Category: 60 Before 60

Antarctica

Winning a competition would be one way of getting to Antarctica.

Antarctica must be the most intriguing and magical place on earth. I don’t just want to visit it, but to live there for a while, spend time, get to know it. I’ve researched working, studying and doing my own research there, but nothing is really feasible at the moment.

Whilst in Norfolk this week I was chatting to my friend about the things we’d both like to do and the places we’d both like to go. Along with Kilimanjaro, Antarctica is on both of our lists. Sitting in the pub on Sunday evening I browsed through a local tourist magazine whilst Valinda was at the bar. There was nothing of particular interest until I got near the end and saw an article about winning a trip to Antarctica. This just reinforces my belief that if you talk about things, write them down, bring them to the forefront of your mind, then things happen. This isn’t magic or fate, it’s just a case of tuning oneself in to the opportunities that are around us all the time. Even if I hadn’t been thinking of Antarctica, that article would still have been in the magazine. Only difference would be that I would have just flicked over the page and not paid any attention to it.

So, now I have a competition to enter. I’ve looked on the website and it all seems very simple – just take some award winning photographs in a wetlands centre. Hm, well with my simple point and shoot camera and my lack of award winning photography skills it might be a bit harder than it looks. But even though I don’t have much hope of winning, by entering and taking it seriously I should improve my photography skills, get to go to Martin Mere wetland centre (which I’ve never been to) and improve my knowledge of birds which is something I’m trying to do anyway.

This and That

Preparing for the Norfolk Coast Path and lots of other things.

Three more getups and then I’m off to Norfolk for half term. I’m looking forward to walking the Norfolk Coast Path and I’m intrigued to find out what sort of weather I’ll get. Every weekend has been so different recently and now I keep hearing talk of snow. Bring it on! – I’ll enjoy the walk whatever the weather.

I’ve been googling and searching Amazon looking for books set in Norfolk that I can read whilst I’m there, but haven’t had any luck finding anything. Then this evening my eyes alighted on my copy of Bill Bryson’s ‘At Home’. A bell started to ring in the deep recesses of my mind – didn’t he settle in Norfolk when he moved back to the UK? A quick check, and yes, the book is about his house in Norfolk. So that’s the one I’ll be taking with me. It’s very chunky and so I doubt I’ll get much of it read, but at least I can start it. My habit of reading books set in, or about, the places I visit isn’t helping me get through the BBC Big Read challenge, but I’ll get round to that at some point.

To prepare for the walk I’ve been very good about going to the gym. I hadn’t been for ages as life just kind of took over and ate up all my time. But this past few weeks I’ve been going regularly and feeling good for it. I’m surprised that my fitness level is still pretty good, but maybe all the walking I did in the summer has paid off there.

I had been hoping to go back to the local college this week for a bit more waxing, but decided I’d rather spend my available evenings in the gym instead. So stage two of that challenge will have to wait until after half term.

By the time half term is over it will be almost November and time for me to start NaNoWriMo. I still haven’t thought about what I’m going to write, but that’s ok. I’m just going to use the month to let my thoughts flow free and see what happens. I’m going to concentrate on quantity not quality. If I’m able to write 50,000 words in a month then at least I’ll know that I do have the stamina and patience to think seriously about writing in the future. Then I’ll think about quality.

I finished my first aid course last week. This is only a basic course, but has given me confidence to tackle the more full-on course that I’ll need to do for walking group leader’s qualification. I’ll think about doing this in the spring. That’ll give me plenty of time to read up on first aid and consolidate what I’ve learnt.

So all in all, things are ticking along quite nicely.

First Aid

A basic first aid course with the Red Cross.

I’ve spent the last two evenings at the Red Cross training centre with a couple of colleagues doing a basic first aid course. School has paid for it (bonus!) as it means I can teach first aid skills to my Health and Social Care students in the new year. The course included bits of everything and was quite a lot to take in. I’ll have to do a bit of reading up as well, before I feel confident to either practise first aid or teach it.

This level of course is not meant to make me an expert so there was no formal assessment. At some point I’ll need to do the specialist outdoors first aid course for my walking group leader’s qualification. This is a full weekend course with assessments and is quite expensive. I’d hate to fail it and now feel more confident that I won’t because I now have basic knowledge and skills and won’t be starting it cold.

Doing the course meant I had two very long days and feel completely knackered, but it seems well worth it.

New York hostels

Why are hostels in New York City being closed down?

