Sulden nestles underneath the Ortler mountains in a high valley of the South Tyrol. In the summer it can be accessed via the Stelvio Pass. With 75 hairpin bends, this is one of the most remarkable passes in the Alps but is closed during the winter. We needed to go the long way round and arrived just after it started snowing. This looked promising. March was proving to be every bit as unusually warm as February meaning that only the higher altitude ski areas were still functioning. In Sulden we got a good deal on half board in a hotel. We generally avoid this sort of thing and prefer to cook for ourselves. Fortunately, this family run hotel understood something about vegetarian cooking, and we ate quite well. The hotel was old and traditional. Felt comfortable and relaxing. Lots of wood panels, heavy wooden doors and a balcony where we could bask in the midday sun.
I managed a couple of days skiing. Higher up the snow was still in quite good condition. The lower slopes turned to mush by lunchtime and were showing patches of mud by the end of the week. As the skiable area starts to reduce, everyone gets packed into the remaining snowy patches. This increases the wear on the remaining snow, so everything starts to go off quite quickly. The furthest lift is some 300m from the next closest. A local man with a horse and cart offers an informal and voluntarily funded solution. He tows groups of skiers between the two lifts using a long rope attached to the back of the cart. This is and moderately practical. Typically, a few people fall over, and it takes some minutes to get everyone organised again. Even so, it is quicker than walking.
Sulden, no to be confused with Solden, which is in Austria, boasts one of the six Messner Museums. Reinhold Messner, possibly the most famous climber in the world, has been instrumental in setting up these museums which mash together stories of the Himalayas, South Tyrol, great achievements, and the decline of the mountains. To be honest, I found this a bit of a confusing mess although it was moderately interesting. Much more exciting was a rumour of a herd of Yaks kept near the museum. It started raining, hard, just after we set off to find the Yaks and we failed. Various locals assured us that they did exist and pointed us in the right direction but ultimately, we got fed up of being wet and cold so we hopped on the bus back to the hotel. Mesner would have been disappointed with our lack of commitment.
Next stop for skiing was Bormio, but first we skipped south for a weekend drive to be exceptionally beautiful Lake Garda. In general, we try and drive at the weekends. Ski resorts can get terribly busy on Saturday and Sunday, so we try and arrange to be on the road then. In this case we found a fabulous mountain route to a lovely hotel with a balcony overlooking the lake. The sunset was perfect, sundowners were tasty, and the restaurant served a rather good pizza. Terrific way to spend a weekend. We found a different but equally interesting route back north to arrive in Bormio on Sunday evening.
Monday skiing in Bormio was excellent. After that, not so good. On the first day the sun was shinning and there was a little fresh snow from the weekend. By Tuesday, the crowds were turning the snow into slush and the wind was picking up. Wednesday the wind had shut down all the top of the mountain, where all the good snow was, so Diane and I spent the day exploring the town instead. I managed another day’s skiing but by Friday the lower slopes were closing and there were patches of mud everywhere. Time was running out for skiing everywhere in Europe for 2024. Many of the very highest ski areas are near Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe. So, we headed there next.
Leaving warm and sunny Budapest, we wandered off across Austria in search of snow. We found some. Mostly the dirty, slushy remains of ski slopes. Many resorts had shut down completely. Only the few higher altitude places were still running. We ended up in Kaprun, where they had a glacier. Sadly, the weather was rubbish, so we went for a walk instead and found a nice lake.
We pressed on. Not only in search of snow but also a good weather forecast. Two days later, we slipped into Italy and a little village at the end of Val Senales. This looked a lot more promising and I finally got a good day’s skiing. Then the weekend came, the place became very crowded and the weather turned bleak and cloudy. I spent a day sorting out my photographs. This is causing me a few problems at the moment. A couple of months ago I convinced myself that RAW images were the way to go. They allow much more scope for editing. The first problem was finding some software to use for sorting and editing. Diane and I take quite a lot of pictures so the first thing I need to do is move the images onto my PC and delete all the bad ones. Then I go back and start getting more meticulous while at the same time doing some cropping and rotating. Finally, I might do some colour and brightness corrections before exporting a small selection, in a lower resolution, to use on the blog. A modicum of research suggested that Corel Aftershot would do the job. Out of the tin, this appeared to be the case. It allows you to quickly view and sort the images so I could do a first pass filter quite efficiently. A database of change information allows you to apply corrections such as resizing, exposure and colour balance without changing the original. Finally, an export function supports conversion to JPEG format while also resizing. All good.
Then I started to discover the software is disappointingly flaky. The program crashes at random intervals. Some changes to an image render it unviewable by the software. The export batch process hangs up on any thing more than a couple of images and so on. This is disappointing because Corel appear to be putting more emphasis on headline features than creating solid, reliable software. The final straw came when I got my little camera back from being repaired. This is a Canon Powershot G1X. A terrific and handy pocket camera. But Aftershot cannot read the RAW files from it. A camera profile, specific to each camera, is needed. A profile for the Powershot is not included. I searched the Corel website for a solution and was eventually passed to a “expert”. A week later, after being passed onto several different experts, I concluded that I already knew far more about Aftershot and problem of camera profiles than they did.
Back at square one, I looked at some other image processing software and have now settled on Cyberlink Photodirector. Immediately I spotted two benefits. Not only will it import images from all my cameras, but it also crashes far less often. On the downside, it has a massive emphasis on using AI to mess with your images. Interesting to play with but not what I need. So again, the rush to introduce headline features has left the rest of the application a bit inconsistent. I might even say, incoherent. It is taking some time to work out the best way to use the software for the mundane tasks of sorting, filtering, and very simple tweaking. One pet hate of mine is a confirmation dialogue box every time I want to delete a file. Are you sure? Yes! Stop asking me. An extra mouse click for each delete operation may not seem much but by the 200th time in one afternoon it gets very irritating.
Wandering further into the incredibly beautiful Dolomite mountains we arrived at the delightful town of Cortina – “one of Italy’s most famous, fashionable and expensive ski resorts”, says Lonely Planet. Certainly, the town centre boasts shops with names like Gucci, Versace and Louis Vuitton. We gave them a wide berth. Our hotel had a balcony commanding an excellent view over the town to the Dolomite peaks beyond. We only stayed a couple of nights but enjoyed sitting out, watching the sunset on both evenings. I managed to get in a terrific day of skiing. Next day we moved on to somewhere slightly less fabulous but much more cost effective.
February was the warmest February, for the entire world, on record. Which means in the last 175 years or so. We are on a skiing trip. Unsurprisingly, the skiing part of this trip is not going brilliantly. We have seen many washed out ski slopes and, in places, green fields where there should have been ski slopes. At times we have pondered whether we are seeing the final, declining days of European alpine skiing. Last year it was raining in Chamonix throughout January. This year there was some early snow but many of the ski areas feel like spring – which would previously have been in April.
Leaving Romania, we set out to explore Hungary. For a few hours we drove through flat wetlands. There were a few ducks and a few more geese. Then we arrived in Slovakia and felt as if we had missed out on Hungary. Slovakia had some interest in the shape of the Tata mountains, so we headed there. On the way we saw the remains of several ski resorts. All looking remarkably sad. A couple of days later we arrived at the Tatras and they are indeed magnificent mountains. We spotted a ski area that appeared to still be operating but the weather was not very nice and we were still hoping to see some more of Hungary.
Our last night in Slovakia was spent at a castle that had been converted into a hotel. This was great fun and not expensive. The corridor walls were festooned with the heads from numerous dead animals. Fortunately, there were none in our room although the large boar’s head right outside the door was a bit alarming.
Heading towards Budapest, we crossed the Danube by ferry. At 2,850 km the Danube is Europe’s second longest river, after the Volga. It rises in the Black Forest, heading east and south to the Black Sea. Commercial river traffic can travel between Bavaria and the Black Sea. With the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, vessels can travel all the way to the North Sea forming a major trade route. Back in the 19th century, the Danube was regularly frozen and impassable to marine traffic. These days, less so. We saw very little traffic on the river but we do enjoy a ferry trip and this seemed like a nice way to arrive in Budapest.
In Budapest we did a couple of days of city things. We looked at a lot of buildings, rode on a Ferris wheel, avoided museums and Diane found a new kind of ice cream in a cake. There are some amazing buildings in the city including the massive parliament building. We wandered around and tried to get interested in them but the overcast, grey, damp and generally dull weather gave the whole city a bit of a sober feel. The day we left it, the warm sun came out and it felt like summer. While this was pleasant, it also seemed unlikely that there was going to be much more skiing left. As best I could tell there was still some snow at some of the higher altitude resorts so we set off to find some.
We headed to Romania on a whim. We had never been there before and there was a small chance of skiing. Good enough. A day’s drive through Croatia and then we had to make a decision. Car insurance covered Serbia but not Bosnia. It is possible to buy insurance on the border, but we figured it would be easier just to avoid Bosnia. Driving through Serbia was an easy day, and the border checks were painless. Arriving in Romania, the guard was mostly interested in talking about skiing. Our first stop was the city of Timișoara, first European city to be lit by electric streetlamps in 1884. A fact still celebrated by displays of lighting across some of the streets. Timișoara boasts some large public squares surrounded by restaurants and bars. Wonderful to wander around in the evening and we found some good food as well. We were impressed by the magnificently lit city centre and also by a large statue of Atlas in the entrance lobby of our hotel.
Next stop was Castelul Corvinilor (Corvins’ Castle). Romania has an awful lot of castles. We felt obliged to visit a few. It was cold and raining when we arrived. The castle looked good from the outside. Inside it proved to be rather baren and chilly. Renovations were in progress. Areas were roped off. A few workmen were standing around smoking and looking cold. One of them examined a stone in a rather desultory way before putting it down and wandering off. A suit of armour in the corner of one hall caught my interest although, like me, it had a rust problem and probably creaked. We looked around for other interesting things but found little. We paid extra for entrance to the medieval torture display. Gruesome models of people being dismembered, disembowelled and generally filleted in various unhygienic and probably terminal ways. I imagine schoolboys would like this sort of thing. It was still drizzling as we checked out the souvenir shops and then trudged back to the car.
A day later I was standing in the lift queue at the ski area just outside of Lupeni. It was foggy but this time the was no getting above it. Fortunately, as the day progressed, the cloud lifted. At lunchtime two more lifts right at the top of the hill were opened along with several more ski slopes. There had been a bit of fresh snow. The pistes were still a bit thin but I enjoyed the skiing. Just before my last run down there were a few nice views of the valley.
We headed for Brașov in the heart of Transylvania. A rather circuitous route took us through the mountains where we met dogs and a cheese man. The cheese man was selling a selection of local made dairy produce out of the back of his van. Communication was limited but sufficient. He gave us various taster pieces and we indicated the ones we liked. In fact, we needed to restrict ourselves to the cheese that we really liked. It all tasted rather good. Especially the smoked cheeses. The dogs mostly live by the road and often appear to own a layby. They are quite peaceful and will only approach cautiously. We took some food with us for the dogs. They appreciated this and we like to feel we could do a little bit to help them. There are dogs running around all over the place in Romania. Many of them appear to be free spirits but very few look malnourished or mistreated. We have noticed that a lot of dogs are owned but live outside and are not tied up. I quite like this. You can see that the dogs are generally well balanced and happy.
Brașov was busy with tourists. We mingled with them and explored the streets. There are some nice buildings here. The gothic Black Church is possibly the largest of its kind in eastern Europe. Popularly, it became black during the great fire of 1689 but the reality is that the dark colouration comes from much more recent air pollution. The church houses the biggest bell in Romania – all 6.3 tonnes of it. I read that the best way to see Brașov was to take the Tâmpa Cable Car to the top of Tâmpa mountain. Sadly, it was not running so we mooched around in the town which is still not a bad way to see the place.
Time for another castle. This time, Bran Castle, famously marketed as Dracula’s Castle. There is no good reason for this. Bram Stoker, author of the original Dracula story is unlikely to have known the castle. His description of Count Dracula’s lair bears little resemblance to Bran Castle. None the less, this is another of those places made famous through literary fiction. Think Reichenbach Falls (Sherlock Holmes), Kings Cross Station (Harry Potter) and The Pond in Central Park (Catcher in the Rye). Around the castle is a roaring trade in souvenirs and other tat. I hoped to find a Dracula sticker but the only one I saw was rubbish. Plenty of fridge magnets but I do not own a fridge. We paid to go inside the castle. It was more interesting than Corvin’s Castle but also packed with people, many of whom were coughing far more than seemed healthy to me.
A couple of hours later we were looking for somewhere to warm up some soup for lunch and came across the medieval Rupea Fortress. A magnificent fortress on a hill. It has been renovated to some extent and commands terrific views across the town below. There were only a handful of people here and just one, small, souvenir stall. We enjoyed looking around and then had soup and bread in the car park.
Salina Turda sounds like something a bit dubious to English speakers. It is in fact a salt mine near the town of Turda. Mining finished, after nearly 900 years, in 1932. Since then, it has been turned into a tourist attraction. Salina Turda was ranked in 2013 by Business Insider as among the “25 hidden gems around the world that are worth the trek”. It is interesting in places but redevelopment, with a strong focus on tourist attraction, has sent it off into what seems to me a strange direction. The car park is expensive. Entry is expensive. There is a reduction for seniors but only if you are in possession of a Romanian pensioner certificate. Once inside I found the old salt mine bits interesting. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of salt. The main chamber is impressively large. The strata and mining techniques combine to create interesting patterns on the walls. Then things get strange. You can descend in a lift 90m to the bottom of the main chamber. Here you will find the ubiquitous souvenir shop. Also, a miniature golf course, some billiard tables, a Ferris wheel, a small arena and a boating pond. All of which you must pay extra for. Assuming you really want to descend into the depths of the earth to play miniature golf.
Our last stop in Romania was the Scărișoara Ice Cave. We have been into caves in ice before, usually inside a glacier. This is a limestone cave with a glacier inside it. Very strange. The entrance is a steep 50m descent down steps into the main chamber, about 100 m across and full of ice. The public can walk around this on a rather rickety wooden walkway. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of ice. They are quite fragile and fall off occasionally. Fortunately, they only take a few weeks to grow back unlike the calcite type which can take hundreds of years.
We liked Romania. Caves and castles. Dogs and a lot of rubbish. I mean, an awful lot of rubbish. And a little bit of skiing. Next stop is Hungary.
We arrived in Slovenia on a warm, sunny afternoon. We came over the Wurzenpass from Austria and descended the lovely road down the valley side towards Podkoren. On the other side of the valley were a few ski slopes. A perfect looking picnic spot in the sun was irresistible, so we stopped and cooked up some lunch. We have a little gas stove that is increasingly finding use at lunchtime. Often, I am re-heating soup or boiling up some pasta. Something quick and easy. This time it was cous-cous with a harissa sauce made from left-overs a couple of days ago. Sitting there, in the warm sunshine, it seemed unlikely that we were going to find much more skiing.
The rest of the afternoon was a relaxed and picturesque drive past the tourist town of Bled and into the centre of the national park hosting the Vogel ski area. We stayed at a small apartment in the town of Bohinjska Bistrica. There are many apartments like this, built specifically for rental. It makes an excellent alternative to a hotel. You get a space to yourself and a few basic facilities. Ideal for people, like us, that would mostly prefer to cook for ourselves. Possibly a good bet for small families or groups friends. Whatever the reasons, these apartments appear to be becoming more popular than conventional hotels.
Next morning, I abandoned Diane and drove a few kilometres to the cable car at the end of the valley. It was a foggy morning but cold and frosty. The venerable and modest sized cable car brought back warm, comfortable memories of my early days skiing in Switzerland. The younger me found it almost unbearably exciting as the cabin set off on its trip from the ordinary valley floor to the extraordinary and vertiginous mountains. Obviously, I am older, more experienced and far less likely to get excited these days but in fact, as we rose above the valley cloud and a clear, sharp vista of snowcapped peaks unveiled itself, I still got that old twinge of elation and wonder. The entire day proved to be visually spectacular. Clouds rolled over the mountain ridges in a thick, viscous wave at about the same height as the top ski lift. At times we were enveloped in thick fog but mostly we were just above it, looking down on swirling clouds. The skiing could not be described as spectacular. The slopes were limited and not particularly challenging. However, it was still great fun. There were no queues. The views were terrific, and, to my delight, there was an old, one-man chair lift. This took you to the very highest point on the mountain and felt remarkably precipitous. I had an excellent day and was a happy, if very tired, skier by the time I got back to the car.
The day afterwards, Diane and I explored the town and made plans for other things to do in Slovenia. There are many caves here. Also, castles. First, we drove over a mountain pass to the south. This was not only fun, but we also stumbled across another ski area that looked promising for another time. Then we passed a sign indicating a castle and a cave. Ideal. A short way down the road we found a car park and small tower. The tower was disappointingly closed so after walking around it we set off to find the cave. A short walk up a river brought us to the bottom of a deep valley that ended in steep cliffs with a sizeable river emerging from a cavernous entrance. This suddenly got much more interesting. We had brought our headtorches so, feeling pleased with ourselves for this forward planning, we advanced along the walkway into the cave. We found an enormous cavern containing a large lake. This had been dammed to draw off a supply for a water wheel a little way outside of the cave. At the back of the chamber was a locked gate barring further progress but even so, we felt comfortably happy with our discovery. I spent a little time messing with the camera to capture the moment. Eventually, we retraced our steps to the car and continued on the castle and cave journey.
Predjama Castle is a Renaissance castle built within a cave mouth. It is a marvellous looking castle tucked under an enormous cliff. There are many stories about the place but also, it looks like the sort of place that there should be many stories about. It has features in a Jackie Chan film and also Season 3 of The Witcher (which we have not watched yet, but we are planning to soon).
Not far from the castle is Postojna Cave. This caught me completely by surprise. I had not done any research and was unprepared when we were herded down a short tunnel and onto a train. The cave is 24 km long, second longest in Slovenia, and one of the top tourist sites. We were there on a damp and gloomy weekday in February, but even so there were plenty of visitors. Only about 5 km are accessible to the public. The train takes you much of the way and then there is over an hour walking through a succession of enormous chambers with the most extensive and amazing display of speleothems (secondary mineral deposits) I have ever seen.
Back in my younger and dafter days, I used to be quite keen on caving. Spent many cold, muddy but happy weekends crawling through limestone holes in the Yorkshire Dales and elsewhere. This cave, the Postojna Cave, is bigger and contains more flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. that all the caves I have ever been in put together. This is no exaggeration. The scale of the place is utterly staggering. As a show cave the amount of work that has gone into the place is also impressive. Not only a whole railway system but also thousands of lights, miles of concrete walkways, bridges, railings and as we discovered at the end of the trip, the worlds only underground post office. The final chamber, called the Concert Hall, is known for its exceptional acoustics. Symphony orchestras, octets, and a variety of soloists perform here to an audience of up to 10,000 people. Deep inside the cave, away from the chaos of the tourists, lives an aquatic salamander. The Olm or Proteus (Proteus anguinus) is the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. It is blind, snake-like, 30 cm long, lacks pigmentation and has three toes. Stuffed toys of Olm are available in the underground post office.
First thing we did when we crossed from Italy to Austria was to go to Switzerland. The Riesa Pass brought us close to the village of Samnaun, a village where we spent a lot of time during the Covid lockdown. Although technically in Switzerland, Samnaun is mostly accessible from Austria and, for some reason, is a duty-free enclave. Very good place to buy alcohol and ski equipment. I wanted a new pair of skis. While travelling in Baloo, I had limited myself to a single set of skis. These are some wide, long, all-mountain skis. Terrific for fresh snow and skiing off piste, less good for the steep, icy pistes they appear to favour in Austria. I had done my research and knew what I wanted. Much shorter, narrower skis, necked in the middle so they will bite into the snow and help me properly carve turns. We looked in a couple of shops and then there they were. The skis of my dreams. Waiting patiently for me in the basement of the third shop. And at a healthy, duty-free price. We also bought some alcohol.
