Appalachian Trail

Wildflowers in the Smokys

We visited a new state when we were in the US, North Carolina. It was my first truly southern state (Arizona didn't feel as south as this one). Not sure I'll be back, there were still confederacy flags flying, not sure I can handle that. We were there for the Great Smoky mountains. Staying in Asheville, which was actually a much nicer town than I thought it would be. Apparently it is the beer capital of the US, though perhaps they were the only entrant. But there were something like 15 breweries actually in the city centre with maybe another 40 in the surrounding area. Which is a lot of breweries. It definitely had quite a hippy, youthful vibe. Not the decaying town that I imagined it would be. The reason we went to the Smokys is that they are apparently the most visited of all the US national parks. I was really surprised at that, but it gets the most visitors by far, more than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone. So it was kind of like, well we have to go there.

The trees starting to blossom

We went incredibly early in the season, though it was still lovely and warm. It just meant that the trees weren't completely covered in leaves yet. We were there for 7 days, which was such a great time to be out in the wild for. And this was actually pretty remote, we saw other people on maybe 3 of those days. We shared the campsite for one night. It was pretty amazing. And given there were no pit toilets anywhere, I was pretty glad to not be sharing. Only downside was that we didn't see any bears. We did see 2 deer twice, I think they were the same deer hoping for us to give them scraps. The campsites every night were amazing, on the banks of rushing creeks. It was such a change from New York, and I think I slept so much better in the bush than I ever did in the 4 weeks in New York.

We got some views

I was also surprised at how unmaintained the trails were, I was used to trails being as close to footpaths as you could get whilst still being in the bush. The US national park trails were normally clear of obstacles and fairly smooth. Well the Smokys certainly blew that assumption out of the water. The first day we had to walk along a river, so crossing inlets, and jumping from slippery rock to slippery rock. Then when we weren't bouncing around like that, we were having to dodge massive fallen trees. Some of them were huge, with no way over or under. The first day probably had the worst trail conditions, what with the river navigation and the fallen trees. The first day is always the hardest anyway, since your packs are the heaviest and you are getting re-conditioned to the walking.

Navigating the river rocks

It was particularly bad for one of the group's participants, the trip we had chosen was the hardest you could do, averaging 13kms a day, with a bit of up and down. And this quite old guy had signed up to do it. He really struggled that first day, just couldn't keep his balance on the rocks, and really went down quite hard. Coming into camp we were averaging something like half a mile per hour, which was pretty slow. The guide had to pull the pin on him, another guide had to trek in 8 miles to pick him up early the next morning and walk out with him. I was really wondering what were going to do if he was insistent on staying. We would have had to take all his stuff as well really, since there was no way he could have done the walk and still carried what he was meant to. I've never seen that before on these walks, generally people know what they can do, he had an impressive level of confidence to think that he could do it. I wish I had that level of confidence, the ability to just go out there and think you can do something which you are so unprepared for. The guide had also probably not packed enough food, so it was a bit of a blessing that this dude had to abandon the walk. It would have been a bit of a hungry 7 days if he had kept coming.

Our path was on the other side of this

More flowers

We had another young lady with us too, who I don't think had ever really done these long walks before. I think she actually suffered a lot more than she let on, it seemed her achilles started to really hurt. I've been there, I've had ITB problems on walks, and it really sucks, these weird tendon pains. You don't really know if you are doing more damage, and each step is just painful. She was probably worried that the guide would ask her to leave if she let on too much. But then I also think that youth really helps in these situations, there's nothing like youth for not needing to train and still being able to keep up. She was quite impressive, never having really camped before, and her first introduction is a 7 day hiking trip, with no toilets. I'm not sure that I would have carried on camping if that was my first introduction to the outdoors. But she seemed to really love it, and had already planned her next trip to Utah (that is definitely going to be one of my next parks).

Visiting the park when we did was, I think, a really good time to go, the trees weren't yet covered in leaves, they were just starting to come through on the last half of the walk. It was kind of cool to be out there at that time, you could watch the leaves budding on the trees. The first day there was no hint of leaves, and yet on the last day, all the trees were starting to show some green, and even red. I think if you went in summer if would be quite a different experience, for a start you wouldn't actually be able to see anything. The forest is really thick, and the trees all having leaves would be quite claustrophobic, you really wouldn't get any views. It would also be unbelievably hot. It was already quite warm when we did it, and that was barely spring. Summer must be unbearable. I think autumn would be another good time to visit, the autumn leaves would be spectacular in this park, and it would be a bit cooler. I think either early spring or autumn are the peak times to visit this place. We had all these little wildflowers out, which added something as well. I don't think you would get them at a different time.

