Scotland gets our vote!

29 September 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog, Feature Tagged extraordinaryplaces, Highland Games, Oban, Scotland, Skye, whisky

It’s official; Scotland is our favourite place in the UK. From highlands to islands, across moors and lochs, at the Highland Games and sheepdog trials, we’ve had a hoot-mon!

It seems people fight over Scotland a lot. We arrived just weeks before the referendum on independence from the rest of the UK.

A nation divided?

The polls seemed pretty evenly split until the day dawned and the No campaign won through. But the ballot boxes had barely been stored away before voices of regret began to be heard.

More than 250 years ago Bonnie Prince Charlie must have had a few regrets as his army became bogged on Culloden moor and was routed by the English – sealing the fate of a nation to this day.

Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived here to start the Scotish revolution. Within nine months he was defeated and on the run

Sometimes history is made in the most unassuming places – Culloden field

Now the fields grow cattle fodder, in 1746 they were filled with human canon fodder

The boggy marshes of Culloden field were the downfall of the Jacobite armies

We had no regrets in Scotland. The sun shone almost daily – bringing the bluest skies and gorgeous views from the Highlands and Islands alike.

We couldn’t believe how sunny and blue it was as we hiked the Black Cuillin

Big sky over Skye – at Broadford

Fire and ice in the sky as the sun sets and the moon rises over the Kyles of Bute

We sailed over the sea to Skye; hiked up to the Black Cuillin and out to Neist Point lighthouse; met the most majestic sheep we have ever seen and much, much more.

The view from the Cuillin – nearly high enough to touch the sky

Over the sea to Skye

Hiking up to the Black Cuillin, Skye

Neist Point, Skye

Neist Point lighthouse, with basalt cairns and a huge foghorn!

The magnificent and increasingly rare, four-horned Hebridean sheep

One of many glorious days camping in Scotland

Loch Dunvegan, Skye

The moon over Loch Harport at Carbost, Skye

Oban has a couple of stand out landmarks. The first is a folly – the huge Coliseum style building looming over the town and the whisky distillery that gave the town its name and occasionally gives its scent.

Whisky and folly galore!

Oban harbour

In Oban we met an American woman making ready to compete in the Masters International Highland Games the following week in Inverness. We couldn’t resist the trip.

We were cheering for Angela – who told us about the Games.

At the risk of sounding dismissive – Highland games revolve around throwing unfeasible long, heavy or awkward objects around.

This sport is not for the meek – that stone weighs nearly 90kgs

They call them The Heavies

This lady turned up late, with a broken nose after a car crash, and still won the round

Just pick up this 110kg stone and throw it over that bar, would you

Equalling the women’s world record (17ft) for throwing a heavy weight over a high bar

Sometimes the size, shape and requirements are too much to handle.

It can be hard to keep control of a caber – and a risky business too

It was a Masters tournament, so that means over the age of 40. The oldest competitor was 84!

Looks can be deceiving – this old fella tossed more cabers than men nearly half his age

The over sixties were pretty impressive.

It was incredible and topped off with a world record simultaneous caber-tossing extravaganza!

The caber-tossers are standing by for the record attempt

A caber-tossing frenzy

The caber-tossing Guinness World Record official

Inverness is a lovely city – with the fish-filled River Ness running through it and of course the infamous monster-filled loch close by. It has a handsome castle,

Inverness Castle on the River Ness

the most fantastic arts centre, where we saw the premiere of the Nick Cave film, 20,000 days on Earth , took lovely river walks,

The Ness river running through Inverness, and still open for trout fishing

complete with mid-stream wooded islands stuffed with proper toadstools and the most moving pet cemetery. We were very taken with Inverness!

To Noddy – one of the tombstones at the Ness Island pet cemetery

Tombstones in the pet cemetery on Ness Island, Inverness

Ness Island toadstools

There are many more photos in the slideshow than we’ve featured in the blog – so please, raise a glass to Scotland and enjoy the beauty of the place with us. If you still haven;t supped enough of the spirit of Scotland, there are even more photos on our Flickr page – so have a peek at those too!

Away to me

24 September 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged extraordinaryplaces, puppies, Scotland, sheepdog

Herding sheep? Easy. You grab one and the rest just follow, well, like sheep, right? Oh, no. It’s complicated, but don’t worry – there are cute puppy pictures as well!

Neil Ross is a champion sheepdog trainer.

Neil Ross barks out the commands

A no-nonsense Scot who is one of the last full-time shepherds in his region in Inverness-shire, he also spends years training his sheepdogs. And it shows.

Running with the hounds

Neil’s skill is evident

It takes at least two years to train a sheepdog. The first year is spent training to voice commands – lie down, away to me, a few bits of swearing and general chat seemed to be the standard. The second year is training to a specific whistle

Each dog has its own whistles and there are eight commands, so if you have eighteen dogs, as Neil does, that’s a lot of whistles. However, stop is stop and universal for all.

