With a certain festive period approaching, Jude and I took ourselves off to Zurich for a few days to find some ‘different’ presents. I’d been there before to run the marathon, but I hadn’t really had time to explore the city and I have to say that we were both very impressed with how organised and quiet it was. It was more like a large village than a big city. It was also nice to see the wooden Christmas market stalls and the streets decorated with more lights than you could ever count.
A visit to the Lake District wouldn’t be complete (for Jude anyway) without a trip on a boat. And since the forecast for the day was a sort of cloudy grey, we opted to catch a ‘steamer’* from the aptly named village of Lakeside to Bowness-on-Windermere.
*Our outward journey would be on the MV (Merchant Vessel) Tern, which was built in 1891, but I’ve since learnt that it’s not driven by steam at all but is motor powered.
After a little retail therapy and a nice lunch, we returned on the MV Teal, which was built in 1936. (See pic 8).
The boats link up with the Lakeside and Haverthwaite railway, which is only 3.2 miles/5k long but, during the season, (broadly April through to the end of October) mostly runs steam trains to take people back and forth, as you will see from the last few pictures.
A perhaps little known, but useful piece of information here, (for keen UK quizzers or maybe those who holiday in exotic locations by the sea) is that all British owned ships must fly a flag with the Union (Jack) flag in the top left corner. The remainder of the flag is either red, indicating a merchant vessel (as with the Tern and Teal); white, together with a St George’s Cross, for the Royal Navy, or blue for other ships, which have a special warrant from the Admiralty.
For more information on Windermere Lake Cruises, check out this Visit Cumbria website.
Jude and I have just returned from a 17 day trip back to the UK, which was partly for a holiday in the English Lake District (more to come on that in the following days) and partly to see Jude’s family. Our first port of call was to Jude’s parents in their lovely new home in Oswestry. While there, we took the opportunity to drive across the Welsh border to walk a short section of the Llangollen canal with Angela, Jude’s mum. As you can see from our pictures below, it was a beautiful Autumn day.
One way to run an Autumn marathon is to run two Half marathons. 🤔 When I discovered that there were two in quick succession, I didn’t think I’d be able to run either, let alone both. So I’m very pleased to post another report, this time on the Hallwilerseelauf. (In case you missed it here is my Greifensee Half report from a few weeks ago).
You may recall that Sarah, Karl and I just failed, by only 13 seconds, to dip under the 2 hour mark. So after a little bit more ‘speed’ training since, I had (perhaps too) high hopes of running 1 hour 55 mins, or in any event under 2 hours. The course had a downhill start, which was nice, but inevitably you are drawn into going off too quickly. With the sun shining brightly (again) and the temperature around 23 degrees, I once more suffered in the middle to late stages, but I “dug in” (as you have to in these races) to finish in 1h 57m 27s. OK, it wasn’t 1h 55m, but one of the things driving me on towards the finish was the thought that the sum of the two races just had to be under 4 hours… 😀
As before, I didn’t carry my camera or a phone, so I have no photos of the race itself, but here is a link to my own personal video of the race courtesy of the organisers/sponsors. I’m the guy in the red vest and black cycling type shorts and long socks by the way. 👨 Depending upon your internet speed, you may have to wait a few seconds for the video to come up and it’s best viewed, of course, by maximising the screen (via the top right hand corner of the video window). Enjoy!
Once again, I had free travel to and from the event, but it involved catching a bus and 5 different trains to get there and 6 different trains to get back to Sion (where Jude would pick me up). With connection times between trains of as low as 3 minutes, perhaps only in Switzerland would you even dream of getting there and back in a day. But that’s exactly what I did. It didn’t matter that there were weekend engineering works along one section of the route, the schedule had been adjusted and all 11 trains were exactly on time. (See my outward and return timetables below). Words cannot describe my admiration for the Swiss train (and Postbus) network. ⏱👍👍
One of the things that both Judith and I miss about living in the mountains is Lac Léman or Lake Geneva. Our old apartment used to look out over the eastern end of the lake and so for old time’s sake, yesterday, we took the Postbus down to Sion and then the train to Vevey.
After a short walk along the lakeside and a fabulous lunch at Le Rubis restaurant, now run by our good friends Cathy and Lauren, we hopped on one of the fantastic paddle steamer boats which operate all along the lake. There are 10 boats in total and all look slightly different. (See pic 3). As the circular tour of the upper end of the lake unfolds, you can see how the Alps begin to form, as the rolling hills turn into mountains. (See pic 27). Most of the individual peaks you see below, both Judith and I have climbed over the years. It was probably where I cut my teeth and developed an endearing love of the Alps.
If you ever get the opportunity to visit this part of the world, or indeed any of the lakes in Switzerland, I can highly recommend one of these boat trips as a fabulous way to see the country.
As mentioned in my post on Jan 1st, I’ve been away for the past 3 weeks, visiting my daughter Joanne, in Melbourne, Australia. For the first 2 weeks, I stayed in a wonderful Airbnb, called BigOldFamilyHome in the Northcote area. My sincerest thanks go to Sandra and Andrew for being perfect hosts. For my 3rd ‘week’, I took off to the Alpine National Park to do some walking, but more of that later…
In this first, introductory post, I thought I’d show you a few pictures, mainly of the Docklands area, which is being redeveloped. Though I was advised that maybe upto 2/3rds of the apartments currently remain empty.
