New House

I've been a bit quiet (ok a lot quiet) on here over the past few months. My excuse is that we've just bought a house so I think that was taking up a lot of mental energy. I gotta say the way house purchases are carried out here in the UK leaves a lot to be desired. Not that I've ever bought a house anywhere else, but man I just can't imagine it can be this bad everywhere. The weird thing is with almost every other purchase you make, a pair of jeans, a washing machine, or any service that is provided to you, there seem to be all these consumer laws designed to protect you, the purchaser. If the jeans are the wrong size you can take them back no worries, if the washing machine breaks, it'll be fixed, if you go to a restaurant you are probably not going to get sick. And yet a house, which costs hundreds of times more, there are no protections whatsoever. It feels like everyone just wants a piece of you (or rather a piece of your money), but if anything goes wrong you are the only one who is liable. And if there turns out to be something wrong with the house, too bad! It's so weird that the biggest purchase of your life has zero protection around it. And don't even get me started on stamp duty.

The last week before completion was pretty stressful because at that point you have signed the contracts and are legally bound to complete the sale on the date given. The thing is at that point it's also completely out of your hands as to whether the money is actually transferred. You have to rely on the solicitor, the bank and the mortgage broker all being able to do their job properly. Which turns out to be harder than you think. I am not used to having such big decisions being completely out of my control so it was really hard to deal with.

Also because I rang the bank on the Monday (we are completing on the Friday) and the bank tells me they have no knowledge of my account. The solicitor and the mortgage broker seem completely unconcerned. So you try not to stress about it, thinking there must be something else going on, but it sure was hard to sleep properly after hearing that. Then Thursday comes round (when the money from the bank is meant to be transferred to the solicitor for the Friday completion) and it turns out that the bank really did have no knowledge of our account. It took 45 phone calls between us, the solicitor and the mortgage broker to get it sorted out. And I'm thinking if I ever did that in my job I'd probably be fired. And yet these retail banks can behave criminally and get away with it. Because you know if the money hadn't gone through it would have been us paying the penalty for breaking the completion contract, not the bank. So like I said, some sleepless nights.

But now we are all set up in our house, and it's just something I like to think about when I need to fuel my rage fire. English houses are funny, they have to have stairs in them to count as a house, otherwise it's a bungalow, which I find hilarious. I think I would much rather a bungalow, I'm going to build massive calf muscles with the 3 flights of stairs I now have.  The house is 100 years old though, so that has been a bit weird for me, all the floors are at an angle, so your sitting in a chair and you can feel that one side of your body is bearing most of the weight. And you put bottles on the ground and they'll roll to one side. We may look at fixing that, at least all our bookshelves stand up properly and don't appear as if they'll crush us, so perhaps it's not that bad.

It's hard to get into the homeowner mindset, I do wonder if my interests will change now that I have this massive debt millstone. I am certainly invested in society staying the way it is, no anarchy or revolution for me please, unless retail bank debts are the first thing destroyed, then I'm all for it. But I wonder if I'll really get into gardening or something. I always liked the idea of a veggie patch say, or flower beds, but having only been in rental houses, it was hard to put much effort in, since you were only ever going to be there for 2 years at most. And for the last 8 years I have only lived in apartments, so not even the possibility of a garden. Now I have a place with a garden shed, it's definitely going to take some getting used to.

Grand Canyon - Or How I Learnt to Love Back-Country US

Our trusty vehicle - it actually had two rows of seats in the back. Everything's
bigger in the US!

We were back in San Francisco late summer last year. Well it was really Sonoma Valley, but since we'd done a bit of Yosemite last time, and there are direct flights to Phoenix, we thought - Grand Canyon, why not. How can you turn down the Grand Canyon, it's like a wonder of the world. I always like hiking too, and camping. Waking up early in the morning, and there is always the possibility of a bit of fauna when you are camping. And the Grand Canyon promised all of that.