Most shepherds would only use one or two dogs for herding

Neil’s skill isn’t limited to handling the dogs. He can fling a mean sheep around too.

Neil is also a full-time shepherd and can swing a big fat ewe like a bag of feathers

Now we know how to keep hold of a sheep

Not missing a trick, even though he’s just a pup

And never mind those Aussie shearers with their electric cutters – Neil scalped this one in pretty short order, while maintaining a constant monologue on the evils of mechanical razors!

The sheep get sheered twice a year. The new growth is left on for winter warmth

Ta dah! Sheered in one piece

We were more interested in the smaller fleeces.

Who wants to feed the baby lambs? Me, Me..oh and that little kid

Feeding baby lambs is nice and all that, but where are the puppies?

All I want for Christmas…

Bucket of puppies

Stick with me kid, you’ll be fine

Neil’s yard was good training for us, as the next day we were off to a real sheepdog trial.

Unusually for our Scottish trip, the weather was not being kind to us, but the show trial must go on.

Sheep herding happens come rain or shine

Soon the grey mists lifted and we could see the dogs in action.

Fixed intent as he waits his turn

Ready for anything

There are five main components to the competition:

The lift – where the dog races down the field, coming up behind the sheep and moves them off their standing position…..

Far down the field the dog lifts the group of sheep and brings them to the top end of the field

The drive – bringing the sheep back up the field to the shepherd and around the standing post…..

Waiting in the long grass

The sheep must be herded down a long field and brought to the shepherd. Some look surprised to have arrived!

Gates – taking the flock through two gates….

The dogs are not allowed to touch the sheep but herd them from a distance

These sheep are going full tilt – which can lose points if technique goes full tilt with them

The pen – getting the sheep into a pen. Some encouragement from the shepherd with the gate rope or his stick is permitted, but not encouraged…..

Using the gate or your stick too much gets points deducted

Splitting the herd – in some competitions, specific sheep with coloured collars have to be split from the main group, but at this trial it was simply a question of going in two-by-two….

Splitting the sheep herd is not nearly as easy as it looks

Some were mighty impressive and some were having a bad day.

A very stylish shepherdess

These sheep were stubborn as mules, and eventually ran out the clock on Vivian and her dog.

Each dog has it’s own whistle – but points are deducted for whistling too much

And some simply got on the wrong side of some pretty grumpy sheep.

They don’t all follow like sheep – some fight back

But the level of skill amongst them all was undeniable. Dog and trainer in perfect harmony. If you ever get the chance to go to a sheep dog trial – grab it, we promise you’ll enjoy it!

Okay, okay – here are the puppies again!

Bucket of puppies

Faster than a hurricane

18 September 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in 2CV, Blog, Feature Tagged 2CV, Anglesey, CharlieCharleston, extraordinaryplaces, racing, Wales

A twenty-four hour 2CV race, the chance to drive the track in Charlie Charleston, oh, and a hurricane for good measure. Yes, it was all as daft as it sounds.

It all started in a lay-by in Leicestershire. That’s pronounced Lester-sheer in case you are not sure – not Lie-cester-shire as it may look. That is just one small example of the curiosity that is the English language and place names, but more on that another day.

So, there we were, bonnet up and Geoff fiddling with a loose hose. Behind us a motor-home pulled up and Graham and Dawn Daniels hopped out to check if we were okay. “We’ve got one of those too” they said – nodding toward Charlie. Offers of coffee and general chat followed and they told us of the meeting of the 2CV GB club at the end of August, including a 24-hour race. They left us with their phone number, address, email, an offer to stay if we passed their way and a promise that if we needed anything while we were in the UK, to give them a call and they would find a 2CV club member to help us, wherever we were.

Well – if they’re all as nice as the Daniels, then we should go to the meeting and it sounds like a laugh anyway, we thought. We joined the club and booked the next day! Fast forward a few weeks and this was us,

Under stormy skies Charlie Charleston & co. thunder down the race track!

roaring(!) around the Anglesey race track in North Wales, with a hundred or so fellow 2CV owners. The owners parade, to which they came in all disguises, was prelude to the real day and night race.

Getting ready for a spin around the race track

They came in all colours

They came in every design

We all queued up for a chance to ride the circuit

Let’s get ready to rumble!

2CVs as far as the eye could see

What a sight!

Our car has done more than 30,000km in the last year. The yellow and black one on the right has done less than 300km!

After our turn around the track it was time for the real racers to begin. Not only were traditional 2CVs racing, but also the crazily adapted European cars – complete with BMW motorbike engines almost double the size of a regular 2CV and with all kinds of custom bodywork designs.

And they’re off – only 24hours and 900 laps to go

The crazy euro-cars, with BMW engines and bodywork all their own!

