walking – Page 9 – Where is Phil now?

One week till I start walking the South West Coast Path

Tuesday 28 July 2015 – Walthamstow.

It is hard to believe that in a week’s time I am heading off on a bit of an adventure. Staying in England, and heading back to the South West Coast Path, though this time with a pack and a tent. I have been mildly obsessed with the path ever since I was a support driver for Malcolm Law and Tom Bland when they ran the path for charity back in 2012. I cannot get enough of it, mind you it is pretty long, so there is plenty to go around.

Unlike those two, I am not mad enough to consider trying to run the entire 630 miles, so I am planning on walking it instead, doing so over a couple of years rather than one long session. This summer I am lucky to have a month off work, and will do three weeks of walking – if I can.

When I first decided to do this a few weeks back I had in mind a three week power walk, carrying all my gear, free camping as much as possible, cooking and being self sufficient. The reality of the distance and the terrain has now fully set in, and mixed with the reality of my fitness and experience (or lack thereof) of multi day hikes I have settled for doing the best I can and just enjoying myself. If I do three days walking and three weeks of lying in the sun reading a book, then so be it. At least I left home. I suspect I will achieve something in between.

One of the many things I enjoy about doing different things is all the research that goes into these activities. I realise I am not going to Antarctica or the Amazon jungle, so research is sort of overkill, but it is part of my routine and I get great pleasure out of it – mixed with a bunch of self doubt and fear thrown in for good measure, once the reality of hiking sunk in.

For this trip I needed to pretty much buy everything, I have a good travelling pack, but it would be hopeless for hiking, I have a sleeping bag, and that is pretty much it. I needed a tent, a stove, sleeping mat, walking poles and a raft of other bits and pieces thrown in. I spent a lot of times in shops, reading, internet searching and generally enjoying myself researching things I knew very little about. Last weekend I went out and bought it all. I spent a lot of money as I prefer to buy quality over cheap. But I am happy with my purchases.

At the weekend I had a test day of putting up the tent, checking the stove, and a first load of the pack with most of the crap I have accumulated for the trip, some which will be dumped before I go I am sure…

The tent went up pretty easily and is as small as I expected a light weight two person tent to be, I reckon it will fit me and my pack comfortably, but I would not be wanting to share it with anyone else.

The surprising thing was when I took it down and put it all back in its bag, it actually fitted with room to spare. This was actually a shock, a pleasant one mind.

After a bit more research this week and a second packing session – I have tossed out some stuff already, I have found that the modern thing to do is put the tent at the top of the pack not the base.

The pack is very shiny !! I remember when the Macpac pack I took on my travels was this shiny. It isn’t any more 🙂

I have decided that for this trip I am not going to take a laptop, I was planning on taking my little travelling laptop and doing some writing and photo editing on the way, but even the small laptop weighs too much, and I am going to have to be very weight conscious (pack weight, not me weight. I plan on eating like a pig). I will take a pen and notebook and more flash memory for the camera instead. So there will unlikely be any posts along the way.

Not taking a laptop worries me somewhat as I will have to decide now what music I want to listen to for three weeks. What if I change my mind ?

It is a hard walk, the more I read the tougher it sounds, while there are no mountains to traverse the path is a constant stream of small ascents and descents, and a lot of them steep. I admit to being a little pensive about the whole thing. I guess it all adds to the excitement, in a way.

This Friday is my last day at work for 4 weeks, Yay !! As a great start to my holiday, El and I are off to the lovely lovely city of Bruges for the weekend. We are very excited about this. El has not been there and I have not been since 1987. It was the first European town I stopped at on my incomplete Europe tour and I shot a whole role of film there, which was utterly extravagant at the time. I was stunned at how beautiful the old town was, I suspect not much has changed since then. I also suspect I will take more photos this time!

Wahoo !! Looking forward to an awesome August !!

A stroll in the bush

Monday 15 June 2015 – Auckland, New Zealand.

I have been in New Zealand for three days and have pretty much had no sleep since arriving. A combination of strange beds – three nights and three different beds, and trying to sleep when I should be getting up for work has not been helped by my failure to sleep easily. So I am tired.

I have had a good couple of days so far, I have completed all the shopping I need to do, cuddled my grandson and seen all of my Auckland based family and some of my friends. It feels like I haven’t stopped, but in reality it has all been a fairly static trip so far. I was going to go for mountain bike ride on Saturday morning but the weather conspired against us, today was going to be a trail run but Vicki, who I was to run with, had a monster race over the weekend so we decided to make it a walk instead. It suited me, as I said before I was tired.

The original idea was to run up Mt Pirongia in the Waikato, a spectacular run/walk that I have not done, but seeing as we were not going run it seemed a bit silly to get up before dawn to drive for a couple of hours just to walk. We decided to head to an old favourite, Piha – where there is good coffee as well as good trails.

Piha is not my favourite beach on Auckland’s west coast, it is a close second to Karekare. However, Piha was one of my favourite places to trail run. Wonderful trails with awesome views and the bonus of a great cafe where turning up looking for coffee covered in mud and smelling a bit was not overly frowned upon.

Disappointing as it was, with hindsight, walking rather than running was a good idea. I have hardly run in weeks and Vicki has been knocking out fast paced ultra-marathons like they are going out of business. There was no way I would have survived a run like Pirongia. Walking meant we could natter for longer – including up the many climbs, and nattering is something we do best on our runs.

We had decided on a nice loop from the end of Glen Esk Rd, that captures all the good things about this section of the Waitakeres – a nice stream, kauri trees, some views and some glorious twisty, rooty single track.

