Regents Park

Beautiful yellows

So whilst these photos really show spring in full force, we haven't had much of this weather lately.  After having the one of the warmest Marches on record, we have now had the wettest April in 100 years.  And the next 30 days don't promise much better.  It is a little sad when you have to go to Wales to get nice weather.  Every now and again London does pull out a cracker day, and this was one of them.  We headed off to Regents Park to check out the flowers in all their glory, and there was a fair amount of glory going around.  I wonder if you were a gardener if working at somewhere like Regents Park is the pinnacle of your profession, or whether that's too mainstream for the hard-core gardeners.

It's nice that there are places like Regents Park, I think I nearly overdosed on the colours though.  After a winter of no leaves, the flowers are a bit overwhelming.

The British think of everything - boot scrapers and taps

Even the trees were getting in on the colour act

Regents park seems a bit more utilitarian than the heath does, what with the extensive playing fields, and tennis courts (I counted 19), and cricket nets.  With all that sport going on, there are liable to be some muddy feet.  But never fear, the British have thought of everything.  Near the playing fields they had these boot scrapers set up (at least I think they were boot scrapers).  There was also a tap, and what you can't see in the above photo is that it is all set above a grate, so the dirty water gets washed away.  That's just forethought, right there.

There was also a rather strange photo exhibit on in the park at the same time.  It was western China landscapes.  Some of them were really nice, and the place looked pretty wild in parts.  Which is impressive for somewhere with such a massive population.  England struggles to keep it's wild parts, with it's fairly small population, granted it's land size is not even comparable.

An eider - where the quilt feathers come from

Flowers

We managed to find the goose grazing area of Regents Park this time round, though there weren't many geese actually in the grazing area, which was just an empty paddock.  All the water birds were hanging out next door in a lake, with island, and fenced, meaning no molestations from tourists.  It seems that not only have the flowers returned, but also the water birds.  After a winter of almost exclusive mallard spotting, it was nice to see a few different birds.  We saw some tufted ducks, like little coots with mohawks, red-crested pochards, ducks with massively over-sized red heads, and eiders.

For those who may be wondering where this weird list of birds is coming from I bought a field guide to British birds, so I'm well on my way to becoming a twitcher, I already have the binoculars after all.  I think if I'm in England I have to take up some weird, slightly nerdy hobby, that's just what they do over here. 

Great clouds over the playing fields

More flowers

I think I may also start a list of birds I've spotted here, I have a feeling there's going to be a very rapid growth in the birds, as I spot things like robins, and blackbirds.  And then it'll just plateau.  But at the moment I'm excited.  It's weird being in a country where you don't know the trees, flowers or animals around you, I feel a little like a child.  I think I might get a plant book next.  Once I run out of birds, then I can begin a plant list.  Though they are a bit more boring, what with the lack of movement and all.

One other cool thing we saw was the trapeze school set up in the corner of the park, they had the full on net, and two trapezes.  It looked pretty safe, not only was there a net, but you were harnessed in to the frame, so you wouldn't need the net even if you feel.  It looked fun, though I wonder how strong you have to be, they had people hanging upside down from the swing when we went past. 

The trapeze school in Regents Park

 Again I'll leave you with far too many photos.

The back of the zoo, not quite so nice from this angle

Incredibly white flower

Crazy shapes and colours in one flower!

The squirrels have reappeared after the winter in hiding

A flower amphitheatre

More crazy flower shapes

Regents Canal from above

Cares Gorge

Looking down to the Cares River

The first walk we did was in the Cares Gorge, this was a 24km walk following the Cares river.  It was basically a walk through the mountains from the village of Poncebos to the village of Cain and back again.  The day was quite wet, so we decided to leave the spectacular view walk until tomorrow, figuring a gorge is going to be spectacular even with low hanging cloud.    I guess this is what happens when you have 2,600m  mountains next to the Atlantic Ocean, a bit of precipitation.