We found this awesome company - Wildland Trekking. We were actually going to the US for a wedding, so we thought it was easier to use a company. That way we didn't have to take a whole bunch of hiking gear with us - as well as wedding stuff. And that was such a good decision. It helped that the guide was just so good, and the other people in the party were also Australians which just made the whole experience so much better. I can see that if you were stuck with a bad group of guests it could get messy pretty quickly. But we had chosen the hardest route we could, so thought that should winnow out most of the chaff. And in the end there was quite a gap between our capabilities and the other two people with us, so it meant that we really were doing the walking on our own. But had the navigation, route planning, food buying and meal preparation all taken care of. It was like luxury camping. I would definitely use this company again, in fact we are planning a trip to Yellowstone for that very reason.

Fossilised animal prints

But before the Grand Canyon there was Phoenix, hmm what to say about Phoenix? Not sure I'll be back, I guess it's just a US city? I think I've figured out my strategy for the US, avoid the cities, and spend all my time out bush. Because their national parks are amazing. I thought Yosemite was something special, but then the Grand Canyon blows it out of the water. And if you camp or do anything involving a bit of physical exertion, there is nobody else around. Fantastic!

One weird thing is the incredibly poor transport links to the Canyon, you'd kind of think it would be super easy. Maybe everyone goes via Vegas, but I think that goes to the north rim, and the south rim is where it's at. I guess it is the land of the car. We managed to find this really weird shuttle bus, and when I say it's a shuttle bus it's actually a big SUV that's been converted to have 3 rows of seats. It's not even a van. And that is the only way to get from Phoenix to Flagstaff (which is the closest town to the Canyon). And even that is still a 2 hour drive away from the Canyon. It's incredible just how big the US is, it's much bigger than Australia.

Weird flora in the canyon - but check out those
rock colours!

With my southern American prejudices I was kind of expecting Arizona to be a real gun-toting state, I mean they do border Mexico and don't they have really weird paper checking powers there? But anyway I wanted to see how safe I would be walking around the streets, like is everyone going to be carrying a gun? Whilst they basically have no gun ownership restrictions, I'm talking assault weapons, concealed carry, open carry, it's all good in Arizona. They actually have only a median percentage of gun ownership. About 31% of people own a gun, that's 38th in gun ownership rates by state. So relatively low given how easy it seems to get a gun. I feel like I should have visited a Walmart whilst I was there now. I was a bit disappointed with my Walmart experience in California. Not a rifle to be seen, just military-grade crossbows.

Flagstaff was a much prettier town, much, much colder too. Phoenix was hot and this was at the very end of summer too, more autumn weather. I was expecting temperatures closer to London range, and it was high 20s. There were so many cacti too, I was not expecting that, it was really the west there, just driving along the highway and there are massive cacti, like ones you would see in old western movies. So cool.

Anyway Flagstaff was much cooler, but then it's at 2100m, which was another shocker. I really had done no research into this trip. Dave had done all the planning. I think I managed to find the shuttle bus and that was the extent of my contribution. Anyway 2100m is pretty high, that's almost higher than Kosciusko (which I think will always be my level for something being high). And you really felt the elevation, a little harder to breathe and crisp, clear, cool air. Really very pleasant. And the town was quite pretty too, with a nice main street. Not that we spent a lot of time there. Because the evening we arrived was the pre-trip meeting and then we were off again very early the next morning. This was exciting, a 2 hour drive and we would be at the canyon. And I really didn't know what to expect. I feel a bit bad now, I hadn't even checked out pictures on the internet. I guess I knew it would be big, that's about it. I was in for a shock I can tell you that!

So one teaser photo before the next instalment

2014 - A Year In Review

A weekend in Prague

I guess it's that time of year where you start thinking about what you have achieved in 2014, and maybe plan for things to do next year. I think 2014 has definitely been the year of travel. I get a bit exhausted just thinking about it. In 2014 I managed to get to both the US and Australia twice. That's a lot of loooong flights in one year. I've also visited Japan, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. Inside the UK we've been to Cardiff, Cotswolds, the Lake District, Isle of Skye, Cambridge many times and the Brecon Beacons. That's also a good number of train miles.

My favourite trips out of all that lot has to be the one to Japan (skiing there was a revelation), plus the trips to the US (one because it was business class and the other because I visited the Grand Canyon). I also really liked the Isle of Skye and the Pyreneean adventures. I definitely want to do more things like that in 2015.

