‘Nyika’ The Source of Springs

Click on me for more photos

As evidenced by the title, Nyika (neeka) national park means the source of springs. Probably because it is one of the highest point in Malawi, the highest point being on Nganda mountain which apparently lies at 8552ft above sea level which is rather spectacular. The plateau is in itself a remarkable place driving along bumpy potholed tracks you see an ever changing landscape of rolling hills and grasslands not too dissimilar from the Yorkshire moors at first glance. On second glance eland, bush buck (or Nyika impala) are seen, pine forests appear and rock outcrops pop out. One hill gives way to another until as far as the high eye can see are ranges that disappear north east and south into the park and west into Zambia, the park being on the border of Malawi and Zambia. Eruptions of small birds burst out of the grasses as our Izuzu blunders past and resettle again before we have a chance to see anything apart from a brown rump. I believe birds have a sixth sense for these things, evolution seems to have given them the ability to know when a camera is pointed their way. For the bird lovers a few we have seen both are; Denham’s Bustard, Francolin, Spotted Eagle Owl, Common Quail and an Ogre Buzzard. We also saw an unnamed black eagle and some sort of falcon in the morning. Other wildlife we spotted include; eland, roan antelope, bush buck, zebra, warthog (who are also very adept at running away from the camera), hares. And finally the jewel in the crown, during the night drive a pair of red reflective eyes amongst the long grass revealed a serval cat, an absolute joy to see. I have only ever seen them on television and to see one sat their yawning in the grass ready to start its night time hunting I was certainly chuffed.

We have been able to see a variety of areas on our drives through the park, setting off early we headed for Chisanga Falls this led us to some rough track and down into forested valleys which probably hid the few elephants that are around this time of year. This area had a hidden gem feel to it and it did reveal some wonderful views as well as a temptation to continue along the road to one of the most northerly of Malawi, Chitipa. We have also done one of the small northerly loops (still about 20km long) and we were immediately graced by more spectacular views, even more so that we had seen already. The area had such character, the blossom of colour and flora in the valley bottoms created mini oasis’ in the folds of the hills and surrounding the springs. A very familiar plant also lurks around which is a pest here, fern! Here thanks to the peculiar grey colour, it takes on a beautiful quality as its spattered around the contours of the hills making the landscape seem like an old man’s unshaven beard.

By this point I had taken over the reins of the car and was lead navigator of the tracks, bumps and grooves with success and even traversed my first rickety bridge, I was thoroughly enjoying myself bouncing along in charge of a huge 4x4 absorbing all the views (of which I will not stop going on about, it is amazing!). We headed round our loop and were rumbling toward our temporary home in the pine trees. Pine trees may seem an odd thing to find in an African national park however they were brought over by of the British (along with the fern) and are grown and cut down in certain areas of the park.

On the afternoon/evening drive we saw much of what we’d already seen but in slightly greater numbers and we were able to put names to the game which we had currently only been able to call antelope or deer thingy ma bobs. We parked up on a rocky outcrop to fully enjoy the sun set with biscuit and tea in hands, it did not disappoint. There peeking through the cloud was the unmistakeable African red sun, I think it is so red because of the dust here which gets everywhere!

Setting off again it was on to the spotlight and scanning the surrounding for any eyes reflecting the light, we saw more zebra and bush buck there was also a Denham bustard we scared away and a spotted eagle owl which was rather cool, a good moment but the great moment as I’ve said was the serval cat sitting posing for us. An absolutely stunning creature, we could see the spots and stripes and the big radar ears which blended it perfectly into the grass as well as equipping it for night time hunting. We didn’t see much more of note on the way back but I did stand up to poke my head out of the sun roof and properly admire the heavens laid out above us and the crescent moon casting its eerie unnatural light, spec-tac-u-lar!!!!!

The ultimate serenity of this place is brilliant and I want to come back in the rainy season when it is transformed into a rainbow of colours and lushness and the elephants come back up. The comfort and luxury of the lodge makes it an ideal holiday spot, even the campsite is in a great little spot if you do it on the cheap. The only challenge is to get your 4x4 up and down the dodgy track and from there it's plain sailing!