As owning my own hostel is something I would like to do one day, I get regular updates on my facebook page from a hostel management site. This discussion in the forums has interested me not just because of my general hostel interest, but also because going to New York is also on my list and when I go I’ll be looking for cheap accommodation.

http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forum/f25/new-york-hostels-being-shut-down-4480.html

It seems that lots of hostels have recently been raided and shut down because of changes in a local law about the number of transient people allowed to stay at any one time in an apartment building. This could be due to pressure from the big hotels wanting everyone to stay with them, so they’re trying to squeeze the small guys out of business. If this is the case, then I don’t see how they think it will work. People with a budget of $20 a night are not suddenly going to be able to stump up $200 a night. Instead they’ll just stay away. When these hostels were suddenly shut down travellers staying in them found themselves having to sleep rough. So if the law and the raids are because hostels are deemed ‘unsafe’, then how can sleeping rough in New York City be seen as a safer option? It all seems very short-sighted and bullyboyish to me. If they went after the truly unsafe hostels then fair enough, but that really doesn’t seem to have been the case.

My sympathies go out to the travellers and tourists who have found themselves homeless and the hostel owners and employees who have found themselves businessless and jobless.

The YHA seems to be unaffected by this. Maybe they have dedicated buildings for their hostels and so are exempt? Or is it because they’re a bigger business they don’t get trampled on so easily?

The Bucket List

Bucket lists are getting so popular even Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon.

I’ve just watched the film ‘The Bucket List’ with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Feeman. The film is about two men, getting on a bit in years, who meet in hospital. They’ve had completely different lives, but now have both been given less than a year to live. They decide to embark on a trip around the world ticking items off a ‘things to do before we kick the bucket’ list. Their list contains a mix of tangible challenges such as seeing the pyramids and skydiving, and more abstract challenges such as laughing until you cry and doing a good turn for a stranger.

A search on google shows that these types of bucket lists have become quite a phenomenon. There are lots of people out there trying to complete 101 things (it often is 101) before they die. Many of the lists appear quite generic which seems a bit strange, as surely this sort of list should be really personal. There are some biggies that I can understand lots of people wanting to do, such as the skydiving and pyramids, but surely the majority of the list should reflect each person’s own interests, likes and dislikes, etc. Although on my own list there are a few challenges that I seem to share with everyone, I’d like to think that most of the items on my list are a true reflection of me and what I want to achieve in my life.

But, back to the film. I spent a fairly enjoyable 93 minutes watching it. This is probably a reasonable length as I don’t think the story is strong enough to hold out for much longer. But for that 93 minutes I was quite engaged and enjoyed the brief snapshots from Africa, France, India and so on. Would I recommend it? Yes, but only if you’re not in the mood for anything even remotely highbrow.

Walking across Morecambe Bay

Walking across the sinking sands of Morecambe Bay with Queen’s Guide Cedric Robinson.

And that’s another one ticked off. Today I finally got to walk across Morecambe Bay.

Last summer I looked into these walks, which can only be done with a guide. The usual person to lead the walks is Queen’s Guide, Cedric Robinson. He’s been the Queen’s Guide since the 1960s and is getting on a bit now. I think he’s actually trying to retire, but doesn’t have a replacement. His walks are now usually only at the weekend and tend to get booked up well in advance with charity groups. I phoned him to try to get myself on one, but he is no longer dealing with bookings himself. After a bit of research I realised the only way I’d get to do this was with a charity. As luck would have it my local hospice was organising one for the first time. I quickly signed up and duly turned up on the day only to be told the walk had been cancelled because of the heavy rain over the weekend. The river that has to be waded through was far too high to be safe. As it was already September it was too late to re-arrange and so had to be postponed until this year.

This year, there was yet again plenty of rain, but fortunately it dried up in time for the weekend. Even getting to sit on the coach in Ashton bus station was further than I’d got last year. Right on time we were off, only to get stuck on the motorway going at 30 miles an hour behind a large motorcycle demonstration. Hundreds of motorcycles and a couple of quad bikes holding all three lanes up. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get to do the walk this year either. The walks have to be timed between the tides and there’s no room for being late. Fortunately the driver pulled off the motorway and took us a different way so we arrived in Arnside in plenty of time.

We had three coaches altogether and some people also made their own way there. All in all there must have been about 200 of us. Arnside seemed quite nice; much nicer than Morecambe itself. (Note to self: go back and do some walking there).
Right on 4pm Cedric blew his whistle and we set off. To start with we followed a path along the top of the beach and through a caravan park. After about 20 minutes we were on the sands and heading out across the bay. The walk had started for real.

The sand was just wet enough for it to start to seep through trainers and so soon almost everyone was barefoot. We never really hit sinking sand though. I know the idea of the guide is to make sure we avoid the dangerous stuff, but I thought it would actually be harder going than it was, with a bit of sinking going on. Not long into the walk it clouded over and we felt the first few drops of rain. After a quick stop to put rain jackets on, we were off again. Fortunately the rain held off and was never more than a few drops.