Back to Austria and the village of See. This shares the same valley as Ishgyl, one of the larger and busier ski resorts. See, however, is much smaller, quieter, more peaceful and altogether more our type of place. We got lucky with an apartment literally just across the road from the ski lift. I had a couple of terrific days skiing. The weather was a bit mixed but some flurries of fresh snow helped the state of the slopes and one morning I even found some fresh powder to play in. On the second day, Diane came with me on the ski bus to Kappl, a little further down the valley. This is another small ski area covered by the same lift ticket. The sun broke through the clouds from time to time and the views were terrific. We met up at the top lift station for lunch.
New skis
Next stop was Sölden. This a large, popular area at the end of a valley. The small, mountain road over the pass at the end of the valley is closed in the winter. I had booked a couple of nights at a hotel that appeared to be part the way up this road. The Hotel Silbertal runs a shuttle service from village and advises that to drive there yourself requires a 4×4 and snow chains. I found this irresistible, and we did end up using the snow chains. The hotel is right at the end of the ski area but high up so that you can ski in and out. We watched the sun set over the mountains at the end of the valley while sipping wine on the balcony. This all seemed perfect to me and to round off my pleasure the food proved to be excellent. Vegetarians are well catered for. The cooking was imaginative and tasty. The downside to this wonderful place was the cost. We kept our visit to a couple of nights in between which I had a long, hard day of skiing.
Ski tunnelHotel Silbertal
Driving further west, past Innsbruck and Mayrhofen, took us to the village of Bramberg am Wildkogel. Another smaller ski area and a return to the more modest apartments that we usually stay in. There had been a worrying lack of fresh snow for the previous week and the weather continued to warm up. As we arrived it was raining, clearing the last remnants of snow away from the valley. For the next two days it rained. I am quite keen on skiing but not so keen as to get intentionally soaked in the process. Anyhow, rain makes the snow slushy, heavy and difficult. Even up on the mountain tops it was raining, not snowing. We had a drive round. Visited the bottom of the Großglockner pass – also closed in winter.
Spring skiing in Feb
We moved northwards past Kitzbuhl to Niederau. Our good friend Tim has a cousin who rents apartments here. We got a deal on a nice, cosy place for a week plus some excellent local advice and schnapps on arrival. The rain had passed, the sun came out and most of the week was warm and pleasant. The trouble is that warm and pleasant is not ideal for ski slopes. There are three small ski areas easily accessible along the valley. I enjoyed exploring them and Diane came along to take in the views. But all the time the snow was getting thinner and icier. It began to feel like spring skiing. This can be fun. Skiing in the warm sun with views across green fields. It does not last too long though before the snow is gone completely. Last year we had spent much of January in Chamonix vainly waiting for snow. Here it was looking like the ski season would end in February. I started to wonder, with climate change apparently starting to really kick in now, has the halcyon age of alpine skiing passed?
Sportgastein
On this rather gloomy note we started making plans for a bit more road tripping and a bit less skiing. The gloom was emphasized by clouds rolling in and yet more rain. We headed for Slovenia. On the way we stopped for a day at Gastein. I skied at a couple of the areas there. The first, high area at Sportgastein, was pleasant if a bit crowded and limited to one lift. The second area, more comprehensively served from the main town was awful. The slopes were in terrible condition. Very icy with piles of slush that threaten to trip you up. It was Sunday and the place was very crowded as well. To the point where it started to feel a bit dangerous. Too many out of control skiers on a small icy slope. Diane came up to the restaurant at the top of the mountain. I not only met her there but came down on the gondola with her. Normally, I would always ski down but this time it really did not seem like a clever idea. Next morning we took a car-train through the Tauern Railway Tunnel to Mallnitz before heading south-east to Slovenia.
Close to Vipiteno is the village of Colles and the Racines ski area. We stayed at small, modern apartment for a couple of days. I skied for a day although the weather was far from brilliant. When it is overcast the light can become very even. The same amount of illumination from every direction. This tends to make the snow covered ground look completely flat. Then it is difficult to see just how the slope undulates and you end up feeling your way down the hillside because you can’t see the detail of the slope. I suspect that this is good practice and helps improve your balance, but it can get a bit tedious. By lunchtime I was getting quite cold and little bit bored of wandering around in the mist. I stumbled, almost literally, across a lovely little restaurant high on the slopes. Just a handful of more hardened skiers were in there having lunch. I ordered a dish of spinach dumplings in a gorgonzola cheese sauce. This proved to be fabulous. By the time I was ready to leave I was thoroughly warmed through and feeling much more stable, anchored by some typically substantial Tyrolean dumplings. The cloud lifted a little, I found a new and interesting place to ski, and all seemed good with the world again. I also managed a little reconnaissance of the Passo Giovo. We needed to cross back over the next day, and it had been snowing. I could see the road was still open, the snowploughs had been busy although now the road was covered in a layer of hard packed snow.
Next morning, we set off and I wondered, yet again, at the wisdom of driving over alpine passes in a car that screeched as if all four wheels were about to come off. I really hoped that the Merano mechanic’s assessment was correct. In the event, the pass was straightforward. I put the Range Rover in “snow mode” and it happily coped with the icy conditions. Once again, I felt pleased that we had swapped the Jaguar for a car more appropriate to the task of a winter alpine road trip. We enjoyed driving over the pass, but it was cold and windy, so we skipped stopping for a brew this time. Back in Merano, we dropped the car off to be repaired and explored the town a little more.
Good news met us back at the garage and I eventually discovered just what had been going on. Language had been proving a bit of a barrier. Round here they speak German with an Italian accent. I don’t speak either. However, when the mechanic showed me the damaged parts it all made sense. A Range Rover, like most Land Rovers, has a hand brake that is quite separate from the service brakes that act on the wheels. The hand brake uses a drum brake on the output shaft of the transfer box. This had the advantage is that it locks all four wheels. The two brake shoes in the drum assembly are held in place by a pin with a spring. One of these springs had broken and was rubbing on the flat surface of the brake drum. This was really not doing any harm at all, hence ‘safe to drive’. None the less, me, Diane and the car all seemed much happier when the noise was cured.
I snuck in another day of skiing. This time, now that the New Year holiday is over, the crowds had vanished. The cable car carpark was now half empty, so I set off from there and thoroughly enjoyed the ride up the mountainside. The day was gloriously sunny, the slopes were mostly empty, lift queues were non-existent and even in the restaurants there was no waiting. There is an awful lot to be said for waiting until the second week in January to got skiing. If you can manage this, you will often be rewarded with the perfect combination of good snow and uncrowded slopes.
Next day we left Merano for what we hoped would be the last time and set off for Austria. Our route took us over the Reisa pass. A route which we had previously done in Baloo. This time however, we had a small car rather than a 22-ton truck, so it was much easier to find somewhere to park by the reservoir. The walk around the lake proved to be delightful. Crisp snow, warm sunshine and many interesting sights including kite skiers, ducklings, wooden walkways, and rotating boxes. The box was a very clever idea for a seat. It could be moved to just the ideal position to catch the sun while sheltering from the wind. In the evening we stayed at a hotel very close to the border and had a fantastic pizza at a restaurant that was within a few feet of the border. Finally, we were ready to tackle Austria.
Having managed to escape Christmas we still had New Year to deal with. New Year is typically far less problematical and often this can be great fun. Eat some tasty food, drink too much and watch fireworks. The previous few years have been noticeably quiet for us. Last year we were in Chamonix where it rained so much that although there were some fireworks all we could see of them were a few colours in the clouds. Prior to that were two years of lockdown and the year before that we were deep in the desert on our own. So, we had hopes for fireworks but were not sure how this might work out. In the meantime, we wanted to see a bit more of Piedmont so we headed to Alba.
The weather was dull and overcast but the city of Alba proved to be quite interesting. First job was to check into our apartment. We had booked a little apartment to be our base for a couple of days. Usually someone meets you, takes care of any registration formalities and shows you the place. Bit like checking into a hotel. Not this time. First, we both had to fill in an online form before they would send us the access code for the keys. This might sound like a convenient, high-tech solution but to be honest, sitting in a car, poking at a phone with one finger and having to contend with a dodgy signal, it was a bit of a pain. Eventually we got the code and found the keys without too much trouble. Then I got an anonymous text message on WhatApp. “Who are you?” seemed reasonable for me to ask but it was not until I threatened to block the sender that they admitted to representing the apartment company. After that the text conversation got increasingly ridiculous and annoying. “Where do we park” was answered with “Watch this five-minute video” and “Which is our apartment?” elicited “Read this 28-page document and follow the instructions”. We got to feel like we had become trapped in some weird and extraordinarily frustrating reality game. We wandered around, tried the keys in the wrong apartment, talked to some locals that lived there and searched for an umbrella stand. The company would not tell us which apartment we were in, instead we had to find an umbrella stand. Why? I have no idea. Eventually, we managed to get the car parked and out bags into the apartment. Took over an hour. The small flat was adequate even though they had skimped a bit on the cleaning. The company got very stroppy with me when I gave them a poor review on booking.com.
Alba is a food-lovers delight. Traditionally, Bologna is the food capital of Italy (and possibly the world) and while I would not dispute this, especially with an Italian, we found Alba to be much more accessible. The city is famous for wine and white truffles, but it is also where Ferrero Rocher and Nutella come from. Some of Italy’s more famous wines such as Barbera, Nebbiolo, Barbaresco, and Barolo originate here. Walking through the gorgeous old centre of the ‘the city of a hundred medieval towers’ we were fascinated by so many specialist food shops selling such a variety of wonderful eatables as to be almost overwhelming. I was intrigued by displays of white truffles each carefully laid out with its weight and price. Eventually, I bought one. We took it home and used it grated onto fresh pasta with butter and garlic. Absolutely fantastic. My mouth is watering just to write about it. I should have bought a couple more.
PiedmontAlbaTruffles for sale
We headed for the mountains. Northwest across the plains of northern Italy, across the Po Valley, past Milan and then due north past Verona. Our overnight stop was a lovely hotel perched high on the valley side above Lake Garda. As night fell the stars came out and a fire pit was lit just outside of the bar. We could sit out by the fire and drink wine as the darkness closed in. Perfect. In the morning we continued north to the village of Tyrolo just above the Merano. To our delight, the apartment had a balcony which looked out over the village, the town, and the whole valley below it. New Year’s Eve was spent watching everyone else’s fireworks.
New Year’s Eve
The car had started making a terrible noise. The sort of metal-on-metal screech that I imagined was an important transmission bearing failing. The day after the New Year break, we found a garage and they diagnosed a problem with the hand brake. We were assured that the car was safe to drive, they ordered a replacement part and asked us to come back in a week.
In the morning I went skiing. The car still sounded like there was a box of wailing banshees underneath it and people were turning round in the street to look. I drove to the main cable car, but the carpark was packed so I was waved past and directed up the hill. Twenty minutes of screeching and grinding up each steep hairpin bend and I arrived at the bottom of the ski slopes where there was a much larger car park. First day back on the slopes is always a bit tricky. My boots did not fit properly so my feet hurt. My skis did not work properly so I struggled to hold a good line. My legs did not work properly and soon started to cramp up. Apart from that it was great. Remarkably busy for such a small ski area but I did not mind waiting a bit for each lift as it gave me a small rest. By late afternoon I was so tired that I barely noticed the wails of tortured metal as I guided the long-suffering car back down the hill. It was a good day.
MeranoThe ventriloquist’s sheep sang opera
We still had several days to wait until we could get the car fixed and they had assured us that it was safe to drive. Next day drove over the Passo Giovo (Jaufenpass) to the lovely town of Vipiteno. The 31 km long, extraordinarily scenic route has the magnificent Ötztal Alps to the north, and the Sarntal Alps to the south. It is a varied and steep road with many switchbacks. Often included in the list of top ten Alpine passes. Because it is such a convenient shortcut it is usually kept open during the winter. We thoroughly enjoyed the drive over. With the windows shut we could barely hear the scaping noise from the transmission.
Next day, I skied and particularly enjoyed the first gondola ride. This takes you from the main car park up to the ski area by going over the busy A22 autostrada. This is one of the most important motorways in Italy. It connects Pianura padana (the Po Valley), the city of Modena and the A1 motorway to Austria. 35,000 vehicles per day, of which 30% are HGVs, use this road to cross the Brenner pass – one of the lowest mountain passes in the Alps and also one of the busiest borders in Europe. It is a remarkable route to drive, from the lowlands up and through the high mountains. We have travelled it many times in motorhomes, in Baloo, on the bike and by car. Every time I have noticed the cable car from Vipiteno. Now I finally got to ride it and found the experience to be remarkably satisfying.
December means Christmas is coming. This usually gives me an urge to leave the country. I am not so bothered about Christmas, never really have been. It is a family affair and in our family that did not seem to ever work too well. The problem however, my problem, is that I feel that I cannot be allowed to be indifferent to Christmas. There are many celebrations that I am not too bothered about, but which do not cause me a problem. Easter can pass me by without a chocolate bunny, on Burns night the haggis is optional and for Bonfire night I can choose to stay in without someone stashing gunpowder in the cellar. I leave them alone, they leave me alone, everyone is happy. With Christmas, I am not allowed to do this. We even have special words, derived from the absurd Dickensian Christmas fantasy, for people who will not conform. It is all-in. Like Marmite, love it or hate it, you cannot be ambivalent. The media starts its assault in November and by December is in full flood. Christmas this, Christmas that, Christmas the other and if you are not positively enthusiastic then “Bah! Humbug!” is the cry of shame you will be marked with. It is too much for me. Sometimes it feels like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You may recall, when the pod-people encounter an unconverted human they point and scream. In this case one inadvertent disparagement of joyous noel brings forth the wagging fingers and the derisory “Bah! Humbug!”. Objectively, when I consider Christmas, I see a little religion and a massive amount of media hype. In all honesty, I am not too keen on either so each year, in November, the cross-channel ferry starts calling me. Obviously, despite Brexit, they still celebrate Christmas in the rest of Europe, but they don’t seem to make such a meal of it. What is more, if I am very lucky, I can get to ski instead of eating mince pies.
We took the Hull to Rotterdam ferry. This is our favourite way across to Europe. Short drive to Hull, meal, bar, sleep, breakfast, and you are good to go. This time we started off with a brief visit to Antwerp. Never been there before. Well, visited once on business but seeing just a hotel and an office does not really count. This time we wanted to spend a couple of days exploring. We found a nice enough place to stay a few kilometres outside the centre. Antwerp is busy, expensive, has tiny roads and barely any parking. We found it best to keep the car far from the centre and instead use the cheap and easy tram system.
Drinks on the ferry
Antwerp is mostly famous for chocolate and diamonds. It seemed sensible to keep Diane away from the diamonds, so we went to look at a chocolate exhibition. We both like a bit of chocolate and quite enjoyed learning about the history of chocolate and how it is made. Climax of the trip was a tasting involving a dozen or so distinct types of chocolate. The chocolate was being stirred in warm vats and we got to pour out a spoonful of each. Basic chocolate is either dark, milk or white. But, as I discovered there is now, in just the last few years, a new type of ruby chocolate. This is made from ruby cocoa beans and has a pink colour. The experts debate whether this is really a new type of chocolate – but it does taste rather good.
Mighty organTomb of Isabella of Bourbon
Wandering around Antwerp we found many museums and Christmas markets. We did our best to avoid both of these, but we did get lured into a couple of churches, How come churches do not put up Christmas decorations? We saw a few nativity scenes and lights on the outside but inside there was nothing. No tinsel on the pews, no plastic penguins on the altar, not a bauble on the lectern and the choir boys were not wearing Santa outfits. The Cathedral of Our Lady was our first dive into catholic artistic overindulgence. Many paintings by the Dutch Masters of which Rubens was prominent. He spent much of his life in Antwerp, so I imagine it was handy for the local cathedral that the paintings did not have to be sent far. The cathedral also sports some terrific stained-glass windows, the excessively ornate tomb of Isabella of Bourbon and a mighty organ. Sadly, there was no-one around to play it. The Sint-Pauluskerk church was a much more modest affair in terms of touristic hype and entry fee but, nonetheless, sported what was possibly a better array of paintings. Rubens must have been terribly busy at times. Next morning, our interest in churches sated for the next few years, we left Antwerp and set a course south.
Rubens
We stayed in a gypsy caravan guarded by a fierce looking sheep. Then we spent my birthday in a little cabin with a lovely view and a hot tub. Diane enjoyed the hot tub, but I discovered that the high level of chlorine in the water played havoc with my skin and made me itch for days. South through France the weather was consistently terrible. Very wet and windy. Arriving at the Jura mountains we found the remains of snow being washed away by the rain. No chance of skiing here. We did however, find a lovely hotel restaurant that served us a fantastic fondu with morel mushrooms.
We pushed on south through the Alps, in the rain, and through the Fréjus Road Tunnel into Italy where the weather finally began to improve. At Oulx there was a lovely hotel in the mountains opposite a restaurant with the best pizza since the last time we were in Italy. Next day, in glorious sunshine, we crossed the Col de Montgenèvre back into France at Briançon and then south-west back to Italy over the fabulous Col de Larche.
By the evening we had arrived at Mondovi, a lovely little Italian town where we holed up for Christmas. Here we spent a few days pottering round and enjoying the tranquillity of a small mountain town.
We visited the old part of town, admired the architecture, climbed the clock tower and generally had a few very peaceful days. The apartment we had hired proved to be very nice and, as usual, we enjoyed cooking for ourselves. After three days we had done enough peacefulness and were ready to get back on the road.
Last November we went for a cruise with Helen and David. It all worked very well. Everyone enjoyed it. This November we thought we would do something similar but on a different ship and a different itinerary. First significant change was that we were sailing from Marseilles. To get there would be a short road trip. We like road trips. Helen organised this one. Diane and I had hoped for a gentle and relaxed journey. Not a chance. First day was a 6am start for a mad thrash down the motorways to Dover. Next morning saw us up at 6am, again, to catch the ferry. Toll motorways to Epernay. A short break to taste and buy champagne. Arrived at the rented bungalow late and crawled into bed. Next day things began to get easier. We had time for breakfast before a relatively easy drive to a lovely hotel in a big old, rambling building. The fabulous evening meal was a highlight but also came with a fabulous bill. And so, to Marseilles where we arrived in the evening and found absolutely nowhere to park. Fortunately, the hotel manager moved his car to give us space. This was a great relief because we were starting to wonder if we would need to a find a different hotel with enough space to unload David in his electric wheelchair. Seeing the progressive deterioration in Dave’s condition is always upsetting. There is also the very practical consideration that every aspect of his life just keeps getting harder. On the previous cruise we had been able to use a conventional wheelchair that could be lifted and man-handled. Now, David is totally dependant on his electric wheelchair. Great bit of kit but way too heavy to lift.
Next morning, we were welcomed onto our ship for the next ten days. The MSC Divina. Quite a bit older than our previous cruise ship, the MSC Virtuosa, but equally enormous. Our cabin was lovely. Nice sized double bed and a small balcony. Diane and I got settled in, Helen and David got settled in and then we all met for lunch and a glass of champagne. We were pleased that we had made it to Marseille with any real problems. Helen does not consider getting up at 6am as a problem. We were looking forward to some relaxing days with a little bit of indulgence. In the evening we sailed for Genova, all was good.
MarseilleGenoaFocaccia
From the port, Genoa is a solid, pressing mass of buildings going up the hillside around the docks. We found ourselves constrained to a narrow strip close to the coast. Beyond that the streets were just too steep. No matter, there was still plenty to see. I was delighted to come across a Focacciaria, a small shop selling variants of Focaccia Genovese – a light and tasty flat bread baked in big trays. This was served with a local pesto sauce. Genoa is famous for growing basil, the key ingredient of a traditional pesto. The result was, frankly, spectacular. Back on board by late afternoon, we broke out the cocktails as the ship left port in the evening sun. I discovered a cocktail with chilli and dried orange that was surprisingly good.
Genuine art or just a prop?Barcelona
Next day we arrived in Barcelona. Sunny, bright and colourful. We headed out to Las Ramblas street. Originally this was a sewage-filled stream forming an important drain especially during the heavy rains of spring and autumn. In 1440, the stream was diverted to be outside the newly built city walls and since then the street has become an increasingly popular hub of urban life. The street is very crowded but also wide and open. Since 1703 it has been lined with trees and although the open-air markets for birds and small animals have been banned since 2010 there are still a wide variety of birds, including parrots, flying around. Small stalls, market traders, entertainers and side shows abound. You can easily spend a full day wandering around, taking in the sights and sounds while nibbling at tapas from the enormous range of restaurants. This was exactly how we passed the afternoon before heading back to the ship to prepare for Africa.