In the middle of all of that were, rather incongruously, three Mini Coopers as well – apparently there to make up the numbers and we were all secretly slightly amused to see the lead Mini get side-swiped by a 2CV on the very first corner.

The white mini got pranged here on the first corner of the race

Now, thirty-plus cars with 600cc engines zooming around a race track in Wales might not sound like everyone’s idea of an exciting weekend away, but it was surprisingly dramatic, with suitable doses of comic too.

Wacky races

Looping around the circuit

The sight of the cars almost lifting off as they cleared the hill at the top of the turn, the two-wheeled, downhill cornering, complete with squealing brakes and smoking tyres, made it real racing, regardless of the engine size.

Two-wheeled cornering

Bumper to bumper for 24 hours

Even the racing marshalls, used to seeing a rather larger cc fly past them at Anglesey looked impressed and admittedly, occasionally amused.

The Anglesey Circuit marshals had never seen anything like this racing before!

In the pits the sheer endurance of the four-driver teams and their support crew was amazing.

Back at the pits it’s as professional as any race team

All through the night they powered on, through until the following afternoon.

Four drivers took turns over 24hours – gruelling by any standards

Night riders

The circuit has spectacular views out to sea and great sunsets

Charging over the hill – the eventual winner already in the lead as night falls

Midnight moves

Oops! Not all of them made the corner

Lit up for the night racing

Faster than the speed of light!

For some it was harder going than other – Herbie Boy scored 25 pit stops in 24 hours, but by the end, the winning cars in each category had rounded the track more than nine hundred times, driven more than 1200km, and many had worn out two complete sets of tyres each.

The chequered flag

Two full sets of tyres in 24 hours

The morning after the night before

All had competed relentlessly and impressively.

Hailing the conquering heroes

The victory pen

Talking of impressive – about that hurricane. North Wales is not known for its balmy summer temperatures and Anglesey racetrack is rather dramatically perched on the western edge of the island, looking out to the Atlantic. As we wrestled to put up the tent, we almost snapped the poles, ripped the nylon and generally feared that our home might not make it through the night. “Is it always this windy?” we asked. “It’s been like this all week. The locals say if the wind stops it’s the end of the world,” a cheery young lady marshall in shorts and a t-shirt beamed at us! It wasn’t until two days later that someone confessed we had been putting up our tent as the tail-end of a hurricane passed over – the locals must have been in heaven!

The Revolution will be digitised

27 August 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged Barbican, Chris Milk, Daniel Rozin, digital revolution, dronestagram, England, extraordinaryplaces, Gravity, James Bridle, Pong, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Tim Webber, Will.i.am

It’s pretty fun when you can re-live your digital youth and peer into the future all in the same day. Complete with a few happy snaps from an iPhone – here’s your chance to do the same.

The Digital Revolution is an exhibition at the Barbican Arts Centre in London, spanning the startlingly short timeframe between some of the first computer creations to today and glimpses of what is still to come. While we might baulk at some of our digital addictions – such as the 183 billion emails sent every day – who could fail to be enthralled by the seemingly limitless possibilities of it all. The first part of the exhibition looks at how it all began – with some memory-jogging moments like the early Apple Macs,

Memories are made of this – but only 128k worth

One of the first bytes from the Apple

King Pong

It looks so dated now – but what an amazing thing it was

Remember Andy Warhol in 1985 making art with an Amiga 1000 and Debbie Harry, live on air.

Andy Warhol does Debbie!

And it wasn’t just artists making musicians into art, it was musicians making art into pop, when Dire Straits aired their ground-breaking video in 1985.

A lot of money and not for nothing

That partnership was brought right up to date by Will.i.am and Yuri Suzuki in the Pyramidi – making art and music together, with reconstructed musical instruments that looked like decorations, and an ever-changing face that followed your every movement – the photos don’t do it justice so do check out the website – it was pretty groovy!

Will.i.am and his music machine

Will.i.am in his blue period

Will.i.am’s pyramid in the corner is a re-formed piano

There were also a few historical surprises – did you know that the technology used in The Abyss became Photoshop? As the exhibition continues, so does the magnitude of digital development. A fascinating film from Tim Webber about the creation of Gravity tells of how it was more than a year in pre-production rendering before they even brought a single actor into the studio. Indeed, even in the end, the human part was literally a fraction of the actors involved.

The only thing not computer generated was Sandra Bullock’s face… that’s just enhanced!

Maybe one day soon this could be our reality

What was once fable is now fabulous

Along the corridor and the digital mirror is held up to our faces – and this is how we look :

Get behind me Satans

Daniel Rozin’s “Mirror No. 10” which turns the viewer into almost an abstraction was a lot of fun, as was the freakish installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer – titles “The Year’s Midnight” . After staring into a video image of yourself for a few seconds, smoke comes pouring from your eyes, regardless of which way you moved your head.