A Flavour of Malawi

So for you curious bunnies I thought I would try to give an essence of what it is like over here in the world of the Rift Valley. Well for starters, the geography of Malawi, it is a rather small eastern African country nestled quite snugly between Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania (little fact they pronounce Tanzania Tan-zay-nia) and is mostly dominated by the natural beauty which is Lake Malawi  or Lake Nyasa to locals. Lake Malawi is the worlds 9th largest lake and Africa's 3rd largest. It is also renowned for it's vast array of Cichlids, cute little colourful fish which occur in a greater variety of species here than anywhere else in the world. So it already sounds pretty great right?

Another fact I like about Malawi is that where we're situated in Mzuzu, is 4183 feet above sea level (around the height of Ben Nevis :O ) whereas the lake lies around 1500 feet. SO when we go for trips down to the shore we have a lot of downhill to cover!

Other than the bare facts about the place which already make it a naturally and ecologically varied place, is the incredible human element to the country. I have found that many Malawians speak English which makes travelling around and buying things relatively easy, they love to laugh and most definitely quick to get a good bargain for things. The general backward ways of Africa are of course present along with some amusing characteristics such as never appearing to fix cars so if you're daring enough to drive at night (and barely any cars have fully functioning headlights) the way to be seen is to put your indicator on so oncoming traffic can see you, mad right! The overladen lorries also make me chuckle trucks filled with god knows what piled high with people perched on top crawling its way up the hill and taking up the entire narrow roads blowing smoke and making a racket. Bumpy dirt roads, waving children, clay brick houses and fishermen in dug outs all go a small way to give picture of what it is like here.

What I like most is the incredible diversity of this place, the lushness of the lakeside with the easy supply of water and fish, the extensive forests and the rolling hills, the high plateaus and low valley bottoms, the beautiful lodges and traditional food. It is a place of many differences there are rich and poor areas, the rich live in brick house with tin roofs with walls surrounding and the poor live in small brick huts in little road side villages selling things like bananas, reed fencing and charcoal. You can buy so much here (last time I was here I was convinced I put on weight we got through so much food), people even come to the window if you're sitting in the car and offer you bananas, tomatoes, carrots anything.

So far we have been to places like Vwaza and Liwonde parks (oh the elephants!!!) Salima, Karonga, Nkhata Bay (this is where to get touristy items such as carved elephant, necklaces, figurines etc), Chinteche and Lilongwe but there are still many more places to go and so much I could say about this small but characteristic place. So many many more things to see about the weird, wonderful and downright barmy things that make up Malawi, but the only way to truly know what I am on about is to come here for yourselves.

Keep a look out for a bit more as we are going to Nyika next week a national park set high up on a plateau and is well known for birds (as is most of Malawi) grazing animals and the flora.


I highly recommend Malawi and it has made me eager to see the rest of Africa and learn their characters and taste their flavours now that this Msungu (foreigner, white person) knows her way around this little part of the continent, the rest becomes ever more enticing.

Click on this picture to see a selection of photographs from Malawi to see just how beautiful it is here

I KEYED YOU... I KEYED YOU NOT

The above title is an example of the wonderful humour I must endure from my other half, Mike. Although you kind of had to be there to find it funny. Be where you ask? In France of course what else does a girl do with a week of paid holiday, so to the Ardeche I went and I am bitterly regretting stepping on that plane to leave.

 

Mike and I have had an amazing week with our usual adventurous and slightly mad exploits from walking down pitch black caves in a gorge to swimming the rivers and jumping from strange little holes worn through the rock to plunge into the water below. I’ll confess I regretted that too because our ears were painful all night!

So it was to Nimes first after my rather interesting and extended journey to the land of the frogs and I swear I had landed in Rome; we visited a colosseum, a temple and gardens teeming with statues, pools and canals. The sun gloriously beat down all day and we had a jolly old framing the rock. It was a like a rock jungle for climbers! Then we had a journey down the gorge road ogling the sights from the viewpoints, before retiring to bed for a long sleep definitely for me and hopefully to wake up with repaired ears.

time. Back to the Segries PGL centre and I was introduced to many of Mike’s staff friends most of which referred to me as Mrs Hood which is quite unsettling but still a little amusing. The little liar that he was had booked us into one of the chalets for a week instead of bumming around in hammocks like I thought so we set up our little fort for the week and went off down to a mysterious place called Pont d’ Arc. And at first glance it was truly magical, an enormous natural arch framing the river beneath and on closer inspection from the water we found little holes we could jump from and a sort of chasm you could swim into that quite reminded me of a natural cathedral. Mike then took me up river hopping barefoot across the rocks to show me another of his treasures, (the name eludes me), but just up the river was a great little climbing venue with huge stalagtites and tufas (that's what Mike called them anyway).

