Forest Bellflower

Forest Bellflower, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

I found this campanula down by a stream in Dolomieu, France. There were many flowers down there, as well as mushrooms. I tried to do a little exploring, but I heard that vipers lived down in wet areas, so that shot that idea down.

Northamptonshire Round - NR 1 Holcot to Sywell Country Park

With Marta. The footpahts in the first part were not very clearly marked, but manageable with map. Downpour before we started, but fine rest of the day. Just over 7.5 miles.




Marta and I were a little stumped for our next long-distance walk. This is close enough to home, and only 51 miles in all. We'll visit areas that I don't know, south of Northampton , and some more familiar territory on the way.





Clear and detailedinstructionsfor this section are onThe Ten Foot Club website. We seem to have walked an extra mile! The Ten Foot Club are the guys who set the round up.

Miss out the next paragraphs ** to ** if you don't want to read my grouses!



**We didn't get off to a great start - I was grumpy after yesterday's disappearing footpath experience, Marta was a bit tired. We were going to park at Pitsford reservoir by the dam, but just as we got there the heavens opened, so we diverted to the Visitor Centre for a coffee, foolishly assuming the parking tickets would be transferable.



More grumpiness when we discovered that the café doesn't open until ten, and the tickets are not transferable. Luckily we can always produce a black coffee from our portable coffee stop kit, and we decided to give Pitsford Water a miss - we've been there so many times already, anyway. So - we started our walk from the village of Holcot!**

Holcot church

The phone box has a new use

Just opposite the church and phone box book exchange is a footpath between the houses. There is even a NR sign, so we walk through the passageway, and then turn left and downhill along Poplars Lane to Walgrave Road. Here we turn right and on the corner there's a footpath sign leading us through a gateway guarded by two eagles.

The way is not very clear, but turns sharp left at the gates and follows the field boundary for a couple of hundred yards. There is a footbridge, but it's overgrown and people obviously take an easier route round the culvert.

Then the path goes uphill diagonally. We went a bit too far to our right, and had to correct our route. Some of the field boundaries may have changed since the OS map was last revised. Another case of "clear on the map not on the ground".





Our route may be not quite right, but we either follow field edges or footpaths, and manage to get ourselves on track again.



For a short distance the way is clear and we meet the bridleway which leads us to the A43 - which we have to cross. We turn left along the road for a hundred yards - a closer look at the map shows we should have turned right and found the footpath in the layby. No matter - we use a wide bridleway leading toward Hardwick Lodge, and then turning to the right towards Hardwick Short Wood and Sywell Wood. Once more there are footpath waymarks and NR ones too.

A friendly fence repairer.

The path comes out near Wood Lodge Farm, and when we reach the road we turn left and walk the rather busy quarter mile or so to the turn off for Mears Ashby, on the Beckwith's Emporium Corner. A quick wander through there - but we decide it's too busy and too posh for today, so make our way to the village. This road is very quiet once you pass the Emporium!

Our route takes us round the village - a pretty one - and we stop for a sandwich at the Griffin Inn.

The rest of the route is straightforward - the footpath goes off to our left after Mears Ashby Hall. After a short wooded section near the wall it heads southwest, slightly to our right, across a large field to the Mears Ashby-Earls Barton road. The gap in the hedge is a bit overgrown and the road's a bit busy, but it's a short distance to the path on the other side.

From here it's plain walking and gently downhill towards Sywell Reservoir and Country Park. Seven a half miles in all.



Wildlife spotted: one hare, quite close by, and a buzzard circling and mewing. Lots of butterflies.

Memorable Day!