It felt pretty wild

I was also kind of hopeful for bears, since they should have been waking up around this time, and with cubs to feed too. But no such luck. They were a bit more blase about the bears here, I guess because they were only black bears, no grizzlies. We had someone from Montana hiking with us, they have grizzlies there, and he was always a bit more nervous around the campsites. The sites were quite different from Glacier, where you had the food storage, cooking and eating areas that were completely separate, and a long way from where you camped. Whereas here, whilst you still didn't have food in your tents, it wasn't like you were a long way from the cooking area when you slept. I think if you grew up with grizzlies that sort of behaviour would make you a bit nervous.

Dave chilling at a campsite

The Appalachian trail goes through this national park, we didn't end up walking any of the trail, partly because of the achilles problem. There were two choices on the last day, 3000ft up and down, or a flatish walk along the lake. And I don't think the achilles would have survived that sort of elevation change. I can't say I was too disappointed, it would have been a freaking tough last day. We ended up finishing around lunchtime, and totally demolishing the food available.

But even so there was still quite some food left. And we were sitting in the car park, with the food just out on a table, and we were obviously all walkers. I can't say I have ever been too keen to do any of these super long-distance walks. I like a bit of variety in my life. But after seeing the walkers we did, I am even less keen. They were like starving dogs. They would see the food from afar, and come over to ask some pointless question, just so they could get closer to the food. They weren't even looking at us, they were totally focused on the food. Then once we had answered and they were walking on, their eyes remained on the food. It was quite freaky to watch. Dinner time must be a very strange experience on the trail, everyone keeping track of everyone else's food.

A lovely bridge - still maintained in parts

The guide we had was pretty good, still pretty new to the guiding thing. But very upbeat, and super good at lighting fires. He used to be a firefighter, I'm not sure if that automatically means you will know how to light fires, but I was super impressed. There was only one night we didn't have a fire, the first one. The rest of the nights had a fire every time. Even the night where it rained for 2 hours once we had put up the tents, he managed to get a fire going then. He told us exactly which tree to gather from, and I was all like, well I'm only going to get a little bit, because there's no way anyone could get this burning, it was pretty sodden, and yet he did, we had this great fire. 

New York Museums

El Greco - new favourite

New York really does have a lot of museums, and we were there long enough to visit quite a few. The other cool thing is that a lot of them have pay-what-you-wish times. They are really expensive otherwise, the Met is $25/person. But actually that is meant to be a suggested payment, since it doesn't pay rent, and is taking up a significant amount of Central Park. Just before we arrived the museum had settled one of the lawsuits against it, around these ticket prices. So we felt a lot more comfortable not paying the "suggested" ticket price.

The trick with this museum is definitely to get there early, and choose what you want to see, it is massive. To see everything in a day would be incredibly tiring. We focused on a few things, like the American and more contemporary art, and I quite enjoyed that. Though even in the older paintings I discovered a new favourite, El Greco, I had never heard of this guy before, but he was painting at the end of the 1500's and yet his art looked incredibly modern. It was so different from everything else of the same time, if you are looking for evidence of time travel, this definitely has to be included.

Performance art at MoMa

We also went to MoMa as well, that is another great museum. I'd been there before, but it's definitely one you can go back to. They always seem to be in the process of installing art in their rooms, I've never seen it completely full. Perhaps it never is. But it is always a good day, for what is open, and the sculpture garden is always great.

The waterfall at the 9/11 memorial

The new World Trade Centre

There is a new museum, or rather a memorial, where the World Trade centre towers used to be. They have built massive fountains where the towers used to stand, or rather waterfalls, in that the water is just flowing down into deep holes, with the names of everyone who died inscribed around it. It's quite effective. The museum is interesting, it's a massive area, which is quite empty. There are some of the original metal foundations, and twisted fire trucks that were damaged when the towers collapsed. Then there is a separate section going through the day of the attack, and the response immediately afterwards, as well as a little bit about aftermath. It feels this section could be a bit larger, since it's completely rammed, and there is nobody else in the area outside it.