Mike took me to the Cascades the next day, he said there were lots of crazy underwater tunnels, waterfalls and rock jumps and there most definitely were! We went for a swim, explored the tunnels although I didn’t go through a few of them as you had to dive down into a hole swim along and pop up somewhere else which didn’t fill me with confidence but it was quite funny watching Mike disappear and pop up a few metres away. Our tunnel exploration was put on hold however when I spotted a little scorpion on a wall so we swiftly escaped and clambered around some more before chilling out on the rocks

Not liking my accessorising 

Wednesday brought a new adventure, this time Cirque De Gens, the upper part of the Ardeche which has created an amazing horse shoe shaped gorge with some good climbing. We walked the circuit through the gorge and out and around Ruoms, we found a cave as well which of course we had a wander into. It was so cool, sitting next to the river I felt like we were in another world, it didn’t seem like France it was like an undiscovered land that we had to ourselves as all we could hear was the birds, the water and all we could see was trees, rock and ourselves. Once back at the car we had lunch and walked up to the climbing spot and we did a few routes which were pretty cool. When we got, well I got tired we headed back and planned the next day. 

We debated what to do with my last day and the obvious answer was paddle the river, do what people actually come to the area to do. So we grabbed some boats in the morning and pushed off in the flow. Now I haven’t paddled in forever! So it was definitely strange being in a boat again especially going down rapids solo which I have not done much of so Mike and his friends who we bumped into later must have had a good little chuckle at me squealing my way down a river they do every day, oh well. Mike played around in the rapids while I snapped piccies then we carried on through Pont d’ Arc to the rock jump they do with the kids. Then it was another short stretch to the get out where it was the start of our trudge back up the river (with a short stop off in a restaurant sharing a HUGE slab of beef) to the car. What do you need straight after a paddle? A climb! How right you are. So off we went to Salavas to do some climbing. Although to me the walk up to the place was steep enough to be a climb itself phew! I doubted the route Mike put me in front of at first, it looked a little blank for the 4 he was telling me it was however upon watching him go up and clambering up myself it had so many hidden jugs and brilliant handholds that were near invisible from below but from above it was like Leerdammer cheese. We did another few and I let Mike try a few harder ones I wasn’t bother about following him up before heading off to Vallon to see if the river photographers had captured us at Peaches B where they take tourists’ pictures (and also to eat pizza mmmmm). They hadn’t got us or we couldn’t find them but oh well so we went to the restaurant before heading back to the quiet little car park at Salavas to spend the night. Mike hadn’t booked us the chalet the last night thinking we could do something cool so we had a little camp out and watched the sky grow dark. Well we actually watched Bolt but that isn't very romantic!

Not much to tell of the journey home other than multiple naps, many loud children and heaves of people in London before alas back at Newland I found myself, longing to be back in France. I never thought I’d say that but I suppose when your heart is not with you but off somewhere else you will always desire to follow it.  

One week full of relief and relaxation

So with a determination to celebrate finishing all of our assignments and getting the hell out of Preston Izzy and I have jetted off to Tenerife for a week to soak in some sun and have a well-earned rest before the summer work season kicks off.

Sooooo, to start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start; we got trains from Izzy’s to Gatwick airport, excitement increasing especially as those jet engines revved and blasted us into the air!!! On landing we were greeted by a warm night and a dubious set of faces as we headed into the arrivals bit, we soon found our hostel pick up and we were off to Los Amigos Backpackers Hostel; go there it’s great. Acquisition of the free ear plugs was a definite though as in the silence of writing my journal I heard it, snoring.

Our adventure properly started! Me being me I got up early to be ready for the day and what an interesting one it was, we ended up with a Brummy who gave us a lift into the big city along the coast after saying he would take us to see the turtles we ended up jet skiing, oh well.

