The Camargue

Easter and a return to the South of France, it was such an invigorating trip last year we decided to return, not to the Cote D'azur but The Camargue. We did a one day visit last year and that was enough to entice us back to Saintes Maries de la mar.

Our van under the stars.

Managed an early escape on the Good Friday afternoon and got as far as Strathclyde Park campsite, which meant I could once more take part in the Parkrun there. Then off to Cambridge to find the certificated site I had booked there was totally inadequate, we were in danger of getting bogged down and not getting to the ferry next day. The 3 horseshoes inn in Madingley said we could park in the carpark if we bought a meal and that was very good of them, it was nice and quiet there. Next day, Easter Sunday off onto the ferry and over to France, made it as far as Floret de'Orient, an ideal stopping off point, so well positioned we stopped there again on the return.

Planned to stop over for a couple of nights in Arles but a big festival was on and the had built the fun fare right on top of the camping car parking, driving round the city was a nightmare so decided to go on to Saintes Maries instead.

The Colosseum, Arles.

On the way we passed hundreds of cars heading into Arles, no idea where they thought they would get a park. A couple of nights on an aire but then went onto Camping de la Bris for another 5 nights, we were so comfy and layed back, kept putting off moving and exploring further.

Found there was a bus that went into Arles, 1 euro per trip, Arles has lots of great Roman ruins so had a good look around the Colosseum and theatre, was able to collect a few more medals the French government produce for the various landmarks and antiquities.

The auditorium, Arles.

Took a boat trip onto The Camargue, see the Bulls and White horses

Bulls and white horses

Generally I spent my time walking or cycling, even a little running around the area as well as managing to claim a few geocaches.

Stork

The last couple of days in the South were spent at Aigues-Mortes a fantastic place dating back to the Crusades.

We camped at Les Poisson D'Argent, very unusual aire as the price of camping included the right to fish. This was different in itself as it was a salt water lake. Think the restaurant had quite a good reputation as well, but we never partook. Took a walk along the main road into Aigues-Mortes.

Aigues-Mortes

On the way back to Calais called in once more at Floret D'Orient, what a difference 9 days made, trees now in leaf or blossom, and 30c this time around.

Khali enjoying the warmth, blossom and bird song.

Khali fitted in very well, enjoying the warmth as she seem to be a bit of a cold critter, this was her first trip abroad and her longest, she was a little star.


Looking back it seemed to be a very foodie holiday with the cordon bleu meal at the 3 horseshoes, Bull steaks in Sta Maries and ending at Au Côte d’Argent in Calais.

Altandhu and Skye, again.

Cul Mor from Stac Polly

The first two weeks of my summer break was spent on the Coigach peninsula and Skye, The Inverpoly area is stunning an area that warrants more exploration. I was staying at the Port A Bhaigh Campsite, Altandhu, the people who run the site also have the pub across the road and serves some fantastic food, its well onto the peninsula but well worth the drive. The site its self over looks the Summer Isles and is fairly basic but new and clean.
One of the climbs I wanted to do was Stac Pollaidh or Stac Polly for short a small hill with an intimidating looking top, It commands great views of the Inverpoly National Nature reserve, when you can get them, to that end I climbed it twice as the first time it had too much cloud on top.
The whole area is designated a Geopark due to is geology, I had a visit to the Inchnadamph Bone Caves, where bones, teeth and antler from a wide array of animals were found, such as the Northern Lynx, bones of arctic lemming, arctic fox, wolf and brown bear and it is thought a polar bear, as well as human. Once at the caves I managed to see a herd of deer and a Peregrine that was nesting above the caves.
The drive back to the campsite via Lochinver was not uneventful, with a storm over the area with thunder and lightening, so much so that it plunged a wide area into an electrical blackout, this proved a problem as I was in real need of fuel, in the end I had to chance the drive back to camp with the fuel light on, the was fuel close to Altandhu.
Then I moved on for a couple of nights at Poolewe, the the main reason to photograph and geocache at the foot of An Teallach, a great little walk and practise for my next visit and hopefully to tackle the mountain itself.
Skye and back to the Camping and caravan club site a great little site, I was going to go to the one at Glen Brittle for a couple of night but in the end just decided to stay here.
Early on I visited Portree and The Braes, It didn't look that great for being high on the hills, low cloud, so this kept me in the sun, did a few caches.
Finally got to walk on the Quiraing did a great circuit up around the top and returning through it, there is now a burger bar here, the noise of the genny kept with me for a good while, but people have to make a living.