It's not been often recently I've had the chance to spend a day walking in one of the nearby National Parks after heavy rain, after all, it's not often recently we've even had heavy rain. So even when I awoke and heard the wind threatening to tear the Gold Coast apart at 4.15am this morning, it didn't take me long to decide to go out and ride against it toward Springbrook regardless. Like most headwinds, it didn't seem so bad once I got into the ride and developed a rhythm (even if it did slow me down just a touch), and it wasn't long before I started the climb.
Of course, Springbrook is a great climb, and it was worth noting that despite the sun gradually moving higher into the sky as I did this, I managed to lose 7 degrees in temperature on the way up. Eventually I got to start the walk at 7.55am -- the 17km Warrie Circuit (it would be 19km after the detour to Twin Falls pool). From the first steps I could hear the sound of tumbling waterfalls, and I knew this would be a memorable day. So it proved, although the spray of the first waterfall I walked under was freezing!

I've posted most of these pictures into a slideshow using Yahoo photos (there are 25 in all), which can be viewed here. Perhaps I'll reveal some more in coming days. However, there are a couple of things I want to note this evening:

This particular waterfall wasn't considered worthy of a name by those who named all the others in the park. However, it's remarkable not just for it's beauty, but also for the fact that it now looks exactly the same as it did in 2002, when the rainfall was considerably less than what it has been recently, and all the other waterfalls were drying up. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but it did somehow. It's also the wildflower season, and with the higher than usual rainfall last month, there appear to be some different ones blooming.

A couple of other shots from the day:



Incidentally, after the walk I headed for Best of All Lookout (which I've posted pictures of in previous entries). It's worth noting that at around 2pm, the temperature there was still only 11 degrees C. So much for Queensland being hot all the time! As can be seen from the pictures, the forecast sleet didn't eventuate this morning, and I'm not so sure I'm happy about that. Photography is always easier on overcast days.

San Diego link

In a corner of Princes Street Gardens, in the lee of Edinburgh Castle, is this link with San Diego. Edinburgh has a famous dog, Greyfriars Bobby, who kept watch over the grave of its master for 14 years. San Diego has a similarly famous dog, Bum, who was, as the plaque says, a 'devoted vagabond dog'. Photo credits here go to my daughter.

I just wonder how many will become ninjas?

1 out of every 1000 baby sea turtles survive. Turtle poaching was made illegal in the 90s but still they are hunted quite often for their meat and eggs. Not just by humans but seems like every other animal also wants to make snack out of them. I licked one but it really didn't taste very good.
We wanted to help out and do what we could to increase the chances for some of these little guys. So we went to the turtle sanctuary in Puerto Arista with intention of putting in some volunteer time. But we found there was not much for us really to do(at least at this one). William and his uncle Toni who who pretty much run the place had crashed the truck into some poachers a little while before we got there. So there was no going out to collect anymore eggs at the time. All there really was to do was lay around in a hammock and wait for the previously rescued incubated eggs to hatch. Just before sunset the little guys that hatched that day were counted and carried down to the awaiting ocean. It was a fantastic scene to watch them scramble into the surf, see them swim off to their new under sea world and only hope that the ones we touched would have a better chance at survival. Don't skip them into the water, they don't like that!

First footing

Why bother with a lump of dirty coal as the traditional first footing offering at Hogmanay (New Year) when Tesco can supply you with chocolate?
Coal or chocolate, a Happy New Year to all! I'm just back from an internet-less 2 weeks in the north, where the snow has been piling up, and I've discovered how difficult it is to take photos of all that white stuff.

Dance in the North Sky

Some friends had told me about seeing the Aurora in the early morning hours of March 10th, but unfortunately I was already asleep and missed the activity. The following evening, however, I noticed the telltale green glow in the Northern sky at 9:30 PM. I called a friend of mine and within 15 minutes we were both headed up into the woods to get away from any man-made lights. Just moments after we arrived in my planned shooting area the Aurora intensified and really started to put on a show. By 11:00 PM the sky was bursting with dancing lights. At one point the lights filled about 50% of the entire sky. I would have needed a fisheye lens (which I unfortunately do not own) in order to capture the entire breadth of the lights. We stood in awe at not only the movements but the colors we were seeing. Dominated by green, we also saw shades of red, purple and white. Rarely is the aurora seen this powerfully in Northern Minnesota. I was almost in a trance staring at this amazing show and I kept having to remind myself to keep taking pictures!