Oh yeah how cool are we, Paul the Brummy ended up on the back of my jet ski so I swiftly swapped to go behind Izzy as he get said I should stand up to go faster but I already felt like falling off so my bum was staying firmly planted on the seat. After getting left behind for being a granny driver I swapped to sit behind Izzy and actually enjoyed flying up over the waves and getting spray in our faces. We then went to a restaurant and had the first pint of the holiday and after Paul showed us a cool little cove we had a swim in before going back to the hostel.

Next day menu looked like this; a hike, sun, sea, spit roasting and sandcastles. We headed along the coast towards La Tejita heading for Montana Roja (Red Mountain) which was a volcanic lump sticking up from the coastline. Which has some great views, we didn’t realise just how mountainous the central part of the island was and it looked absolutely fabulous from the top. At the top the water at the bottom looked glorious so we contemplated jumping off which amused some tourists nearby, so suicide missions aside we meandered back down when Calamity Cora struck! I slipped and grazed my shin, it’s so shallow but actually looks really gross. We walked to bottom where El Medano sat which is infamous for kite surfing so of course when we were there the wind was not very strong so alas no kite surfers.

Then it was onto the beach to spit roast ourselves as we have dubbed the common activity known as ‘sun bathing’. We swam, made sandcastles with two others we bumped into from the hostel, had a wander around and got a lift back with them.

Another random day to come

It struck me the night before what odd places hostels are; I found myself between a Frenchie and an Italian while watching a Latvian and Hungarian laugh and joke in English whilst also trying to teach each other their own language. So odd.

Back to the day, it was a trip to the capital city in which we explored most of the day, thankfully it wasn’t very sunny as we had a few burnt bits from the day before, anyway the city was quite beautiful especially all the little plazas and gardens we found. On top of this, looking at it from the coast it spread out up the hillsides nearby creating a hilly sprawling metropolis of Spanish houses and buildings. And of course there was an ice cream slotted in there too, mmmmmm.

The jewel of the week happened on day 5 oh yes it was amazing. So Jordie a Brit at the hostel found a guy in English bar who was selling tickets for his boat The Must Cat a huge catamaran. So we managed to get ourselves booked onto a 4 ½ hour boat trip to go whale and dolphin watching!! Snorkelling with turtles, lunch and a free bar was also thrown in whuhooooo!!!

So we were picked up and taken to Las Galletas to meet the boat and off we went. Due to the unusual wind, we couldn’t get up to the spot where the turtles were as it was very strong and we were heading straight into it however we searched and searched and found some short fin Pilot whales which were apparently sleeping. They were amazing creatures, they were right next to the boat and we could see them under the water, even the baby they had with them who playfully (we hoped) slapped his tale on the water which drew some laughs from the boat. One of the crew likened him to a little kitten when I asked whether it was an aggressive action. I could have watched them all day with a big smile on my face but after a while we left them in peace. We saw another pod further on, which were much harder to keep track of as they were awake, the dolphins also proved elusive. They popped up every now and then I saw one right next to the boat but they kept disappearing the little tikes. We left them behind and they served lunch, so we ate and drank, I mentioned the free bar right?

We then went for a little snorkel just off a beach, it was a lot deeper than I thought it would be. One of the crew said there are very deep waters around the islands, one of the world’s deepest trenches I think he said which is why some of the whales stay all year around as there giant squid down in the depths which is what the Pilot whales ate. Apparently the males dive down for them and bring them up the surface where the squid turn into jelly which the whales eats, sounds edible right.

Anyway after snorkelling we were on the hunt again for whales, we were actually followed by another larger cruise boat and we must have been getting similar reports in as we went in the same direction searching for the whales. We went chasing after some blasts of water that were the unmistakeable sign of a large whale; at one point we were next to the cruise boat racing each other, the crew told us to get our oars out and paddle as their boat was much bigger!

We continually scanned the surface as we would see signs and go towards it only to have to go in a different direction the crew said they can stay underwater for more than 20 minutes so it was hard to find them. However our patience was rewarded when we saw the grey back and little dorsal fin of a Brides whale!!!! We were informed that there are only 90’000 left in the wild so it was a really great find. After this delight the whale disappeared again and it was time for us to go home too.