Kauri die-back is a serious issue for the Waitakere Ranges – as well as other areas of native forest in the north of New Zealand. Kauri Dieback is caused by a fungus like disease that is killing kauri trees, it was only discovered in 2008. It is a spore that that gets into the roots of the tree, spreading up and eventually killing the tree, trees of all ages are affected and it is thought to be spread by animals, birds and humans. There are numerous spray stations around the park.

Like a lot of the waterways in the park in the early 19^th century the Piha stream was dammed and then used to float kauri logs down to logging mills on the coast. The remains of some of the dams can still be found in various locations.

We headed up Centennial track from Piha Valley track.

There are still a couple of fun sections on the trail, yet to be made day tripper friendly…

With a rewarding view down the valley.

Vicki had been telling me about the work the council had been doing on ‘maintaining’ some of the tracks, especially those on the Hillary Trail, the 85km long section of trails made famous by Sir Ed Hillary. This basically means widening the trail, removing anything remotely challenging and then covering the track in gravel, – thus removing half the fun of bush walking, but making the trails easier for those who don’t want to get dirty I guess. On the Forbes Trail it was pleasing to see they had not been every where !

Our final trail was the Maungaroa Ridge track, one of my favourite trails.

It is a great running trail, especially going anti-clockwise as there is more downhill, there are also some really nice kauri sections and it was lovely to see they are all still standing.

There is a look out just off to the side of the trail before it drops back down to Glen Esk Rd and back where we started.

And back over where we had just walked.

The Piha Cafe was closed due to a power outage, which was a real bummer, so Vicki and I headed back into Titirangi for a late lunch in one of the many cafes there.

It was a really nice day out, great to catch up with Vicki and share each others news and solve all of life’s issues.

A walk in the Park(land)

Saturday 06 June 2015 – Parkland Walk, London.

The Parkland Walk has been on my list of things to do for ages and ages, I cannot remember how it got on the to-do list or where I discovered it, but it looked like it was worth doing – mainly just because it was there to be done.

The walk follows the path of an abandoned railway line that was ripped up in the 1970s and turned into a park in 1984, it goes from Finsbury Park up to Highgate, it is not particularly long, particularly interesting or particularly scenic. But it is a really lovely short walk, taking under an hour from start to finish. It is also incredibly popular, I have never seen so many runners in London on a Saturday morning. It was a nice sunny day, though cool and very windy. A good running or walking day.

I am sitting at my mum’s dining table in New Zealand as I write this, I am tired after three days with almost no sleep, and jet-lagged from my flight over from London, so not feeling the most effusive today.

The path is surrounded by a narrow band of scrub and trees which mostly the hide the houses that run close to the path.

As the path is based on an old railway line there are numerous bridges along the way as the path passes under the roads. These are the heavily graffitied and a reminder that we are in the middle of a city.

There was also a really cool little playground under the trees.

Just past the remains of Crouch Hill station I spotted this sculpture lurking in one of the arches, quite frightening ! It is the Spriggan and is by Marilyn Collins, it was installed in 1993. According to urban legend, a ghostly ‘goat-man’ haunted the walk in the 1970s and 1980s and children dared each other to walk the walk between Crouch End Hill bridge to the Crouch Hill bridge in the darkness. The sculpture, and Parkland Walk generally, provided the inspiration for Stephen King’s short story “Crouch End” I can see why!

This section off the path ends just before Highgate Station when the lines go into old tunnels that have now been blocked off as they are now the home to bats.

We walked up past the station and across into Highgate Wood.

After seeing a sign pointing to a cafe we decided to take a break and sit down for coffee and cake, before backtracking a bit and heading up/down to Highgate.

We walked down through Waterlow Park in Highgate and on to Gospel Oak station to catch the train back to Walthamstow. El did. I took a detour through Shoreditch and grabbed a couple of new release records on the way. I wanted something new to listen to on the plane, but neither came with download codes which was a wee bit annoying.

It was a lovely walk, somewhere new to explore and something I would recommend on a sunny day. London never fails to amaze me with the amount of outdoorness there is.

Strawberry Hill Pond

Saturday 23 May 2015 – Epping Forest.

Now that I am a working man I can fully appreciate the fact that May has two bank holiday weekends, or long weekends as we would call them in New Zealand. This weekend is the second of them. Sadly it is also the last long weekend for quite a long time, but at least summer holidays are looming in this, the northern half of the world, so there is something to look forward to.

On the subject of holidays, I have two planned so far for the coming summer; a quick ten day visit to New Zealand in June for my grandson’s first birthday and then I am taking the whole of August as a break. I have a plan for the month off; it involves lots of walking, a tent and parts of the southwest coast path – I am very drawn to that (not so) small, but beautiful part of England’s coast. I blame Malcolm Law!

One of the things I really enjoy about any trip or activity I do is the pre-planning and research, so with both NZ and a proper backpacking holiday approaching I have been spending an awful lot of time in front of the laptop surfing the internet to book flights, plan accommodation and research the best pack and tent for multi-day solo walking trips. This usually ends up with me getting distracted, looking for some obscure noisy band and then buying their records, like the new album by 93Millionmilesfromthesun which I bought last week.

The weather forecast for this weekend is looking reasonable – i.e. it is not supposed to rain, so El and I decided this morning to make the most of the day and get out for a walk. I had wanted to find Strawberry Hill Pond in Epping Forest since I rode past it a few weeks back on a group mountain bike ride, as the sun was out we decided it would be a good thing to do with the day.

