Capital Ring 12 Highgate to Stoke Newington

Capital Ring 6 Wimbledon Park to Richmond

I met Robert and Helen at Wimbledon Park station, on a lovely day for doing the next 7 miles. We-like started along streets with houses, then across a park with a Capability Brown vista. The main part of the walk was across Richmond Park, with a huge sense of space and openness, the city of 7 million people does not feel close. 

We saw deer, 15 antlered males sitting underneath a tree and later on a female herd of 25 and the juvenile males had tiny first year antlers.  We saw a kestrel and woodpecker. The trees were magnificent huge oaks, beeches and weeping birches. At Richmond there was a huge plane tree the largest in London.

We ended our park crossing at Pembroke lodge, a fine 18 century house with nice gardens, sadly only open that day for wedding guests. We walked down into Petersfield, pausing at the 13 c church with ancient gravestones, including one for captain Vancouver who died aged 40. Since Robert is from Vancouver this was a nice link to his origins. We walked past fields with black and white cows and ended the walk with views of the elegant grey stone bridge at Richmond.  An abnormally high tide at Richmond had just washed away the Sunday riverside drinkers. We drank in a riverside pub and walked through Richmond to the station passing a lovely square with old houses around it. There is a fine 19 c theatre and the modern Orange Tree theatre. Richmond station has lovely wrought iron features. We took the modern north London line Overground to Highbury and Islington. I walked home feeling tired and virtuous.

7.0 miles

Aug 21 2016

South Africa –walking and San Art

I walked in South Africa, stayed in the Kruger national Park, then returned to Joburg where I enjoyed learning about the San people.

The air round joburg is dark with dust from the coal mining. The large power stations on the veld dominate the scene.  Our lunch stop was in Dullsroom (a small town named after a German), a mountain town and centre of the trout fishing industry. The houses looked Dutch with pancake cafes and geraniums in flower but felt Alpine. The museum depicted the simple past life there.  We descended to a waterfall viewed from the side of a canyon. We had beautiful views of the area from a high gun emplacement.  We stayed in a small town called Graskop. The next morning we walking above the Blayde river. The terrain was challenging with heavy undergrowth and many streams to ford.  It felt wet rather than tropical.  We spent time in an old mining village, Pilgirms Rest. This town sprang up during the gold rush days and has now become tourist town.  One can still pan for gold there, we were given a demonstration of gold panning by a grizzled old champion panner. He brought the town’s history to life during a harsh period. Many things were imported from London during the gold boom.

We drove up to God's Window, a viewpoint high above the landscape and one looked out on forest. The view point itself was very damp and overgrown, like walking through the tropical house at Kew Gardens. 

We stopped at the Blyde river canyon. Here two rivers met, a sad one and a happy one. The rivers have worn down a huge canyon with deep crevices and potholes we walked over the deep chasms on bridges. There were many tourists, all white.  

We drove to a vantage point, looking across at the so-called, drie rondavels that look like three African huts. The mountain layers were visible and there was a huge escarpment with a river snaking the bottom of the valley.  It was a beautiful landscape. 

In Kruger Park, we stayed in semi permanent tents and had to be accompanied walking there and back. We saw giraffes and zebra and bushbuck on a late afternoon game drive. We lingered at a vantage point and saw two groups of elephants converging on the river, quite oblivious to each other. A hippo wallowed in the river below them.

I did a gentle early morning walk, looking at different types of shit, elephant and zebra.I examined spiders webs, termite heaps and saw a scorpion with its tail curled up. I enjoyed the fine detail of the walk. I travelled back to Joburg in a minibus with 7 others, a couple of black girls, an English couple and the three white S Africans. I enjoyed seeing the huge mountain escarpments. Our driver was a grizzly South African in his early 70's who had previuosly  driven the Cape to Nairobi route for 16 yrs.