A week in New York

One of the other very exciting things is that we are in the process of buying a house!!! It's even got a backyard. But this is still early days, I am learning a lot about the strange English process of house-buying. It all seems very inefficient to me. You get all these surveys done, which I guess is common everywhere, one of which was a Radon report. Apparently Radon concentrations are quite high in England, though to be honest, London looks like it has the lowest concentrations of anywhere in the UK, you would not want to be living in Cornwall! I have to say it was a bit weird to be given this report from the lawyer, I honestly had not thought how radioactive gases would affect me if I bought a place.

Dominating Skye

Overall it seems that the process is very different from Australia, not that I've ever bought a place there. Here you get into these long chains, where we want to buy a house off someone who needs to buy a house off someone who needs to buy a house and so on, until you reach the point where either someone has died or is leaving the country. So as you can imagine they can be quite long. Luckily ours is only 4 people long, which we've been told is quite short, sounds pretty long to me though! It does mean though that once you've put an offer in and it's been accepted, you have to wait whilst all the other people along the chain put in offers that have been accepted. Bear in mind that no money has changed hands yet. Once the chain is finished you then get your lawyer and start getting all your surveys done.

Bagging Helvellyn

That's when we got the radon report, and a flooding report and a home buyers report. They even do a check on chancel liability. This is a good one. Turns out you can be liable for any repairs to the church in your parish, even if you don't go to church. Aaaah state religion, what is it good for? This all blew up kind of recently when a couple got a bill for tens of thousands of pounds to repair some church, took the church to court and at the end of everything they ended up liable and with a £100,000 bill. That panicked everyone and so to calm down the rabid lawyers the government told the churches they had to tell everyone whether they could be liable for a chancel repair bill by 2013. Up until this date nobody knew whether they were about to be hit with a £10,000 bill for some random church. After that date the only time the church can add liability to a house is between the exchange and completion period. You can get insurance to cover this risk. It's just completely insane.

Norway in Scotland

Family days in Cambridge

All everyone wants to do is just get a little bit of money from you. Oh you want to check for damp, that'll cost you, you want to make sure the roof isn't falling down, that'll cost you, you want to check if the church is going to whack you with a liability, that'll cost you. And all the while nothing is legally binding, it could all fall apart tomorrow. It's not until you actually exchange that you are sure that the sellers won't just change their minds. The joys of house buying. And don't even get me started on stamp duty!

Anyway I think the new house is going to be our main achievement for this coming year, if we ever make it to completion. Fingers crossed for a move in date in early Spring!

What else for this year? Hmmm maybe some more travel (though probably less than 2014), I'm hopeful for another trip to the US, maybe Yellowstone this time, another good 7 days out in the back-country with a few wolf, bear and moose sightings would be perfect, but no close encounters thank you. There was also thoughts of a week walking in Scotland and another week walking in the Canary Islands (that's for December to try and get us through another winter). I think that means no new countries visited this year. Hmmm maybe have to try and fit in some city breaks somewhere. I think I'd like to visit more of London, I feel like it was a bit neglected in 2014, so I'll have to try and make up for that. I guess we are trying to save a little money where possible to start paying off the house, so London visiting will be cheap. Aaah crushing debt, nothing like it to curtail holiday plans. Anyway I think this is going to be another great year, looking forward to it!

Tree on fire in the Lakes

Day 5 - Sallent to Sandinies

From Punta del Pacino - looking over the valley to where we walked 2
days ago

This was another great day of walking. It felt a bit wilder than the other walks we had done this week. I'm not sure why. It was another long day, 18km and 1000m of ascent, not insignificant after such a massive day the day before. We had seen the first part of this day when we were coming in from Panticosa. So we knew we were going pretty sharply up through a forest at the start, before the first ascent of the day. This one was really quite easy, probably the easiest ascent of the week. It just came after a really long slog to the saddle.

Looking towards we we walked yesterday - up the valley in the middle

After the final ascent of the day - happy to be on flat ground

We started at about 1200m in Panticosa and then had to get up to 1800m in just a couple of kilometres, so a pretty steep start. The views from the top were definitely worth it though. We could see back to where we had been walking both yesterday and the day before that. It's always slightly satisfying to see the mountains and ridges you have scaled before to get some idea of just how hard it looks from a distance. And let me tell you, it didn't look easy. The first ascent was 1965m, it was steep at the start, but overall nothing challenging. It was then a bit of a descent to a lake and yet another dam, not sure why there are so many dams. It's also strange to think that the state we were in, Aragon, is meant to be known for it's drought, and yet we had just spent a week constantly surrounded by lakes, dams and rivers. Perhaps that's why the rest of the state is so dry, they aren't letting the water flow south to it.