We caught a bus up to Loughton as it is on the edge of the forest and not far from where the map said the pond was likely to be. As we walked up the road from Loughton into and through the forest it started to drizzle with rain so we instead of heading immediately into the forest we chose to walk up the road a bit further and stop at the Robin Hood pub for a coffee and a bit of shelter.

We were the only ones in there at 11:30am. I supposed that is a good thing.

We hung around for a while after the coffee as we waited for the rain to stop, but eventually gave up and headed out into a light drizzle, the pub is in the middle of the forest and we only had to walk a short distance to get onto a section of single track used by the mountain bikers – and into the shelter of the trees, as we headed back to the car park where the path off to the ponds started.

As we approached the car park I suggested taking a short detour in the complete opposite direction to look for Loughton Camp, the site of an Iron Age fort. I always imagine ancient fort sites as having ruined walls and slightly leaning old towers, but these very old forts were made of wood and are long gone. All that is left is the earth works. As this was not part of the plan before we left home I only had a vague idea of its location and after 15 minutes of walking up some short, but surprisingly steep inclines we turned around and headed back to where we should have been going in the first place. I will try and find the fort on a bike ride one day soon.

Strawberry Hill Pond, like all the other ponds in this stretch of the wood was formed when Epping New Road was built in the 1830s and gravel was dug from the ground for its construction. Sadly the early burst of clean sun we saw before leaving home did not make a repeat appearance after the rain and the light was terrible for taking photos. Flat and dull. None of the photos I took around the ponds are particularly good, they do show what a lovely spot it would be on a nice day though.

We walked around the outside of the small pond, and I spotted three herons sitting in the top of a tree on one of the islands in the pond. The pond is not fed from any stream so the water is all supplied by rain, it is brown due to the soil rather than it being dirty. It really is a pretty area and it was a shame that the sun was not shining on it to really make the colour in the trees shine.

The herons flew away soon after we saw them. One of them landed on the shore on the far side of the pond so we headed in that direction, just as I went to take a photo from a spot quite close to the bird, a couple coming the other way disturbed the heron before I could press the shutter.

For some reason I was really surprised to see the herons today, I never really saw them as a bird that lived in such proximity to a big city, sometimes it is really good to have perceptions changed.

I thought I knew the way to Chingford station from the pond, and while we did not get lost on the way back and I am fairly sure we took the correct paths, it did take a lot longer to get there than I expected it would. Though there are not too many other places I would rather be unsure of my location in. We soon popped out of the forest onto the bottom of the final hill before lunch.

We chose to stop for lunch at Butler’s Retreat, a Victorian era building, originally designed as a food store, though it has been a cafe for quite a long time now. Neither of us had been there for lunch, plus it was the first place we came to!

We both had bacon sandwiches and they were excellent, as were the coffees and cakes we decided to have for dessert, after all that walking we felt we had deserved cake! The food was very expensive, more than it should be, but at least it was good. I would stop there again I think.

With full bellies we waddled the last kilometre to Chingford Station to catch the train back to Walthamstow and home.

I was disappointed with the weather – especially the unexpected rain shower, but it was a really nice walk and lovely to be back outside. It is a real blessing to have Epping Forest so near by.

A Box Hill hike

Friday 03 April 2015 – Box Hill, Surrey.

Easter Friday, a long weekend, Yay – and made even longer by having a much needed day off from work yesterday. Sounds pretty damn good to me !

I am part of a four person team that has signed up to do the Oxfam 100km walk on the South Downs in late July. With work being so busy and the weather not always being in my favour I, and the rest of the team, have not done a whole lot of training, and apart from one meet up in hotel bar to do some planning we have not actually done any walking together.

With this in mind we took the opportunity of a long weekend to get outside and do some walking in the hills just out of London, and Box Hill in Surrey ticked all those boxes. For some unfathomable reason the crazy people I am teamed up with decided that we would meet at Box Hill Station at 10:00 am, though it is not too far away it still meant an early rise on a day off work.

With public transport running reduced services and maintenance work going on all over the network I decided – wisely, to leave early and catch a tube to Vauxhall and get the train from the there to Box Hill, it was a slow journey but surprisingly reliable. I arrived at Box Hill to find one of my team mates already there at the station/cafe/bike shop. I availed myself of coffee, much needed coffee and a bit of cake while we waited. I really liked the station, yet for some reason I have no photo of it, I particularly liked fact it had a bike shop in it, and coffee was served surrounded by bikes

We were on the way soon after the others arrived, and immediately took the wrong turn out of the station. We were going to do the Box Hill Hike, there was a map on the internet with directions and everything nicely laid out, but all from the car park at Box Hill, no mention of the station at all, and no signs from the station either. I though this was rather poor. We realised fairly quickly we had gone the wrong way and were soon heading off roughly in the right direction.

It is a reasonable walk from the station to the official start of the Box Hill hike at the centre car park. It is a nice walk though. It is really nice to be out in the country!

The walk starts at the bottom of one of the many climbs up and around the hill, though we were soon heading up, and I surprised myself and had no issues with the climb at all. Ok, we are not talking Everest here, but it does go up a couple of hundred metres and when the escalator out of Holborn Station is your biggest regular climb, then even half that ascent that can be a challenge. I do not take prisoners on a climb either, so I did have a wait at the top…

There was not much of a view though.

We soon found the car park and the official start of the walk, and once under way the clouds started to lift and the day became quite reasonable. There was a point as we were walking to the start when I was wondering whether we were going to be able to remove woolly hats and rain coats at all, but the cloud eventually lifted and it turned out to be not too bad a day – and it even warmed up a bit.