It's definitely worth a visit, it was quite moving and such a pivotal moment in recent history. It has a different feel to Hiroshima, which is very sorrowful and more about never letting this happen again. The 9/11 memorial has a different feel at the moment, perhaps that will change over the decades to come. It also costs an awful lot to visit, $24 versus about a pound to visit the Peace museum in Hiroshima. It does give the place a strange feeling, apparently they don't get any federal funds to run the place, so I suppose they have to charge a lot. There was a bit of an out-cry over the gift shop too. So yeah, definitely a different feel.

Sculpture at MoMa

On a lighter note, we also went to the Frick Collection, which had another of those pay-as-you-wish times, I love those museums. This place was really great, it's this old house that was turned into a museum. It was owned by one of those American robber barons, who loved art, and spent a fortune collecting, but he collected things that he liked, rather than a fully curated collection. The house is pretty cool too, right on 5th avenue opposite Central Park. It's not often that you get to go inside one of these grand, old American houses. It may not be on most tourists radars, since it was a lot quieter than the Met or MoMa. It meant that you could really get close to the art works.

One of the last museums we visited was the museum of American finance. I surprisingly enjoyed this, perhaps it's because of my job. But they went over the history of the stock market and the commodities markets. Basically finance has been a constant series of bubbles and crashes. Over and over, and after each one they brought in all these regulations to address that one flaw, and then something else went bust next time. It was quite a cool building to visit, right next to Wall street, and they had some interesting stuff in it; gold bars, commodities, jewellery, any thing you could attach value to.

Gold-plated monopoly at the Finance museum - of course

We also went to the Whitney museum, this is just for American art, it was originally the collection of another rich American, one of the Vanderbilt's. It's in this fantastic new building, on the Hudson river and the start of the Highline park. It is a massive collection, with a couple of rotating exhibitions. I would definitely recommend the audio guide, and they also had almost constant tours in some of the rooms. That was a great idea, it was only short, maybe 30 mins, but quite frequently, a guide would start talking about some of the works, and you could just follow if you wanted. I'm surprised more museums don't do this, it makes the art so much more accessible.

We then finished with a stroll along the Highline, I can see why people rave about it, this is a great park. I wasn't expecting much, but they have done it really well, it's not particularly wide, being the old railway line. But in New York, where there is hardly any greenery to speak of, it's a nice break. And being able to cruise for kilometres without waiting at traffic lights is a real pleasure. I imagine in summer it is completely jammed, there are sculptures all along, and lots of seats, and a few lawn areas. I can see why people are keen for something similar in London.

An exhausting beginning

View from the Top of the Rock

The first couple of months of this year have been fairly insane. In the first four months of this year we have only been at home for six weekends. I think it's time for an extensive home consolidation period. This was partly due to me having the chance to work from New York for a month. I couldn't say no to that after all! New York was an interesting experience. I know it's one of the great cities of the world, I just really don't think I could live there long-term. It was a bit overwhelming. Sooo many homeless people, and so much trash, it's a crazy city. You would think living in London would prepare you for living in New York, but I don't think anything can really prepare you. There are just so many people and very few green spaces. I mean sure you have Central Park, but that's really kind of it, if you were further south on the island, there really wasn't much else in the way of greenery. Not even just random sidewalk trees. That I think was one of the big differences for me, not having green spaces to escape to. And don't get me started on their public transport.

Very tall

Grand Central at night

You would think Manhattan would be made for public transport, and sure it's cheap on a per-ride basis, but you can easily spend $10 a day if you go out to 2 places. I know New Yorkers go on about how great their metro is, but it's really not. I feel a bit sorry for them, not realising how much better it could be. Do they realise there are metros in other cities where there aren't rats frolicking in the disgusting, stagnant tunnel water, that it is possible to convey information to travellers at the stations and on the trains. I thought subway design was a solved problem, but in New York it's this weird dystopian joke. They are providing this service to you, but kicking you at the same time. I suppose public transport is bordering on socialism, that must make them very uncomfortable. And when there are lines down over the weekend it very quickly degenerates into chaos, with tourists wandering the stations trying to find any sort of information as to how to get where they want to go. I feel the way the MTA staff treats you is symptomatic of the US society as a whole, where if everything is working it's great, nothing to worry about. But as soon as you fall, forget it, you are on your own. You want to get uptown, figure it out yourself loser. It's your fault for not working it out.