We had a day at sea while we steamed towards Morocco. In the morning, I hopped out of bed with bare feet straight onto a wet carpet. Some problem with the bathroom plumbing apparently. I did not want to know the details and washed my feet anyhow. We moved to a fresh cabin on another deck. Of course, we had to pack up first and then unpack. This all took a couple of hours and was a bit irritating. In fact, irritation became a bit of theme for this ship. On the Virtuosa, the yacht club dining room was on a mezzanine level above the bar. Fabulous views and very convenient. Here on the Divina, it was at the other end of the ship. To get there with David meant taking a lift down nine levels, walking the length of the ship and then going back up nine levels. There were often queues for the lifts so this route could easily take ten minutes. Does not sound too bad until you consider ten minutes each way for three meals a day by which time you have wasted an hour. For all that, the restaurant was cramped and had no views at all.
Casablanca, if I am honest, is a bit tricky as a tourist destination. The largest city in Morocco is also the country’s economic and business centre. The port is enormous, but it is a working port. Thousands of containers being moved around, bulk carriers getting loaded, a steady flow of commercial vessels in and out. In the distance the city, a massive commercial block, rises out of the dusty gloom. It is not very appealing. A handful of the more dedicated tourists booked trips although even then it is probably an hour or two of driving to see anything interesting. Morocco is a fascinating place. Golden sand dunes, amazing mountains, vest seascapes and ancient buildings. The trouble is that none of these places are anywhere near Casablanca. Quite why the ship docked here is anybody’s guess but I am fairly sure it was not for the benefit of the passengers. Getting David onto a bus was going to be impossible and when Helen and David first attempted to disembark, they were told that the tide was too high. They did eventually get off. David got to step foot (wheel) in Africa. They walked down to the security fence and got a stamp for his passport and then that was Morocco and Africa done. Next stop, the Canary Islands.
Cassablanca
Tenerife is an immensely popular tourist destination. With five million visitors a year it is a major worldwide destination and one of the most important to Spain. The larger proportion of visitors are from the UK as it quite evident from the abundance of chip shops and Irish bars. The municipality of Adeje in the south of the island has the highest concentration of 5-star hotels in Europe and Spain’s best luxury hotel. For our part, we went for a walk round a park and ate some chips. Next day was supposed to be Madeira but a port pilot’s strike put paid to that so we had two days in Santa Cruz instead. This meant, come evening , that we could eschew the ship’s restaurant and sneak out for a curry. Turned out to be a properly excellent meal that we all thoroughly enjoyed. Next day Helen and Dave managed to have a fabulous day out in a taxi which was capable of taking the electric wheelchair. I don’t know the details, but they came back buzzing after being shown around the greater part of the island.
Hassan II Mosque
Late afternoon we sailed for Malaga. A two-day trip to the ever-popular Costa del Sun. Popular with the British that is. The trip was essentially uneventful. The sun shined. We explored alternative restaurants. Helen and Diane wallowed in the hot tub. I read a book.
We set off quite early to see Malaga and ended up on an open-topped tour bus. The pre-recorded commentary was desperately boring and delivered in a monotone. Rather than fall asleep I gave up with the earpiece and just looked as what was around us. Malaga seems to be quite a vibrant combination of beaches, bars, and restaurants surrounding a historic centre of narrow streets and old buildings. Having circumnavigated the city we hopped off near the port and attempted to find a restaurant, a tapas bar, that had been recommended to us. We did find it and so did several hundreds of other people. The queue was immense, so we gave up and settled for some perfectly delicious tapas at a smaller and less popular restaurant. The rest of the day was quite a long walk back to the ship where we started packing in preparation for returning to Marseilles the next day.
The return trip was easier. We even had time to stop off for a small tour round a champagne vineyard. Michel Fagot – possibly my new favourite champagne. We split the UK leg into a much more pleasant two days and all arrived back in Todmorden safely.
We joined a trip to the town of Churchill, organised by Natural Habitat Adventures – a group who claim to be world leaders in conservation travel. Their by-line is “conservation through exploration”. The idea is that they organise trips for small numbers of people to inaccessible locations in a responsible way. Churchill is a small settlement on the western side of the Hudson Bay known as the Polar Bear capital of the world. In October and November each year, hundreds of bears converge on the area. Polar Bears like to eat seals. They hunt seals on the sea ice, so in the summer, when there is no ice, they get hungry. Churchill is pretty much right on the point where the sea ice starts to form each year. Polar Bears are traditionally very solitary creatures. Possibly one of the loneliest mammals on the planet. However, this behaviour is briefly put to one side for the bears of the southern and western Hudson Bay. These bears make up two to three thousand of the world’s total population of maybe 30,000 animals. Exact numbers are difficult to assess. See https://www.arcticwwf.org/wildlife/polar-bear/polar-bear-population/ Back in the 1950’s it was estimated there were only 5,000 bears left worldwide. There has been an enormous rebound since the international agreement of 1973 to seriously limit hunting. Humans have always been their biggest threat. These days, some populations of bears continue to flourish while others suffer from the ubiquitous combined pressures of habit encroachment and climate change. A few years ago, National Geographic published a distressing video of a starving polar bear along with a dialog that pointed squarely at global warming as being responsible for the poor animal’s imminent demise. For a while it looked like polar bears were going to become the poster child of the climate change lobby. Fortunately, sanity ruled. National Geographic were playing fast and loose with the facts for the sake of a story. The bear simply could have been old, ill, or suffering from a degenerative disease. Overall, polar bears are doing fine. You can still hunt bears though. For around £30,000 an Inuit hunter will sell you his allocation and help you find a bear to murder.
In 2021, Churchill had a population of just 870. Tourism is the major source of income. Some whale watching and some aurora spotting but mostly polar bear safaris in October and November. To the west of Churchill is a large conservation area that used to be a rocket launching range. From 1956 to 1984 rockets were fired into the upper atmosphere for research purposes. These days a handful of special trucks are licenced to take tourists out in search of polar bears. The trucks are custom built and quite enormous. They can easily travel across the rough terrain while at the same time keeping visitors safe from wandering polar bears. The bears are wonderful to watch but it is prudent to remember that these are the world’s largest terrestrial carnivore. Half a ton of apex predator. And they are hungry.
Our trip began in Winipeg. Here, at the rather lovely, Fort Gary hotel, we met up with the rest of our group, collected coats and boots, attended an introductory talk, attended an introductory meal and had a tour of Winipeg. Unfortunately, at about this time my small camera developed a fault. It was not focussing correctly. Looked fine through the view finder but the final images were terrible. What makes this worse is that I did not notice until I took the images from the camera several weeks later. My main camera is a Canon EOS 5D MkIV. This is a truly beautiful camera and much better than me at taking photographs. However, it is a bit large, so for smaller jobs I use a Canon Powershot GX1. This is also excellent. Pocket sized with a telephoto lens and a proper view finder – essential in bright snowy conditions. Ideal for a day trip to see the sights of Winnipeg.
We started the day by visiting a field full of bison. Big, shaggy cows that reminded me of Yaks. We were driven into the middle in a rather battered bus and warned not to get out. The North American plains used to support over 30 million of these animals living in balance with the local tribes. Then came the cowboys and someone had the great idea that an effective way to get rid of the North American Indians (pesky locals) would be to exterminate the bison that they depended on. By 1900 the entire bison population was down to about 1,000. Now there are around 200,000 in the whole of North America. On reflection, I can see that Canada has a long history of hunting creatures to extinction but despite that mostly everyone we met still seemed very keen on hunting and fishing. Lessons yet to be learned. As we left the two-acre field our guide remarked “I hope you enjoyed your safari”, which caused me to wonder about how far the meaning of a word like “safari” can be stretched. The rest of the day was a relaxed meander round some parks and monuments. We eventually ended up in a museum where there was even more bison romanticising. Also, a ship which was supposed to illustrate early trade but seemed more like a pantomime pirate vessel to me. Next morning, we flew to Churchill.
Fort GaryBisonPirate ship
Churchill has the wonderful air of being a frontier town about it. Not quite so extreme as some of the settlements we had encountered in Nunavut, but still a long, long way from the hustle and bustle of a modern city. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived. Our group of sixteen was assigned to a bus with Judy, our group leader, and went for a drive around town. The road from the airport is mostly a dirt track. There is not much to see in Churchill. Houses, a few hotels and restaurants and some basic facilities. Some interesting art, painting on rocks and houses, remains from an event a few years ago. I was struck by the polar bear warning signs. This is not a place to wander around on your own. At the coast is an Inuit inuksuk – a construction of rocks used as a cultural symbol. Made a good place for a group photograph. Also gave me a chance to look out across the Hudson Bay – somewhere I have wanted to visit for a long time. The bay is a massive salt-water inlet, technically part of the Atlantic Ocean. Named after the Englishman, Sir Henry Hudson, another character in the story of the Northwest passage. He spent time mapping the bay but met his end when his crew mutinied in June 1611 and set him adrift in a small boat, possibly not far from Churchill.
The bears come here because the ice starts forming here. Winter is coming. By the end of November there will be sea ice and the bears will be gone. For us, in October, it is still getting chilly. Minus 24°C is the Churchill record low for October. That would have been cold. While we were there the temperature hovered around freezing, even so, there was often snow in the air. In the morning we were introduced to our truck and our truck driver, a big, cheerful bloke and clearly a bit of a character. The trucks, called Polar Rovers, are designed specifically for this job. Apart from being massive, they are also capable off-road and self-contained. Water, food and a toilet are all provided. You get on the truck via a special raised platform and get off, at the end of the day, the same way. The truck has an outside viewing platform, but you are still way above the ground, safe from bears. Did I mention the Polar Rover was big? Seating for about forty so with just sixteen of us there was plenty of space and everyone could have a window seat.
Inuksuk Polar Rover
The sun was just coming up as we left the boarding area along with four other vehicles. They like to make an early start here. A Polar Rover is only quite slow but even so, on the rough terrain, you needed to hang on a bit. For an hour or so we lurched and banged our way along following rough tracks marking the passage of many other trucks. Then our driver saw a bear. I was immediately reminded of spotting polar bears from the Hurtigruten ship we had been on earlier. A little white dot in the distance. We waited a while and then moved closer. The driver used his judgment to decide whether we were disturbing the bear. Clearly it would be a bit irresponsible to simply chase the animals around in trucks, so they try and tread lightly. As lightly as possible in a 25-ton truck. To be fair, the bears do not seem too concerned about the rovers. Possibly they have got used to them or maybe they hope there may be some food involved. At times they are quite curious although they are never given any food. Elsewhere in the world you would not be able to do this at all. In Svalbard, for example, it is illegal to hunt, lure, pursue, feed or disturb a polar bear. Around Churchill the polar bear viewing is highly regulated although part of this might be driven by protectionism of the tourist industry. Natural Habitat make a big issue in pointing out that they are one of very few organisations with permits to visit the whole conservation area.
Apex Predator
We finally got reasonably close to a bear so, along with several other rovers, we stopped for lunch. This proved to be a pleasant affair. A range of food was produced from cupboards. Hot food in flasks. Cold nibbles. Even some wine. The pattern was established for the next couple of days. Up early. Bounce off across the tundra in the morning light while sipping coffee. Wander around until we found a bear. Spend time on the rear viewing platform trying to get some half decent photographs. Leisurely break for lunch. More bear spotting and then back as dusk was falling. It was interesting and fun, but we thought, after three days that we had done about enough of this.
Old rocket rangeConservation area
On the last day in the rovers, there was an unexpected drama. Bears are normally very solitary and only get forced together here while they wait for the ice. Most of the bears are single males. On the last day we saw a mother with her cub. Typically bears have one or two cubs which they look after for two or three years. The male bears have nothing to do with bringing up the cubs, in fact, they are a bit of a danger and have been known to attack and eat cubs. Especially when they are hungry in the late summer before the ice forms. So, we spotted a mother and cub on a small spit of land and a larger male bear making its way towards them. The mum played it cool for a little while and then decided to make her escape. She took her cub to the end of the rocky spit and then clambered into the water. The cub was clearly less competent at swimming and mostly just hung onto her back. They swam round to shore well away from the male. He appeared to lose interest once they took to the water. By the time the mother and cub were shaking themselves dry the big male had laid down and gone back to sleep.
Inside a roverThere is a male bear comingThe escapeSafe
Our last day at Churchill we went on a helicopter ride. Once again, this was very expensive but so worthwhile. We are unlikely to ever visit Churchill again. It is an amazing place and flying is a terrific way to see it. Just three of us in the aircraft along with the pilot, Bob, who explained he had been flying bush helicopters for several decades. He was certainly an excellent pilot and truly knowledgeable. By flying we could range much further out than in the rovers and get a much better sense of just how many polar bears were around. Most of the bears were along the coast so we flew a zig-zag path along the beach. Did we mind doing some sharper turns Bob asked? No we did not so we ended up doing some very exciting manoeuvres. Great fun.
I do not want to be shot again
Occasionally bears must be handled. Sometimes they are fitted with tracking collars or simply need to be measured and examined for scientific purposes. Occasionally they may need to go to prison. Bad bears, those behaving in a way which is causing problems for the settlement get locked away. Solitary confinement in an old military building. Later that day we visited the polar bear holding facility. Bears are locked up here until the ice has formed and they can be taken well way. Initially, the bears were fed until it was found that the following year, they came to the facility hoping for more food. To catch a bear, you approach in helicopter and shoot it with a tranquilising dart. The sedated bear can then be handled, netted or whatever. The bears do not like this, and they remember. Bob could point out bears that had experienced this because as the helicopter approached, they promptly sat down so that they could not be shot in the bum again.
Bear observatorySea ice forming
A short but fun dog sled ride plus a visit to a souvenir shop rounded out the day. Then came the flight back to Winnipeg and by late evening we were back in Fort Gary hotel enjoying a farewell dinner with the rest of the group. Next day we flew to Calgary and a couple of days later were back in the UK.
In Calgary we traded in our compact RV for a larger model. The smaller one had proved fine, with the possible exception of the shower. It was a bit narrow. l found I could clean one side of myself but then had to step out and turn around to clean the other side. We had a problem with the generator which is why we had called at the Calgary depot. While discussing this, it occurred to us that we could try a different RV for the remainder of our trip. We ended up with a considerably larger model. It had slide-out sections. The whole vehicle could expand when we parked up. Gave us loads of space inside. Much bigger than Baloo ever was although the base vehicle was much smaller. Also, we had a proper oven thus expanding the range of culinary possibilities.
The Wolf Sanctuary was closed
One aspect of Canada that takes a bit of getting used to is that you never pay the advertised price. It does not matter what you are buying, the displayed cost is only ever a starting point. On top of that will come at least one tax, often two and then sometimes a tip. I have a receipt which includes ECOFRAIS, TPS and T.V.P. – no idea what any of these are although they add 15% to the bill before tips. Tipping in Canada is not just encouraged but virtually mandatory. When you are handed a credit card payment machine it will not simply display the amount you will be charged. First you will need to choose the level of tipping – typically 15%, 20% or 25%. In a move that seems strangely unfair to me, the tip is calculated as a percentage after tax. So, you pay a tip on the tax as well. It is also difficult to know when you are going to pay a tip. Supermarkets, no. Liquor store, yes. The shop keeper hands you a bottle of wine and then expects to be tipped for this. It is all a bit baffling and disturbing. Feels like having a little mouse in your pocket that keeps nibbling away at your money.
We spent a night in an exceedingly popular RV camp just outside of Calgary. It was not great. Busy and expensive. Next day we stumbled across an almost deserted campsite a few miles off the road. As we were driving down the track, a grey wolf ran across in front of us. This was much nicer. We spent a couple of nights there. Had a few walks. Saw another wolf and got to find our way around the new, enormous, RV. Eventually, we arrived in Banff. We had definitely arrived in the Rocky Mountains. On the downside, the weather started to be quite wet and we discovered that Banff was just about to close for the season. We had arrived just on the awkward gap between summer and winter. Last time we were in Banff was back in the winter of 2009. It appears to have changed enormously since then. Such is the power of the tourism industry. We had a potter around time. It was not too crowded, but we could sense that it must be heaving at times. Found a lovely vegetarian restaurant and a specialist chocolate shop that was irresistible to Diane. Next day the campsite closed. This RV site on the hills overlooking Banff is truly massive. We are talking a thousand or more pitches. Even so, it closes at the end of the season.
We moved on to the rather scarily named Radium Hot Springs. I have no idea if the waters there really glow in the dark but there was a quiet and pleasant campsite. Next day we drove up to the town of Golden. Another slightly odd name but naturally lends itself to naming local features, Golden Road, Golden Bridge and so on. Here we paid extra for a campsite pitch with a view (Golden view). It was lovely so we stayed two nights. Then we climbed over Rogers Pass and through the Glacier National Park. You need a permit to drive within a national park. Fortunately, we had bought a multi-park pass when we hired the RV. We stopped in a small car park by the side of the road and discovered that we were supposed to have a permit for that. And another, special winter permit if we wanted to park there in the cold. We hoped we could get away with our 30 minute pause while Diane made lunch and I tried to photograph the chipmunks running around the tarmac.
After a very pleasant and relaxed few days crossing the Rockies, we arrived in Vancouver and gave the RV back. This left us a day spare, so we went to look around the downtown area on the rather excellent mass transportation system called SkyTrain. This proved to be a bit of a shock. We had come to expect Canada to be generally clean and pleasant. Downtown Vancouver has a bit of a social problem. Not only were there many derelict and run down areas but also a lot of derelict and run down people. In fact, some of the park areas were festooned with people who appeared to be very much down on their luck and either unconscious or begging for money. We kept our visit fairly short before heading back to our hotel and preparing for the trip to Winnipeg.
After leaving the Fram, we were flown to Montreal. Following six weeks in remote Arctic places, we were back in a big, bustling, modern city. In general, we are not too keen on cities, but Montreal feels clean and friendly, so we did not mind spending a few days exploring. The weather was warm and sunny. We looked at a few buildings, walked in some parks and found a couple of nice places to eat. Eventually it was time to move on.
We got a taxi out to the north of the city, to where we had arranged to collect a small motor home, a recreation vehicle or RV as they are commonly referred to. Diane and I have spent quite a lot of time in motor homes of diverse types. These have ranged from cheap and small to the 22-ton monster that was Baloo. This one was definitely on the smaller side. A converted Ford Transit van. Although quite small, it was well equipped. The back turned into a reasonable bed. There was a small cooking area with a sink, gas hob and microwave. We had a small shower and a toilet, gas heating and even an air conditioning unit in the roof. A generator meant we could even stand a few days wild camping. Underneath there was a very neat combined grey and black water drain valve – something that would have saved an awful lot of time and trouble in Baloo. The hire company claimed that the RV could be used in winter down to -30°C – this was probably true and quite impressive – the Canadians know a thing or two about cold winters.
After a couple of days on a pleasant campsite just outside of Montreal, we set off westwards. It was lovely to be back on the road again. The fine details of what type of RV you are in or how it is equipped really makes little difference to the basic pleasure of moving through the landscape, seeing something new each day and never being quite sure where you are going to end up. For the first week we travelled through forest. East Canada is one immense forest. A vast extent of gently rolling hills and trees. We chanced across a few interesting sights such as Canada’s longest rope bridge, but for the most part, each day was pleasantly quiet roads and endless trees. Not boring but not notably exciting either. Canada is a wonderful place for RVs. Lots of space and well organised campsites. We were travelling close to the end of the season so there was never any need to book ahead. Most campsites come with electric and water hook up plus a little drain that you can connect the waste water outlet to. Usually there was a fire pit. For a few dollars you can buy a sack of logs and then have a campfire to sit around.
Round about this time, my mother died. This was not unexpected. We knew she was seriously ill before we left for Iceland. We had talked. She was content, she had made peace with her God and when I said goodbye at the end of July neither of us expected to meet again. That said, losing your mother is a big thing and for a few weeks we both felt decidedly low. Quietly travelling and sitting around campfires suited us just perfectly.