Before we left I had done a bit of research into the park and definitely wanted to see Broadwood’s Folly, built in 1815 on the hill above the Broadwood family home. The Holm Oak growing through the middle is not native to the area and the seed may have been dropped by a passing bird. I thought it was quite cool…

There was a lot of up and down on the walk, as you would expect from a walk with Hill in the name! I liked it, I am not really a fan of all the flat stuff, and it was really nice to not be walking on roads or surrounded by cars either. This would be a great run, and we did see a few runners out as well as a lots of other walkers.

The church at Mickleham Village.

Back up on the tops again there was some quite nice forested areas, nice and mossy after the winter.

There was also this long stretch called the Mickleham Gallops, where horses were trained for races at the nearby Epsom track.

And at the bottom of the hill, and the start of the next climb – a rather nice cottage, the sort of place I used to fantasize about living in until the realities of living in an old house in the country sank in. Though this one I think would make a good location for a haunted house story.

And then it was back up the hill again….

Once over the top of this climb we were almost back to the start, and a slow wind down back to the station. We arrived just before the train so ran up and over the bridge and for some reason the train didn’t stop like it was supposed to. It was then back over the bridge and into the cafe for coffee and cake while we waited for the next train. The walk took just under four hours, including a stop for some lunch, and the odd break at the top of the many short climbs.

It was a really good day out. I took my Garmin watch and recorded that we did 68kms and we walked back to London. I must have forgotten to turn it off…

My quads ached the next day !!

Ruined villages, WWII tragedies and some nice scenery.

Tuesday 23 December 2014 – Dartmouth, Devon.

After all that walking yesterday and feeling quite weary when I turned the light off at 10:00 I fully expected to get a pretty solid sleep in, but sadly that was not to be, and I just dozed off and on all night. Maybe it was the two hours of photo editing I did before sleep!

I was up at 8:00 again and spent half hour writing part of a blog post on yesterday after breakfast before I packed up and headed out the door. My plan was to catch the bus to Torcross and walk to Hallsands and back. The B and B host could not find a bus timetable before I left which turned out to be a mistake as I missed the once an hour bus by five minutes because I detoured on a walk around Dartmouth on the way to the bus stop. Which meant forty five minutes in a cafe waiting for the next one, at least I got to drink a decent coffee.

My B and B is next to the Cherub Inn, the only surving medieval house in Dartmouth, being built around 1380. My B and B next door was considerably newer being built in 1635….

I took the long way to the bus stop, walking up some of the narrow streets in the middle of town with the aim of getting a decent view of the Britannia Royal Naval College, a very large building that looms over the western end of town – and is off limits to most. The building itself is quite recent, with construction starting in 1904, though naval officers have been trained in Dartmouth since 1863. It is a mighty impressive building, though through the light drizzle it did take a rather poor photo.

It took me a while to find a vantage point, walking up and down some of the many steep streets, my legs were feeling it at the start, but once they had stretched out I felt pretty good, which I was pleasantly surprised at.

Dartmouth is a famous old town, with a long tradition of sailing, voyages and battle ships. From as long ago as 1147 when ships set sail on the crusades there have been vessels moving in and out of the Dart. The Mayflower left England for the last time on its voyage to America in 1620 – and landed in what became Dartmouth in Massachusetts. Sadly the museum was closed. But the bus stop had a nice outlook.

The bus journey over to Torcross took about thirty minutes and I snapped a few photos out of the slightly grubby windows on the way, the first overlooking Dartmouth.

There are some lovely beaches along this stretch of coast. Blackpool Sands for instance.

I would really hate to be a bus driver, anywhere to be fair, but it must be extra tricky on the narrow roads of rural Britain, especially driving a double decker bus. I raise my hat to all who do it.

Torcross Beach is about two and half miles long and is a narrow strip between the sea and Slapton Ley; a marshy lake, wetland area and scenic reserve. I got off the bus at what I thought was the half way point, into a howling gale and then a sudden downpour of rain. It then drizzled virtually the whole way along the beach to the small town of Torcross at the end. With its massive sand and pebble beach Torcross was used significantly during the second world war as an American training ground for the D-Day landings. The local population were all moved out of their homes during the training time and this memorial is a reminder of that forced evacuation.

The beach itself is really nice, vast and almost deserted, and looking quite imposing under threatening skies.

I remembered this is as the place where I almost lost my phone when I was last here, It had fallen out of my pocket when I had snuck into the bushes for a wee, and didn’t realise I had dropped it until a few minutes later. I was very relieved, and quite amazed, to find it again.

One of the many sad and terrible events of World War 2 took place in Torcross and I did not know anything about until It was mentioned to me over breakfast this morning. Operation Tiger was the name of the D-Day landing trials and the extra activity attracted the attention of the German navy and two boats were sunk by torpedo boats at the loss of over 700 US lives. To add to the pain, on the trial landing itself there was a mis-communication resulting in over 300 deaths in a poorly timed shelling. Over 1000 troops killed, just in a trial. A real tragedy. This tank was dug out of the sand and set up as memorial in 1984.

The road runs between the beach and Slapton Ley and was severely impacted by the winter storms last year, the storms also changed the lie of the beach to a degree where the long term future of the wetlands, the village and the road are all in doubt. Nature can be a hard mistress, not that humanity is helping that much.

The rain had stopped by the time I got to the village and started up over the hill to my next stop of Beesands. I spent ages trying to work out what the start point was far, and finally realised it was the name of the far headland and this was Start Bay. I had a mental doh moment when I realised.

It was only a short walk over the top and blessedly not too steep either.