Beechmont owns you

Simply put, yesterday was a memorable day. I awoke at around 5am (as is normal at this time of year), knowing I needed to rest for the evening ride, but unable to bring myself to do so. The options were persist with a futile attempt to sleep on a morning that was simply way too hot, or get on my bike and go somewhere. It didn't take long for me to settle on option number 2. I chose the rainforest of Austinville because it was likely to be a few degrees cooler than the coast. I took my time and lingered, wishing I could spend the day here. If I could afford it, I'd buy a little shack out there and probably never return to suburbia again.

The evening ride was even better. I set off at around 4.30pm with the intention of seeing a mountain sunset. Even though it was swelteringly hot (as per usual), I managed to make pretty good time. I guess it was the determination to escape from the heat that drove me on. While the mountain sunset wasn't quite as spectacular as I'd hoped, the twilight views from the Beechmont Range were a delight to behold.



An interesting thing happened on the way back. Darkness had fallen just after passing the village of Beechmont, and the moon had continued it's rise as I slaughtered my legs on the final ascent of Mt Roberts. Actually, the moonlight views from here were spectacular enough, but returning through Beechmont I was able to behold the moonlight reflecting in the South Pacific ocean from a good 25-30km away, with at least one mountain range silhouetted in between. Scenery doesn't get much more spectacular than that, day or night. It was that moment more than any other that showed why I do this, why I put my body through the strain of climbing mountains.
It's the moment when Beechmont owns you.

How to get to the Jesuit Mission of San Ignacio de Mini

To get to San Ignacio de Minithe easiest way is to fly to Puerto Iguazu, or alternatively to Foz do Iguaçu, on the Brasilian side if you are planning to visit also The Iguazu Falls.
From Puerto Iguazu an early morning bus connects Puerto Iguazu with San Ignacio de Mini.

The bus is comfortable and the ticket cheap, the travel lasts little more than 4 hours.
You can plan the visit to San Ignacio de Mini as a day trip and take the return bus around 4 pm to Puerto Iguazu.
The ticket to the ruins of San Ignacio entitles you to access many other Jesuit ruins scattered in the area and certainly worth a visit, although not as impressive as San Ignacio.
If you want to see also the other Jesuit Reductions of the area you should consider a night step over in San Ignacio.
Definetely, if you are visiting San Ignacio de Mini you should also visit the fantastic Iguazu Falls.
Read about The Argentinian Side of the Iguazu Falls and The Brasilian Side of the Iguazu Falls

Family Celebrations

April and May have been crazy around here as we celebrated three birthdays, two graduations, a graduation party, Mother's Day dinner, and spontaneous crab and shrimp dinners complete with fireworks.  The cooking, dishes, and laundry have seemed endless.
Tonight was the last of the family get-togethers as Dylan and Leigh Anne came over for dinner to eat crab legs, shrimp, and sausage since they couldn't make it yesterday when everyone else came.
Today Laurel and I planned the meals for the Fripp trip next week.  I am SO ready to get out of town!  I'm packing my beach trash books, about two changes of clothes, my toothbrush, deodorant, and hairbrush and that's about it.  And my computer, of course.  Can't let my blogroll build up!
We leave Sunday afternoon and get back the next Sunday for night church.  I hope to be in a near catatonic state for most of the week.  The spring is always hectic with end-of-the-year concerts, recitals, etc.  This one seemed worst than most, but Laurel reminded me that I always say that!  What would I do without her to bring me back to Earth?  Thanks, hon! (Not)

Keeping Dreams Alive

Never again, she vowed, would she live a noisy life that killed her dreams. They were her reason for living, the only thing that she had to give to the world, and she must live in the way that suited them best.

From A CITY OF BELLS by Elizabeth Goudge