Eyebrow
Passing Winipeg we arrived at the wonderful little town of Eyebrow. The small RV site appeared deserted but not long after we settled in, a local woman turned up in a pickup truck to bring us firewood and welcome us to the Eyebrow RV site. Next day, to my delight, we went through the town of Elbow, just a short way from Eyebrow. Aside from towns named after bodily parts, this part of the trip also marked the transition from forests to plains. Vast plains of wheat. Many things in Canada appear to be vast. Vast and flat. One local, a fruit seller just outside Eyebrow, explained that it was so flat you could watch you dog running away for four days.
On we drove, along dead straight roads, past wheat fields the size of small counties, past grain silos, farms and harvesting machines as big as family homes. We passed several salt lakes and oil pumps, nodding donkeys, pulling oil up from deep underground. Slowly, slowly the totally flat fields gave way to undulations and then, rather suddenly, we dropped off the edge of a plateau and into some deep ravines. After nearly three weeks and over 4,000 km we had reached the edge of the plains. Next stop Calgary and the Rocky Mountains.
The town of Uqsuqtuuq is the only settlement on King William Island. The name means “lots of fat” and refers to the abundance of sea mammals in the nearby waters.
Roald Amundsen named the place Gjoa Haven in 1903 after his ship Gjøa. It was during his expedition to be the first to travel the Northwest Passage. Amundsen arrived here and declared it to be “the finest little harbour in the world”. The vessel was moored for nearly two years while Amundsen and his crew learned from the local Inuit about living off the land and traveling in extreme conditions. It was these skills that stood him in good stead later when tacking the South Pole. They also plotted changes in the Northern Magnetic Pole which, rather surprisingly, moves quite a lot. Today some locals claim descendancy from Amundsen, or his crew.
The mist had come down, the sea was calm and the land, what we could see of it, was flat and featureless. Not ideal for photographs. I could slip a couple of pictures of Saddleworth moor on a foggy day in here and you would not spot the difference. Despite the “lots of fat” name, we saw nothing more than a couple of sea birds.
The settlement was interesting and gave us a bit more insight into life in the high arctic. A little museum hosted a rather excellent bronze bust of Amundsen. Turns out he had a large and prominent nose. In the community centre my attention was caught by some public information signs about travelling on the sea ice. It reminded me of the posters you might see in the Peak District reminding walkers to take a waterproof with them. Of course, this is a far more extreme environment, so the advice made refence to such things as rifles, harpoons, satellite phones and recognising sea ice features. I also spotted a poster concerning the Erebus and Terror. You will recall that these were Franklin’s ships. Both now found in the relatively shallow waters not far from Gjoa Haven. Erebus was discovered in 2014 and Terror in 2016. The cold, arctic ocean has preserved both vessels well and they have given up some of the last pieces of the puzzle of Franklin’s expedition. Both are now preserved as historic sites and strictly off limits.
The cultural demonstration proved to be genuinely entertaining. We knew to expect throat singing and drum dancing. I was somewhat surprised when the event was rounded off by square dancing, something I think I had last experienced in Texas.
The next day we arrived at Cambridge Bay and the end of our trip. We left the Fram for the last time on the RHIBs to spend a few hours looking around. Off to one end of the town is the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. A marvellous looking building with two very interesting hovercraft parked outside. Unfortunately, no one was there. I guess they were all out doing research. Just out from the other side of town are some geodesic domes that looked to enclose radars. These are part of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line established during the cold war. as protection from incoming soviet bombers. I asked our guide about the radar station, and he asserted that it was so secret that it was best to not mention it at all. Mid-afternoon we flew in a small charter plane to Montreal.
Next day we were heading south. We crossed Viscount Melville Sound and by daybreak passed Prince Leopold Island, an important bird sanctuary, before arriving at the northeast corner of Somerset Island. Here are the remains of another HBC trading post and the opportunity for another landing. Standing by the hut, we tried to imagine what it might have been like back in the day. Two people, a pile of provisions and a stove. Occasionally, local hunters would turn up with furs which were then compressed into 90 lb bales. Once a year a ship would arrive to take the furs and drop off more provisions.
Flowers even in harsh placesTypical frost shattering patten
In the evening we pressed on south. This is probably not the route that Franklin took. He went west of Somerset Island. Our route took us past Fort Ross and through the Bellot Strait. Fort Ross was the last ever trading post for HBC. Built in 1937 and operated for 11 years it was eventually abandoned when two successive resupply attempts failed because of the sea ice. The three HBC employees were eventually airlifted out in a daring rescue that involved the first high arctic parachute jump. The Bellot Straight separates Somerset Island from mainland North America. It is a narrow channel and a significant challenge to navigation. Part way through is a large cairn marking Zenith Point, the most northerly point on the American mainland. The channel is 25 km long, narrow and steep sided. Currents can reach 8 kts and there are often small icebergs creating a significant danger to shipping. In the event, our traversal went very smoothly. Sadly, the mist closed in and although we got a glimpse of Zenith point that was about our lot. We finally emerged into open ocean at Franklin Straight. So, you may guess who sailed past here once.
Zenith PointLeaving Bellot Straight
Before we picked up the Franklin trail again, there was one last chance for a trip out in the RHIBs. A couple of polar bears had been spotted in Peel Sound. We took turns in using the RHIBs to get a little closer to them. Not too close obviously. We did not want to scare them or ourselves. That done, the Fram turned south again. Next stop Gjoa Haven.
We were at the start of the Northwest Passage (NWP). For centuries this was a much sort after, almost mythical, route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Before the Panama Canal, vessels needed to either risk the infamous Cape Horn or sail south of Africa and India to get to the far east. Renowned polar explorer, Roald Amundsen found a route in 1903. It took him three years, two winters in the ice. In 2007 the Norwegian Polar Institute announced that the passage was clear for the first time since records began in 1972. It is generally acknowledged that the declining ice is caused by climate change. Since 2009 the winter pack ice has cleared, albeit for a fleeting time, each year. Now it is possible, for just a few weeks annually, for the right type of ship following the right route to slip through.
The tale of the NWP is many stories of courage, endeavour, and mystery. Prominent amongst these is the well-funded, well-equipped British Royal Navy expedition led by John Franklin. His two ships, the Erebus and Terror, were hailed by whalers in Baffin Bay, July 1845 and then never seen again. We were following part of his route, along Lancaster Sound and the coast of Devon Island. Specifically, we were heading towards Beechey Island, a small piece of land just to the south of Devon Island. Here some of the first clues about Franklin’s expedition were found in 1850. However, hours before we arrived, before breakfast in fact, the ship’s PA system announced another polar bear.
Typical bear sighting
I went out to look. Fully expecting to see a little white bear in the far distance. This was exactly what we saw. But then, just as I was about to go back into the warmth, someone shouted that there was a bear in the water. There were three bears, a mother and her cubs. The shipped slowed right down and we watched as the bears clambered out of the water onto the rocky land. For ten minutes or so they made their way along the difficult and steep coastline. Faced with even steeper cliffs, they eventually gave up on this and hopped back into the water. To our complete delight, they then set off swimming towards the Fram. Maybe they could smell food or maybe they were just curious. Either way they came remarkably close, while the decks resonated with the sound of camera shutters. A few minutes later, Mum appeared to decide that was enough and led her cubs away. Brilliant. A once in lifetime encounter. Well, so I thought.
Five minutes later came another shout. “Bear in the water!”. Again, the ship slowed right down and again we all watched in awe as the bear came right up to us. This time it was a single male. A big one. Clearly, he was well fed and happy. He bobbed around for a while watching us watching him. Then he turned and headed off towards the now distant shore. Incredibly. Two amazing bear encounters and we not even had breakfast yet.
After breakfast, we arrived for a landing at Beechey Island. In all, around thirty expeditions set forth to discover the fate of Franklin and his crew. The whole story was only pieced together in the last decade. Early evidence showed that Erebus and Terror spent their first winter beset in the pack ice off Beechey Island. They were prepared for this, and the ships were built to survive the ice. It would not have been a problem to over-winter there. In later years, the bodies of three of the crew were buried there along with a French Naval officer who died falling overboard on one of the search expeditions. Amundsen too stopped here to pay his respects on his successful 1903 expedition. Since 1975, Beechey Island has been designated a Territorial Historic Site by the government of the Northwest Territories. Beechey Island is a bleak and forbidding place. The land is virtually bare and pock-marked by curious depressions caused by permafrost. We wandered around a little, paid our respects at the graves and spotted some beluga whales off in the far distance. As the day ended, we were safely back on board the Fram and sailed out past Northumberland House. This is the remains of a Hudson Bay Trading Company trading post. There is also a memorial, a cenotaph in the shape of a hexagonal pillar, commemorating Franklin and some of the other brave explorers that died in the quest for the North West Passage.
Effects of permafrostGravesLancaster House and CenotaphBeluga whales in the far distance
For a day and a night, we sailed west across Baffin Bay. In the morning we were holding station outside Pond Inlet. Population 1,500. Mostly Inuit. Largest community on Baffin Island in the Nunavut area. Known to the Inuit as Mittimatalik. This is the traditional start of the NW Passage and our entry point to Canada. Border control formalities needed to be observed and an official came aboard to stamp our passports. A couple of other ships were hanging around similarly waiting for clearance. A big old tramp steamer called Kitimeot looked like she had a tough life. By contrast a strangely shaped super-yacht called Shinkai looked to be dedicated to easy living. Hard to work out who owned this remarkably expensive vessel, but our best guess was a Russian oligarch.
Formalities over, we were ferried ashore to be shown around the town in small groups. Wikipedia states: As a tourist destination, Pond Inlet is considered one of Canada’s “Jewels of the North”. It is one of the most picturesque communities with mountain ranges visible in all directions. Far be it for me to contradict this but, my first impressions were that it was a bit of dump. Life here is harsh. It is one of Canada’s most inhospitable climates. Long, dark winters and temperatures averaging −35 °C. Trust me, that is properly cold. Your eyelids freeze together, and the snot turns to ice in your nose. In those conditions tidying the place is possibly a low priority. Today it probably did not help that the cloud was thick and low making visibility poor. We were shown round a few places in town and asked not to visit the supermarket. Provisions were low and they did not want us wandering off with anything. We ended up in the community centre for a cultural presentation. Diane and I have seen a few of these now but this one was better than most. We passed on the fish and caribou soup but enjoyed the drum dancing, the throat singing and the demonstration of winter games. That is, competitive Inuit games, including jumping on one foot to kick a small, suspended stuffed mouse.
Throat singingDrum dancingDisinfection station
Next day, after leaving Pond Inlet, we sailed north back into Baffin Bay, then through Lancaster Sound and up to Devon Island where we saw a polar bear. First bear since we had been in East Greenland several weeks ago. He was far in the distance making his way along the coastline. Even with a long lens he was just a little white blob in the distance but still exciting to see. Later in the day we turned into Dundas Harbour for a possible landing but then another polar bear was spotted. This put paid to the landing. Too dangerous. So instead, we got the RHIBs out and went to look at the glacier snout. Pottering around glaciers and icebergs is always quite good fun. A few brave souls went out in kayaks. I have tried kayaks at various times in my life and never really seen the appeal. Diane reckoned that if she got in one then she would never be able to get out again. Either way, we left the kayaks to others.
Bear in the distance
Early evening, everyone was back onboard, and we were heading back out to Lancaster Sound when we came across the second bear again. He was closer to the shore now and I could get a slightly better photograph. Sadly, he did not look a very happy bear. Through the summer, the bears typically do not eat. They need to wait until the sea ice comes so that they can hunt seals. This guy really looked like he could do with a couple of seals.
Our last port of call, in western Greenland, was Ilulissat. Third city of Greenland. With a population of just 4,500, there are almost as many sledge dogs here as people. The harbour area is quite small, so the Fram anchored off and we were ferried ashore on the RHIBs. No bus tour, but there was a shuttle service up to a visitor centre. Ilulissat is the most popular tourist destination in Greenland. These days it is tourism, not fishing, that is the town’s principle industry. Part of the attraction is the nearby Ilulissat Icefjord. This is a spectacular fjord into which calve enormous icebergs from Sermeq Kujalleq, the most productive glacier in the northern hemisphere. This is one of the few glaciers where the Greenland icecap directly reaches the sea, and it is moving fast. Up to 40 m per day. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is described as a dramatic and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. Seemed like it might be worth a look.
The bus took us through the main town and out past another dog town to the Ilulissat visitor centre. We chose to save the centre for later and went off for a walk. A wooden walkway helps in crossing a boggy area on the way to the coast at the outlet of the fjord. I think there must be some sort of bar at the exit because many icebergs were jammed here. This makes the rest of the brash fill the fjord in a very spectacular and satisfying way. Despite being 250 km north of the Arctic Circle, it was quite a warm and sunny day. Perfect for a hike. We could make a loop by walking back along the rocky side of the fjord then cutting over a hill back to the visitor centre. It was a slow walk with many stops to gaze across the constantly moving ice. If we stopped for more than a couple of minutes the mosquitoes found us.
Visitor CentrePurple dog hut
We walked for three hours or so, but I think, if you had the time, there must be days of fabulous hiking around here. The visitor centre is an interesting building shaped like the wingspan of a snowy owl when it is in flight, apparently. There are numerous displays about how people have lived in the area, the geological history of the glacier and how studying the ice is helping develop the current scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change. Visitors are required to remove their boots before entering. It is possible to walk across the roof which gives some nice views. We poked around for a little while and then hopped on the shuttle back to the ship. In the evening we sailed out into the fabulously named Disko Bay where I glimpsed a whale. Then it was north past Disko Island and finally west across Baffin Bay to Canada and the entrance to the North West Passage.
Overnight we sailed 320 km further north. We crossed the arctic circle and arrived in Greenland’s second city, Sisimiut. Population 5,500. Sisimiut means “the people living in a place where there are fox dens”. Originally established to support the whaling industry, fishing is now the principal industry in Sisimiut. Shrimps, salmon, halibut and cod. The Royal Greenland fish processing plant at the port is the largest within Greenland and is amongst the most modern shrimp-shelling factories in the world. 20,000 tonnes of shrimp a year. The city is very striking. Brightly painted houses and a busy port all surrounded by picturesque mountains.
Once again, we set off on a bus tour but this time the trip proved to be much more interesting. There were dogs. First, we looked at a local bronze of a fisherman catching a fish. A few shops of interest were pointed out. Then we got to the dogs. Lots of dogs. About a thousand of them all living in an area well outside the main conurbation know locally as “Dog Town”. There is only one type of dog in Greenland, the Greenlandic Sledge Dog. Other breeds are not allowed and dogs that ever leave Greenland are not allowed back. The dogs live outside, year-round, in an assortment of kennels and shelters. Each dog owner has a designated area in Dog Town and it is strictly forbidden to interfere with dogs that are not your own. Fortunately, our guide explained, she had her own dogs so we could go to see them. She had about a dozen dogs. These were used for pulling sledges in the winter. Greenlandic Sledge Dogs are big strong animals with a thick, insulating fur. They can sleep outside quite comfortably even when the temperature is well below freezing. In the summer they can easily overheat so mostly they just laze around. Fortunately, everyone on our small tour was much more interested in dogs than shops and schools so we spent quite a while with them. Also, there were puppies. One pair were several weeks old. The other two were just a few days old so their eyes had not opened yet.
Eventually we had to leave the dogs and got dropped off by a museum not far from the port. Diane and I stuck our head in a couple of the buildings but did not find much of interest. We are not good museum people. Instead, we wandered back to the Fram. Our coats were shedding dog fur for several days and probably carried a canine whiff with them, but we did not mind.
Further up the western coast of Greenland we approached the little town of Paamiut. Population 1,300, it is the tenth largest settlement in Greenland. We sailed straight past Paamiut and up the fjord to the east. Here was another magnificent glacier emptying directly into the sea. Also, there was a chance to go ashore. As usual, the expedition team landed first to check for polar bears and set up the armed guards. Then we got ferried ashore in the RHIBs. At the start of the voyage, we were allocated to a boat group. The order in which boat groups go ashore is rotated. This time we were in the last RHIB to land. A short walk up the hillside brought us to a fabulous viewpoint. Mountains, glaciers and the fjord. Someone saw an arctic fox earlier, but it was long gone by the time we got there. Superficially, these landings can seem like a lot of effort for a short walk. For me, they are completely worth the trouble just to stand on such a remote place as Greenland. To take in some of the terrific and rare sights. Just a short walk but a special one.
Next day we arrived in Nuuk. The population, 19,600, is about a third the entire population of Greenland. Nuuk is the capital city. There are a few roads but none of them go anywhere outside the city. The Nuummioq (citizens of Nuuk) are well served for education with a university and several other establishments of higher learning. There is also a good healthcare provision and a cultural centre.
We began our visit with a tour on a bus. This did not take very long. We stopped outside the Royal Greenland fish processing plant, a major source of income derived from an awful lot of frozen shrimp. We also looked at the university and a large graveyard where the locals like to be buried with a view. Finally, we were dropped off at the city cultural centre for a short presentation. A couple of songs, some drum dancing, and ten minutes of crazy mask dancing later we queued to taste some local delicacies. Dried fish high on the menu along with a few other things that did not bear close inspection. Diane and I slipped out of the queue and took a wander round the shopping centre instead. The sky was getting dark and ominous as we took the bus back to the harbour and rejoined the Fram.
We spent the night and the following day sailing north towards Greenland. I amused myself by trying to photograph the sea birds following us. These are Northen Fulmars, they have a reputation for flying after ships. Everything I read suggests that they are opportunistic feeders hoping to find something tasty from the vessel. However, watching them swoop, glide, dive and generally mess around behind us, I could not help feeling that they were just having a good time. Photographing them was tricky because they move so fast. Fortunately, I had time to take many, many out of focus pictures and then throw most of them away.
In the morning we had arrived at Prince Christian Sound, gateway to a series of magnificent fjords in the very southernmost tip of Greenland. The sound is 100 km long and narrow, just 500m wide in places. Steep, bare rock walls rise up to 2,000 m above it. Several glaciers calve directly into the fjord and numerous waterfalls cascade down the precipitous cliffs. We got the RHIBs out to have a closer look at one of the glaciers. I always find it fascinating to peer into the dark blue recesses and caves in a glacier. Not too close though. These glaciers are quite active, towers of ice regularly collapse into the water and would be extremely dangerous to a small boat. There were many small ice bergs and lumps of ice floating around and this gave us an idea. After a bit of messing around we managed to retrieve a piece of ice from the water and took it back to the ship with us.
Falling ice
RHIB trips done, we pushed on through the sound. Diane tested the ice and found it to be pure, fresh water. Perfect. We left it in a bucket and hoped it would not melt too quickly. Much of the rest of the day was spent on deck, camera at the ready, watching cliffs, glaciers and waterfalls drift past. Quite remarkably there is a settlement here, called Aappilattoq, where the tough people live off hunting and fishing. The handful of colourful houses nestle on bare rock underneath a steep and forbidding mountain. Access by land is probably quite impossible. We spotted a small helipad but even so it is an incredibly isolated outpost.
Aappilattoq
I set up a small time-lapse camera to capture part of the passage.
As we reached the far end of the fjord the mist arrived. The Fram was enveloped in a thickening fog. Fortunately, this did not seem to upset the navigation at all, but it did mean there was very little more to see on deck. We retreated inside, collected our piece of glacier ice, and headed for the bar. Here, the very obliging barman mixed a gin and tonic for using our carefully collected ice. Apparently it was very hard and difficult to break. It did however make and excellent cocktail and seemed a very appropriate way to end the day.
We had a day in Reykjavík . The Fram was extraordinarily busy disgorging passengers, collecting fresh ones, bunkering fuel, and loading victuals. We, on the other hand, needed to do a little shopping but otherwise had an empty day. Diane’s birthday was fast approaching so a helicopter trip seemed in order. She has always been excited by helicopters and, as we discovered, a flight in Iceland is something special. With a little help from Jón, our friend in Reykjavík , we booked a trip. The weather was perfect and ideal for the half-hour stroll from the harbour to the airport. We even managed to get the necessary shopping done on the way.