Beesands did not really have any great redeeming features, it has been severely impacted by the downturn in local fishing, and is pretty much reliant on tourists passing through between Torcross and the more well known Hallsands – pretty much what I was doing.

Beesands main claim to fame is the Cricket Inn, where Mick and Keith first performed to an audience, as a teenage duo before the Rolling Stones were started. Keith’s family had long holidayed here and the young Mick often joined them on their trips.

You know a place is windy when the trees are all growing sideways!

Hallsands was my final destination for the day, it had been a small fishing village for a couple of hundred years, growing to a population of just over one hundred and fifty in the late 1800s.

In 1890 the building of a new naval dockyard was started further along the coast in Keyham near Plymouth. Too supply the sand for the construction dredging took place just off shore and within ten years the beach had been so undermined that the residents complained to parliament. Two years later dredging was stopped, but the damage was done and in severe storms in 1907 most of the village was washed into the sea. The build of the naval base was subsequently stopped – not due to the destruction of the village though.

Though a small village has been built since there is constant damage done during heavy storms, and you can see where the road has been partially washed away, as recently as 2012.

These houses were left almost stranded in 2012 as well.

There is now a small path and a viewing platform over looking the remaining houses from the first village, the reason why tourists come to Hallsands. The area below the houses used to be a sandy beach until the dredging ruined it.

As the buses from Torcross to Dartmouth only run hourly I decided to try for a quick walk back and get an earlier bus, so I power walked back over to Beesands, stopping to take a photo of the clouds coming down over the hills – luckily it didn’t rain again!

And this really cool football pitch with its drop off into the far corner!

I decided to take a punt on being able to walk on the beach around the headland between Beesands and Torcross. I had seen dog walkers heading that way and it sort of looked possible, and it would save a bit of time as well. It was also nice to walk on the beach, two days on the coast and I had not actually set foot on the beach yet….

The beach did go around to Torcross and luckily there were steps up the cliff and over this stream else it would have been a pointless short cut!

I arrived back in Torcross with five minutes to spare, so I took a photo of this nice old farmhouse for sale – El are you tempted ?

And a view up Slapton Ley. I wonder what it will look like if I make it back down this way again. So many broody dark skies….

The bus ride back to town was good, I was the only person on the bus, I can see why they do not run more frequently. I had a really nice soup for a late lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening editing photos and watching some TV before heading out for a very nice fish and chip dinner at the Rockfish Cafe. 2013 winner of best fish and chip shop.

And that was it – holiday over. I had a good time, I really enjoyed the hills and the walks and weather, which was much better than I expected. All those spare clothes I brought down with me where not needed, thankfully. I think next time I go away I will bite the bullet on the cost and rent a car. While I like buses and trains, off season they can be restrictive and costly. There were a couple of other things I would have liked to have seen in the area too, but time and energy were in restricted supply

I am now on my way back to London on the train, after a bacon sarnie and a not unreasonable coffee at the Totnes Station Cafe.

Looking forward to Christmas, but will miss seeing my kids, my grandchild, my mum and the rest of the family.

Brixham to Kingswear – a walk on the South West Coast Path.

Monday 22 December 2014 – Dartmouth, Devon.

Seeing as I am back on the road again, if only for a couple of days, it seems only fair that I continue with my traveling tradition of starting each blog post with a mention of how I slept the night before, poorly in this case. My room in the Cherubs Nest B and B is nice, comfortable and warm, I was (am) tired, but I did not sleep much at all and was awake before 6:00 as usual. I did not get up though. I was the only guest so enjoyed a really nice breakfast on my own, fueling up for the day ahead.

The forecast was for a cloudy day with no rain, so I decided to go west and walk from Brixham back to Dartmouth, via the ferry at Kingswear, a ten(ish) mile walk on the South West Coast Path. As is usual I woefully under-prepared for the walk, I did not take anywhere near enough water or snacks to munch on and perhaps should have tossed my head torch in my bag as well. On the plus side though, I did have warm and waterproof clothing. Ten miles is not that far in flat London with corner shops every few hundred yards, but on a remote, muddy and often steep coast it is much harder going. I also did not fully realise how unfit I am for this sort of terrain, yes I can knock off an eight mile run on the flat without too much bother, but wow I have missed doing hills.

I left the Cherubs Nest about 10:00 and headed down to the nearby waterfront to catch the ferry over to Kingswear. There are a few ferry services crossing the River Dart, but the lower car ferry is the most frequent, crossing every few minutes, and it does take foot passengers.

It is also a good spot to get a photo of some of Dartmouth old town. I really like towns on steep hillsides!

The ride to Kingswear is only five minutes and the bus stop is just up from the ferry, luckily there was a bus about to leave as I arrived.

The journey to Brixham was interesting, a bit ’round the houses’ as they say, and some of the houses were not exactly ones you would want to go round either. I have this rather romanticised view of what remote coastal villages and towns look like, all olde world stone and wood, with a thatched or tiled roof, occupied by wonderful friendly folk. Unfortunately the real world is not like that and outside of the original ‘old town’ part of these places, partly hidden from view – unless you are on a local bus, there is the usual swathe of cheap housing filled with those less fortunate than I. Brixham was like that.

Brixham is a commercial fishing village and I did see a sign that said it was the birthplace of trawler fishing, I marched on through. Though I did love these tiny old crabbing boats.

One of the things I recalled with little pleasure from supporting Mal on his run of the South West Coast Path was how poorly it was sign posted in and on the fringes of towns, and I definitely remember Brixham was no exception. I headed in the right direction, but ended up at a swanky hotel at the start of the headland, I wandered up a side road and just happened to come across the path again at Berry Head.

