles, well down on the 102,000 I did in 2007 (and I only spent 60-something nights away from home, as opposed to over 100 in 2007 - there's a correlation there I'm sure).

On other measures the change isn't quite so clear - 2008 involved 10 trips which meant 39 flights, 2007 11 trips and 41 flights.

So what about my carbon footprint - the 10 trips in 2008 included 6 work trips and 4 leisure ones - the work ones generating 7.3 tonnes of CO2, and the leisure ones 3.2.

My car also made a contribution to global warming last year - about 18,000 miles last year (or about 5.8 tonnes of CO2). About 85% of that was my daily commute.

I'm sure I'll be doing less travelling again this year - plans at the moment only get me to about 20,000 miles. We'll see.

Tromso December 2008

2008-12-31T13:30:00.000Z

The intention was to try and take some photographs of the Northern Lights - and the few quiet days between Christmas and New Year seemed like a good time to try and do this - and Tromso seemed like a good location. I think it's the most northerly place I can get a direct flight to from south-east of England.

Unfortunately neither the weather (it was Tromso's warmest late December for 25 years - which meant lots of low cloud) nor the aurora (at it's lowest possible activity) co-operated. The Northern Lights will need to remain on the wish list for another year.

It was interesting being that far north (c. 70 degrees) in late December - and seeing that it really doesn't ever get light!

Tromso December 2008

Bristol December 2008

2008-12-15T22:07:00.001Z

A fantastic cold clear weekend in/around Bristol. A selection of photos taken at Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge just north of Bristol.

Bristol December 2008

Birmingham November 2008

2008-11-27T18:00:00.003Z

Another trip to Birmingham - this time amongst the JISC/CETIS twitterati....

Birmingham November 2008

Helsinki November 2008

2008-11-18T22:09:00.002Z

After a brief stay at home - a long weekend in Helsinki. Two full days in Helsinki plus travel days at each end. Trip booked via Expedia who suggested the Scandic Grand Marina in the harbour area. Fantastic city for a long weekend - probably even better for a longer trip. My travel trip (i) for Helsinki - get a Helsinki Card (covers all local public transport including out to Suomenlinna and more museums than it's possible to visit in a long weekend). Travel trip (ii) - when all the other museums have closed head for Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art; it opens late even on a Sunday, the building is spectacular and the collection is pretty good too.

Helsinki November 2008

US East Coast, November 2008

2008-11-08T15:40:00.003Z

My final IMS trip of 2008.

Flew United into/out of Washington-Dulles - spending four days at Penn State with an extra meeting down in Orlando. Penn State brought back lots of memories of my time at Cornell in the mid 80's (particularly the fantastic autumn colours).

East Coast November 2008

It was also fascinating to be in the US (and in two of the 'swing' states) at the time of the US Presidential Election.

From East Coast November 2008

Nepal and Bhutan, September-October 2008

2008-10-12T16:53:00.011+01:00

We've spent most of the last three weeks in Nepal and Bhutan (mostly in Bhutan). Bhutan is a fantastic place to visit and (at the risk of encouraging too many people to visit) it's been great to get the chance to visit somewhere with a still limited tourist infrastructure. We flew from London to Kathmandu (via Delhi) with Jet Airways who I last used in 1994 for an internal flight from Bombay - they are my new favourite airline - loads of room in economy class and decent food too.

September in Kathmandu is still definitely monsoon season - but not withstanding that spent time both around Durbar Square and at Bodhnath and Pushupatinath (which made for some interesting photographs), and at the other end of the trip we spent time at Nagarkot and Bhaktapur.

Places Nepal Sep 2008

We flew into Bhutan from Kathmandu - Paro airport is unlike any other international airport I've been to (both in terms of architecture and atmosphere) - it's also almost 7500 feet above sea level and surrounded by high mountains (the Druk Air in-flight magazine reassuringly tells you that the hills aren't as close as they appear!). From Paro we spent the next 10 days or so driving slowly (it's the only way to drive in Bhutan) across to Thimphu, Punakha, Trongsa and Jakar in the Bumthang valley and then back, finishing with the Bhutanese 'must-do' for all tourists, the trek up to Taktshang Goemba (Tiger's Nest).

There really is a dzong, stupa or chorten on pretty much every hilltop.