One of the many pluses of visiting or living in Melbourne is that tram travel in the very centre of the city is free. The area is more or less bordered by the old style City Circle line trams – see pics 2 & 3.
Following on from my post yesterday… I was pleasantly surprised to find out that our accommodation in Cheddleton was within 50 yards of one pub (The Black Lion) and 150 yards from another (The Red Lion) and also very near to a working, narrow boat canal. (This was after we’d booked it, I might add).
Blue skies were forecast for last Wednesday, so I opted out of some retail therapy and decided to go for a 5 mile walk along the tow path (and 5 miles back again). Now, I’ve often thought of canals as quite boring places – being flat and, well, all very similar. But I couldn’t have been more wrong… Amongst the many interesting things that I saw, apart from some perfect autumn scenery, were a field full of (about 150) Canada Geese, probably refuelling before heading further south for the winter and a Kingfisher, which I was extremely pleased to photograph, albeit from 20 yards away, (see pic 13).
Not only that but I met a lovely couple, called Sue and Derek, who told me that they had sold their house to buy a boat, so that they could spend the rest of their days cruising the canal network. That’s what I call adopting a more relaxing way of life!
After my few days in York, I drove over to Sheffield to stay with my daughter Sarah and her boyfriend, Karl. Although the weather was somewhat overcast, we decided to go for a walk from Edale up and along the ridge to Crookstone Hill, before returning along the side of the valley. Silly Mike forgot to take his camera, so these images are all courtesy of Karl’s mobile phone.
Before embarking on our trip to the Outer Hebrides, we stayed in a B&B in North Connel. Close by was the historic Connel Bridge, which spans Loch Etive. Opened in 1903 and originally built as a railway bridge, but now a single track road for just vehicles, it’s a cantilever type bridge with a span of 160m. When built it was the longest in Britain after the Forth (railway) Bridge.
Beneath it are the Falls of Lora, which are strong running currents caused by the ebb and flow of the tides rushing in and out of the loch. Water pours through this relatively narrow gap at an amazing rate of 4,600 tonnes per second. So you can see why it’s a favourite spot for expert kayakers and sea rescue exercises.
Five miles to the south of Connel is Oban which, apart from being one of the main ferry terminals on the west coast of Scotland, it’s mostly famous for McCaig’s Tower. The brainchild of a wealthy banker the building was started in 1897, but only the walls were finished when he died in 1902 and the structure was never completed. It’s now a public garden but, as you will see from the photos below, it dominates the town.
As you will also see, we had a perfect day for our sailing through the Sound of Mull to Castlebay on the Isle of Barra. Although we didn’t manage to see any whales, we did see porpoises.
Over the next few days, I shall take you on a journey to some of the islands and the most amazing beaches that we were lucky enough to visit on our way to the Butt of Lewis, which lies at the northern tip of the Outer Hebrides.
Not to be confused with the UK’s National 3 Peaks (which takes in the 3 highest mountains of England, Wales and Scotland) or the Welsh 3 Peaks, The Yorkshire 3 Peaks is a 24 mile (39k) circular walk mostly in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The most popular starting point is Horton-in-Ribblesdale and, going anti-clockwise takes in Pen-y -Ghent (@694m/2,277ft), Whernside (@736m/2,415ft) and Ingleborough (@723m/2,372ft), giving a total ascent of over 1,500m or 5,000ft.
My younger brother, Steve, has had this ‘challenge’ on his tick list for a while and when he mentioned it last year, I said I’d do it with him. I thought it might be good training for my marathon in April, so we arranged to do it last weekend. I mentioned it to my daughter, Sarah, as her boyfriend Karl is also running a marathon (Oslo) later in the year, and also to my mates Pete, Dave and Liam, and they all decided to come along.
As these things need to be planned in advance, we couldn’t guarantee what the weather would be like, but we did have a choice of Saturday or Sunday to do the walk. So it was mist and fog versus rain most of the day, and we chose the former.
All was going well until about a third of the way round. First, I slipped on some grass going down to a stream, then, a few hundred metres later, Pete took a tumble. Both of us were OK, though a bit damp and muddy, until disaster struck… A few moments later, almost simultaneously, my brother Steve, did a cartoon-style, legs flailing to keep his balance, backwards fall and I slipped onto my right side and jabbed my ribs hard with my elbow. Steve was fine, but I was winded to say the least and from then on every deep breath was painful – which is not good when you have 2 more hills to climb. Luckily Steve had some Ibuprofen in his bag which helped to dull the pain.
We all made it over the final 2 peaks before I tripped and fell again, this time head first on the wet, rocky path down from Ingleborough, head-butting the ground (luckily missing the rocks). Apart from a bang on the knee, a grazed nose (see pic) and a cut finger, I was fine.
I mention these ‘events’, not for any sympathy, but as a warning to anyone who might go walking on wet, soggy grass – it’s a hazardous business.
But, despite all these little accidents and the poor visibility, everyone enjoyed the walk and we celebrated afterwards with a nice meal in the local pub and a few pints of hand-pulled real ale. 🙂 (I’ve added some pictures of some beer clips especially for my buddy, Jamesie, at 50in50marathonquest).
I apologise in advance for the number of photos posted below, particularly as they are quite poor quality, but I know some of my email followers will be interested to see most of them.