Yet another dam - surrounded by great mountains

Crossing the dam we came across a couple of mountain bikers. One of them was a young girl of about 10, it's nice to see adults getting their kids out, especially into such challenging terrain. I mean parts of this walk were just made for bikes, but it was pretty steep. And this section where we passed them was a bit of a cliff face, so they had to really just carry their bikes up it. Still if this was Australia I imagine the cyclists would have been completely banned from this trail, so it was nice to see that's not the case in the rest of the world, ie cyclists aren't a hunted species everywhere.

The view towards the dam, the second ascent is to the left in the mid-ground.
The one that just looks like a rocky outcrop - we climbed that. 

After lunching in the shade of an abandoned house it was up to another saddle. This abandoned house was pretty weird, it was completely burnt out, but nothing else was burnt around it, and it was miles from civilisation, at the very end of a dirt road with nothing around it. It made me wonder who would live there and what caused the fire. Perhaps it was an insurance scam, maybe it got to them after awhile, living so far from everything, but who else is going to want to buy the place.

Looking down from halfway up the climb - there is a
path of sorts in there, but it's a long fall if you slipped

The next section of the walk was pretty tricky, there was no path, we could see very clearly where we wanted to go, it's just that this section of the ground was full of steep gullies and ridges which would lead to a dead end - where you either had to go down and up a very steep gully, or turn around and try to find another way through. It was a very strange little section. After navigating it we made it up to another saddle, where we could head up Punta de la Cochata. I have to say I wasn't that keen to head up, it was incredibly steep. It looked almost like a cliff. It wasn't very long, thankfully, but I just didn't want to end up stuck halfway up not being able to go further up or getting down.

But Dave started off the climb. I was surprised at this since he doesn't have a good head for heights, but he attacked it. Thing is, he could only get about halfway up and then he started to feel it. It was hands and feet kind of stuff, like climbing a ladder, but with much looser footing and the prospect of a fall onto sharp rocks. Luckily it wasn't windy or raining. But halfway up it didn't look like it was going to get any worse, certainly not any better, but at least no worse. So I was keen to keep going whereas Dave wanted to turn around. We managed to get to the top, I like to think it was a team effort. Definitely the scariest climb I've done. My legs were shaking when we got back to flat ground, and there was a very short period of hyperventilating, but other than that, all good :).

Dave at the base of Punta de la Cochata

After recovering from this climb there was another tricky navigational section, mainly because the notes gave everything in terms of trees, stuff like, at the rowan tree turn left, then skirt around some box trees before passing a juniper bush. Problem is I have no idea what any of those trees look like, and since there wasn't much of a path you kind of needed to know what they were to stay on track. Still I was pretty proud of us, since we just followed the map instead and we managed to come out right where we were supposed to, even without any directions.

And that was pretty much it for our walking in Spain, there was one more day, but we just smashed that out in 3 hours or so. I think it was 14km or something, piece of cake after the distances we had been putting in. I was certainly sore though.

I do like the walking in Spain, the people are friendly, and seem to like the outdoors too, the weather is fantastic, and the trails aren't too crowded. What's not to like? I just need to learn a bit of Spanish I think.

Day 4 - Ibones de Arriel

Waterfalls along the way

This was probably my favourite day of the whole trip, a loop from Sallent, and into some biiiig mountains. We were really close to France at this point, my phone kept getting the "Welcome to France" texts. If (when?) I come back to the Pyrenees this is definitely where I am heading straight for. It would make a great base for exploring some 3000m peaks. And some great ridge lines.

This was also the toughest day, 23km with 1300m of ascent. It was hard. In the morning we were even thinking of making it tougher. We could have come back a slightly different way which would have given us the chance to scale a 2600m mountain. But it would have made the walk a couple of kms longer and with a lot more ascent. Since this took us probably 10 hours already I was glad that we hadn't added on the extra. This was also the day where it looked most likely to rain. And since at this point we had got complacent with the weather (carrying minimal rain gear or warm gear) I wasn't too keen to be stuck on a 2600m mountain as it was getting dark and raining. Anyway I think 23km is enough for one day.