As I wasn’t planning on sticking religiously to the coast path I was going to walk across the headland rather than around it, but once I was up there I was surprised to find an old fort. The forts that remains – there are two of them, were built around 1800 – sadly on top of Iron Age forts, to defend Torbay against the French. All that was left of the first fort was the very solid external walls and a (surprisingly open) coffee shop and information centre inside the walls.

Berry head is also well known for migrating birds, and there are a couple of hides, but this was very much out of season.

The second fort has a few more ruins in it, and I had a few minutes of fun trying to get decent photos before I realised with a minor sense of panic that it is almost the shortest daylight day of the year, I have ten miles to walk and it is 12:00. I have four hours to get to Kingswear before it gets properly dark, this seems like an extraordinary amount of time to walk ten miles, but there are no villages between Sharkham Point and Kingswear to exit the path and get a bus from, plus I want to take pictures on the way. So I left.

St Mary’s Bay is very picturesque, though I did hurry past, casting my eyes in land only quickly.

Just past the bay I came across a sign that almost made me turn back enjoy more of St Mary’s Bay and the old forts and then catch the bus back.

I was worrying a little about time as I had not planned on having to take a detour, understandable as half the cliff face had fallen away. This detour took me back inland and around a recently built and monumentally hideous housing estate, and then dumped me on a street with no indication of which way to go. I headed back towards the coast and fortunately found the path again. I suspect the temporary signs had long been removed.

I slung my camera bag back on my back, fastened the straps and started jogging on the down hill sections, I wanted to try and recoup some of the last time faffing on the detour, and soon enough I was well on my way, back on the path – and at the top of one of the in-numerable climbs.

Soon I was heading down towards Mansands Bay.

Where I came across a sign telling me I had 6 miles to go, at this point I realised I was probably going to be fine, getting back an hour before sunset, though I did not slacken my pace that much.

The climb out of Mansands was pretty tough, not long but really steep, and this was just preparing me for the climb out of the next bay which felt like it was near vertical in parts. But the view was worth it…

What made the climb out of the next bay worse was that it had been used by live stock recently so it was completely chewed up, really muddy and a bit smelly.

And the steep grassed section was quite greasy in parts, I was almost crawling at the top.

For the next hour or so the track moved across the cliff tops, dropping down to small bays here and there and generally offering a constant array of beautiful scenery to gaze at.

The track was quite cut up along the tops and I could see horse shoe prints in the mud, I was getting a bit pissed with the person that decided riding a horse up here on these narrow trails was a good idea, and then I discovered the source – a bunch of Dartmoor Ponies had been released here. That made much more sense!

I think this is Old Mill Bay.

A last look back west.

I reached Froward Point about 2:45 and was thinking how well I had done in getting to Kingswear so quickly, before I saw a sign advising me I had two more miles to go. By this time I had only a couple of mouthfuls of water left and had long eaten my two muesli bars. Even though it was a little windy on the tops I had gotten a lot warmer than I had expected with my mix of light jogging and power walking had subsequently sweated more than a small bottle of water was good for. I was thirsty!

Mew Stone and Shag Stone from the point.

The walk from the point into town seemed to take forever and my lack of hill fitness was showing on the climbs as I got quite slow. There was a good view of both Kingswear and Dartmouth Castles through the trees at one point, which I ruined with a bad photo.

I was hoping to walk past the castle, but discovered that it is privately owned and is not accessible, or even readily visible to the public. Shame…. I did find this small tower though, which partly made up for it.

Soon after that the path ended and I was on the edge of town.

I found a tap outside some flats that were empty so I refilled my water bottle with some rather earthy tasting but very refreshing water, said a small thanks to the absent owners and carried on marching into town.

It was nice to find even rural Kingswear has the same issues as NE London…

Just down by the ferry I found a sign pointing back the way I came, and for the first time I had an indication of how far I had travelled, I was not 100% sure at the start.

And then I was on the ferry back to Dartmouth.

My first stop was one of the few cafes that was open and serving food for a very late lunch and a much needed coffee. I was a bit rank, a bit muddy, and very hungry! I ate and left (for the benefit of the other customers) and headed back to the B and B for a shower and a sit down before tea. I was knackered….

I will say it was a really good day. Followed by a really good pizza!

A visit to Sarfend.

Sunday 14 September 2014 – Southend-on-Sea.

While El and I were away on the Isle of Wight last weekend we started discussing the possibility of buying a small holiday home somewhere. This conversation carried on during the week and we talked about what we would want from a holiday place. It seems that in a perfect world we would be able to buy somewhere near St Ives in Cornwall, but that is just way to far away to be practical right now, but is definitely a future consideration.

Much as I am very happy living with El in her house I had become fairly used to living alone and occasionally feel the need to escape to my own pad, with my own things and just chill out. When I moved in after I returned from NZ in July it was intended that once I was working I would look for my own flat and move out. Living together has not raised any alerts and we have pretty much agreed that it would be silly for me to spend 1500-1700 pounds a month renting a flat I would only stay in half the time. This basically means I have some money to invest. So a buying a cheap flat or house somewhere on the coast but near enough to London so we could easily and cheaply visit at the weekends, or I could commute to and from on occasion, seems like a sensible thing to do.

We just need to find somewhere we like. Southend-on-Sea is not going to be one of those places, but it is close by and well worth checking out as it will give us some idea of what is out there, and what seaside towns near to London can be like.