Places Bhutan Sep 2008

The entire trip gave loads of chances to photograph people - it's not my usual thing, but it gave me the excuse to do this time.

People Bhutan Nepal Sep 2008

I did try to spend a bit of time looking for wildlife (mostly birds) - and a few shots are linked below. I think I can feel a return visit coming on to spend more time looking at wildlife - and going further east to Mongar and Tashigang.

Wildlife Bhutan Nepal Sep 2008

The flights provided some chances to see the high Himalayas amidst the clouds...

WindowSeat Bhutan Nepal Sep 2008

We booked this trip (Bhutan: The Dragon Kingdom) via Cox and Kings in London - and the local guiding was provided by Temple Tiger in Nepal (Shiva Ram), and by Blue Poppy in Bhutan (Sonam and Phup).

Thoroughly engaging trip - it's a really nasty shock to the system to be back in the UK (and the food here is just so mild)... when's the next trip, I'm sure I've still got some blank pages in my passport.

Birmingham September 2008

2008-09-16T19:13:00.004+01:00

Another IMS meeting, another city. This time closer to home, at the Lakeside Conference Centre Aston University.

Birmingham September 2008

Spain September 2008

2008-09-10T22:34:00.009+01:00

Visit to UNED in Spain (the Spanish equivalent to the Open University). Spent one day in the UNED offices in Madrid and one day at one of UNED study centres in Pontevedra in Galicia. Then grabbed a couple of days to be a tourist in Segovia and Madrid. And contrary to popular opinion it does rain in Spain - this is my second visit to Spain in the last year and I've got wet both times! Barcelona in the rain

Spain September 2008

Suffolk August 2008

2008-08-22T22:01:00.002+01:00

Another week on the Suffolk Coast - again staying in one of the National Trust apartments at Dunwich Heath, and spending most of the week in/around the coast and the RSPB reserve at Minsmere. Saw avocets, bittern, marsh harriers, lots of godwits plus common, Sandwich and little terns.

A couple of weeks earlier than our previous visit.

Suffolk August 2008

Silverstone July 2008

2008-07-26T21:57:00.000+01:00

The Silverstone Classic at Silverstone Race Track in Northamptonshire - everything from early Bugatti's through to F1 cars from the 1980's.

Silverstone July 2008

Lords Cricket Ground July 2008

2008-07-12T21:26:00.000+01:00

Saturday of the First Test between England and South Africa - England took 10 SA wickets and enforced the follow-on - their last good day until the series was won by South Africa.

Lords July 2008

Shetland June 2008

2008-07-06T22:15:00.002+01:00

Another week back on Shetland - about as far north as we can go without needing a passport (although BA get very grumpy if you don't have one flying from London to Aberdeen - has independence gone further than I realised?). This time we rented a splendid cottage at the Pool of Virkie - and for the first time did see the tide in at the Pool. A few good days birdwatching, and a little bit of retail therapy to help prop up the local economy.

Shetland June 2008

Travel Map

2008-06-21T08:30:00.006+01:00

Travels to June 2008

Ann Arbor June 2008

2008-06-15T19:38:00.001+01:00

That makes six US trips in the last 12 months. This time to the summer thunderstorms in Michigan. Travelling west involved long flights delays and missing luggage. University of Michigan is a huge establishment dominating Ann Arbor - also home to both Borders bookshops and Domino's Pizza. Did visit Borders, but didn't have any pizza!

Flying east back to the UK was much more relaxing - and all on time.

Michigan June 2008

Austin May 2008

2008-05-17T18:37:00.008+01:00

Another IMS Global Learning Consortium meeting - and my 5th visit to the US in the last year. Austin is a great city to visit - an interesting mix of sights and sounds reminding me of trips to various parts of the US over the last couple of years. I was very tempted to pick up a car at the airport and go off driving - but did stick to the original plan of clocking up even more airmiles with United! A short stopover in Denver on the way home providing further encouragement to redo the Rockies loop from Autumn 2006.

Austin May 2008

Bath April 2008

2008-04-27T19:49:00.004+01:00

As a change from cars and planes, this was a weekend by train (must try and do a few more less carbon-heavy trips this year). Weather was unseasonably warm, and the city was very crowded but the service in hotels and restaurants wasn't very good. Bath rather gave the impression that it didn't really care about it's visitors!

Bath April 2008