Our captain was the incredibly cool Solveig and our aircraft was a six seater Airbus H125. I do not know anything much about helicopters, so I looked this up. We shared the trip with a very pleasant American couple who were visiting from one of the big cruise ships. We compared notes about sharing a vessel with 6,000 passengers as against the 200 onboard little Fram. We walked out to the helicopter, settled in and, after a very short brief, took off. First, we flew south towards the coast. Reykjavík looked very neat and tidy from the air. I caught a brief glimpse of the Fram in the distance. Then we were flying over part of the great divide. The line where Iceland is pulling apart at a few millimetres each year. From our vantage point we could clearly see the fault lines and volcanoes. As Solveig explain, in Iceland, if it looks like a volcano, then it probably is. I asked about living with volcanoes and the possibility that your house might suddenly get destroyed. Solveig said that people just get used to it. Apparently, whenever there is a new eruption, everyone packs up their trucks, not in preparation for escape but to drive out and get a good look at it. We also passed over some oddly coloured lakes and a massive steam vent.
Reaching the coast, we flew along the cliff edge for a while and then turned inland along the the Reykjanes Peninsula. Iceland is an extraordinary country. There is so much volcanic activity that the ground seems alive. From our viewpoint we could see many volcanic cones (if it looks like a volcano, it probably is a volcano) and vents emitting sulphurous steam. Solveig took us in to land at what appeared to be a small car park right next to one of these cones that was dotted with fumaroles venting steam. Closer inspection revealed that we had genuinely landed on a small car parking area – an ideal place to park your helicopter. I did notice that Solveig followed standard car park protocol in carefully locking the doors of the vehicle before we left. A short climb got us to the crater rim for a round of photographs then back to our aircraft. I could not help thinking that this was an incredibly cool way to explore volcanoes.
Geothermal power station
We flew over the Blue Lagoon, a man-made geothermal spa. The water is a byproduct from the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system. Then the water, rich in salts and algae is fed into the lagoon. A remarkably high silica content accounts for the milky blue colour and forms a soft white mud on the bottom of the pool. Bathers like to wallow, hippopotamus like, in the pool while smearing the mud liberally about themselves.
Then we circled round the new volcano a couple of times. The cooling craters of Litli-Hrútur are the newest landscape of Iceland. The area, known as the Fagradalsfjall volcano, has erupted three times since 2021 and remains a top attraction in Iceland’s southwest corner. The broad valley where all recent activity has occurred is completely uninhabited and considered very dangerous. New erupting fissures and craters can open up anywhere without any notice. However, it is only 35 km from Reykjavík and glow was visible from Iceland’s capital. Litli-Hrútur was still emitting lava, smoke and steam when we first arrived in Iceland. Sadly, for us, it stopped while we were exploring the fjords of eastern in Greenland. None the less it was still fascinating. You could clearly see where the fresh lava had flowed to merge with slightly older rock and fumaroles were everywhere. Brand new rock was laid out underneath in complex swirls and patterns. We looped past one of the earlier calderas., a fearsome looking carbuncle of cooling lava and vents, then turned for home. I could very happily spend days flying around an incredible country like Iceland and I would strongly recommend a flight. But be warned, this is Iceland, so the cost is fearsome. Even our short trip cost around €1,000.
Blue Lagoon
We calmed down a little on our walk back to the harbour. Although even when we stopped for a beer all we talked about was how fantastic the flight had been. Eventually we arrived back at the Fram to a pleasant surprise. There were fewer passengers on this next leg of the trip, so we were offered a free cabin upgrade. This new cabin had a balcony. We did not hesitate for a moment and so ended a particularly good day drinking wine on our balcony as the ship set sail for West Greenland and the North-West passage.
Siriuspatruljen (the Sirius Patrol) is an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance. Set up during the advent of the cold war in 1950, they patrol and enforce Danish sovereignty in NE Greenland. Soldiers patrol in pairs, using dog sleds. They travel independently for months at a time in the winter and cover a combined distance of 20,000 km. Volunteers sign up for this duty but need to satisfy a gruelling qualifying course before the elite, few, are chosen. These are properly hard men and are truly maintaining the Viking spirit. Women are allowed to apply – but so far nobody has. The name, Sirius, comes from the main star in the Canis Major constellation, also known as the Dog Star. Ironically, although Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky and is visible across most of the world, it is not visible at latitudes above 73°N – the location of the patrol’s main operational area.
Greenlandic sledge dogSirius base
We landed at their base but did not encounter any active Sirius solders. Instead, we had a pleasant walk up a hill to a view over the next fjord. We also saw a few dogs tied up outside but were warned to give them a wide berth. On the way back from our stroll we met a couple of “old dog men” as they introduced themselves to us. They had sailed up to the base in a small red boat just as they had been doing for years since they retired. We chatted a little about the old times and they reflected that this was probably their last trip up here.
Small red boat
By early afternoon everyone was back onboard, and we set sail for Reykjavik. There was no rush. We still had a long and spectacular trip back out along the fjord. Plenty of time to take in more of the austere rocky magnificence of the awesome cliffs and powerful glaciers. At the mouth of one wide valley that opened into the main fjord we spotted muskox. The name derives from the strong odour emitted by males during the seasonal rut. However, despite the name, muskox are more closely related to sheep or goats rather than oxen. Big, hairy things, they are up to 1.5 m at the withers and weigh up to 400 kg. Native to Greenland and Arctic Canada, they are well equipped for the conditions with thick, dark hair overlaying a lighter layer called qiviut that is prized for its softness and insulation value. Sadly, we could only see them from what seemed to be a great distance. Even with my best camera lens the animals can only be discerned as little dark blobs.
Muskox
Approaching the entrance to open water we came across drifting sea ice. Although well broken up, this was still thick and dense in places. Possibly strong enough to cause the Fram a few problems. We slowed right down and worked our way forward using the excellent manoeuvrability of the ship to dance round the larger icefloes and bergy bits. The sunset provided a perfect backdrop to the scene, and we enjoyed some spectacular dusk views while sitting out on deck with a glass of wine.
Next day we made our way serenely down the coast of Greenland. The captain kept a course close to the coast in case we might sight anything. All was peaceful on the Fram so we got to have a tour of the bridge. I could, at this stage, go off on a rant about the terrible state of digital chart systems in the over-regulated marine world. However, I could see that nothing much has changed, and I got bored of this rant fifteen or more years ago. Suffice it to say that the bridge was loaded with official, type approved navigation displays that were largely being ignored in favour of a small, cheap system designed for yachts. Diane got to sit in the captain’s chair. Late afternoon, the tannoy barked into life to announce polar bears. This was true but, again, they were far, far away. So, try as I might, I could only add little white blobs to my collection of animal pictures. That evening there was a little party in the bar. The following day we crossed the Denmark Straight ready to arrive back in Reyjavik early the next morning.
Northeast Greenland National Park is the world’s largest national park and largest terrestrial protected area in the world. At almost a million square kilometres it covers the whole of the top, righthand part of Greenland. Nobody permanently lives there. Typically, the wintering population, a mix of scientists and military, amounts to about thirty people. We had permission to visit a small part of the park.
Two days later, early in the morning, we sailed into Keiser Franz Josephs Fjord. The sky was dark and overcast. Fog clung to the mountains. The steep, dark and imposing fjord walls loomed over us. The place was dead. Usually, at sea, there is always some life around you. Sea birds, especially near land, things swimming in the water, occasionally animals on land. Here there was nothing. The land was steep, rocky, barren and almost lifeless. Just the occasional patches of rough grass and stunted plants. There was not a bird to be seen and the water remained still, dark, and deep. All felt a bit sinister. We stopped a couple of kilometres short of the snout of the massive Waltershausen Glacier. This is fed directly from the main Greenland ice sheet and is around 10 km wide.
The Fram has a Dynamic Positioning (DP) system. This keeps the vessel on station without needing to tie up or drop the anchor. It is rather clever while being extremely easy to use. Once the ship is in the required position and orientation, the skipper presses a button, and she simply stays there. Under the covers is a sophisticated process that monitors the ships position and orientation then uses the bow thrusters and azimuth pods to keep her there. This is an enormous benefit and allows the Fram to stop and deploy the RHIBs from a position that might be impossible to maintain otherwise. In front of the glacier the bottom is several hundreds of metres deep, far too deep to use an anchor. Elsewhere, it means that the seabed is not damaged unnecessarily. In the RHIBs we could get right up close to the glacier and see some of the very dark, old ice formed deep inside – ice that is possibly hundreds of years old.
In the afternoon we went for a walk. This is Greenland, it is not so simple to just go for a walk. First the “Expedition Team” go ashore and secure the area. They check for polar bears and set up sentries. They also unload a great pile of survival gear, food, shelter, and water, just in case we inadvertently get stuck ashore for a while. Then we can be ferried ashore by RHIB in small groups. One of the conditions of visiting the national park is that only a few people can go ashore at a time. We all keep our life jackets on in case we need to return to the boats in a hurry. This time, we also slapped on extra mosquito repellent. It was a pleasant walk and nice to get off the ship for a while. We climbed a small hill to take in a view of some lakes and the surrounding area. That done, and in the spirit of all great expeditions, we headed back to the Fram for diner, a glass of wine, and an early night. Next morning, we would find out about the Sirius dog patrol.
In the morning we were out messing around in boats. Small groups in each RHIB. Up close with the icebergs, getting a feel for the place from water level. This is a lot more fun that it might sound. The weather was warm and sunny. The sky was clear, the water was incredibly clear. Most of the ice we were looking at are lumps that have calved off the many glaciers flowing into Scoresbysund. The shapes of icebergs can be fascinating although you must treat them with a little caution. They are melting and can occasionally roll over or break into pieces. The wave caused by this could easily swamp a small boat and this is not a good place to go swimming.
Next day we moved further up the fjord for another landing. At our first landing, mosquitoes had savaged us. A few poor souls quite serious swellings. This put many people off, so they skipped the next trip ashore. Fortunately, the airborne molestation was not repeated and by the third landing we were back up to full numbers. In general, there are few insects in Greenland. It is all a matter choosing areas that do not have any swamps. If there is no stagnant water for the larvae to hatch, then then will not be any mosquitoes. In many ways, there is not much to do on these shore trips. Walk up a hill, admire the view, spot a few plants, take a few photographs, and enjoy the fresh air. At the same time, it was great to walk somewhere that hardly anyone else had ever been. To actually step foot on Greenland and try to connect with the place a little.
Following morning we woke to see the town of Ittoqqortoormiit outside our window. Ittoqqortoormiit means “the place with the big houses” in the East Greenlandic dialect. Despite several attempts I have not been able to pronounce it. The houses are quite large and certainly very colourful. There are very few settlements at all in east Greenland and this one, population 345, has been described as one of the most remote settlements on earth. We arrived the day after a cargo ship had turned up. Only a few vessels visit because sea ice closes off maritime access for much of the year. This meant the town was unusually busy with loading and mostly, unloading cargo. Everything came off in standard shipping containers. These were craned off the cargo ship one at a time to a small ferry that delivered them to the quayside. Here, they were collected by one of the towns two trucks and, I assume, delivered to their final recipient. The whole process seemed perfectly organised, so we stayed well out of the way. We did go ashore however and wandered around for a while. I know what it is like to live in an extremely remote place, so I had a small sense of what life might be like here. There are, however, some very striking differences between Ittoqqortoormiit and my old base in Antarctica. For a start, we only went there for two years. Importantly, we had everything provided for us. We were not trying to earn a living and raise a family. I think that fundamentally breaks the comparison even though there are similarities in terms of weather and isolation. We never needed to worry about polar bears in Antarctica and we never needed to go on hunting trips. There is good hunting in the area around Ittoqqortoormiit. Seals, walruses, narwhals, polar bears and Arctic foxes. This still forms the backbone of the economy although there is a slowly increasing income from tourism. Fishing is important during the summer months but becomes increasingly difficult when the sea ice forms.
In the evening, the Fram pulled out of the harbour area, and we set a course for the Greenland National Park. Only the Danish Sirius patrol and a small number of hunters from Ittoqqortoormiit are allowed to enter the North-east national park without special permission. We had no idea what the Sirius patrol was, but we had just received permission for a visit. I amused myself for a while trying to photograph the Black Guillemots hanging around on lumps of sea ice. These are ridiculously cute birds. Eventually I gave up and went to check out the cocktail of the day in the bar.
Just after lunch, we joined the Hurtigruten ship, the Fram, in Reykjavik and easily settled into our cabin. The ship slipped her moorings early evening. By the time we had finished dinner, Iceland was receding far into the distance. Next day we spent the morning catching up on some sleep before wandering out on deck to discover that whales had been seen while we still in bed. Never mind, we had plenty of time on the Fram and hopefully there would be much more to see. We spent the rest of the day finding our way around the ship and enjoying the sense of anticipation. The next two weeks would be about exploring East Greenland. New places ahead.
Next morning we awoke in time for breakfast and there was sea ice. This was quite exciting and, for me, brought back many memories of the last time I had been in sea ice some thirty years earlier. The ship had come to a dead halt. It was explained to us that we had to get past this ice before we could get into Scoresbysund Fjord, the first of two large fjord systems we hoped to visit. We bobbed around there for the rest of the day and by the next morning we were still bobbing around in pretty much the same place. Back in the day, on my old BAS ship, the Bransfield, we would have easily smashed through this small ice floe. The Fram however, is a much more delicate vessel. She has a bulbous bow. Great for stability when cruising but hopeless in ice. She also uses azimuth pods, again, great for manoeuvring but a bit fragile for ice work. The Fram is ice strengthened and rated for polar operations – but anything other than very thin ice needs to be avoided. In the evening a shore lead finally opened and next morning we were in Scoresbysund ready to go ashore.
To a good approximation, we are in the middle of nowhere here. There are no facilities, no landing stages, no roads or tracks. Just wilderness and the odd polar bear. Everyone had been issued with heavy duty neoprene wellington boots called muckboots. We also had waterproof jackets and inflatable life jackets. Thus prepared we were ready to be ferried ashore in RHIBs. First an armed party needed to secure the area. Polar Bears are not common but they are very, very dangerous. So the first people ashore carry rifles and flare guns. Their job is to scout the area and then to stand guard. When the passengers land we are instructed to stay within a marked trail. On the hillsides around us stand people with rifles. Gives the place a slight sense of a day out from prison. We had a pleasant walk, took in some views, looked at some flowers and got eaten alive by mosquitoes. I have encountered mosquitoes many times before and can confidently assert that these are the worst ever. They are quite capable of biting though thick trousers and socks. Later I discovered that some people had reacted very badly to them and needed treatment. Diane and I were prepared with insect repellent from Finland (strong stuff) but even so I got nasty bites on my legs and chest. It was several days before the swelling went down.
With everyone back on the ship, we could continue along the fjord. Scoresbysund branches like a tree. The main trunk is 110 km long before it branches into multiple channels up to 350 km long. This makes it possibly the largest fjord system in the world. It is deep too. From 600 m down to 1,450 m in places. The walls are steep and imposing. They rise to 2,000 m and are punctuated by many glaciers. This rock is old, very, very old. Whereas, Iceland is geologically brand new at a mere 16 million years, Greenland rock dates back over 3 billion years. Almost to the birth of the planet. In Iceland the strata was simple and mostly flat, here the rocks are bent and twisted. Geological forces, the collision of continents, intense heat from deep underground and time, an awful lot of time, have shaped and reshaped the rock. Folding and twisting. Cracking it open and filling the gaps with molten rock. Then folding and twisting it again. Finally, ice sheets and glaciers carve great fissures deep into the strata, laying it bare and exposing the great metamorphic complexity to the world. There is so much raw history in the walls of these fjords as to be breath-taking at times. Dark, austere, imposing and powerful like some hallowed monument celebrating the dawn of planet earth. That day and much of the next, we made our way slowly through this amazing network of channels. I saw very little life. There is some here but it is sparse. Patches of grasses growing in flat areas near the water was the most of it. Very occasionally there was a bird. Of animals on the land or in the sea we saw nothing.
There are an awful lot of waterfalls in Iceland. Some estimates reach 10,000. Truly a fabulous place for a cascade connoisseur. We are strictly amateur in our appreciation of waterfalls. However, we did discover that our increasingly bold offroad excursions were often rewarded by some terrific cataracts in places that were a little more remote and a little less crowded. From Húsavík we continued west, via several lovely waterfalls, round the coast to the Hofssadir Guesthouse. This was another lovely place to stay where we had our own little shed complete with large French windows and a little patio.
Next day was quite a long drive. Obviously we stopped at a few waterfalls but eventually we ended up right out on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. This is a very dramatic landscape in the far west of Iceland dominated by the glacier capped, Snæfellsjökull volcano, a 700,000 year old stratovolcano. Our knowledge of volcanoes increases by the day, so I can tell you that a stratovolcano is one that keeps erupting. Snæfellsjökull last erupted about 2,000 years ago. The volcano has many pyroclastic cones on its upper slopes while lower down are craters that produced basaltic lava flows. The whole area is dominated by the multiple lava flows of many eruptions. Volcano fans would not be at all surprised to learn that Jules Verne’s famous novel Journey to the Center of the Earth was set here. The general rule in Iceland appears to be that if it looks like a volcano then it probably is. If it does not have a crater then it erupted under the ice during the last ice age. Easy. In the morning we walked up a little volcanic cone right next to road. A steel staircase had been thoughtfully constructed to help us and we did not have to pay to park there. We were very impressed.
We drove directly inland for a couple of hours to visit a volcanic cave, a lava tube Víðgelmir. I had cheerfully assured Diane that it was not a real cave because they only occur in limestone and are caused by the action of water dissolving the rock. However, I had to back-track on this a bit because, much to my surprise, the tube did contain many cave-like features. It was formed as the lava cooled. The low viscosity surface flow cooled enough to create a solid crust forming a roof above the more fluid lava below. The crust is good thermal insulation and so hot lava continued to flow underneath until eventually draining out downhill and emptying the tube. That was in 900 AD so it has had a chance to cool off. You can clearly see how the flow has filled the glacial U shaped valley giving it a flat bottom. We were kitted out with helmets and lamps before being taken down a wooden access ladder that descends through a hole in the surface crust. The tube is long, 1½ km, so we were underground for the best part of an hour. Lighting and walkways have been installed making it a very easy trip. The first cave-like feature I noticed was some stalagmites. Admittedly these were made of ice but even so they were caused by water seeping into the tunnel through cracks just like a real cave. Then I spotted real stalagmites on the ceiling. There were two main types. The first were small, rounded drips which I imagined were formed just after the tube had drained but while it was still very hot and the walls were “wet” with molten rock. The second type we longer and more delicate caused by minerals separating out into liquids with a slightly lower melting point so that they dripped through into the main tube. We saw several other features which reminded me of calcite flows but were actually molten rock running down the walls in different ways.
That was it. We were done with Iceland for now. I dropped Diane off at the hotel in Reykjavik, took the car back to the hire company and enjoyed a pleasant walk back to the hotel. We had a ship to meet the next afternoon, which left us just enough time in the morning to meet up with a correspondent friend called Jón who lives in Iceland. He is building his own expedition truck so we had plenty to talk about. He gave us a brief tour of Reykjavik in his car and his wife prepared a light lunch. It was delightful, thank you.
South of the Vatnajökull icecap are vast plains that are occasionally inundated with glacial meltwater. In places you can see where dykes have been built to try and control this. In other places are previous generations of bridges that have been destroyed. Several glacial tongues push down towards the coast. These have been receding for a few hundreds of years and a couple of them have created lakes by leaving a large terminal moraine that blocks the valley. The weather was a bit gloomy but we still enjoyed walking around one of these lakes and watching the occasional bit of ice fall of the glacier. The next lake we came across had an outlet to the sea. Small lumps of ice can drift out through this and then get washed up on the “Diamond” beach. This is an immense tourist draw. Took a while to find space in the car park. Then I had to wait ages just to get a photograph of a small section of the beach that was not full of people waving their phones around. Thirty minutes later, three photographs and a substantial parking fee later, we left. I hope you enjoy the picture.