After Steve and I did our Leigh-on-Sea to Southend photo walk back in April I had been thinking about doing the final leg of the walk from Southend to Shoeburyness, so, as it was a nice day, El and decided to make the trip in reverse. We caught a train into Liverpool St, walked over to Fenchurch St Station and caught the train out to Shoeburyness. Shoeburyness was interesting, the tide was out, seemingly almost as far as France, and we could see kite surfers way out on the horizon, they were so far out that at first I wondered what they were – and you cannot even see them in this photo taken on my phone. It was a nice enough place, there were some very nice apartments near the sea, but that tide is just too much for me.

There was a short section of coast with the ubiquitous beach huts on it before we hit a long section of much nicer beach that was closed to the public as it was/is an MOD testing site, there were numerous signs warning of unexploded shells and other ordinance possibly lying around. Sadly this section of coast was quite long…

I did love this sign – ‘deep water’ !!! – You can barely see the water.

It took us about thirty minutes to walk to the outskirts of Southend, and as soon as the MOD area was over, the beach huts appeared. Quite a number of them had people gathered inside and out and there was a bit of a part time sea side community going on. Not my thing, but nice to see people getting out and about, even though the view of the estuary to the power station was not the most attractive.

I liked this end of Southend, there are some quite nice houses, and as there is no entertainment at this end of the beach it was all very quiet. You can see Southend Pier in the background, the longest in the world apparently – mainly because the sea goes out so far !

After about an hour and a half of walking we arrived in Southend central, and like before I knew it was just not my place, far too busy for me. We walked through town, heading for the Westcliff area that I wanted to have a look at. We stopped at the famous Rossi’s ice cream shop, a long standing feature of Southend, and one my mum asked me about after she read my blog post from back in April. She used to visit here when she was young and was interested to see if it was still here. The ice cream was very nice too, as I believe it was in my mum’s day.

After Rossi’s it was time to go so wandered up through Westcliff to the station and headed back home.

Did I learn anything about buying property on the coast, not really. But I did learn that buying somewhere near the sea, means I want to hear the waves. So that rules out this section of coast!

A Mt Te Aroha micro-adventure.

Friday 11 July 2014 – Te Aroha, New Zealand.

When I decided I should visit New Zealand a couple of weeks ago I also decided that I would try and squeeze one day of adventure into a very tight time frame. This is not something I would ever normally say, but I was sort of sick of the Waitakeres, so I was looking for somewhere I would not normally go to. I floated a couple of ideas over my friend Vicki, and as she was not working today we decided to head south east and walk/run or ride the Karangahake Gorge. I love K Gorge, I did not go there that often when I lived in New Zealand, so it is always fresh. It has a nice mix of rock strewn stream, native bush and some ruins left over from New Zealand’s ‘historic’ mining past, so is great for walking, riding and photography – all things I love.

That was the plan anyway. Once I arrived in NZ I discovered that I could not find any of my riding or running gear, except my bike and my trail shoes. The plan was then changed to walk K. Gorge and explore the open tunnel networks, I did find my head torch – bonus !

That was the plan anyway…. On the way down, Vicki floated the idea of doing Mt Te Aroha instead, as it was a similar distance away. She had never been up it before, though most of our running buddies had. I suspect that that was her plan all along, knowing I would agree very quickly – and she was right. I had been here once years ago and had ridden some newly open mountain bike trails in the lower slopes of the hill so was keen to revisit, and head to the summit.

Mt Te Aroha sits at the far southern end of the Kaimai Ranges, where the hills meet the Hauraki Plains, it does look quite bizarre, shooting up so abruptly from the flat expanse below. Sadly the top of the hill and its mast was obscured by the clouds.

We drove down to the small Te Aroha town-ship and parked just outside the domain area, the walking and mountain biking trails are quite clearly marked though I had to ask someone where the trail to the summit started. It was quite a windy day and we were advised it would be very windy and cold at the top.

As the sign says the hill is 950 metres high, but what it does not tell you is that the trail is just over 4 kms long… That makes the walk quite steep !

The trail started off with a fairly gentle gradient, and it was warm under the trees as well We soon reached a reasonable height and the view over the planes was long and reasonably clear. We could feel the wind a little bit on this side of the hill, and as we were standing taking photos of this rainbow a rain squall past round the side of the hill, we could see it but not feel it , and we stayed perfectly dry.

Vicki is the New Zealand editor for a trail running magazine and was looking for some action shots for a trail review, not that we were really running anywhere – especially up hill, I am way too unfit at the moment and long pants are not really conducive to running. Where ever there was an opportunity to grab a couple of actions shots we did – I used the opportunity to take a rest!

As we got further up the hill, the gradient got steeper and steeper and as we drifted further round the hill the wind got stronger and stronger. We were a little nervous of some of the large trees that were creaking very loudly – and with the amount of trail litter – including some quite large branches, it was a well founded nervousness. There was also another rain squall that blew past by the side of the hill, but again we were sheltered from the worst of it.

The only bloke walking up Mt Te Aroha in an old Ramones t-shirt 🙂 (Tommy Ramone, the last remaining original member of the Ramones, passed away last night)

As we approached the summit we could hear a roar overhead, it was incredibly loud and sounded like a jet engined plane just sitting above the top of the trees – though we could clearly see there was nothing there – intriguing! Just before the final push to the top there was a small ridge where there were no trees to provide shelter from the wind, as it was so strong we ended up sort of half crawling half stumbling across to avoid getting blown off the top – or that is what it felt like anyway.

Naturally the last section was steep! My legs were pretty shot by this stage and I was glad to stop and take photos every now and then, and even gladder to get to the top.

Wow ! The wind was incredible on the summit, and we found what was making all the noise, the wind through the mast was just incredibly loud. You can see how strong the wind was, not often you see hurricane fencing blown over. It was a lot colder on the top, though it was cloudy up there it was not really wet, though we put coats on for the wind.