Pretty mountain lakes

This day also started pretty early. For most of the rest of the week we would start fairly leisurely, maybe at 9:30-10am. Give us a chance for a bit of a sleep in and a nice big breakfast. For such a big day we started at 8am, we had a lift up to the start. This was the first (and only) time I was actually cold during the week. In the shaded valley at 8am at the start of this walk. I mean you start the walk at about 1500m, so not an insignificant height. So in the shade it did get a bit chilly.

The valley we walked up, no longer in shade

This walk followed a creek up into the mountains, until you make a left turn up what is basically a scree slope. And this was a full on scree slope, barely any path, just a bit of paint smeared on some rocks. And oh so steep. It took us about an hour to battle up this section, and it was probably only a km long. Then at the top of this never ending scree there are these beautiful mountain lakes, I guess the Ibones. There were some dams even this high up, I'm not sure why all these rivers are dammed. It seems that in the early 1900's hydroelectric power was discovered and they went a bit crazy with it up in the Pyrenees. Even now something like 12% of all energy in Spain is produced with hydroelectric. Which sounds like a fairly high percentage. I'm not sure why they aren't more into solar given all the sun they seem to receive.

The outdoor chapel with alter and massive cross

The first couple of kilometres of the walk was through a shaded valley, alongside a stream. This was the coolest part of the walk. There was an outdoor chapel in this valley, I'm not sure why it was here or what it signified. I don't think I've ever seen an outdoor chapel before. I guess they do like the outdoors in Spain, so perhaps this way you can have services and yet still enjoy nature.

The scree slope, there is supposedly a path in amongst all that

Yes there is a path somewhere along here.

Once we had made it to the mountain lakes - which were lovely. We stopped for a lunch break, then it was back down almost to the scree slope, but this time we skirt left and head up and over another ridge. Then follow another valley up to another mountain lake. This one was much bigger, it wasn't an Ibon but an Embalse, again no idea what the difference is. This one was also dammed, man they love their dams. It also had a refugio on it, almost halfway round the lake. At this point we didn't really have the energy to walk there. I am curious though to see how Spanish refugios differ from the Swiss ones, because the Swiss ones were incredible. Almost like hotels with hot food and toilets with views. Maybe next time.

The Pyreneean orchids

Some more mountain lakes - the water was so clear

After one last stop here it was then back down the valley. It was amazing how much quicker it was heading out rather than heading in. Perhaps because it was slightly downhill the whole way. And not uncomfortably downhill, just enough that the strides were a little longer than usual.

It was a really long day though, and we didn't return to our hotel until about 6pm or so. Just in time for the first supper of the Spanish evening.

We also got to walk along the GR11 for a bit, Europe has these great walks, long distance walks, through the country. Each country has their own, the GR11 was a bit different to the English long distance walks, in that it felt a bit tougher. Though it was still a good surface and really well marked.

The first lake we reached after the scree slope - the path is around to the left.

Dave with the final mountain lake 

The Embalse and large dam

The refugio in the distance and the embalse

Day 3 - Panticosa to Sallent de Gallego

Looking down on Panticosa

Day three was another big day, with 15km and 800m of ascent, we were really starting to feel the days add up by this point. This was another day that felt a bit like filler. We were just getting further up the valley to where the really big mountains were. This one was again a bit tricky with the directions, probably because it wasn't a standard route people would do. There were some good views back towards where we had come from and over the dammed lakes we spent most of the week walking around. Whilst we didn't know it at the time, we could also see the route we would be taking in 2 days time. On the other side of the valley.

Looking down on Sallent, the path in two days would head out of Sallent
to the left, through the forest.

Another dam in the valley

This day had some fairly killer ascents in it, they were never that long, just incredibly steep. Also the descent down was pretty tough too, no real path and straight down off the ridge we were hugging. This was one of the quietest day we had too, I don't think we saw a single other person the whole time we were out. That was nice and peaceful.