We pressed on, taking in the scenery and wondering why there were so many ponies. Properly, the Icelandic breed are referred to as horses. Please do not ask me why or what the difference is. By law, horses cannot be imported to Iceland. Even horses from Iceland cannot come back if they leave. There is just the one sort of equine animal here but there is an awful lot of them. We saw the occasional group out pony trekking, or is that horse trekking? Otherwise, they mostly appeared to be quite happily standing around in fields. We rounded the bottom, right-hand corner of Iceland and had just started making our way north when we came across a flock of swans. We have seen swans before. Usually in small groups. Here we were confronted with 200 or more of them. In a sea water fjord. Whooper swans I think but I will cheerfully admit I know almost as little about swans as I do horses. Made for a very nice scene.
By the evening we had arrived at the little village of Fáskrúðsfjörður, pop 650. The hotel used to be a French hospital looking after fisherman until 1935. This clearly made a big impression on the residents because the village still sports bilingual signs indicating street names in Icelandic and French. The French cemetery with 49 graves of fishermen possibly indicates how busy the hospital was. We arrived just as celebrations for “French Day” were getting into full swing and the place was heaving with French visitors. In the evening there were fireworks. Sadly the weather remained stubbornly overcast and raining. This plus the lack of darkness at this time of year meant the display was not quite at its best.
In the morning we drove the long way round the headland and were rewarded with some terrific views. We then pushed on into the northern part of Iceland and for a few brief hours started to feel like we had left the crowds behinds. There were a few detours, involving dirt tracks, to visit yet more waterfalls. Iceland has a lot of waterfalls in gorges. Apparently this sort of topology is typical of young mountains. Iceland is very young, only 16 million years old – a mere blink on the geological timescale. The young Iceland is perched on top of a massive magma column that reaches deep into the depths of the planet. It erupts onto the surface from time to time. Elsewhere, just a few tens of metres separate the surface from fiery, subterranean heat. In these places the ground can feel alive. Pools of boiling mud, spouts of boiling water and steam escaping from many vents. Multicoloured deposits and the smell of sulphur and worse in the air. Also, there are pay car parks with number recognition cameras.
Having paid our dues, literally, we pressed on across a long mountain road through the highlands. There were lupins here. Brightly coloured flowering lupins alongside many of the roads. These looked lovely. I even took some photographs of them. However, it turns out that all is not well with Lupinus Arcticus in Iceland. Despite being very pretty, it is an invasive species. Introduced from Alaska in 1945 it is doing very well but displacing many types of native plant species. Recent studies show that the resultant decrease in diversity is bad for the pollinating insect population. We met some of these pollinators at the next hotel. Great crowds of them swarming around your head at the slightest opportunity. Fortunately they were not the biting type but they flew into your mouth and ears and eyes making them thoroughly irritating. Why were they trying to pollinate me when there were lots of lupins to go at?
Puffin IslandNot far underground it is very hot
The morning came when we were going to see the whales. Húsavík bills itself as the ‘whale watching capital of the world’ and there may be some justification for this. We were loaded into a rather smart and powerful RHIB along with ten other people. A RHIB, rigid hull inflatable boat, is ideal for this job. Stable, light, fast and seaworthy. As we set off out of the harbour I reflected on how we were going to see whales in a boat invented in Wales. First stop was an island full of puffins. They were very cute and very numerous. Further out into the fjord we caught sight of other whale spotting boats and then there were whales. Loads of them Humpbacks. Each one would come to the surface for a breath, bob up and down once or twice and then lift their tail into the air as they dived. In a couple of hours we saw a dozen or more whales. All quite remarkable really and we were easily getting close enough to take some great photographs. I wondered a little if the whales were bothered by the boats buzzing around but I hope they were not. There is really an awful lot of space in the Skjálfandi bay and the animals could easily have stayed away from the boats if they wanted to. The boats always tried to avoid getting too close or in front of the whale. Trip over, we had a light lunch while we calmed down. The car was now looking quite embarrassingly filthy and we still had plenty of driving to do.
Reykjavik is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world. It is small, with a population of just 140,000 and very popular with tourists. Our first hotel was right in the centre. We stepped out of the door onto a walking street packed with souvenir stores and restaurants. The weather was mild and we had a pleasant couple of hours looking at the vast range of goods onto which the image of a puffin can be displayed. Diane eventually settled on a t-shirt and some puffin socks. We also encountered some enormous stuffed polar bears, a vast array of woollen goods, mugs, walking sticks and more fridge magnets than I have ever seen. Eventually we ended up eating noodles with expensive cheap wine at a Vietnamese restaurant. Alcohol is expensive at the bars and restaurants so, apparently, people tend to drink before going out. Beer is becoming increasingly popular and Beer Day celebrating the legalisation of beer in 1989, is celebrated every March 1st. Before then, Iceland was in the rather odd position where strong spirits were legal but beer was not.
In the morning I collected our hire car and we set off for the “Golden Circle”. The name is a bit of a tourist gimmick applied to a trio of sights readily accessible from Reykjavik; a tectonic rift, a waterfall and some hot springs. It is not really a circle but more of a triangle. The name “Golden Triangle” has been used by the CIA since the 1950s to identify an area of illicit opium production north of Thailand so this might give the wrong sort of impression. Fortunately, there is a mathematic theorem stating that just one circle can be drawn through any three given non-collinear points, you and I would call this a triangle. So I guess the tourist board went for this.
Our first stop was the Þingvellir National Park. This was the site of Alþing, the annual parliament of Iceland since 930 ad. From 1881 they have used a rather nice and much more comfortable building in Reykjavik. Much more interesting to me is that this is a rift valley. The very line where the North American and European tectonic plates are pulling apart. The width of the valley increases by about 2cm a year. My back-of-an-envelope calculation initially suggested that Iceland is getting bigger by 5 sq km a year but later I discovered that coastal erosion balances the expansion so the overall land area remains constant.
Next stop was the hot springs, steam vents, and sulphurous mud pots at Geysir. This was the original geyser from where the name came. It seldom spouts these days but fortunately the Strokkur geyser just a few metres away reliably gushes boiling water up to 30 m into the air every ten minutes or so. During the wait some people inevitably accumulate on the downwind side of the water spout and then get soaked when the great belch of water, steam and sulphurous fumes erupts. I found this oddly satisfying to watch.
Last stop of the day was Gulfoss, a magnificent waterfall that attracts crowds of thousands each day. It is aesthetically a very nice waterfall. There is an awful lot of water doing more than its fair share of falling and is worth a visit. We did find the crowds a bit too intrusive.
Our plan was to circumnavigate Iceland, anti-clockwise in ten days. We had pre-booked the car, the hotels and a route plan. This is quite a popular package and we found ourselves bumping into the same people in the evening at each successive hotel. First step next day was the Lava Centre in Hella. This hosts some very impressive displays to explain the vulcanology of Iceland. It also cost £45 entrance for the two of us. Such is the cost of things in Iceland. We did learn quite a bit and enjoyed some of the displays but in less than an hour we had read all the explanations and were ready to move on.
Next came another very impressive waterfall. Paying at the car park was mandatory and then there was a large queue of people up to what was, presumably, the perfect view point. I took a photograph from the roadside and we pressed on. As we distanced ourselves from Reykjavik, the traffic became less and we started to feel we were getting away from the crowds.
Right down in the most southern part of Iceland, below the Mýrdalsjökull icecap, are the black sand beaches. Lovely sandy beaches with, as you might have guessed, black sand formed from volcanic rock. This was also where all the crowds had come. We avoided the car park fee simply because the car park was chock packed full. We had to walk quite a long way down the road instead. The beach was interesting and we found some lovely basalt columns. Eventually the squabbling children left and could get a photograph unadorned with colourful little darlings. We also spotted some eternally cute Puffins nesting high up on the cliffs. They were safely above the reach of the tourists however the tourists were still well within range of the Puffins, who, being clean Puffins, preferred not to use their cliff as a toilet. Actually, I have heard that Puffins build a separate part of their nest cave as a bathroom. This may be true but I know what I would do if I were a Puffin.
That evening we stayed at the wonderful Magma Hotel. There is a main building for reception and the restaurant. The rooms are a short walk away. Each ‘room’ is actually a wooden hut. Very comfortable and self-contained. The rooms were arranged so that each one featured a large window and balcony overlooking a lake. I enjoyed myself trying to photograph some of the birds fishing in the evening.
Come morning we were ready to set off across the glacial outburst plains below the mighty Vatnajökull icecap. This is the largest glacier in Iceland and occasionally causes a few problems. Volcanoes can erupt underneath the ice creating large pockets of melt water. Occasionally one of these will burst causing a deluge of flood water. The first part of our route took us past yet more waterfalls and then across a rocky plain created long ago by a massive flood of lava from one of the many volcanoes on Vatnajökull. This was a bleak and desolate place with just some sort of lichen growing on the tumbled mass of rock. In the distance we could see glacial tongues reaching down from the icecap above.
We went on an organised motorcycle tour. We had signed up quite a while ago. The trip was organised by Paul Beattie, my motorcycle instructor of a few years ago and mostly involved a group of friends we had met through motorcycling. Seven years ago we had all done a very enjoyable trip around Scotland. Ireland offered the chance for another great journey and to catch up with friends. It also made a novel change to how we normally travel. Usually I plan ahead but not too far, we can change our plans easily. This time, I did not have to worry about where we were going, we just had to turn up at the right place at the right time. Day by day instructions were on my phone, the route was loaded into my satnav. We no longer had many choices but we were ready to go.
Our trip actually started in North Wales, at Betws-y-coed, in a lovely little cottage about the size of a toolshed. We came here to make an easy start for the journey. Most of the others would be up early to get to Holyhead for the afternoon ferry. We opted for a more leisurely approach. Next day we took a lovely route through the mountains of what used to be called Snowdonia. The mountain range has a different name now. Not sure of the new name, I imagine it to be unpronounceably Welsh but I do not really care. I was brought up walking and climbing in Snowdonia and there is no way that will ever change inside my head. I do wonder however, what authority it takes to change the name of a mountain range. What group of people feel they have the right to change important place names? Snowdonia is a fabulous UK national treasure so possibly nothing short of a national referendum should be needed. Caution though. We have encountered problems with badly thought out referenda in the past. Making significant changes on the basis of insignificant majorities leads to instability and unrest. I would also suggest that a pre-determined majority, say 65%, should always be required as an indicator for major policy changes.
The sound of screaming engines focused me back in reality. Having shunned the main road we drove around the coast and stumbled across a motor racing circuit where some sort of track-day was happening. This looked great fun. We watched for a while as an assortment of riders of wildly different skill levels wrestled their street bikes around the track. Eventually, dragged ourselves away and presented ourselves at the Holyhead MacDonalds to meet up with the others. Ten of us in total. A motley crew of aging, overweight bikers making more than our fair share of engine noise. The ferry was straightforward. Dublin was busy but the rather nice hotel was only a short way. Not long afterwards we were heading down O’Connell Street looking for somewhere to eat.
In the morning, we set off for the anti-clockwise circum-navigation of Ireland. Diane and I made a heroic effort to get up early but were still last to breakfast. By the time we were ready to start riding everyone else was long gone. This seemed to set a pattern for the rest of the trip. The concierge took us down to the underground car park and casually mentioned that our bike, the last one there, had a flat tyre. This was very worrying and could easily cost us a day or two stuck in Dublin. However, as we neared the bike he conceded that the puncture was a joke. I smiled weakly but in my mind had already smashed him firmly in the face and was considering kicking him as he rolled on the floor.
Up the coast through the lovely Mourne Mountains to a ferry where we briefly met up with the others. After lunch they gave us the slip again but we were happy following the coast northwards. We skipped past Belfast on the motorway network and arrived at hotel number two a little way further north. Next day was a tour of the Giant’s Causeway and other NI tourist attractions. We had been here a few years ago, so instead we followed a very tiny road to the far top right-hand corner of Ireland. Here, at Torr Head, we were rewarded with peace and quiet and terrific views across the sea to Scotland. Encroaching rain and wind encouraged us to get on with the riding. We made our way to Portrush just as the sun was returning. Parked up at the very cosy B&B then wandered into town to find a perfect gin & tonic on the balcony of the old lifeboat station.
First café next day was the Pickled Duck in Derry. For me, the name alone made it worth a visit. There was more rain and as we came into Derry we caught up with Paul and Jeannot. They split at a junction. We followed Paul, figuring he was most likely going the right way since he planned the route. However, he did an unexpected double loop of a roundabout and we lost him. Undeterred, we found the Duck as the rain was getting heavier. Cappuccino with some mushrooms on toast made for an excellent second breakfast by which time we had dried out a bit and were keen to get back on the road. The rest of the day was mostly about rain. Final call was a stone circle which, when we finally found it and walked down the track, was a handful of small rocks. I took a photograph of some cows instead.
Group photograph
The next couple of days we crossed and recrossed the border to Ireland several times. As promised by numerous politicians, this remains frictionless, although it is quite clear which side you are on by the density of Union flags. I could not help reflecting on how this border, which is now a boundary between the UK and the EU has to remain sacrosanct while other UK, EU borders are being reinforced and becoming increasingly difficult to cross. Border controls are now in place for traffic across the Irish Sea to NI. The UK is possibly unique in having an internal international border. To my mind, this all serves to illustrate how ludicrous and artificial Brexit is. Whatever your opinion, it is hard to see how this border situation can be tenable. The riding was good if a bit damp. There was plenty more rain but realistically this is just part of bike riding. Especially in Ireland. We had two long riding days roughly following the Wild Atlantic Way. Fabulous scenery, wild cliff tops, open moorland and quiet, rolling roads. We stayed at a posh hotel in Galway that turned out to be rubbish. It was probably much nicer back in the day but had been sitting on its laurels too long. We rode right out onto the Dingle peninsular, which was terrific, and ended up in an interesting hotel in Killarney that featured an immense rainbow flag outside a pink themed bar inside. The room proved to be very nice.
A rare sighing of our fellow ridersAnne respecting the sheep Best name for a cafe
Diane and I are the odd ones out in this group. For a start we have never travelled with Globebusters. This is a company that organises motorcycle trips. Everyone else had been on grand adventures with them. South Africa, Patagonia, China and elsewhere. Paul had organised this trip just like a Globebusters trip. It was all a bit new to us but comfortably familiar to everyone else. Secondly, we were the only KTM on a BMW outing. KTM (Kraftfahrzeuge Trunkenpolz Mattighofen) are based in Austria, BMWMotorad (Bayerische Motoren Werke) are based in Germany. Both companies have built bikes since the 1920 and, worldwide, KTM sell about twice as many as BMW. I am assured, by the BMW riders that KTM has a poor reputation for reliability. My experience is limited but our current bike has already done 14,000 faultless miles and not quite reached its first birthday. From my point of view, I still feel too young to ride a BMW. Each to their own. We are the only bike with a pillion. It does make the bike a bit heavier, slower and harder to handle but suits us well. Diane has no ambition to ride a bike. Finally, we were the only bike to get knocked down. This happened approaching Killarny. We were stopped, at a stop sign, when someone drove into the back of us. Fortunately no one was hurt and there was not much damage. Luckily he did not hit us square on because we would then have ended up lying in the busy main road. After everyone had calmed down a bit and the police had visited, we negotiated the cost of damaged paniers and went our own ways.
We stayed two nights in Killarny. This gave us a chance to ride the picturesque Ring of Kerry. The route started up some winding mountain roads where we had to bunny hop past slow tourist traffic. Further on the road opened up towards the Skellig islands. On Great Skellig are the remains of the Skellig Michael monastery which has since been revealed as a Jedi temple and final home of Luke Skywalker. Unfortunately we did not have time to visit the island although, heading back, we managed to slip an extra and completely unauthorised ferry trip into the route. We arrived back in Killarny feeling much calmer and more relaxed than on the first night and rounded off the day with an excellent curry.
In the morning we set off for the Ring of Beara. Heavy rain was forecast until late morning so we lazed around, pretty much like we normally do in the morning, before setting off around 11am . Heading south west, again, through the Killarny National Park we noticed several new waterfalls since the day before. Pushing further south we rode out into the wilderness of the Beara Peninsula with tremendous sea views, mountains, moorlands and winding roads. On the way back we stopped at a Buddhist retreat for tea, a sandwich and some calm peacefulness. Lovely. Last item on the official agenda was kissing the Blarney stone at Blarney castle near Cork. At €20 a snog, we decided to leave this to those that had a reason to kiss a rock.
Travelling around Ireland is usually a story involving rain. The next day was no exception. We stopped at Dungarvan for a quick look at the remains of the castle and a very good espresso from a van by the docks. Next stop was Tipperary, I am not going to say anything about how far it was but will mention that it was tipping it down with rain. The town was crowded and wet so we pushed on. Kilkenny was a similar story. Packed with tourists and throwing it down with rain. We glimpsed the long queue to visit the castle and carried on to the hotel.
Last day in Ireland took us over the surprisingly remote and very pretty Wicklow mountains. Mid-morning we met up with the others at a café. For a moment there looked to be the possibility of a group ride to the wonderfully named Deke’s Diner and then on to the port. There might even have been a group ride, I do not know because yet again, they gave us the slip even though we left less than a minute later. I followed the route carefully on my satnav and we arrived at the port. No sign of Deke’s Diner or everyone else. Not really sure how they managed this but this is why, in all the photographs from the trip there are virtually none of the other riders. We did not mind, this just seems to be the way. They turned up, together, about 15 minutes later and we all happily boarded the ferry back to England.
Diane and I have packed the bike away for the winter now. This may seem a bit premature but we have great plans, starting with Iceland. We will be back on the bike but it is going to be a long break.
We had arranged to meet the indomitable Lars and Inge in France. They had driven from Denmark for the Le Mans 24. Last year we had found the crowds a but much at Le Mans so we just planned a short trip to meet up with our friends. While thinking about the best way to cross the channel, it occurred to us that we had never been to the Channel Islands. Using Condor ferries we could go Poole -> Guernsey -> St Malo and come back via Jersey. This is how we found ourselves, a few days later, on a high speed trimaran doing 35 knots towards Saint Peter Port.
Guernsey was a bit damp and overcast. We had a ride around the island. This did not take long, it is only about 10 km across in any direction. There were a few nice beaches and coves linked by a myriad of small roads. My overall impression was to do with how compact the whole place is. Houses and buildings everywhere. Not a square inch of space going to waste anywhere. If you ever wanted to get away from it all don’t come here. The hotel was lovely and very welcoming. In the morning, we went round the island the other way, just in case we had missed anything, and hopped onto the ferry to St Malo.
Saint Malo
The old part of St Malo looms impressively above the port as a solid block of four story stone buildings. It is surrounded by a large wall and you enter through one of the impressive gateways. Inside is a labyrinth of cobbled street, small shops, restaurants and bars. We stayed at the Hotel Nautilus, right in the centre. Recommended. The owner is very friendly and helpful. He has a small garage, where he keeps his Harley and where we could also park our bike overnight. Just up the road was a wonderful vegetarian restaurant. We sat at a table on the cobbles and Diane had to move her chair in occasionally to let cars past. The food was terrific, tasty and imaginative. Finally, we took a stroll round the ramparts to watch the sun set over the ocean.
Heading east from St Malo for a couple of hours brought us to the town of Falaise, birthplace of William the Conqueror, first of the Norman Kings of England. Just south of here is a small, converted barn that we had rented for a couple of nights. Lar and Inge, still driving the 1975 Volvo 303, arrived and hour or so later. We sat up until late around the barbeque chatting and catching up. Back in Falaise, the next day, we explored the castle and ended up having a big history lesson. The castle has been partially renovated but also patched up using modern materials. We were each given an iPad through which, in each of the castle’s many rooms, you could view how it might have looked back in Norman times. A combination of virtual reality and augmented reality that was really quite effective. We learnt how William, a direct descendant of Rollo the Viking, consolidated Normandy before taking the English crown after the battle of Hastings. England and Normandy and a large area of France remained a single kingdom, the Angevin Empire under the control of the House Plantagenet, until the Wars of the Roses in the late 15th century. I sometimes think modern politicians could do with a better understanding of long and common history of France and England. The day was rounded off with cheese toasties and beer sitting outside a classic café. Perfect.