Central Park - most weekends the weather was wonderful

But the food was amazing, there is no comparison there. London really has to pull up its socks in that regard. We really got into Yelp, it's so good in New York, if you chose any place with at least 4 stars and a few hundred reviews, you knew it was going to be good. And there were so many of those places around. I have to say, I did eat a lot of burgers whilst I was there.

The buildings are a little fascist

We were staying right in midtown, just a few blocks from Time Square, which I think certainly coloured our view of the city. Most people do not live mid-town, but then I did get to walk to work, and we were only 9 blocks from Central Park, which was awesome. But the noise really got to me, before going to New York I thought I lived on a bit of a noisy street, we'll get one or two cars going past in the evening. But oh man, mid-town is a different level. We were on the 15th floor, and it was still sirens all night long and the traffic never stopped. It was quite incredible. When I got back to London I thought my ears had stopped working, it was so quiet, you almost had this ringing in my ears because they were so used to noise. After New York we spent 6 nights in the bush, with nobody else around, and even camping I had a better night sleep. I think people actually buy noise machines, to try and cancel out the sirens. I just can't imagine that.

Pretty street in Harlem

The first weekend we were there we did a walking tour in Harlem, this I think was our only really organised tour the whole time we were there. It was quite interesting, I'd never been to Harlem before, and it's completely different from mid-town. It's a bit strange, you get on the subway in mid-town and it's all white people, then you go a few stops north and come out, and there are no white people around, and the buildings are all much shorter. I needed to go to the bathroom, but there didn't seem to be a place to go, but there was a hospital across the road, and hospitals normally have bathrooms somewhere. So we go in, and for a moment I thought I was in a prison, it was all weird dirty green tiles, no reception, just a security guard, and bars everywhere. No bathroom, one of the strangest hospitals I've ever been in.

The walking tour was pretty good, the buildings in Harlem are surprisingly decorative, and you get whole streets of the same houses, with the same decorative facade. I wonder how long Harlem will remain as it is, and whether it is in the process of gentrification. It is quite close to the city after all, and it seems still quite medium density.

Norway - Round Two

A beautiful spot to ski

The call of Norway and more cross-country skiing could not be ignored for long. This is an activity I think I really want to keep doing. And since a lot of the people you see participating are at least 60 years old, it does bode well for the future. We wanted to go to Lillehammer for our second Norway trip, it seems to have unbelievable cross-country trails, and is quite easy to get to from Oslo. It turns out that the weekend we wanted to go was also when the youth Winter Olympics where on, so rather than be shown up on the trails, we decided to go somewhere else.

We ended up in Geilo which is a little ski resort half-way between Oslo and Bergen. The train trip to get there is an event in it's own right, since you are travelling through some amazing scenery, and so much snow!!!

I think we really started to cement our cross-country skills on this trip, we were still sticking with classic skiing. This is the super dorky looking style where you kick your leg back to get propulsion. The first day was a bit of a struggle, just trying to get the technique perfected a bit more. There was this awesome loop around this frozen lake, including a world-class biathlon course at the end, which we could walk to from the hotel. It ended up being 15km around, which was quite a ways given our technique is not that great.

A church by the lake

Great weather for a ski

The scenery was beautiful, but I was spending most of my time trying to get a good glide happening. You really want a nice glide, otherwise it's just an exhausting shuffle. Luckily the weather was beautiful for it, we ended up going around this lake quite a few times on our stay there. It was a good place to practise without anything too scary, plus it was also a nice place to be.

We got to see a biathlon in progress too, that was pretty cool, but man that looks like a high-intensity spot. They are full on sprinting around the course, and they are going faster than you could run, it really is incredible their speed. Then they have to come in, still on their skis, lie down, and shoot three targets. It looks insane. And yet school kids would come out to this course and that seemed to be their PE for the day. No wonder these people all look so healthy. Their national sport is something almost equivalent to marathon running.

The hut in the middle of nowhere

As well as this awesome lake route, we also went up into the mountains for a wilder experience. This was really great, you were really out in the country-side, no roads or houses, just skiing through forests and fields. Then halfway round the loop there is this hut selling hot chocolates, tea, coffee, soup and chocolate. With this super old lady in there who didn't speak any English (our first instance of this happening). I'm not sure how she got out there, I assume she skied, which is really quite incredible.