As a great end to our awesome day we went to Los Abrigos and went to a nice restaurant to eat fish freshly caught from the sea. It is literally so fresh that you’re sitting next to the harbour in the restaurant and you can see their boat moored in the harbour. Izzy and I went for a mixed fish grill which was huge there were about 3 or 4 whole fish on it and we did not manage to eat it all. Good fish good wine and good company ended a great day. We even got free shots of Limoncello which went down a treat, the waitress saw us sip them and said no no no, got us some more and had us down it in one!! It was good Limoncello, yummy.

Our last day L

What a day to end on! We were determined to get to El Puertito to where you can see the turtles, so we got a roundabout lift to Los Cristianos and then a bus to Playa Paraiso. We then wondered around as Paul’s directions to the beach was pretty vague so after asking a few people we finally found someone who knew what we were talking about and after walking through a gypsy camp and a nice little walk we saw the cutest little cove!!! It was full of swimmers and divers so we trotted down and walked along the rocks to set up our base camp. After sun creaming up it was time for the much anticipate dip. And we were well rewarded well not with turtles but the water was clean clear and fresh and there were some really pretty fish of several different varieties.

After a long snorkel around we got out and sunned ourselves before having a little dawdle around the tiny village which struck Izzy as Grecian in style. After some more swimming and sunbathing we headed back up for the bus. Then after food, a shower and a bag repack we headed off to the airport for 12 hours worth of travelling back to the UK.

 I will update this with piccies but I can't be bothered right now, shoot me for being lazy.

The Dynamic Duo 'rock' it again

Not always want you want to see at the bottom of a climb 

We were soaring with the Peregrine Falcons yesterday down in the Avon Gorge, watching them play fighting or something in the air while Mike was perched on a route and I may or may not have been focusing on the birds rather than the fact I was belaying whoops good thing it was only a VDiff!

So we set off early as if you've ever watched Mike climb he is slow so a whole day is needed! I love you really, I'm just glad you don't fall off I think I would crap my pants if he did. Well I turned out to be the super slow one after getting stuck on almost every tricky bit of the two difficult climbs we did, I'm not too proud that I can't admit that yes I cried and was lowered off the HVS after I couldn't reach the awesome handhold round an overhang.

So less waffling, what did we do!! An early start got us to the gorge at 8am-ish, we parked up and Mike sure wasn't kidding when he said it was right next to the road with no walk in as we were plagued with traffic noise all day. We dawdled down the road in search of the Main Wall where Mike's main desire (other than me ;) ) lay waiting- Malbogies at HVS. So having followed him up an E1 before I consented and he led on up and standing at the bottom watching his careful movements definitely made me a little apprehensive. However apparently the first pitch is the most difficult so I just had to get up that and we would be fine. Mike set up and I crept up after, now when I say crept I mean, whined, groaned in frustration and heaved my way up. It

definitely was tricky! I'd say I'm a pretty fussy climber I like big hand holds and as little overhanging stuff as possible which of course was not what I got on this climb. However I hung on in there and finally got to Mike after some ungracefulness and huffing and puffing. Now comes the funny part, we swapped over and Mike went off again and got to my nemesis a little overhang that had a great hold just over and up which made it easy to conquer, so he bossed it up that and disappeared up the face. After some the rope was all pulled in and some insistent tugs I figured he was safe so I unclipped his belay and followed him.... well about 5 metres to the overhang where I miserably failed at reaching the jug hold. I swear to god Mike has gorilla arms in comparison to his body and I have stubby ones! I found myself at a loss to find anything else I could reach to get me up, so followed a few minutes of screeching up to Mike that I couldn't reach. I then heard in a lull of the traffic "lower you down" and I started going down. Which was pretty wretched I hate it when I can't do things!!!
On getting to almost the bottom (there's a bit of a scramble up to the main base of the cliff) I freaked Mike out by untying as he was going to reshuffle things and give me more rope but I wanted off that stupid thing I gave up on and marched myself off to the bottom in shame. Mike abseiled down collecting his gear before we walked to the top to collect the rope and admire the view. One silver lining was seeing a peregrine falcon (which were nesting on the face next to us, causing some restrictions on climbing) as I was sulking at the bottom.