History lessonsFalaise castleMont Saint Michel
In the morning we breakfasted on “Eggs in purgatory” – eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce with chunks of fresh, crusty bread. Lars and Inge set off to explore some of the WW2 sites in Normandy while Diane and I headed for the evening ferry to Jersey. Along the way we followed the coast and came across Mont Saint Michel – a striking looking island, abbey and fortress that rises steeply from the sea. Sadly we did not have time to visit but we did collect a small bottle of Calvados from one of the many local sellers.
Previously I only knew a few things about Jersey such as Jersey butter, Jersey milk, Jersey cream and Jersey Royal potatoes. This led me to imagine Jersey as being predominantly fields of happy cows interspersed with potato patches. The reality is more like a massive and spread out housing estate full of old people. Bailiwick of Jersey is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. It is not part of the UK – as my phone provider was keen to point out just after slapping me with a load of roaming charges. Jersey was part of the Duchy of Normandy and remained loyal to England when Normandy was lost to the English Kings in the 13th century but never became part of the Kingdom of England. Being on the border between England and France, the island was at the fore in the Anglo-French wars and was invaded several times up to the end of the Napoleonic wars. In WW2 the island was invaded and held by the Germans for five years. The main source of income for Jersey is financial services, not cows. In fact, we never saw a cow in the two days we were there. I now suspect that name ‘Jersey’ is given to a breed of cows and that Jersey milk comes from Jersey cows that have never been anywhere near Jersey. Anyhow, Jersey is one of the world’s largest offshore finance centres and has often been accused of being a tax haven. Agriculture accounts for just 1.2% of the island’s GVA. There are some interesting signs of the money around the island. Public toilets for example. Something which appears to be rapidly going out of fashion in most of the UK. Clean, well kept, free to use, public toilets. Very handy. Also parking space by the beaches, coves and harbours. Free parking up to twelve hours. Lovely. A few odd things as well such as the expensive sports cars on a tiny island with a maximum speed limit anywhere of 40 mph. I can see the appeal as a retirement location, if you can afford it (average house price £567,000). Mild climate, nice little beaches, quiet pace of life, comfortable life style mixing with other retirees who are similarly comfortably off.
Calvados
At the top, right-hand corner of the island we found a pair of immense wicker-work puffins. Momentarily excited at the prospect of seeing real puffins we read the associated plaques and discovered that, these days, the iconic Atlantic Puffin colonies of Jersey are down to just 4 breeding pairs. Fishing, pollution and rats are blamed.
David has always been keen on cycling and big fan of cycling. One evening, while drinking a particularly nice red wine from Montepulciano, Helen, David, Diane and I came up with the idea of a road trip to northern Italy so as to experience some of the great Giro d’Italia road race. The Giro is second only to the Tour de France in terms of significance in world cycling. It is a multi-stage race typically run over 23 days, mostly in Italy. The very best riders in the world compete for honours and the overall leader gets to wear a pink jersey. The Giro was started in 1908 by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the sports newspaper. This was printed on pink paper, I have no idea why they chose pink paper, but this is why the leader wears pink.
First job was to get to Italy. David spends much of his time in an electric wheelchair now. This can be loaded into the back of a specially converted van, imaginatively called a Wheelchair Adapted Vehicle or WAV. The chair runs all the way to the front so that David is in the normal position of the passenger seat. This all works well. To get the wheelchair through the WAV it has to be empty. Two seats at the rear are folded up and turned around. The wheelchair runs up a ramp at the back and while Helen secures the chair in the passenger position, Diane and I load all the luggage and open the seats up. Finally the ramp is raised, the back door closed and we are good to go. After a few days we started to get very good at this.
Overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam and then a night by the Rhine River. Approaching the hotel at Rüdesheim am Rhein, the satnav indicated we had 1.5 km to go but also that this would take over 30 minutes. The conundrum was resolved when we rounded a corner and came across the ferry. This was a fun way to end the day and Rüdesheim proved to be a delightful place to spend the evening.
By evening the next day we were overlooking the Bodensee Lake from the Hotel Lilienberg on Swiss side at Ermatingen. This was a very nice hotel but of course, being Swiss, it cost a fortune. From there we crossed over the Alps. The mountains were overcast and foreboding. After many hairpins in the mist we descended into Italy and arrived at the lovely and comfortably old Hotel Risi, right on the banks of Lake Como. That night, to celebrate our arrival in Italy, we dined on Pizza, red wine and ice cream.
Finally, we were getting close to the Giro. A short and easy drive took up to Cassano Magnogo where the stage for that day was scheduled to finish. The Giro is a terrific spectacle. Roads, villages and whole towns get shut down when the cyclists arrive. Many hours earlier the roads are marked off and banners hung from railings, windows and trees. The first spectators arrive as roadside vendors and officials start to get organised. Local cyclists ride up and down the road enjoying the lack of traffic and the building anticipation. A long caravan of advertisers vehicles precedes the riders. This entourage of colourful vehicles is a good ten minutes in passing. A lone police motorcyclist rushes past, blue lights flashing and horns blaring. He waves and the assembled crowd cheer. Excitement starts to build. The streets are lined with enthusiastic people all ready to cheer for their favourite riders. More arriving every minute. More police cars. More sirens. Then the first of the team cars. Then we hear the helicopter. We know it is filming the leading group. Closer and louder. The crowds erupt as the first riders come round the corner. These are the final few hundreds of metres of the stage. The competitors have been battling all day. Hours of flat out pedalling and jockeying for position. Sometimes it all comes down to the very last section and the width of a tyre on the line. We have a reasonable position by the roadside. Some kind spectators have moved aside so that David can see past them. We can see what is going on but we don’t really know what is going on. Later we will use the internet to find out who actually won. Just here and now we experience the moment, enjoy the atmosphere, and marvel at the athletes. Faces locked in grimaces of concentration they turn themselves inside out pushing for the line. A few minutes later comes the main peloton. This sort of race is very much a team sport and these guys have spent their everything trying to keep the team leaders in the first group. Finally and possibly most desperately, come the stragglers. The guys who are having a bad day or who spent themselves too early. No prizes for them but they still get cheered as they push determinedly to cross the line in time to avoid elimination.
Cassano MagnogoBergamo
Later, back at the Hotel Risi, David planned our next day at Bergamo. This time we avoided the crowds at the finish and instead headed to a corner, not so far from the finish, at the end of long straight. It was also on part of a loop around the town so the race would actually come past the same point twice. We got there early and set up so that we had a terrific view down past the shops and offices. We also found a nice bar for a couple of beers to help pass the time. When the race arrived we could stare straight into the riders’ faces as they pushed down the road. I busied myself taking photos while everyone else cheered and shouted. The day before it had been cold and raining. The crowds were a little difficult to deal with and we could not get a really good view. This time, the weather was warm and sunny, we had a brilliant view point and beer. An hour or so later, the race came past for the second time. Yet again we had the perfect viewing position and by the time we left we were all feeling pleased with ourselves. That evening we drove along the picturesque shores of Lake Garda to the Hotel Villa Enrica in the holiday town of Riva del Garda.
Next day the wheels came off our well laid plans. Not literally, but almost. The brakes of the WAV were making horrible noises. Investigation at the local garage showed new parts were needed. In the meantime we were stuck. Fortunately, the plan for the day was a rest day and the following day the Giro was coming right through Riva del Garda. So all we had to do was sit tight and let it all happen. The weather was beautiful, the mountains were spectacular and the lake glittered in the sun. Paddle boarders, dingy sailors and even the odd swimmer were dotted around the lake although the majority of people seemed to content to bask and the sun, drink beer and eat ice cream. Helen and I had a brief shot of swimming in the lake. We did it but it was very cold. The swim was short and we felt no great urge to repeat it. In the evening a massive thunderstorm rolled in and the pent up heat of the day exploded around us. Sheltered on our balcony we could enjoy the spectacle of moody, grumbling mountains while finishing up a glass of wine.
The Giro came to town. Everything shut down. The road was closed. Barriers went up and we put yet another brilliant plan into action. We went to the bar. I particularly liked this plan. It had been well thought out and rehearsed. We went to the bar, ordered drinks and sat under the awning watching the race on a large screen television. One Aperol spritz and a few peanuts later, we could see the race would be arriving soon so we turned out chairs around. Having cleverly chose a bar right on the actually road that the race was using, we could simply move a little and we had prime position seating. After it was all over, we took another beer before wandering further into town for celebratory ice creams.
The fixes to the WAV were delayed while parts arrived. We had to skip a stage of the Giro but, eventually, we were back on the road again. Now we headed to Venice. It is a rather odd place and even after a couple of visits I do have rather mixed feelings about the place. However, quite rightly, it should be on most people’s bucket list and this was the case with David. From landward, you approach Venice across a long bridge, Ponte della Libertà, at the end of which are several car parks. Fortunately one of these was happy to give us prime position so that we could unload the wheelchair. It was a good start but twenty minutes later we hit a problem
The boats were on strike. Helen asked at the information desk about wheelchair access to the Piazza San Marco. This is one of the most famous places to go in Venice and on the opposite side to where we were parked. The city is built on 180 small islands connected by 400 or so arched bridges making a boat by far the easier way to get around. In fact, we were told, a boat is the only practical way to get around with a wheelchair. So, utterly impossible, because the boats are on strike. Now, Helen likes a challenge and she does not like being told she cannot do something. So, as she then explained to me, in a rather expletively laden and dramatically delivered sentence, we would carry the damned chair if needed. And we did. I lost count of how many bridges we climbed. One early and particularly long bridge over the Grand Canal we were helped by two burly policemen. This was encouraging. Elsewhere, quite a remarkable number of passers-by stopped to lend us some muscle power. We pushed and pulled and heaved and sweated and, some three hours later, arrived at the Rialto Bridge. David was pleased and the rest of use definitely felt a sense of achievement. After a couple of hours of touristing we came across a lone ferry still running to Tronchetto – an artificial island that is mostly a big car park. This made the return trip much easier. From Tronchetto the ‘Venice People Mover’, a monorail, took us back to our original car park.
St Mark’s BasilicaPiazzetta San MarcoFerryMonorailRialto Bridge
Next day we headed to the very top, right-hand corner of Italy to catch the penultimate stage of the Giro, a time trail in the mountains. The lovely alpine village of Tarvisio is tucked up in the Julian mountains right on the borders of both Austria and Slovenia. The time trial started here and the riders were set off at one minute intervals to ride 19 km up the fiercely steep Monte Lussari. Just outside the village, we found a perfect spot by the cycle track and set up a picnic. Here we could sit in the sunshine watching the world’s greatest cyclists going past us one at a time while we nibbled some cheese and sipped wine. Unfortunately it was not such a good day for the Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas. He started the time trial leading the Giro and looking set for an epic victory. Painfully he lost 26 seconds to Primož Roglič, which cost him the lead. At the conclusion of the final stage, next day, their positions were confirmed with the Slovenian Primož overall winner and Geraint second.
The last few days of our road trip took us back through the scenic mountains of Austria to Germany. We made a detour through the Black Forest and then north into the Netherlands. Then the ferry to Hull and back to England where the first thing we noticed was that it had started raining.
The ride down to Portsmouth was wet and cold. We had only been back from Thailand for a week and were enjoying the cooler weather. A change in temperature had initially been enjoyable but by the time we had ridden four hours in the rain we were like a pair of shivering, miserable drowned rats. We sat in the ferry terminal building and dripped on the floor while clutching mugs of tea. Half an hour later morale and warmth was restored and we chatted to some friends who were joining a large, organised trip to Morocco.
The ferry from Portsmouth to Santander takes 36 hours. We sailed in the evening and arrived in the morning, two nights and a day later. The ship is only a year old and of quite a modest size. About a thousand passengers and just two bars. We had an inside cabin with a rather fetching illuminated picture of window. The restaurant was French. The food was good. We spent a while on deck looking, in vain, for whales. We chatted in the bar, ate more that we really needed and watched a film in our cabin. A couple of valiant crew members attempted to provide entertainment in the form of quizzes, bingo and songs. I suspect many of the passengers thought this was not a good use of their time.
From Santander we headed fairly directly to Porto. No special reason for this. It was just somewhere both of us fancied visiting. As it turned out, Porto was a delightful place. We had a hotel a short way from the central area around the river and used the local, very efficient, metro system to get into town. The old part of town is a maelstrom of activity. Many, many people eating, cooking, buying, selling, sitting, running, dancing or standing like statues. It was fascinating to wander round and take in the full range of activities. Eventually we settled for a meal while perched on a tiny balcony overlooking the river.
Next morning we visited Henry the Navigator. Prince Henry was famous in the 15th century as a figure central to the expansion of the Portuguese Empire. In particular he was an innovator in practical and theoretic marine navigation. Back in 1996, my great friend Andy also became a business partner in the fledgling company I had started a few years before. Together we improved the marine navigation system that I had been working on ready to bring it to market. After long and tortuous discussions, we named the system “Henry”. Over twenty years later we sold the company on but Henry was still going as a core product. Visiting one of the very few statues of Henry in the world (there may only be two) felt like a bit of a pilgrimage and was very gratifying.
That done, it was time for some port. We crossed the river on a small ferry to the side where all the great Port Houses are located. Sadly, we rapidly discovered that tours around these places are all booked up days in advance. We were actually quite happy just looking around the area and then down a very narrow back street, we came across a bar offering not just port tasting but also a selection of local cheeses. The combination was genuinely irresistible. There was quite a lot of port and we enjoyed every last drop of it. Then we rode a cable car up to the top of the bridge, walked across the bridge, found yet another port bar for one last bedtime drink and finally hopped on the metro home. We did not sing on the train but it was quite a relaxed trip.
Back on the bike, we had planned to head south to meet friends. However, reports of high temperatures from the guys heading to Morrocco and the weather forecast suggested we would be cooked. So, sorry guys, but we turned tail and headed back north along the cool coastline. We came across some delightful small Spanish coastal towns and life for the next few days settled into an easy rhythm. We would arrive in the afternoon, shower, change and wander down to the town square. After a bit of pottering, and possibly a beer, we would settle on somewhere to eat before heading back to our hotel and a welcoming bed. Next morning we would breakfast, pack the bike and set off to do it all over again. The rhythm of the road can be an immensely satisfying way to spend some time.
All too soon we crossed through the Picos de Europa mountains, where it was briefly cold and raining. There was snow on some of the peaks. As we were admiring this, a black storm cloud, complete with thunder and hail, descended on us. Carefully, we made our way down the mountain pass to the north where the skies cleared, the air warmed and the roads were dry again. Right down on the coast we arrived at the final, but very delightful, small town of Comillas. Here we enjoyed a particularly good sunset and next day got the ship back to Portsmouth.
We were back in Bangkok, three weeks and several thousands of kilometres later, having driven round Thailand, clockwise. The traffic had not improved and it was possibly just a tad warmer than when we left. First job was to drop off the car. We were pleased when, after a fairly cursory check, the hire company gave us our deposit back. Next stop was the tailor. They had made me a jacket and Diane a couple of dresses. This is a bit of a speciality of Thailand. Custom tailoring at a very reasonable price. We had been for several fittings but only now got the finished items. They were very good. My jacket was well made, good material and fitted beautifully. All for less then the price of an off-the-peg in the UK. Diane was happy about her two dresses as well.
Next day we met Claudia and Patrick in the elevator. This was not a complete coincidence, we had arranged to meet in the lobby. It was however a nice surprise. They had just arrived from Germany at the start of their holiday. We all went off to explore the city. Claudia and Patrick have been to Bangkok many times, so when I say explore, I really mean we followed them around for a couple of days. This was great – we got to see loads of new places. We also got soaked.
Wat Arun
The Thai New Year is called Songkram and is celebrated with a week of festivities in the middle of April. Chief amongst the festive activities are water fights. There is lots of other stuff, Buddhist traditions, offerings, prayers but for the tourist it feels like the whole city has armed itself with water pistols. We had already experienced a few squirts of water while wandering the streets. The weather is warm (did I ever mention that?) and your clothes dry quickly. We had sundowner cocktails on a rooftop bar across the river from Wat Arun. This is a spectacular golden temple, recently renovated, that catches the evening sun and then is lit by floodlights as darkness settles. Terrific background for an imaginatively named cocktail or two. Then we went off to find dinner and all piled into a tuk-tuk. These can be a good way to get round. Not so comfortable but fast, cheap and often quite exciting. On this occasion, however, it was a big mistake.
View from our hotelSundowners Wat Arun
The Khao San Road and Silom Road are the hubs for modern celebration of Songkran. The roads are closed for traffic, and posts are equipped with water guns and buckets full of water. The party runs day and night as gangs armed with water roam the streets. We thought we might have a look at this but completely underestimated the extent of the crowds and the enthusiasm for water. We got stuck, in a traffic jam, in the tuk-tuk, at the start of the Khao San Road. This is how we got soaked. I do not just mean a light misting of sprayed water, I mean a full on drowning with multiple buckets of water, multiple times over about ten minutes before we abandoned the tuk-tuk and ran for safety. I noticed, in passing, that the street vendors of waterproof phone covers appeared to be doing a roaring business. The evening ended well. We found food, we eventually dried off and finally we said goodbye to Claudia and Patrick, in the same elevator. It had been really enjoyable to meet up with them, albeit for a very brief time. They were leaving in the morning for Phuket and the next day we would be flying home.
The following evening, our last in Bangkok, we visited the rooftop bar at the Lebua State Tower. Known as the Hangover Sky Bar it was a filming location for the movie Hangover 2 – which we have never seen. It is also one of the highest rooftop bars in the city. 63 floors up. We bought cocktails – by a large margin the most expensive drinks we had bought anywhere in Thailand. I mean, these were prices that would have been eye-watering in London. So we made it last and enjoyed the views over the city by way of saying goodbye to Thailand.
Durian fruit are banned in many hotels and on public transport in much of Southeast Asia. Some people describe the persistent smell as raw sewage with rotting onions. However, other people enjoy the taste and smell of these large, spikey objects, calling them the “King of fruit”. I had been keen to try some ever since reading about them years ago. My interest was tempered with a certain nervousness. We had seen a few in Thailand and now, as we followed the Mekong river south, we were seeing more and more. Finally, after mentally bracing ourselves, we stopped at a roadside stall and bought some. The fruit is large, up to 30 cm. The flesh is buried quite deeply inside and it appeared to take some skill to extract it. The stall holder was skilfully cutting into large, spikey fruit and flipping the contents out into small, plastic trays. We bought some and, to my delight, found them delicious. The flesh is soft, yellow and oddly reminiscent of custard. Diane liked it as well. We were pleased. It felt like a rite of passage.
Durian fruit
Arriving in Mukdahan Province we came across the Second Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge. This is one of several bridges built to improve trade with Laos. Traffic in Thailand drives on the left, as in the UK. While traffic in Laos drives on the right like most of the rest of the world. So associated with crossing the bridge is a lane-change, controlled by traffic lights. On the Thai side of the bridge a selection of dragons have been built. I have no idea of their significance but they were very bright and colourful. Made a nice backdrop for a cup of coffee while we contemplated the river for a while.
We continued south, following the Mekong river for a couple more days. At long last we got away from the choking smog caused by burning. The lowland scenery was one of endless rice fields. Thailand has a strong tradition of rice production. It has the fifth-largest amount of land under rice cultivation in the world and is the world’s second largest exporter of rice. Much of this is Jasmine rice. Less productive than some varieties but far more lucrative. At the 2017 World Rice Conference held in Macau, Thailand’s hom mali (jasmine) rice was declared the world’s best rice, beating 21 competitors. The Mekong drifted off westward across Laos before it headed south through Cambodia and ultimately Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea via the ecologically important Mekong Delta. We had to turn back west to complete the great circle that would eventually bring us back to Bangkok.