Apparently this is one of the more popular day walks in the park, given it's ease of access and incredible views, so it was probably good it was a bit wet, otherwise I think it would have been fairly packed.  There isn't much parking in Poncebos either, so I can imagine on busy days just getting to the start of the trail could be a bit of a hike.

The weird canal of death

Dave admiring the views next to the freaky canal

For most of the walk the trail is literally cut into the side of the mountain.  It was meant to have been built in the late 1940's and it's main purpose was to enable the maintenance of a canal which takes water to a hydro-electric plant.  Why you need to build another canal parallel to a rushing river is a a bit of a mystery to me.  We noticed the canal during the walk, at the time we couldn't really work out what it was.  It's quite eerie though, it's incredibly fast flowing, and is underground for most of the time, or at least inside the mountain you are walking alongside.  Every now and again it will emerge though, and the lack of sound it makes is really spooky.  Normally a river flowing that fast has turbulence, things fall in, there are rocks, leaves, fish, logs.  But this one was perfectly smooth, and quiet.  If you ever want to see what the River Styx might be like I think this is definitely a contender. It was actually a little scary, if you fell in you wouldn't be able to fight against the current, it was also a couple of metres deep, so you couldn't stand up, and there would only be a couple of metres before you would be sucked underground, possibly never to resurface.  Definitely River Styx territory.

Entering Cain, looking forward to lunch!

The ridiculously large mountains

The walk was stunning, almost impossible to capture in photos, particularly with the low hanging cloud.  The path itself was quite incredible too, cut into the mountain, with no walls or fences, nothing between you and the river 500m below.  You wouldn't want to suffer from vertigo in some parts.

Inntravel again gave us wonderful walking and driving directions.  That was a bit of fun, driving on the wrong side of the road, it was easiest on the highways, but on the small country roads there were quite a few times where we had positioned ourselves incorrectly when trying to turn onto another road.  Luckily there weren't that many people around.

It was certainly a wet walk this one, it has made me realise that I definitely need a better raincoat, it just 

doesn't seem to offer the head protection that I need.  

The lovely colours of the Cares River

Waterproof gloves are another thing, after wringing them out a few times I just had to accept that my hands were going to be cold and wet.  At least I had rain pants though, so the only things which really got wet were my head and hands. Poor Dave though, he didn't even have rain pants, so he got pretty wet and cold by then end of it.  The beauty of this walk was that you walked along the gorge from one village to another.  So halfway through the walk, when you are just getting quite sore, and wet, and tired you pop out in this tiny village.  But this tiny village has about 5 pubs in it, all set up to cater for tired, wet, sore walkers.  Rather than our usual walking fare of slightly squashed nut bars, and bruised fruit we had a full 3-course meal.  Let me tell you a plate of luke-warm pasta has never tasted so good. It also gave Dave a chance to warm up, it was definitely a bit of a lifesaver this lunch.  Yet again Asturias proves itself to be a region of food, there were no calorie deficits after that lunch!

Just couldn't get enough of these mountains

The narrow gorge, near Cain, with the path literally cut into the rock face

The trip back flew along, what with a belly full of food.  The cloud cover slightly lifted, so I tried to get as many photos as I could, but I just don't think they capture the true scale of the mountains.  We even got to see a couple of herds of mountain goats, which was pretty cool.  I'll leave you with way too many, slightly cloudy photos.  My camera really started to struggle from the moisture towards the end, the auto-focus just didn't want to work.

The top of the gorge, near Cain

The dam near Cain - I think this is some sort of hydro-electric plant

Dave defrosting at lunchtime - everyone else just hung out in the bar

Rushing waterfalls

An impressive path

The narrow gorge, the rocks on the right are actually on the other side of the river

Dave in the clouds

Fording the over-flowing streams

A mountain goat, don't jump!