Mike however really enjoyed the climb and of course anyone who knows his obsessive nature trotted off to do an easy one, mainly to cheer me up I think, but hey I didn't mind! So it was off to the
Morning Slab and Evening Wall section to do the Arete- VDiff which linked onto Bob's Climb VDiff connected by the very aptly named Lunchtime Ledge. The Arete was a really nice little climb and easy so of course fickle me liked it, we had some biscuits sitting on lunchtime ledge in the sunshine before sidling over to start Bob's Climb. Mike headed out over the slopy ramp and got up a little step and then basically headed right and up a steep little bit to the top. I followed and all was good, definitely a theme for all the routes we did was the annoying amount of polish on the rocks. It definitely is unnerving when you're balancing on your feet and you shoes slips a little, it does not give feelings of complete security in the rock.

I got up the top flopping myself over like a beached whale across Mike's lap as he always likes to sit on the ledge and watch over me but makes things awkward when I tried to top out, so I plopped myself down on the cliff top amid a few bird watchers with enormous cameras!! Obviously watching out for the peregrines which we had seen at the bottom fly up to it's nest and fly around again. The ironic thing was, we seemed to see them as we were climbing but they never appeared when we saw the birdwatchers, devious birds.

So back down we went via the descent route and back along the road probably looking like goons to most people kitted out with helmets, jingly metal things at our waists and harnesses walking along the road. Then I was led onto another classic of the wall Piton Route VS. This route was definitely made harder because of the polish I actually bypassed the crux section by going left and up that way quite deftly if I do say so, then I went on and cheated a little pulling myself up with the rope to get over a lip due to a loss of hand holds that I felt comfortable with, my crimping and pinching skills are most definitely not on par with Mike's. But afraid 'll make his head grow too big I won't praise him too much!
The next pitch was a shorty and Mike whipped up it and I came scrambling after. It was the last I really enjoyed, on seeing Mike go slowly up a steep section at the very beginning (I think mainly due to a lack of protection around it) when it was my turn, I thought I would struggle but surprisingly got up without much fuss. I do surprise myself sometimes, I made Mike laugh by whooping up to him and doing a little dance singing I got over it (he was peering over the edge watching my progress). After that I quite liked it, probably because of the three pitches it has the easiest technical grade at 4b but even so I really enjoyed it.

At the top we discussed whether to do another as it was only half 3ish but then thunder struck, literally it started thundering and weird hail stones starting hammering down. Squishy ones like polystyrene balls but still fell with some force which made me laugh when I saw the bowed head and wincing face of Mike helmetless while they bounced off my beautiful green helmeted head mwahaha

The joke was on me though after I took quite a slip and slides walking down the steep descent path, gripless rubber shoes, hailstones and wet ground make for an entertaining walk. Safely at the bottom we headed back to our damp stuff and packed up. Climbing on wet rock wasn't very desirable for lazy me so we headed back, only to look back at the drying out but I hustled Mike into the car and we drove back. Which was great actually because we turned up in time for dinner and had a good night's sleep, waking up to some brambly scratches and sore muscles or at least on my part, Mike is a climbing machine and is hard as nails. Except when tickled then he's a useless pile of squirming mush, told you I couldn't compliment you too much ;)

We rock ugly faces

Mother Duck's Final Bow Out

Well it's been a while since I got out and did anything adventurous or even remotely interesting, it has mostly been work and university assignments however I made sure that I was out this weekend on the Uclan Mountaineering Club's trip to Wales. For the most part because it is the last one I am able to go on due to my imminent departure from university life and entrance into the real world. Which for me means a few months working with kids on a centre doing some really fun, awesome activities before graduating and spending a month in Malawi so overall not a bad introduction to adult life!

Anyways back to the trip, we were camping this week in the Ogwen Valley with the hopes of conquering things like Tryfan and Little Tryfan however the forecast wasn't quite on our side so we had a soggy first night on the Friday, cooking in the minibus and playing cards until we all escaped to our tents. Never fear the morning brought promise of sun for the day. I got out of my tent and into the fresh morning air to find the sun peaking it's way over the hills shedding light on the fine dusting of snow that had fallen in the night along the tops of the mountains. It reminded me of when you have a cake in the oven too hot and it comes out with the big peak in the middle so you sprinkle icing sugar on it to make it look better, is that giving you a clear enough picture. For clarity there were big brown mountains covered in snow.