We drove through rice for a couple of days. Each paddi was a vibrant bright green bordered with banana plants, palms and other exotica. Eventually we arrived at Ryan’s Resort. Ryan, we discovered, is actually called Gary and used to be a Disc Jockey in Derby. Through a rather random set of circumstances, he married a Thai woman, became an expat and now runs a lovely little hotel close to the border with Cambodia. The resort consists of a clutch of small bungalows, a swimming pool and a restaurant area. The restaurant features a well-equipped and modestly price bar along with a terrific wood-fired pizza oven. We were immediately made very welcome by Gary and the gang of international expats gathered round the bar. I suspect the gathering to be a regular occurrence. Later the oven was fired up and Gary cooked us pizza. In all honesty, I can say this was the best pizza we have encountered since Italy. By far the best ever seen in Thailand.
Ryan’s parrotsRyan’s resort
We stayed in the pretty town of Chanthaburi on the banks of a river of the same name. Arriving at our small hotel we were offered Durian fruit – although we had to eat it in the outside kitchen. Upstairs, Diane was rather surprised to find a mattress on the floor. It did, however, turn out to be quite comfortable. In the evening we wander along the river front with numerous small stalls and shops. As night fell, we settled into a very local restaurant for some excellent noodles and stir-fried rice. This was accompanied by freshly roasted cashew nuts served with chopped chillies – I really like this.
Last stop before Bangkok was the lively and popular city of Pattaya. Once a quiet fishing village, this is now a riot of resort hotels, high-ride condos, shopping malls, cabaret bars and 24-hour clubs. We took a taxi to the “walking street” full of hustle and neon signs. Someone shoved a laminated leaflet in front of me. Initially, it looked like an illustrated price list for gynaecological examinations but was in fact an invitation to visit the many strip clubs. We politely eschewed the delights of the ping-pong ball girls and managed to find a rather nice Indian restaurant for our first curry in months.
We were still struggling with the heat and the poor air quality. Temperatures persisted on sneaking up to 40°C and we continued to pass forest fires. Days had got into a rhythm that always began by waking to the sound of the air conditioning. This, we regarded as an essential and carefully chose our hotels to ensure cooling. Some rooms were better than others but whenever the temperature began to drop even a few degrees we both felt like we were coming back to life. I did ponder this a little in the context of climate change – the key to surviving higher temperatures is to expend even more energy on cooling. In Bangkok many public areas, including large shopping malls, are air conditioned. So there is an irony. Using energy and releasing carbon is causing global warming but the way to survive in warmer places is to use even more energy.
Such ruminations usually see me to the first important discovery of the day, breakfast. This was usually very good and often quite surprising. Fortunately coffee, black and strong, was a common element. Diane prefers tea. There was usually fruit. Lovely fresh local fruit. Water melon, yellow melon, banana and pineapple. A simple salad of tomatoes, lettuce and onion was common. Eggs were scrambled or fried. I once had baked and fried eggs with a tamarind sauce – very nice. Other days we might have noodles, stir-fry vegetables, bread, rice or soup.
The Mekong river is one of the great border rivers of the world. Originating in Tibet, it divides China from Myanmar, Myanmar from Laos and Laos from Thailand before heading across Vietnam and finally reaching the ocean in Vietnam. The tripoint where northern Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos is known as the Golden Triangle and is strongly associated with the opium trade. We had heard of a very interesting opium museum in the area. Unfortunately the heat and smoke compelled us to keep moving south and east in the hope of fresh air.
We finally encountered the Mekong in Nakhon Phanom. Hills had given way to flatlands. Rice fields were everywhere and we spotted quite a few cattle grazing. Our hotel was right on the banks of the river had windows looking across to Laos. This far inland there is very little traffic on the river. Mostly just a few fishermen. Sounds like the scene here would be idyllic, perhaps it is sometimes, but not this evening. The heat remained unrelenting. The river is a mucky brown colour with silt and a dull mist hung over everywhere that washed out all the colour. The sun set into the grey murk and then it was dark. Next day we continued south.
We headed north. It had been nice to get out of the Bangkok smog and into the clean, fresh air in Phuket. Around Kanchanaburi we had noticed a few fires and there was a general haze in the air. Driving towards Chiang Mai the smoke and fires became worse. I later learned that in 2017, Chiang Mai had been rated as having the worst air pollution in the world. The problem is mostly about fires. Farmers set fires to clear old crops but far worse are the fires in Thailand and Myanmar used to clear forest. The cumulative effect of all this burning is a ubiquitous fog which obscures the view, tightens you chest and gets in your eyes. I needed to stop wearing contact lenses completely and was using eye drops every half hour or so while we were driving. So although Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai looked to be interesting cities, we breezed through them in short order hoping to find somewhere we could breath again. We also explored some of the jungle areas and hills in the many National Parks. Found many places where the view could have been spectacular but was just a fog. Found many places where we would have lingered longer but the heat and breathing issues kept us moving.
A few kilometres before Chiang Mai, we stumbled across a large temple complex and were compelled to take a look. The scale and complexity of the buildings was breath taking. Without doubt, we failed to understand much of the symbology, purpose and meaning of the statues and decorations. However, we could still be astonished, appreciative and amazed at the fabulous features. The total amount of work that must have gone into the construction was staggering. White and gold were the primary colours, with inlays of silver and small mirrors. The overall effect was a level of intricacy and complexity that was simply dazzling.
From Chiang Rai, we headed east towards the border with Laos. As we entered one National Park there was a sign warning us about wild elephants. This was exciting for a while although we never actually saw any elephants. Travelling though various countries, we often see signs warning of wild animals, moose, boar, otters, red squirrels. These creatures are usually completely elusive. Sometimes it feels as if the main purpose of the sign is to make an area seem more interesting.
Thailand is hot. Too hot for me and Diane to be comfortable. I may have mentioned this already. As we drove east the mid-afternoon temperature sneaked up towards 40°C. Enough to slow cook Northern Europeans but great for many types of plants. A tremendous number of plants and a massive range of varieties. The vegetation in Thailand is lush, magnificent and diverse. Much grows here that cannot tolerate colder climes and we found it fascinating to spot flora that we had always considered rare and exotic. Mangoes grow on trees, we discovered. Each one dangles down on vine of a few inches. At the roadside stalls we could buy perfectly ripe, fresh mangoes that were so tasty and succulent as to make the tough, tasteless, over-preserved instances on the UK supermarket shelves, completely pointless. Pineapple plants – a first for Diane – fields of small, spikey leaves with baby pineapples growing on stalks. Coconuts and dates on palms. Papaya and figs and bananas. Bananas everywhere. Not just in the big, sprawling plantations but also along the roadside and randomly dotted just about everywhere you look. Nearly every household appears to have their own banana plant.
We hired a car and headed north west. Diane was past the worst of her insect bites and allergies but we were both still finding the heat a bit much. We figured that a road trip would fit the bill since, with a nice air conditioned car, we would have somewhere cool to escape to during the day. We collected the car, without any problems, about 11am and tackled the Bangkok roads. Like most cities, Bangkok roads are busy and you really need to pay attention. However, most drivers are quite polite and fairly laid back so driving is nowhere near as stressful as some European capitals.
After about four hours driving we still felt like we were in Bangkok. The road was lined with buildings, businesses, shops and people busy with their daily lives. Almost all the way to Kanchanaburi it seemed to be the same story and, frankly, made for a boring drive. Fortunately, a few miles before we arrived the buildings gave way to fields and we could start to see a little of the countryside. Our hotel was located right next to the River Kwai and set in a large, impressive garden. It was also very quiet. Just a handful of guests in a large hotel. Very peaceful. The food was very good too. Probably some of the tastiest and most authentic Thai food to date.
Next day we went to visit the Bridge over the River Kwai. This has become a memorial to the people who died constructing the Burma Railway during the second world war. Much of what I thought I knew about the bridge came from the 1957 film, Bridge on the River Kwai. Sadly, this is mostly fiction and the film was actually shot in Ceylon. The reality of the 248 mile “death railway” was probably far more horrific than the film or the book it was based on. Between 180,000 and 250,000 Southeast Asian civilians and over 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were subjected to forced labour by the Japanese during its construction. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. Two bridges were built over the Khwae Yai, one wooden and one of steel and concrete. They were both bombed by the RAF and then repaired by allied POWs, several times. In 1946 the British ordered the Japanese POWs to remove large sections of railway to protect British interests in Singapore. The Burma section rapidly fell into disrepair and just a small section of the Thai side in still in use.
We pressed on north and west, stopping to look at a view point in the Khao Laem National Park. Here we discovered that foreigners pay ten times as much as locals for entrance into the parks. The view point was interesting but dulled by the pall of smoke hanging over everything. This was to prove to be a persistent and unpleasant occurrence. Further up the road we were driving past sections of burning forest. Eventually, we arrived at Sangkhla, close to the border to Myanmar. At the Three Pagodas Pass, Thai people can get a day-pass to Myanmar but not foreigners. We took a boat trip on the Khao Laem lake to visit some temples. The two young daughters of the boat owner acted as our guides. One of the temples was being taken over by tree roots giving it a distinct “Indiana Jones” appearance. This was enhanced by the beautiful Buddha inside which has just been given a new coat of gold leaf. From the lake, way off in the distance, we could see another completely enormous Buddha, that was being worked on. Later we attempted to find this immense statue by car but failed.
Back in Sangkla, we stumbled into the middle of a procession. Never discovered what was being celebrated but there was much singing, dancing and bright colours. Everyone seemed very happy. That evening, we walked across the old wooden bridge spanning the Song Kalia river to the Mon village Wang Kha. A quite remarkable structure that looks to be hundreds of years old but was actually built in 1980. At over 400 m, it is Thailand’s longest wooden bridge and the second longest in the world. A pleasant restaurant at the far side was happy to feed us before we crossed back as the sun was setting.
Two days later we were in the jungle. Having reached the end of the road, we set off back towards Kanchanaburi but took a detour eastwards to explore some minor roads. Here we found the Lam Klong Ngu National Park and a sign to the Nang Kruan Waterfall. Getting into the park would have been easier with a 4×4. Then we followed a trail by the river for half an hour before actually arriving at the waterfall. This is an area of tropical rainforest and, where ever farmers are not asserting themselves, there is lush, dense, vibrant green vegetation. We saw butterflies, lizards, many types of bird and even a lizard that was a good 40 cm long. It jumped off its branch into the river before I could photograph it. All felt like a proper jungle adventure. Certainly we were very hot and sweaty at the end of it. Closer to Kanchanaburi we found a hotel which featured floating bedrooms. The novelty value was fun and we did attempt to use the kayak moored outside the bedroom window. It did not go well. Either the boat was very unstable or, more likely, we were very wobbly. We paddled into the river, wobbled a lot and came back. The thought of going into the river, or worse still, swallowing some, was quite enough to bring out my instabilities.
90 minutes flying from Bangkok will get you to the island of Phuket. 50km long and just 20 km wide, Phuket is one of the more popular tourist destinations in Thailand receiving some 10 million visitors each year. The beaches are probably the biggest lure for tourists. The weather remains tropical all year round giving rise to lush jungle vegetation. We could spot bananas and coconuts growing everywhere. Obviously it was hot. Just as hot as Bangkok but at least here the air was fresh and clean. Diane and I are still struggling with the heat and our days tend to be punctuated with finding some way to cool down. Fortunately the sea is the perfect temperature for swimming.
We had committed ten days to the Phuket area but did not have any real idea what we were going to do there or even where we would stay. For many holiday makers I think it is all about beaches, bars and nightclubs. I tried sunbathing once and, after about ten minutes, had a headache, felt too hot and was generally uncomfortable. The idea of lying on a beach at 35°C while my skin crisps before going red and falling off, strikes me as some sort of torture. Diane is of a similar outlook and so we set off to find some other sides of Thailand. We hired a very small scooter for a modest fee and this gave us the freedom of the roads. The scooter, a Honda Click 160 is very easy to ride. Just twist and go. Ideally suited to the local roads. Good for filtering through the many traffic jams and simple to park – although you have to be careful that you can find it again amongst the many other almost identical scooters.
Our first trip was to the beach just outside the airport. This is actually slightly more interesting than it sounds. The runway starts right at the edge of the beach. So, you can sit there, sunbathing if you like, and watch the planes coming into land a few metres above you. With correct positioning you can also experience the power of the back-wash from the jet engines as the planes take off. Occasionally a particularly powerful jet will blow people into the sea. Because this is a slightly popular area, a surprisingly wide variety of street food is available. It was early in the morning and I breakfasted on fresh coffee with an egg filled roti (fried flatbread). Instant coffee is very common in Thailand and also one of my pet hates. Every now and again, civilisation takes a faltering step in the wrong direction from which it can take a while to recover – the invention of instant coffee is one such mistaken lurch from the true path. I trust we will get over it eventually. In the meanwhile it is sometimes necessary to search a while for real coffee. Close to the roti stall was another cooking up espresso pots on a small gas stove. Strong and bitter. Ideal for breakfast.
We moved to another hotel right on Nao Thon beach. This was convenient for a dip in the sea and also for watching the sunset. Combining the two, that is, swimming as the sun goes down, does have a romantic appeal however it is not always so practical. The problem is that the mosquitos and other flying, biting insects, tend to get active around sundown. As soon as the light starts to fade it is a good idea to cover up. After getting soundly bitten a couple of times we settled on a evening routine that still saw a cooling dip in the ocean but well before sunset. By the time darkness began to encroach we would be fully dressed and safely ensconced in a bar.
The next big scooter trip was to explore the beaches to the south and west of Phuket. These included Laguna, Kamala, Patong and Karon beaches. In many ways the beaches were quite similar. A massive industry based, apparently, on sleeping in the sandy patches by the ocean. A thousand deck chairs all neatly arranged. Sellers of every type of drink or fruit. Sometimes combined, so you would see coconuts and pineapples sporting straws and cocktail umbrellas. The Thai are very keen on massages, or at least they are very keen on selling them to tourists. Rows of middle aged people laid out on blankets getting their flesh pummelled and contorted. Elsewhere echelons of sun seekers are trying to change the colour of their skin. The pursuit of the all-round and even tan gave rise to some remarkable attire and poses. While nudity is not the normal on these beaches we did spot a few positions combined with perilously flimsy clothing that would have given a porn star second thoughts. Souvenir stalls, food stalls, clothing stalls, tours guides collecting punters for trips. Not for us but this is clearly a great place for those of the beach life inclination. Some people even enjoy the heat I imagine.
On the way back we visited an elephant sanctuary. There are quite a few of these. They are not really sanctuaries. Whatever they say. The elephants are a tourist attraction, a way to make money. People pay to bath with elephants, ride on elephants, feed elephants, pet baby elephants and to pose for the perfect holiday photograph. The poor old elephants probably have a better life than the hard working animals of old. Even so, that attitude of using animals for our own entertainment and amusement does not ring true with me or Diane. Of course, the real problem is that there is almost nowhere elephants can live in the wild. For many endangered species these days there are far more animals in captivity than in the wild. Some species now only exist in captivity. They have been saved by zoos. The bottom line for us with regards to “sanctuaries” is that they make us sad. We would rather not see elephants in chains. We had a short look around. Felt sorry for the elephants and left.
Scaramanga’s lair
Two hotels later we went on a tourist trip. I am not good on tourist trips and naturally rebel at a deep, instinctual level to being treated like a sheep. When the tour guide says we should all go this way every fibre of my being wants to head in the opposite direction. However, realistically, it is the only way to get to see some things. For a long time I have been intrigued by some of the odd shaped “upside down” islands off the coast of Thailand. Is there an inspirational link between these dramatic rocks, Roger Dean’s artwork and the film Avatar? I wanted to see for myself. We joined up with a group of some thirty other sheep. After a short introductory talk we were herded onto a shallow bottomed boat sporting three large outboard engines. We visited several islands and they were quite interesting. At the first we hopped into small, inflatable kayaks and were paddled through some caves into the a large space inside the island. Next island was a similar topography but this time we waded through some longer caves before emerging into a central area that had a strong “lost world” feel about. Mud skippers, a strange sort of amphibious fish, were walking, skipping perhaps, in the boggy sand. Large butterflies fluttered past and the sunlight cast beams of light through the foliage that reached high up inside the hollowed island. Then came “James Bond” island with racks of souvenir stalls. “The man with the golden gun” was made fifty years ago but this place still has a strong attraction to many. Late lunch was a buffet at a restaurant on stilts. The food, like most Thai food, was remarkably good. Finally we were deposited on a beach for an hour. Presumably so that we could enjoy the great beach life. Fortunately there was a bar with shade from the sun and cold beer.
Cave entranceLost world, rediscovered …… by the 6th group todayLunch stop
Next day Diane was suffering from allergies. Multiple insect bites had broken out in lumps and bumps all over. Heat rashes afflicted her legs and she developed terrible bags under her eyes. Looked like she had been fighting. Not sure if these we cause by heat, insects or something else. She loaded up with antihistamines and liberally smeared creams all over. We visited the quieter northern part of the island by scooter and then packed to fly back to Bangkok. Time to start phase three of the Thailand trip.
I have never been a fan of long haul flights and successfully managed to avoid them for over a decade. This blissful abstinence abruptly came to an end with flight KL0803 from Amsterdam to Bangkok. It was, for the most part, just as I remembered. Long, tedious, noisy and the residual jet lag gave me a headache. Stepping out of the pleasantly cool airport into the hot, humid and polluted tropical air of Bangkok served to compound my misery. The hotel was a half hour taxi ride. We arrived at the relative sanctuary of our room with its air conditioning doing sterling service. This was wonderful. We could cool down, lie down and inevitably, fall asleep. In the evening we had a snack in the hotel café before heading back to bed. By next morning we felt just about ready to tackle Bangkok.
15:22 to Sheffield
It is hot here. I think it is always hot in Thailand. 35°C by mid-afternoon. Everyone else seems quite comfortable with this but Diane and I sense that we are being slowly cooked. After a modest stroll round the park next door we felt thoroughly braised and retreated into a very nice French bar with air conditioning and chilled wine. The park was interesting. We were not familiar with any of the wide range of birds, flowers and or large reptiles swimming in the lakes.
Next day we went for a more urban experience and visited a shopping mall. Eight floors of retail heaven. Not really my thing but Diane needed some stuff and anyhow the whole mall was air conditioned. Bangkok is busy and crowded. Slums and modern high-rise offices snuggle together. Smart, young people step over the beggars on the pavement and everywhere you need to negotiate the street vendors. Everything from souvenirs to shampoo. Street food abounds. Small trolleys with a charcoal brazier cooking up a variety of snacks mostly involving meat and noodles. The range of smells is a whole nasal adventure of its own. Cooking often dominates, frying meat, garlic and vegetables with an underlying hint of burning wood. Traffic fumes complete with excesses of cheap perfume as people hustle along the pavement. The lakes and river add a damp smell while the sewers and pools of stagnant water are constantly lurking to remind you to just keep moving in some places.
A tuk-tuk driver offered us the unmissable tour of Bangkok for a mere two pounds. This was fun although I am far too big to fit into the back of a tuk-tuk comfortably. The vehicle leaned perilously on corners and squeezed through the dense traffic with mere millimetres on each side. Best just to shut your eyes sometimes. Obviously, we needed to visit the taxi driver’s various sponsors. The tailor was actually quite interesting but the high-light of the tour was a river trip. We had a long tail boat to ourselves. The ‘gondolas of Thailand’ feature a large engine on the back with a direct drive propellor. This whole assembly is pivoted so that the boat is controlled by driver wrestling the entire running engine. The result appears effective and is probably cost effective but it also looks remarkably precarious and dangerous. We bounced up and down the river for an hour. The water is a sinister brown colour and there is a tang in the air that reminds you to keep your mouth shut when spray comes over the bows. The tour included several temples and the royal palace. We paused at a one-man floating store to buy beer and mangoes.
Our last trip out was to a market not far from the hotel. Not really a tourist destination but still quite interesting. The total amount of food there was staggering. Looked to be enough to feed the whole of Bangkok. Vast mountains of chicken, fish and all types of vegetables. Porters ran round continuously with sack barrows shifting stuff here and there. From a distance, I imagine the market would look like a giant ant’s nest that just got disturbed.
View from hotel
Six days in Bangkok. One of the most popular tourist destinations in the world but also very hot, crowded and polluted . The air quality is at an all-time low. 200,000 people admitted to hospital with breath problems just this week. The Public Health Ministry say that we should wear masks outside. Time to get out of the city.