We took turns taking photos at the trig, we were both hanging on in the fear of being blown over – I have never ever felt wind that strong before, it was incredible – and it had calmed down a bit from the previous days as well.

I think this advice should have been posted at the start of the trail, given today’s conditions!

We did not stay long on the top before heading back down into the relative shelter of the trees were we took a snack as we started on the way back down. As we were reasonably high the trees were very different to what we get in the Waitakeres, short scrubby trees covered in ferns and moss, it was a lovely section of bush and I have failed to capture it very well sadly.

Once we were clear of the steep, rocky, rooty, slippery section closer to the top I managed to break into a light jog for most of the rest of the way down to the bottom. Needless to say it was a short trip back down ! I slipped over once on the way down, my leading foot hit a large leaf and shot out in front of me, over extending my leg. I had a small flash of pain and really thought I had pulled my groin muscle. There was a nervous limp for a while, but it soon worked its way out, much to my relief.

I felt good after the walk, and only seized up a little on the drive back to Auckland. The next three days however….. lets say I avoided walking down steps!

We were lucky with the weather, a couple of strong squalls passed us by on the hill, but we managed to stay dry both times. It was drizzling as we walked back to the car, but stopped as we did a quick change into some clean clothes on the road side. In the domain there is a thermal spa and some thermal swimming pools, with naturally heated water. If we had known we were coming here before we left Auckland I would have brought some swimming gear and dropped into a pool after the run to soak the legs.

I am so glad we did Mt Te Aroha rather than Karangahake Gorge. The gorge would have been fun, but Te Aroha was an adventure, a microadventure, especially in that wind ! Thanks Vicki 🙂

I bought the book ‘Microadventures‘ by Alistair Humphreys to read on the plane and to get some adventure ideas for when I get back to London, a great read so far.

Following the Ching.

Good Friday 18 April 2014 – River Ching, Chingford to Highams Park.

Last weekend El and I took a walk up to Highams Park, which is two train stops north of where she lives in Walthamstow. There is a lake (read large pond) in a small woodland extension of the much larger Epping Forest and as it was a nice day it was a good place to walk to, and around. Plus El got to show me where she used to live – in a house long knocked down to allow a part of the North Circular motorway to be built.

When we walked around the lake we saw a track heading off into the distance and decided that we should come back and have bit more of an explore – but armed with a bit of information as to where track was likely to go. Not that you can get too lost in this section of the forest – it is completely surrounded by suburban streets. I have been keen to explore a bit more of Epping Forest and had bought a map of the area a while back, so after a map referral we decided to catch a train to Chingford, head up to Connaught Water and follow the River Ching back down to Highams Park Lake. It was not a long walk, only a few kilometres, but in theory it should all be off road and maybe in the trees – it sounded pretty damn perfect to me.

We arrived in Chingford late morning and found Connaught Water fairly easily, it is only a km or so from the station which is on the southern edge of Epping Forest. It was a reasonably sunny day, but there was quite a cold wind blowing and out on the open areas of the forest park it was quite chilly – so we were looking forward to getting into some shelter from the trees, plus a forest walk really should have trees!

Connaught Water is called a lake but really it is just a large pond, but it has fishing and boating and at twenty five minutes from Liverpool St station on the train – it is pretty damn cool !

It also appears to be the source of the mighty River Ching, and this is the headwaters… It is hard to believe that when this flooded back in 2009 it actually caused damage!

The river flows from here down to the River Lea closer to Walthamstow, though we were only walking the forested section.

The first section of the path was well formed, though there is absolutely no signage at all at any stage and this was a bit frustrating, especially matched with a map last printed in 2010. Things had changed a bit since then.

The path is shared with walkers, runners, bikers and in some sections – horse riders, we saw a few of walkers, runners and riders on the way, though once we were out of the main section of the forest it was very quiet. The path was pretty dry, but you can see where it has been heavily cut up in winter by bikes, horses and loads of runners from the nearby Orion Harriers. Some parts look like they could be quite fun to ride on as well – unlike this open and smooth trail.

After crossing the main road north from Chingford we were off the clearly defined path and followed the river more closely.

The forest was really nice here, though we were really in a small section of parkland in the middle of suburban London it was beautifully quiet and there was an amazing amount of bird song to provide some background.

We crossed another road and the track followed the edge of a golf course for a kilometre or so, crossing the fairway at one stage, which was a bit disconcerting as it was not sign posted, we were not really paying attention and there were people were playing the hole. Fortunately they must be used to walkers as they waved us through without any aggravation.

We got a bit misplaced at the end of the golf course, but with a quick look at the phone we found the entrance to the top end of Highams Park, and a nice little area full of late spring blue bells.

Again the forest here was really nice, some lovely spring foliage on the trees and a nice windy and clean ‘river’ to follow.

At one point there was even a rope swing, though I am assuming you are not supposed to drop into the river from it !

After an hour and half of walking we popped out on to the ‘lake’ at Highams Park.

We could have continued on for another couple of kilometres of forest through to Hollow Pond** but finished the walk here and headed to the nearby supermarket (they had Picpoul de pinet wine on special) and then caught the bus home…

It was a really nice walk, and hopefully the start of a summer of Epping Forest walks.

** Hollow Ponds is the title of a new track by ex Blur and Gorrilaz vocalist Damon Albarn who was brought up in nearby Leytonstone. I like the song and it is cool that something as small and local as Hollow Pond gets name checked by a fairly big star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwfsV50m7Dg