We drove off to meet Bear at Tremadog as prearranged and seemed to leave the nice weather behind as it got very wet the nearer we got, even sleeting. So a new plan was hatched, we waited until noon for it to blow over and headed to a little fast drying crag nearish Tremadog next to the coast. Thats the best description you're going to get as I didn't catch the name or even actually remember it, sorry!

So a few routes were set up and the group got their first taste of Welsh rock for the weekend, the weather was fantastic it had completely cleared up and we were basking in the sunshine overlooking the gorgeous coastline. Overall pretty idyllic. So that was our first days climbing some pretty nice routes, nice people and nice weather. Back at the campsite it was dinner time!!!

Afterwards we went on a little jaunt up to little Tryfan which for anyone unaware it is basically a huge rocky mound next to Tryfan one of the most awesome looking mountain in Wales. We all wandered up and soaked up the dusk view before back down with the sun and into our chilly tents for the last night. When I say chilly I mean chilly, in the morning the tents were covered in a thin layer of ice!

Up and at em we were and quite proud I was of everyone's efficiency save a few unnamed individuals but we split from camp really early and even beat Bear to the layby. I remember the name of the place we went to on Sunday and it was... was erm.... Moel Hebog!! A pretty extensive crag in the same area as the Saturday and the weather once again pulled out the stops and gave us a great day. There were some cracking routes set up and we split into little teams to try them all. My cohort blasted through them and we even discovered a crows nest right on the route of the tricky climb which we promptly took down again after getting cawed at by the parents for being around. We started scrambling back through the bracken and brambles and I was collared to second Ben so we went and did a Severe which ended up being quite interesting. Then it was onto de-rigging the set ups and ambling back down the crag to the minibus to start the long sucky drive back north which involved lots of snacking, singing and feeding the driver like a baby bird.

       

It was nice to be on a club trip again and helping people experience the outdoors in a positive social way, it was also nice to have a co-pilot in coordinating the masses, go Cora and Ben! However as I've said it the last club trip I'll be on but I will keep going on adventures and causing havoc in some part of the world, keep your fingers crossed for the Malawi posts they will be good. The blonde takes Africa by storm! And with the promise of further future ramblings I bid thee adieu!

Searching for why

So this weekend I was once again out with Uclan Mountaineering doing my mother duck bit making sure everyone had a good weekend. We have been out in Scotland this time gallivanting in the snow up Ben Nevis rocking it up Number 4 Gully; but what has really made me think this weekend on pondering to myself "why am I putting myself through this?!" why do I actually climb mountains?
I mean because sometimes I truly hate it, my mind struggles to push through the physical demands and comprehend the mental weight of knowing there are sustained hours of it. You must be lying, deluded or simply insane if you don't think at least once in some small measure you've felt similar.

Now a thought occurred whilst scrolling down Facebook out of shear habit while taking absolutely no interest in it that what I crave is a wholeness of self.

I go up into the mountains to feel the simple wholehearted delight of challenging oneself and winning, I ache to free myself and escape from the loneliness of a long-distance relationship, the pressure of 3rd year, the stress of strained house-mate relations and the ultimate horror of leaving the relative comfort of university life. These weights float away in the crisp air leaving barely a ripple on my mind. In hillwalking I become the ultimate escape artist, I escape myself or at least the messy complicated me of real life so all that is left is one governed by the wind cutting through her coat and the melodic rhythm of boots across the rock.

I might slog up like a snail, panting and hating myself for being completely human (we would all like to be Wonder Woman) there are moments that I remind myself why! Normally when I'm sitting down with a cuppa or having a long-awaited shower but some niggly junkie in me says "Yeah that wasn't so bad! When are we going again?"

I challenge whoever bothers to read my waffle, why you bother going out into the cold to seek the thrill of those summits and the adventure? Why do you push yourself physically and mentally because it is hard work; where do you seek your reward?