Signs of my times

I finished painting my boat, and with help from Gordon, got as far as including anti-slip paint on the gunwales; and from Ros, got a start on the decorative painting with experiments on heavy duty anti slip. The sign-writer called in today and in the space of one hour did the name on both sides, and the number on both sides. The results are shown above, and I am really delighted with them.

Four Workspaces and a Boat

For the last two and a half weeks I have been in the new wet dock of the Aylesbury Canal Society, painting my boat. While I knew that this was going to be a large job, I underestimated the scale completely. I have been painting continuously for about seven hours a day for my stay in the dock, and it looks as if it is going to be another week before I am done. The amount of time painting is in addition to preparation time, and little things like sleeping, eating, shopping, and so on. While I have been working I have been making full use of all the facilities (except heating) and these pictures show the four workspaces, and bits of my boat being painted. Above is my tools table, below my consumables cupboard.

Bits of the boat taken off the boat to be painted - hatches and doors.

More bits, plus some the bits taken off the boat to enable me to paint it.

And an interim stage of a portion of my boat.

The Man in Black (Boat)

My  boat went back in the water yesterday. The pictures show the new 'stealthed' version. I can now avoid all the many speed radars on the inland waterways system. At one point in my journey I was looking down the length of a completely black boat; and realised that I was wearing a black hat, anorak, gloves, waterproof trousers, and (mostly) black boots. I have started travelling back to Aylesbury, and have got as far as Long Buckby. While travelling conditions have been fair, I am having to put in some long hours as I reckon the trip will take seven days of about seven hours per day to get back.

Temporary accommodation

Over the last week I have not been able to live on the boat because I am having major work done on it as preparation for external painting. The work to be done constitutes grit blasting the upper hull, and then coating it with an epoxy two part primer, which gives a diamond hard finish, that will give me at least six months to do the actual painting. In addition the boat needs preparing for the work - removing hatches, and external fixtures, protecting the inside of the boat with a double layer of protective material, and ultimately blacking the hull, including the bottom, which is the first time that has been done. While this work is being done, the boat is not habitable, so I have been staying in a hotel in Market Harborough.

This is the first time I have been in Market Harborough, and it is a very pleasant market town of about 25K population. The centre has been traffic calmed in a very subtle and suitable way; the buildings appears largely original - including the inn I am staying at, and one more, that are original coaching inns; and there has been much use of the local creamy yellow stone. The main church in the centre, which has a towered spire, also has timekeeping instruments on the faces of the tower - a clock plus a sundial.

Whilst I have been here I have also picked up my Tai Ji, going back to the class I used to attend, and have had three sessions there. This has proved interesting and given me much pause for thought.

So being in temporary accommodation has had a big upside. Tomorrow, I should be picking the boat up and starting off on the fairly arduous journey back to Aylesbury, before the winter stoppage program kicks in.

The Tames of Northamptonshire

When cruising on the canals I have gone through the stretch from Milton Keynes to Rugby very often, but I have done very little walking in this area. So yesterday I decided to remedy this. I set off for a walk carrying my camera as usual. It proved to be very pleasant but very difficult to capture any landscape images, as the landscape is quite open, and (visually) fairly uniform. The walk, though it was about 10 1/2 miles, was not exactly challenging, nor presented much difficulty in navigation, even on a 1:50000 map, rather than my preferred 1:25000. The shires countryside - Northants, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire - do have quiet attractions, most notably little villages tucked away in folds in the landscape, that have been there for centuries, and which always come as surprising delights. However, it is not comparable for serious walking, to the Heights of the Himalayas, nor even the Wilds of Scotland; but rather it is the Tames of Northamptonshire.

There's no accounting for folks

If I travel any distance on the canal system from my current moorings I have to leave the Aylesbury Arm. At the top of the arm is a two chamber staircase lock. This means, in normal operation, the bottom chamber will be either full, or empty (empty meaning the water level is at the lower, exit level). Also in normal operation, the top chamber will always be either full, or half empty (meaning the water is at the level of the full bottom chamber). This has always been the case every time I have gone through this system.