The Fairy Pools.

Looking at the weather I decided that this was an ideal day for the type of images I was hoping to make around the fairy pools, in Glen Brittle. Went along to what I always thought were "The Fairy Pools", I had been before, stopping at a system of small falls and pools then decided to explore further up, it was then I discovered they weren't the actual "Pools", finding the real ones, a much more comprehensive and exciting system. 
On my last day on Skye I decided to have a go at a mountain called Sgurr nan Gilliean, I got up a little too late to really take this on, I worked out I was only about 300 meters from the top, when I gave up, but that was all scrambling and I haven't had a great deal of scrambling experience.  So for future reference, 1, need to get some scrambling done and 2. get up earlier when you plan a walk. I was so knackered the following day I set off home as I couldn't have got very far walking. And try to write this blog up at the end of each day.

Motorhome troubles

A couple of weeks before I was due to break up for the summer the Fiat Ducato overheated and blew the cylinder head. It had been showing signs for a while, I had recently put in a new radiator hoping that would help but no, on a little trip saw the needle go up quite suddenly and she blew. Got it back to the storage and rung around to try to find a garage to take on the job, you would think in a city like Aberdeen, teeming with engineering firms that wouldn't be a problem. I rang a few garages I knew but either they couldn't help or just weren't interested. Finally a firm in Ellon promised me they could do it.
The Ellon garage were rubbish, once they had the van they messed me about something rotten, in the end all they could offer was to import a new engine from Italy, £10,000!. In the end I found a reconditioned engine and a firm to put it in, Essex. They were great and very helpful, but this is it no matter what you want by way of any service in Aberdeen is always so poor and over priced.
On the journey bringing the van home I had a wheel bearing go, to recover the van and replace the bearing, £100. A well known company in Aberdeen charged me £600 for replacing 3 wheel bearings a couple of years ago.
Services tend to be so poor or over priced we have a list but now we have to revisiting the list using firms that were not as bad as the other firms. Anyway that a long (8 weeks) story short.

4 years of Geocaching

Creag a' Choire Dhirich

We celebrated 4 years of geocaching on the 24th of April.

Whilst the rest of the country watched the Royal wedding I went for a 8 mile walk, taking in 3 Munro hills and 7 caches. I say the rest of the country were watching the tele, there were certainly plenty of people on the hills. You couldn't ignore it completely out here because Lochnagar was mostly in view and I drove past Balmoral twice.
We spent a couple of weekends up on the Moray coast, lots of new geocaches up there but a little disappointing as they were mostly micros. One weekend just running around in the Micra, the second in the Motorhome. We used to go to a site at Cullen (see previous blogs) but they have done away with everything but statics. We tried Findochty, nice enough site, we had a bit of a poor spot, I had booked at the last minute and it was full with us.
Just over 8 weeks to go till the big break, plenty to do in the meantime, at least 3 weekends away in the van, just local, dont know where yet except the next will be to Braemar.
Finished this blog with a total of 1,111 geocaches on 8th of May.

Easter Fortnight.

Valley of Rocks.

In an attempt to gain better weather for our Easter break we decided to go South, Devon or Cornwall was on the cards for a possible summer trip but we changed our plans pulling it forward, so off to North Devon. We even managed to squeeze an extra day into our plan and took the opportunity to drop in Morton Hall again on the way down, got in a few local geocaches before retiring to the Stable bar for one of there loverly meals. 

Maybe it will be the last visit here, on reading the booking confirmation email, a little later once booked in, I saw they had wanted to charge £3 for Felix the cat who travels with us, can not understand why as he takes no advantage of any of the facilities on the campsite and bring his own cat litter. 