Back In Joburg I visited “The origins museum” with a beautiful exploration of the art of the San people who are nomads living in SA. They were persecuted initially but now their rock art is appreciated. Their lifestyles were well explored. Elands are important and give them supernatural strength for performing trance dances to communicate with spirits. Anthropologists at Witwatersrand University had helped with this work.  Modern San life was depicted with descriptions of genocide, settlement, death and disease. I felt that the museum was there to atone for the way the San people had been treated. I had an excellent lunch in an open air cafe. I then walked down to the Wits Art Museum and spent an hour there looking at an innovative exhibition about black pots created using works from the museums’ collection.  

I then flew back to London because my mother was very unwell in her care home in Wales and they had called me.  She died a few weeks later. So it was the right decision.

I enjoyed seeing the beautiful landscape but I was surprised at how Dutch the rural areas were. I felt the Dutch Calvinist politics were still present in the rural areas. 

Snowdon: a first ascent

A weekend in Snowdonia with my neice Tamsin.

Tamsin and I walked up Snowdon in April, her first ascent of a mountain and my first ascent of Snowdon. We  drove across Wales the previous afternoon and stayed in a fine B&B in a farmhouse  on the edge of the park. 

As we drove up to the start we saw beautiful lakes with morning sunshine reflecting off  them. The car park was manned by volunteers who checked that we had warm clothes and waterproofs. Our ascent starting in sunshine and we admired the landscape and the evidence of old erosion.  The tiny train taking passengers up the mountain ran parallel to our walk. We had coffee at the Half way hut and enjoyed the beauty of the landscape opening up ahead of us. There were some steep sections, then we reached the train station and the numbers of walkers increased hugely. We had a longer haul walking up along the cold north face where snow lingered in the crevices and Tamsin was keen to be photographed on snow. The Snowdon summit (1085m) is at a convergence of 5 different paths up of varying difficulty. We took the Llanberis path.  Being at the top was awesome with beautiful views of the treeless mountain tops, several big lakes, valleys with trees and farmsteads and the sea in the distance.  Tamsin celebrated our summit by doing a breakdance routine twice because I failed to video the first one satisfactorily. Others were drinking champagne and everyone took a selfie. It was fun being part of a large crowd celebrating being at the top. I was surprised that on a cold April day we had to queue to reach the summit. The top was bitterly cold with a wind chill of -4 and flakes of snow swirled around.

 The descent was chilly, the banks of snow beside the railway looked like scene from a Russian novel.  Then it rained and we both became very cold and I just focused on the cup of hot chocolate that would warm me at the Half Way Hut.  The rain then cleared and we had a good descent to the lake at the start of the walk. The walk took 7 hours. I was very disappointed that we could not get a hot drink at the start of the walk.  It was a fine walk. I was surprised by the numbers of people at the top. Tamsin was surprised by the range of weathers that we experienced and this validated the volunteers checking that we were properly equipped before we set out. She had huge energy and on the descent I was plodding away whilst she skipped around.  We drove back to our BB rested briefly, then headed out to Criccieth where we had an excellent supper with fish and leeks.

On Sunday we drove through the park. The trees and rocks are beautiful in the spring light with the green leaves about to come out. Bedgellert is an attractive village when the sun shines with small grey stone cottages and larger hotels for the walkers and a helpful visitors centre where they have 100 visitors per day. We had coffee in Betyscoed a beautiful large village with many stone house that have a very northern feel and we watched a man taking a cautious but reckless dive into the chilly water! At the arts centre a young woman was creating large bubbles from a pair of sticks dipped into detergent, Tamsin played with the toy enjoying the simple pleasure of seeing bubbles form and move in the air. The girl told us that they visit the Calais camp regularly to let the refugees play with the bubbles and have a carefree moment.  We had a long drive back to Abergavenny first through the mountains of North wales, the old slate mines of Blaenau festinnog  are still dramatic rocks. Mid wales comprises a huge area of farms and pleasant but remote countryside and seemed never-ending. We had a v late lunch at the ecology centre and ascended the mountain side there in a water driven pump lift.  I shall return there another time to check out the centre more thoroughly.  I was surprised at how long it took to drive across Wales, the roads are small but empty.

This was great weekend, I enjoyed introducing Tamsin to the mountains and loved the rocks and scenery in Snowdon. 

Good the beauty of the snowdonia park

Bad the chill factor

Surprising the numbers of people at the summit.