Until yesterday, that is. I arrived at the bottom of the staircase, and went to ensure it was setup for me to go up. To operate a staircase, the top chamber needs to be full, and the bottom empty. I was gobsmacked to find that the bottom chamber was empty, but so was the top one. It was not just half empty, but had a water level equal to the lower level of the lower chamber. This does beg the question "How on earth did anyone manage to get the lock into this state?"

Then today, I went for a stroll round the junction, crossing each of the arms of the junction. When I arrived at the staircase, a boat was trying to go down it. The operator had never done a staircase lock before, and was finding it very difficult to understand. Looking at the lock, I could understand his confusion. The top lock was full (in a normal fashion), but the bottom chamber was also half full. In this position it was impossible to operate it without first restoring it to a normal state. Again the same question - how had it been got into this state?

So fundamental questions of physics - how are people managing to coerce a mechanical system, designed to manage water over a gradient, and lift boats through a distance of (estimated) 4 metres, to end in a state that is extremely difficult to understand. (I can come up with a plausible scenario to explain the first of these examples, but not the second).

My brain hurts.

The Chilterns

Radio controlled glider over  Beacon Hill, Ivinghoe

Some time ago a friend asked me why I travel so far when I have the Chilterns on my doorstep. Well, after today, and a three hour walk in the Chilterns, I can now answer this question.

While the Chilterns are close, it still takes over half an hours driving to get there. as the road network is basically old estate roads, which don't deal with today's volumes of traffic well. I originally tried to do this walk on Saturday - big mistake. It's August; very good weather; school holidays; a weekend, and, because of the driving, getting to the start point at 10:30 meant that the all the car parks were full; there were hundreds of people about, and I just turned round and came back. Today, while still August, good weather, and school holidays, there were only half a dozen cars in the car park. The first section of my walk was comparatively deserted, with only a couple of people on it.

However, the entire walk was in a landscape that has been changed, managed, maintained, and manicured by humans for over 6000 years, and can hardly be called a natural landscape now. The entire walk was on well way marked paths; all the paths are clear, and well maintained, even to the extend of steps down on slopes. However, while there are hills in the area, including the one from which the photo was taken, they are not very steep - I reckon I climbed about 240 metres in all. So all in all, pretty easy walking; pretty easy navigation; and (especially on Beacon Hill) scores of people out on the route. Most of the walking was on chalk, which while not as hard on the feet as granite, it is still a lot tougher than peat. So pleasant enough but not what I would call proper walking.

What is this?

Any idea what this is?

I saw this on one of my walks in the area round Marsden. I have no idea what it was, and it is difficult to be sure of its size. If I had to guess, I'd say it was about four feet across and on a pole, going down into an unseen dip, about six to ten feet high.

When I did the Kintyre Way with Ani Sherab and Phen it was extremely enjoyable, but it was not what I had originally planned to do. My original idea had been to do the walk solo, and use it in part to assess my current level of walking, navigation, and other skills needed for hill walking. So I decided to go off to the Peak District for a couple of days, to do these odds and ends.

Some of the lessons I have learned, from both this couple of days, and the Kintyre Way.

I'm not as young as I used to be.

I'm not as fit as I used to be.

I'm not as fast as I used to be.

My navigation skills need a little bit of refreshing - I managed to make one minor mistake in my navigation, which was perfectly OK in the situation, but in different circumstances could have been significant.

Going up hill is hard work - doubly so in direct sunshine all day, on the hottest day of my year so far.

My own stamina and speed is the limiting factor on my walking - as it is for boating. A walk of 21.5km and 770m climbing was beyond me since it would have taken me more than 8 1/2 hours - and I wasn't prepared to do that, so terminated it at a point where I had some choices as to where I went. By contrast on the following day a walk of 15.5km and 425m rise was a doddle.
I should do only one thing at a time. If I am primarily walking, take the minimum photographic gear possible, and store the camera away except when I stop deliberately to take photos; contrariwise, if I am primarily taking photos, then I should walk the minimum necessary to get to where I am taking photos; should have my gear packed away until I am on site; and should have the minimum amount of gear necessary for whatever photo opportunity I am exploiting.