More overflowing rivers

Back in Poncebos, looking up to the peaks

Australia

I've never seen the Molonglo River that full

I was back in Australia for a few weeks, the first time in 6 months, during Spring.  I recommend Singapore Airlines, they were unbelievable, them and my awesome over-the-counter sleeping tablets meant I could fly from London to Sydney, arrive at 6:30am and go straight into work that day.  Considering how I was after coming over to London last time that recovery was fairly incredible.  I even made it all the way through the 5pm meeting scheduled for that day.  So seriously if you are not a great flier I don't think you can go too far wrong with sleeping tablets and Singapore Airlines.

Lions at the zoo

I spent most of my time in Canberra this visit, it was funny flying in, the entire 8 years I lived there I don't think Canberra was out of drought once, so to see all the green, and the rivers full, was a bit of a turn up.  In fact if we had flown in a week earlier Dave would not have been able to get to Wagga because of the flooding. 

Lets just say that NSW has been having a particularly wet summer.  I think they got all the rain London was meant to have.  Apparently almost all of England is officially in drought, there's talk of building a water pipe from Scotland.  I find it hard to believe though, until your neighbours are encouraged to rat on you for watering your garden, I don't think you've reached desperate straits yet.  I think it's more that they have never had to build reservoirs before, they could rely on their aquifers, but a couple of dry winters and the ground water is all dried up.  I'm thinking after the April we just had there must be some water seeping back down.

Giraffes being fed privately

I visited the zoo in Canberra, like I said, can't get enough of a good zoo.  I think the zoo in Canberra is very much a privately run zoo, I don't really know how much they participate in breeding programs or research.  At least they've got rid of their ligers or tigons or whatever they were called, that was a bit circus-show.  Though as a replacement they have a pride of white lions, which are just kind of pale normal lions.  For a change though all the animals were out and about, which for big cats is definitely not the norm.

A tiger being obliging

The view from Mt Stromlo

In most other zoos the keepers will put on little talks throughout the day, so everyone can come see the animals close up and see them being feed.  Here they do that as well, but only if you pay extra for a private tour.  Otherwise you have to stand well back and just try and eavesdrop on what the keepers are saying.  I guess if you're a private zoo you gotta make your money somehow.

The Australian bush really is something else, and the space there is something you forget.  There's just nobody in most of it.  Which is something I have yet to find here in the UK, even in their so-called national parks there's still wide scale farming.  Perhaps if we make it up to the highlands of Scotland it could be a bit wilder.  Maybe it'll just be wide scale distilling up there instead.

Nice day for a surf comp

After the dry of Canberra, even with the impressive green, it was north to the Sunshine Coast.  It 

really didn't live up to it's name though, rained almost the entire time we were there.  Really we can't complain as a week after we left it was flooding as well.  I'm not surprised, there was an impressive amount of rain when we were there, and the drains were already almost full.  I could imagine it being a little heavier and there just being literally nowhere for the water to go.  Well I suppose there is always the sea, but perhaps it just couldn't flow in there fast enough.

That's a lot of water

It was the week of a surf competition when we were there too, I've never been a surfer, we literally had no waves where I grew up.  It's quite amazing, I always thought that was just how the sea was, sure it got a bit choppy in the middle of a cyclone, but nothing you would even contemplate trying to catch, let alone with a surf board.  So I'm always amazed to see tiny little kids with boards leaping off razor sharp rocks into the swell.  It just doesn't look normal. 

Spring in London

A field of daffodils

Spring has finally sprung in London, even though the weather seems to have forgotten that, and moved back into winter.  The flowers and trees are getting on with the business of turning colourful again.  So far spring is definitely my favourite season, you've just come out of winte, all the colours are returning, the trees have those lovely baby green leaves, the days are getting longer and there is still the hope that summer this year could be a great one.

A heron intently hunting

We headed off to the Golders Green section of the heath, I wanted to see the deer they have there, and Dave wanted to show me a new way of getting there.  There are some massive houses along this new route.