The River Kent was midway through the bay. I was actually expecting it nearer the end and so was a bit surprised to come across it so soon. It’s quite wide and Cedric stopped us and got us to spread out alongside its shore. He reassured us that there was no current and the sand was solid. He also warned us that it would come up to our thighs and we might stand on some fish.

The water felt cold at first, but my legs quickly got used to it. As I’m not particularly tall, it did come a bit higher than my thighs. There were quite a few fish about and they were quite big. I didn’t stand on any, but had a few bang into me. They felt like big pebbles each time they hit my legs. It didn’t take too long to cross the river and I was quite enjoying myself by the end. Not long afterwards there was another less deep stream to cross. This one was narrower and only knee deep.

As we got to the far side of the bay the sand became strewn with little spurts of grass. These became thicker and thicker until we were completely off the sand and walking across a boggy grassland. The grass was quite sharp and as at first we seemed to be on dry ground, everyone stopped and put their trainers back on. Very quickly we hit the bog though, and my shoes filled with water.

The light was failing by this time and we had one last set of obstacles to deal with in the encroaching twilight. The boggy area was criss-crossed with ditches, most of them quite deep with thick gloopy mud in the bottom. There was a lot of very slippy, shiny black mud as well which created quite a lot of problems when trying to get a good foothold to get across the ditches. But we did it and soon arrived at the small train station in Kents Bank where our coaches were waiting.

The walk took 3 and a half hours and was, according to Cedric, about 8 miles. The time and distance will always be different as there isn’t a direct way across the sands. Cedric has to check the route out first and sticks branches in the sand to show the safest way avoiding the trecherous quicksand. The route changes with the tides and so is different from day to day. We zigzagged across the bay the whole time and I was quite disoriented by the end, not really knowing which direction I was going in. As we had to be across before the tide came in and before darkness fell, we had to keep quite a quick pace going all the way across.

The walk certainly wasn’t difficult and wasn’t anywhere near as challenging as I was expecting it to be. However, I was still feeling quite tired by the end and was glad to get back on the coach.

Cycling website

A useful website for global cycling

I’ve been googling cycling and Japan and I’ve come across this website.

It’s an English language site run by a Dutch couple who have cycled all over the world (including Japan). As well as lots of details on cycling in the different countries they’ve been to, they also have a lot general info on cycling. I’m looking forward to having the time to explore the site properly, as I’m sure it’s going to be really useful and inspiring.

Josie Dew and Japan

Getting inspired and scared with thoughts of cycling around Japan.

I’ve started reading Josie Dew’s book ‘A Ride in the Neon Sun’. As I’m toying with the idea of doing a cycle tour of Japan at some point in the future I thought it would be good for research. As none of the areas she mentions sound even remotely familiar to me (well, apart from Tokyo, that is), I’ve dug out my 1991 Lonely Planet on Japan, so I can look at the maps and do a bit of reading around. So far, both books have confirmed my fears that Japan is:

  • Extremely expensive
  • Extremely overcrowded
  • Extremely built up
  • Extremely difficult to navigate due to the incomprehensible alphabet
  • Extremely hard to have a varied and nutritionally sufficient diet whilst retaining vegetarian ideals.

They have also given me some new fears, such as:

  • Lots of horrible, long, dark, heavily polluted tunnels to cycle through whilst being covered in oily, dirty spray and risking being squashed by lorries
  • Dirty, polluted beaches
  • Very few campsites
  • Long, hot baths (I’m much more of a shower person).

All this and I’ve only just started reading the books. I’m going to have to do a LOT of preparation before I seriously think about embarking on this trip!

More walking

Planning a few more walks … including a very long, steep one.

I spoke to a friend this evening. She moved to Norfolk about 6 years ago and so far I haven’t got round to visiting her. Now that I’ve completed the Great Glen Way I’ve been thinking about which path to take on next. I’m still not ready for a very hilly, long one, so thought that the Peddar’s Way and the Norfolk Coast Path could be good choices. And I could visit my friend at the same time. My friend is keen to do the Peddar’s Way with me and said it starts about 10 miles away from her house. So we’ve tentatively pencilled in half term.

She also mentioned that she would like to climb Kilimanjaro before she is 50. As this is also on my list, we can now start thinking about it together and motivate each other. It’s something I really should have done years ago when I lived in Africa and spent time in Tanzania. But I wasn’t fit enough and couldn’t afford it. These are still issues now, but if I can focus then I can start working towards it.

Summer Ice Hotel

The Ice Hotel is going to open in the summer … but it won’t be the same at all.

I’ve just read that the Ice Hotel in Sweden is going to be open in the summer. Usually this is a winter experience only as it melts each spring and has to be rebuilt the following year. Now a smaller version is to be built inside an art centre so visitors can stay in the summer and experience the midnight sun. No chance of seeing the Northern Lights though. And I don’t think I particularly want to stay inside an ice hotel inside another building. It just wouldn’t be the same at all.