After sleeping later than intended we set off for Hayfield,a long drive, a sneaky little multi-cache right outside the campsite satisfied us for that day and off to The Sportsman, an inn serving very good food, fine ales and our friend Tom works there. 
North Devon was our next stop for a whole week stopping at 

Umberliegh, weather wasn't the best but not the snow they had back in Scotland. Explored a little of Exmoor, Exeter, along with an interesting area called Valley of Rocks and a village called West Down where someone has laid 105 geocaches along the west down way. Needless to say we didn't attempt to go for them all, but did manage 21 a record for us for one day. 
Heading back up North we called in at Formby nr Liverpool, stopped on a friends drive and visited the beach, there we did an earthcache where we had to find some prehistoric mudflats at low tide, this ephemeral  fossil had the foot prints of ancient people and animals. Final stop off on the way home was Moffat, meeting up with the kids, who were once more staying at St Marys loch. We all went for a walk up the Grey Mares Tail falls to Loch Skeen, once there I decided to leave the group and go on to a high terrain geocache, avoiding yet more snow however the uplands of Scotland are arctic. We also found the cache that we had looked for exactly one year earlier and quite easily, as is often said by all in the geocaching game, sure I'd looked there before.
From now on I must try to write posts for the blog more timely.

Seeing family and friends.

28th July to 6th August.

Saltburn pier and Huntciffe.

A quick trip across to the other side of England to see the family and friends, in the form of people and places we hadn't seen for a while, just in case we were feeling home sick.

On our way to Loftus we had fish and chips on Redcar seafront then on to Saltburn where by a stroke of luck we bumped into my brother. An evening in the pub was followed by a visit to Staithes, nothing had changed much.

On returning to see the grandkids we took them out for the day, a trip in the campervan with ice creams can be a big adventure, especially if a little geocaching in the offing, all that done we decided a visit to Dorman museum may be a good idea, put it into the satnav and off we went. We were a little surprised to see the satnav trying to take us into the River Tees, as we turned a corner we heard here say "And now board the ferry", it was the transporter bridge, something I hadn't ridden since I was about 5 or 6.

Portmeirion

Next day we left for Oswestry, where!, no I'd never heard of it and it was a bit of a "dart in the map" destination. Seemed kind of central for exploring a few places and handy for Derbyshire which was to be our next stop.Oswestry was an interesting little town to walk around and the following day we went off to Portmeirion, North Wales.

The Peak district, Light and Dark, visited Cassington Water, an extremely popular place for a family day out. Dovedale seemed to be popular as well but you could get away from the crowds a little. A walk from Castleton to Hope, that was a very interesting area with its crags and caverns so I must visit again.

Over Hayfield.

Finally Hayfield to see a friend I hadn't seen for a good long while, didn't get a great opportunity to do any big hill walking but I must revisit Tom and do a lot more walking and photography in this area.

Have been to some great places over these hols most I would certainly go back too, the drive back was arduous but very do able.

One thing I learnt on this trip, strong coffee and driving in town doesn't mix.

Oban and The Lakes.

Deer in Glen Etive.

20 th - 27th July.

We set off for almost three weeks on the road, Oban then down to the Lake District, across to Teesside seeing family and friends then down to the Peak district. We started off with a satnav adventure where the Garmin took us down Glen Etive only to find the forrest "track" she intended taking us down was closed, the upside being we saw a Golden eagle and the scene above.

Oban is a quaint little port, fairly busy with tourists even though it rained most of the time, so much so the windscreen wipers packed up, but were sorted by a very helpful garage even when they were snowed under at the time. A few geocaches in town and a visit to a waterfall, An Rhuadh Darach which was only discovered recently.

Off then to the Lake District and Keswick, We have both visited the "Lakes" a few times in the past and did try to go at Easter but left it to late, being all booked up. It is a very busy place and the poor weather (still raining) didn't seem to put the crowds off. Thats the problem with the lakes, too crowded and I think the landscape of Scotland has really spoilt me for this area, pretty as it is.

Castlerigg stone circle.

We visited Castlerigg stone circle, The Bowder stone in Borrowdale and Ambleside tried to find Kurt Schwitters grave in which I had found 8 years ago but couldn't re-find but that was very much a spur of the moment thing.

We did go out for a few ales in Keswick on the Friday night, it was very nice being in a town with none of the usual Friday night ruckus, however we made it an earlyish evening but it did all seem very civilized.

At the time I wasn't that enamored by our visit to the lakes, it could have been the weather or perhaps that whenever we have visited its always this particular area, next time I will go further south.