The deer and weird emu-esque creature

Freaky pointy flowers

We saw some baby ducklings in one of the ponds here, they must have been super new, you hardly ever see them that small.  Definitely spring time.  You're not meant to feed the animals at this park, particularly the deer, but if you do decide to be a rebel then it seems fruit and vege are the way to go.  The deer went crazy for it, squeezing under the fence to get closer to the law breaker.

I'll just leave you with some pictures of the lovely flowers. 

Aaaah new leaves

Asturias

View from the hotel, looking out to the Picos in the distance

We had an awesome holiday over Easter, we headed across to Asturias which is on the north coast of Spain, almost at the north western corner really, on the Bay of Biscay.  Probably it's most famous attribute is the Picos de Europa national park, which basically means the peaks of Europe.  Apparently for returning sailors this would be their first sight of home.  It is an incredible mountain range, rising basically from sea level to 2,600m.  When we were the there the high peaks were still covered in snow.

Dave and Cangas, with the foothills in the distance

We went there mainly to do a bit of walking in this national park.  A tour company, Inntravel, organised everything for us, or rather sent us all the maps, walking instructions, directions and booked everything.  I would highly recommend them if you are short on time for this sort of planning, or you don't speak the language, it's still very much self-guided, they just provide you with a range of options.  It was one of the best holidays I think I have ever had.  There were hardly any other non-Spanish people there, obviously this area is really popular with the Spanish, but I think I only heard maybe 2 other people speak English the whole time we were there.  We would be walking around in the hills and other walkers/bikers would stop to ask us directions and we had to keep telling them we didn't speak Spanish.  A lot of the people we met didn't speak English either, which was really different from Barcelona, which was the last place we went in Spain.

View from the hotel lounge

I think it's rare in Spain to find somewhere so nice that hasn't been completely destroyed by the English, I think they have a bit of a reputation of turning these beautiful Spanish coastal areas into night clubs.  But they obviously haven't discovered this area yet, or rather I don't think the weather is as good as it is on other parts of the coast.  If you think about it, there's this tiny strip of land along the coast, with 2,000m high mountains behind and the Atlantic Ocean in front, sounds like a recipe for some pretty wet days to me.

Whilst we were there we also visited Cangas which was a town about 15 minutes drive away.  We ended up driving through this town twice trying to find a car park, it seemed to be one of the more touristy spots in this area.  This is where Pelayo set up his court.  Pelayo was an 8th century visgoth who created the Kingdom of Asturias, so probably a pretty popular character around these parts.  He is also credited with beginning the reconquest, where Christians began taking back the Spanish peninsular from the Moors. 

Dave and a Romanesque bridge in Cangas

The rest of this post is going to be all about food.  I was expecting that the holiday was going to be pretty strenuous, I did not expect the food to be so good, my tummy was literally aching after every meal! 

View from the restaurant

When we booked the holiday inntravel mentioned there were a couple of Michelin star rated restaurants near the hotel we were staying at.  I've never eaten at a place with any Michelin stars, so I thought why not, being in the north coast of Spain it wasn't ridiculously expensive, say like Tetsuya's is, less than 100 euro per person (including wine).  So we ended up going to a 2* place, Casa Marcial, which is in what used to be the family home, a kilometre further up the mountain from our hotel.  It was really good, not some place you would go every week, but for a special night on a wonderful holiday it really fit the bill.

Dave inside the deserted restaurant

The hotel had booked for us, we asked for an early slot and 9pm was the earliest we could get.  We turn up there, driving past the herds of cows all with individual cow bells, and the staff are still eating their own dinner.  We are the first people there by an awfully long time.  Unfortunately the English-speaking staff member had a day off that night, but the remaining staff were amazing, they translated the menu for us and wrote everything down.  They couldn't have been more wonderful.