Where are we?

On the way back it was a bit of a white-out, heaps of snow falling. Luckily the trail was well-groomed, and there were heaps of people about. So it wasn't like we were about to ski off the trail. It was definitely the best day we had skiing, and I feel a lot more confident about trying more of this style next time, getting out into the country-side a bit more.

We also had a long discussion about skis with the hire person. I think we definitely have to at least try skate-skiing, which is kind of like inline skating, but with skis. And they also have mountain skis, which are a bit thicker and heavier than classic cross-country skis, but you have more control with the snow plowing. They look a bit more like alpine skis. So many options, and winters are so short! I'm almost looking forward to next winter to get back out there!

The frozen lake - was a bit freaky crossing this - you could hear grinding

Rotterdam

Escher Museum in Den Haag

We visited a friend in Rotterdam the other weekend, I'd never even thought of visiting this place, it's not really on a tourist's radar. But it was actually a pretty cool city, it has some super impressive architecture, some of the buildings were worth a visit just for them. Good coffee and food as well. There are perhaps not heaps of touristy things to do in the town itself, but it is only half an hour to Den Haag, which is full of stuff.

I really love how small the Netherlands are. I really like these northern European countries; Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, I'm not sure what it is, people seem healthy, the cities are clean, everyone is polite. It's all very pleasant.

The visit to Den Haag was pretty cool, we visited the Escher museum, that was awesome. It's in a former palace of the Queen of Netherlands, so is a cool building in it's own right. I have always liked Escher, and this place is over-flowing with his works. It's really worth a visit. You really feel that the world somehow lost out with him becoming an artist rather than a mathematician though, his work is full of mathematical ideas, and he seemed to have such an intuitive grasp, that it seemed a shame he couldn't do that more. He didn't go to a great school and I'm not sure he even passed.

One of my favourite Escher pieces

We also visited the Mauritshuis, this is another must-see if you are going to Den Haag. The Netherlands really did produce some good artists and they are all represented here; Vermeer, Holbein, Rembrant, Fabritius, it was really awesome. And not that busy, so you could really appreciate the pictures. They have the Goldfinch by Fabritius, which is even more famous thanks to Donna Tartt, and I was just about to start reading the book. So that was really well timed.

So if you are sick of Amsterdam and want to experience the Netherlands without the hordes of tourists I would definitely consider Rotterdam and Den Haag.

Pigeon with Mauritshuis and the Parliament

Last Days in Glacier

I took a lot of this view - Bowman Lake

After a lovely night by Lake Francis, there was only Brown pass still to tackle. This was another tough day, because there was quite a lot of elevation gain, and then loss down the other side. This day was also special because we finally saw a bear. After all the precautions and messing around, we finally saw one. It was a loooong way away, almost perfect bear viewing distance. Perhaps it could have been a bit closer. Lucky we brought our binoculars, so you could actually see that it was a bear. It looked like a black bear, but the guide reckons it was a grizzly, I think he was just saying that though. That was definitely quite exciting. They sure do look friendly, from that distance, it was just mooching around the huckleberry bushes eating it's fill.

Thunderbird Lake - no sign of moose

On the way up to the pass we went past Thunderbird Lake (the most awesome lake name), this was where there had been moose sightings in the past. Apparently they like to eat the water grass around this lake. It was one of the most beautiful lakes I think I've seen, but unfortunately no moose. I think the guide was more nervous of seeing a moose than seeing a bear. I guess it's about the size of a bear, but with a much smaller brain. It seems they can be a bit unpredictable.

Thunderbird Lake - looking the other way.

The way down from the pass was pretty awesome too, just massive mountains all over the place, and these great rock walls. Very similar to the first day, too bad the sky was really closing in. Our last night was spent at the tip of Lake Bowman, a massive lake. What with the news that the glaciers will be gone from this park in 20 years or so, I guess they can rename it Awesome Lakes national park. Perhaps not the same ring to it, which is a bit of a shame. I think we'll have to go back before then, if only to see the iceberg lake. Glacier is definitely a place I see myself revisiting. It really was special.