The first part of the walk was incredibly confusing, there were so many paths in the forest behind Panticosa. Luckily we had our GPS watches on so the directions, which were mainly given in terms of distances, could be deciphered. I'm not sure how you would go if you didn't have some way to measure the distance, count steps I suppose? It was another beautiful day, I'm not sure how we didn't get hideously sunburnt after this week. Thank goodness for they nice thick ozone layer over Europe.

About to head down to Sallent - this was a steep descent

An abandoned shepherd's hut (?). Maybe it was ex-military

Day 2 - Ibon de Sabacos - A day of Fauna

Looking across the valley of Panticosa

Day two was a loop walk through the mountains above Panticosa. This day was 16km with only 550m in elevation gain, but 1050m descent. I was so glad to have my poles, this descent was brutal on the knees. In summer there is a gondola running so we didn't have to slog it up through the ski field. This was a really great day walk. Today it really felt like we were in the Pyrenees, mountains all around, an easy ascent to 2295m, and blue skies for pretty much the entire day.

The trip up was done in a gondola, it was quite clear the difference in the levels of infrastructure between Spain and Switzerland. True Switzerland is higher, the peaks there are in the 4000m range, though the Pyrenees have quite a few over 3000m, but it seems that it is a lot easier to get a lot higher

We walk down to that hut, then up the other side. Montana del Verde is the 

peak overlooking the lake.

in Switzerland. I mean they have a train station at 3450m, which is higher than the highest mountain in the Pyrenees. I would have expected more ski lifts and gondolas in Spain, just because people enjoy getting into the mountains. This gondola was the only time we saw a way into the mountains, other than walking, during our whole trip. And it's not as if the Spanish don't enjoy the outdoors. They seem to be bigger ramblers than the British are, and it's a full family affair here, with grandparents through to grand kids walking together.

Looking out to the mountains on the other side of the valley

The view from Montana del Verde, looking down at Ibon de Sabocos and the hut

This was a day very much with a lot of up and down and it was also probably the busiest day we had. Probably because of the gondola, so more people could easily get into the mountains. From the gondola station we walked along a big fire trail, this was a bit of a walkers superhighway. In fact there was even a bus that could take people from the gondola up to Pico Mandilar, that's only at 2211m, we scoff at those small peaks. Luckily our walk was avoiding this bus route, and the majority of people. As we split off to the left and towards the Ibon de Sabocos. I think Ibon must mean mountain lake in Spanish, but I was never able to confirm this.

Looking down on Panticosa

The not so abrupt top of Montana del Verde

We come over the ridge and you can see the lake down below you, with a pretty little hut, and then you look further in the distance and see the next ridge you have to climb, and the big mountain to the left. That is Montana del Verde, and is 2295m high. So a bit of a climb from the lake edge, which is at 1900m. Montana del Verde was really quite steep, luckily we could leave our bags at the base. You also had to approach it from the back since there was a lot of scree on the other sides. It seemed that is a feature with the Spanish mountains, the approach is quite important. Not that this was at all difficult, just a bit taxing on the lungs and legs. The views from the top were amazing though, even though we still aren't really in the big mountains. There is a ridge of 3000m mountains that pretty much defines the border between Spain and France, but that was still a couple of days further north from where we were.

The top of the mountain was actually quite cold, since there was a very strong wind up there, I guess there weren't many other peaks at that height in the area. Though there were also a lot of sheep, I guess they are fairly safe from being harassed by people up here. It was also much less peak like up there, more like a narrow ridge. After dropping back down from the peak it was pretty much downhill all the way. By the end of the day I was really not enjoying that much down. I have to say I often prefer going up than down. It's a lot less painful on the knees and ankles.

More great views

As well as the sheep this was about the only day that we saw marmots. These are really funny little creatures, kind of like a cross between a rabbit and a rat. Probably as big as a rabbit, but with a longer body and small ears. They make this really strange screeching noise, we thought it was birds at first, but there weren't any birds around us. Though we also saw some really big birds today, we were hoping for golden eagles as apparently they live in the Pyrenees, but I think they were just a vulture of some kind. This was definitely the day of fauna.

There was also this massive cave in the cliffs, it was a really obvious cave from hundreds of metres away, so it must have been huge. I'm guessing it would have been a favourite for neolithic people. Another reason for them to hang out in this valley.

Montana del Verde, looking a bit more like a peak here