I was sitting there in this completely empty restaurant trying to guess when the rest of the guests would turn up.  I thought between 9:30pm and 10pm, there's no way people can eat later than that.  Then right on 9:30 another couple turned up, and I was thinking ah ha, we're not that much earlier than the Spanish to dinner.  Turns out the other couple was also English.  The rest of the restaurant didn't fill up until after 10pm.  And then everyone seemed to arrive within about a fifteen minute window of 10:15pm.

Skin of cod with lentils - so deliciously crunchy

Bread with hazelnut cream, olives, salmon and mushroom

It did make me wonder what a typical day is for the Spanish, they didn't seem to get up that much later, though perhaps they did start their walks a few hours after we would.  But I couldn't see where they would fit in this mythical siesta.

Anyway, the dinner was fantastic, even though the majority was eaten in a completely deserted restaurant.  We went for their degustation menu which was 11 courses plus bread.  Luckily we had been for a 24km walk earlier that day.  Being so close to the coast there was a lot of seafood on the menu, some of which I'd never eaten before.  We started with these little aperitifs which were 4 little balls of deliciousness.  I didn't take photos of all my courses, partly because I felt a bit weird being the only people in the restaurant and secondly because I didn't bring my camera. 

Overall the service was fantastic and the food was amazing.  What was the most stand-out point for me was the use of texture in every dish.  You know when you watch those silly reality tv cooking shows and one of the things they are always going on about is the clever use of texture, and you're thinking, yeah whatever.  But this restaurant was a revelation for me, you really can use texture cleverly and have it really improve the dish.  It was always going to taste nice, everything we ate there, but the different textures in every bite took it to another level.

Sea urchin - where have you been all my life?

The stand out dishes for me were the sea urchin, I've never had one before, and now I wonder, if they taste that delicious why have I never been introduced before.  There was also a panacotta of celery and cucumber, which was incredibly refreshing and just set the mouth up for more.  I also had limpets for the first time, those are the weird barnacle/shell things you see covering the rocks at the seaside.  We had them all over the place in Darwin, I never knew they were edible.  If you are ever in the region I cannot recommend this place enough, it's in this wonderful setting, the staff are fantastic, and the food is really something else.  In fact I think the chef has opened a restaurant in London, so I think I'll definitely have to try that at some point.

Funny sheep at the hotel/farm with the Picos in the distance

Enjoying a cider at the hotel

The hotel we were staying at was also, or rather mainly, a fully organic, permaculture farm, growing a whole stack of different animals and vegetables/fruits.  Every night there would be a different set meal and we had that on the other nights.  This was on the other scale from the Casa Marcial, still completely delicious, and again I was in pain at the end of every dinner, but just really simple, rustic food.

The majority of it would always come from their own farm.  We had 3 bottles of wine in 3 nights over the holiday, and for people who know us, that's a bit of a binge, but we just couldn't get enough! This region also is famous for it's cider, again completely delicious.  Do these people not know how to make bad tasting victuals?  The cider is really different to the sickeningly sweet cider you are probably used to, it's much drier, and comes in a wine bottle, but oh so refreshing.

Insurance

We had to take out contents insurance this week, see previous post, and when you get a quote you have to tell them when your house was built.  I had been telling everyone that it had been built in the 1980's, which was a guess on my part, because I thought, it doesn't look that run down, but must still be kind of old, and for me old is 30 years.  I made sure to check with the real estate agent though before finalising the quote and they told me late 1800's!!!! I guess old is relative depending on where you grew up.

Now that we have insurance we went out and splurged a little at the shops.  We got one of the new iPads, which has a very nice screen I must say!  I was trying to do some blogging on it, and came to my site, opened a few posts in progress, but it didn't seem to show me anything.  Now when accessing them on my laptop I find that everything I had already written has disappeared.  Aaaargh!!! Aaaaaapple!!! Why do you claim to be the answer to all technology questions when often you are the problem?

So I'm sticking with my 5 years old laptop instead.  At least until someone writes an app.  And I've tried the blogger app, it's not so great.