The back door of "Crow Crag" Cottage.

Talking about a few ales, as we left to take the short drive across to Teesside, we felt there was plenty of time to take in a walk somewhere along the way, so as it had been in the news recently we wondered if we could find Sleddale hall which had been, Withnail's uncle Monty's country cottage in the cult classic "Withnail & I". We found it and found it worthy of a cache placement.

One thing I learnt this trip, you don't get your money back if it rains whilst camping in the Lakes.

Bridges, lichens and some dreams realised.

The Forth Rail Bridge.

Ever since moving up to Aberdeen we have always wanted to stop off at Pettycur Bay campsite to take a closer look at the coastline, but with lots of potential places to visit in the van this little area of Fife (sorry Kingdom of Fife) got pushed down the list till this weekend. It had always looked great, located on the edge of the cliffs overlooking Firth of Forth with views across to Edinburgh. Another place often seen from afar as we crossed either of the Forth bridges and always wanting a visit was North Queensferry,

June 3rd the start of 6 weeks away from work, started a little ominously with a “server outrage” at Geocaching, com not a big drawback as I had most of the area covered by GSAK but I had left some out.

Day 1 was Aberdour and Burntisland, pronounced Burnt Island or Burnis Land depending if you’r posh or not, its definitely not posh, only good if you like all the fun of the fair. Aberdour had the most too offer, lovely part of this coast and a quaint little village. Found 3, DNF 3, bit of a poor show but as someone once said “It’s not about the numbers”.

I have always been taken by the abundance of lichens found in Scotland, not least the bright orange ones found by the sea. Whilst at a beach cache here I came across a small group of professors organising a field trip for 30 lichenologists from the OU. I over heard them discussing the two main types of lichen found, apparently they can be distinguished thus, one is an orangey yellow and the other is yellowy orange.

The following day North Queensferry and Dalgety Bay, too look in awe at the giant marvels of engineering, we had a great time walking around picking up various caches promoting the best viewpoints, also great for watching the world whiz by and chill out, on a hot day. Dalgety Bay functions largely as a dormitory suburb of Edinburgh and seemed a little souless.

Something I learnt this week. The collective noun for a group of professors is a pomposity.

Monifieth and Dundee

Standing stones artworks in Montieth.

Trouble with the van so we had to cut the weekend short. Took in a great bunch of urban caches around Dundee, as well as a bit of shopping. Stayed at Tayview campsite at Monifieth and for once used public transport to get into town, which proved sensible.

Had trouble starting the van the previous day but felt I had solved it but when we got to the campsite it failed to restart, a nice guy helped us out. The next episode was on the way home, stopped off at Crombie country park, stalled it and again it failed to restart, again a nice couple offered us a jump lead start.

Still working on geotagging and finally got GpicSync to work properly, I like it due too its simplicity. Will continue to work with this program and Geosetter.

The main thing is that its now under three weeks to the hollidays and six weeks off traveling.

Back to work.

Back in the compound
Originally uploaded by FoC Friends of Carlotta

Well that's the Easter over with, so sad to see the van back in the compound, but then May bank holiday is only 2 weeks away.
We found our 500th geocache at Cruden bay and it was a first to find, so that was a bonus. Never got a really good hill walk in, thats something to look towards. On the whole a good couple of weeks, weather has now decided to pick up, but isn't that always the case. With the upsurge in the popularity of holidaying in the UK , I think I need to plan further ahead, hoping to go to Cullen for the Mayday long weekend, I can taste those wonderful fish and chips already. until then its back to work.

Introduction

For some reason I felt that this may be a good idea, well we are up for most things.

There is nothing Carlotta and I like better than traveling around in our campervan, (ok its a motorhome but that sounds too pretentious) the cat (Felix) comes with us and we geocache as we go, It is our only vehical so I cycle everywhere else, it keeps me fit and I really enjoy it.
I have set this particular page up so I can nurture our, but particularly my, inner geek and to find ourselves within the wider world, this is us having fun. We love nature and the great outdoors and geocaching shows us some of the most interesting and exciting places.
One of our favorite films is Dead men Dont Wear Plaid, hence the geocaching name, but I love the old film noir anyway. And I dont mind a bit of art.