Snow up in the pass

Great rock walls on the way down

As we set up our tents for the last night it started to rain again, of course. So we all huddle in the tents for an hour or so until it stops. When we re-emerge we see that the pass we had just come through is now covered in snow. It seems that our trip was going to be the last trip of the season. Later that evening some more people arrived in the campsite. They were looking pretty stuffed, it seemed they had been caught in the hailstorm up at the pass. That would not have been pleasant. 

In the end though, the skies cleared for a beautiful evening, and all the snow melted away. It really was a great end to a spectacular 6 days.

The snow has melted away - a very pretty campsite

Shot from the end of the walk - looking back up Lake Bowman

The Lakes of Glacier NP

Just some of the mountains from the campsite

The next day was such a great day, the best weather by far. And much warmer, finally a bit of sunshine. We woke up to realise why 50 mountains campsite was called that, with a whole range of mountains arrayed in front of us.

Looking back through my photos, I really should have taken a shot of the campsite each night. I think having a view of the campsite kind of separates the days a bit. These long hikes can all sort of blend into each other, especially if there is no real danger to stick in the mind.

The campsite on night 3 - Kootenai Lake 

One of the great things about using a guide is the food you get each day. We have definitely picked up some camp food tips from the guides we have used. I guess if you are spending all summer living in the bush you are going to want to get creative with the food. I would never have tried quinoa with coconut powder, that was actually pretty good as a breakfast option.

Problem with a lot of the meals was that they ended up with a lot of watery slop at the end. And what with the bears you can't just fling your scraps into the bush. Which means you have to pack everything out. The quinoa breakfast was actually quite heavy, and I was so looking forward to us eating it. I was pretty disappointed when what I got back weighed almost the same as before we started eating.

The weather was so great this third day

Citadel Peaks rising above Kootenai Lake

It was funny comparing this guide to the one we had in the Grand Canyon. I think that guide was peak guide, knew exactly how to handle everyone, he was definitely working the whole time he was there, but it never felt like he was working, if that makes sense. And he just seemed so calm and chilled out. Whereas the guide we had this time was brand new to guiding, this was his first season guiding ever, so he was definitely greener. He was very enthusiastic, which I think the other participants seemed to enjoy. But I think I prefer a more chilled out guide.

We spent the night on the shores of Kootenai Lake, which is just such a beautiful spot, and we even had it to ourselves. We thought we saw a beaver in the lake, but couldn't be sure. We definitely saw the effects of them though. There was this big tree nearly completely gnawed through, and it's exactly as you see in the cartoons, with it gnawed down to a point. Pretty impressive work by a small creature.

Waterton Lake - with Canada in the distance

The next day it was more lakes, we walked up to Waterton lake, where we could get rid of some rubbish, oh my back was thankful for that. On the other end of this lake is Canada, the border runs right through the middle of the lake. You can imagine that up here the border is in a pretty wild and forested place. But apparently the whole way along there is a 4m cleared line, no trees growing, just cleared land in a straight line. It must be very weird to come across the border if you didn't realise it was there.

One last shot of the nice weather

The rangers station - forbidding weather where we were headed

This lake was the most habitable spot we saw, it was kind of odd to come across after 3 days in the wilderness. It's an hour or so by boat from a town in Canada, so quite a few people will come down here for the day, and walk out to Kootenai lake. There was a really large rangers post here, I guess they also have to perform customs duties. Since this spot gets a few tourists, there were flushing toilets and running water. That was a nice surprise half way through the trip.

Lake Francis - the Dixon glacier is on top of that ridge

After Waterton Lake we headed back into some forbidding weather, we really weren't having much luck with the sun. I have to say I am so glad for our tent. We had actually contemplated using the company's tents, you can hire them for the trip. I am so glad we didn't. Some other people hired a tent, and there was a hole in it, and it was so old the fly had gone baggy. You just couldn't get the tension high enough to keep the fly off the inner. I think they had a very wet 6 days. Whereas we had our luxurious tent, no sign of water getting in there. Plus the massive vestibule meant everything was going to be dry. Such a pleasure.

We had another great campsite this night too. It was a tiny little campsite, so again it was just us there. It was by this other amazing lake, lake Francis. Much smaller than Kootenai lakes, but spectacular in it's own way. It's surrounded by these massive cliffs, and the water is this amazing blue/green colour, it's one of those places that is impossible to capture in a photo. Though perhaps I just say that to excuse my poor photography skills.

Dave on the shores of Lake Francis - in the rain.