There are some hugely attractive locations in this country, and it is a long time since I walked to enjoy them.

Marsden garden

Midsummer Day's Eve

We walked down from the B&B to Southend, and then the tiny bit of the Kintyre Way from the road at Southend to the small headland where the Way actually finishes. A few pictures and Ani Sherab and I went to wait for the bus to Campbeltown, while Phen decided to walk back to the town, to meet up with Maryna, and not to come on the rib ride we have organised.

When we got to the information bureau in town, we learnt that the proposed trip had proved popular, with eleven people booked up for it, so I did not have to cough up the guarantee I had offered. Off we went, out of the harbour, past Sanda, towards the Mull of Kintyre, though not into the race there, which did look very fierce. Then back, via the seal shores, to Sanda and round it, with all its birdlife - puffins, kittiwakes, guillemots, gulls, terns, and more. I did manage to grab some photos - here - while travelling in a lumpy rib at speed. 

Then it was back to the harbour, to meet up with Phen who arrived in town about 1/2 hour after the end of the trip. We met up with Maryna, revisited the Indian restaurant, and returned to the B&B. Then off to bed to get up in time to be walking down to the harbour by 06:30 to catch the only ferry in the week that stops at Arran from Campbeltown. The others got of at Arran, in order to travel onto a party and/or Holy Island, while I carried on to Ardrossan, in order to drive down to a motel in Carlisle, before completing the journey.

A fabulous 11 days or so. My interest in walking has been reawakened in a major way.

The Sound of Sanda

Walkers and wimps

Ireland beyond a Kintyre Way waymarker

Between the three of us, we seem to have two pairs of problematic feet, and one duff hand, plus one pair of legs just getting into gear. Just before negotiating the pipeline on Tuesday, a horse fly (my least favourite type of sentient being) stung the back of my hand. This morning it is not in very good condition, and had been getting worse up to last night, since it happened. Neither Ani Sherab nor I feel capable of doing the section described in the route from Machinhanish to Southend. This is the longest and toughest section of the route, and the route notes suggest that it will take 8 to 10 hours. As we have already been walking at a pace that adds about 30% to the estimated times, and at best we would be walking even slower than this; it does not seem feasible. Add in the fact that on this section it looks as if one either does this section or does something else - there are no options to shortcut the route as there were on other sections - and that Phen was raring to do this final section - we decided to do different things today.

Phen started off walking to do the final section down to Southend. Meanwhile the "we're wimps and proud of it" section caught a bus back to Campbeltown to visit the tourist information office we had seen at the end of the quays there. This was intended to find out information about walks on the Mull of Kintyre, and whether there were alternatives we might investigate; it was also intended to find out about medical services for my hand. By this time it was starting to improve so I did not think it necessary to even find out information about services, but I was overruled by stubbornness even greater than my own. What we did find out was that it was possible to take a rib ride that would enable us to fulfill some of the objectives of the various walks on the Mull of Kintyre - to see the iconic lighthouse, and to see Ireland. This was not a run that the rib normally does, so I had to guarantee that I would pay for up to four places on the boat if it proved not to be attractive to other tourists. We booked this up for tomorrow, got a map of the town, with medical facilities marked on it, and then checked out the ferry terminal and the aquadome/library before making our way to the bus down to Southend.

We arrived at Southend which contained (we thought) the final marker for the Kintyre Way. Later investigation showed that in fact it continued for about 1/4 mile on to a little headland. What it also gave was a marvelous view of Northern Island - only about 10-20 miles away at this point. We walked gently northwards up the last two or three miles of the Kintyre Way to the accommodation we had booked. Phen turned up triumphant about 1/2 hour later. The B&B did not provide an evening meal, but were happy to run us back to Southend to the only pub; and instruct us to request a lift back from the pubs landlord when we wished to return. We duly did this so getting a decent evening meal without additional walking.

Southend