Smoke gets in your eyes

And if that isn’t enough, check out the birds in Chris Milk’s The Treachery of Sanctuary As you watch your shadow raise its arms, the circling birds swoop down and begin devouring you – fingers first – until you move along to the last screen where all childhood dreams come true and you really do get to grow wings and fly away – amazing!

The birds, the birds!

Flap your wings and fly

Up,up and away

Haven’t we all wished we could do this at some time

Other birds came alive when you called – on the telephone. The faces of some feathered friends were pasted onto old mobile phones and just one call from an even older style analogue phone was enough to bring them to life. It was pretty dark, so the pictures on their phones are better than the one on ours! It was not all art – some was very sobering reality, such as the dronestagram – set up by journalist James Bridle to show US drone strikes in Afghanistan and Yemen – images that we rarely would see otherwise.

Droning and the right to know

This is his take on technology: “History, like space, is co-produced by us and our technologies: those technologies include satellite mapping, social photo sharing from handheld devices, and fleets of flying death robots. We should engage with them at every level. These are just images of foreign landscapes, still; yet we have got better at immediacy and intimacy online: perhaps we can be better at empathy too.” The exhibition was enlightening, exciting, sobering and fascinating all in one. If you get a chance to see it in London or it comes to your town – don’t miss it.

Gypsy wagons, JCBs and joyrides

12 August 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged donkey, England, extraordinaryplaces, gypsy wagon, HelpX, Model T Ford, Pembridge, Workaway

We’ve abandoned Chubby, our trusted tent once more and moved into a gypsy wagon, hand-built in traditional style and parked up next to a donkey in an apple orchard.

Our gypsy wagon

We’ve been staying in the orchard near the historic black and white village of Pembridge, with Andy (wagon-maker) and Archie (donkey). Pembridge is a classic “chocolate box” English village, with ancient dwellings, a local “shoppe” and three pubs!

Pembridge high street

Pembridge

Pembridge brown and white

Pembridge old house

It seemed appropriate in such a timeless place that Andy would have, amongst the many treasures in his barns, a restored Model T Ford which he kindly let my brother, Kevin and nephew, Charles take for a spin when they dropped by for a visit.

Starting up the Model T

Charles and Andy in the Model T

Our wagon was one of a number in various states of restoration, and it was quite an experience to realise that this was how so many travellers before us had lived, as they roamed the highways and byways.

inside one of the wagons

Wooden chests in the wagon

We spent sunny days helping Andy clear his yard – some jobs were harder than others!

Wagon’s roll!

We also got to play with a few of his less elegant and romantic vehicles.

Howdy, digger!

Geoff had never heard of a JCB before we arrived at the orchard – in Australia they are just called a digger or backhoe. By the time we left, he had brought a long-broken one back to life, just in time to show off his skills and for me to give it (and Andy) a whirl around the orchard!

Geoff and the JCB

Hauling old tree roots with the newly repaired digger

Up, up and away

We also got a chance to whirl a little higher, when Andy arranged for us to take a flight over the rolling hills of the Herefordshire countryside.

Us and our Piper Archer joyride

Geoff & Andy in the back of the plane

We both started learning to fly many years ago. The funds dried up long before the fun did and it was a real treat to be hands on the controls again.

Sara flying – the grin says it all!

Out on a wing

Eyes front over the Wye Valley

We can’t sign off this blog without mentioning the lovely Archie. Archie has the run of the orchard, and is very demanding in the head-rubbing department!

Archie in his dust bath

Archie’s orchard

Why the long face? Insufficient time spent rubbing his head, probably.

Andy is a former goldsmith, turned great wagon and cabinet maker. Check out his luxury compost loos as well on his website! He often takes volunteer workers at his farm to give him some extra help, through schemes like Workaway and HelpX. These are great programmes which partner hosts looking for help on projects large and small – from an elderly lady wanting to decorate her front room, to organic farms and building projects – with helpers/travellers looking for new experiences, local insight, a bit of fun and maybe even a campfire.

The opportunities are worldwide – so if you are thinking of travelling and want to do it differently, try signing up to one of the schemes. You might be lucky enough to find an Andy and Archie along the way

Wheels on fire – our last night campfire.

Gone gongoozling

5 August 2014 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged England, extraordinaryplaces, Foxton Locks, gongoozling, narrow boats, Oxford

We’ve become gongoozlers.

It wasn’t painful, we had to drive more than 100 miles and it took more than an hour for it to happen, but it was really good!

We made our transformation at Foxton Locks – a unique series of ten stepped canal locks joining the Grand Union and Leicester canals.

Looking down Foxton Locks

Gongoozlers are the narrow boat equivalent of train spotters – hanging around on canal banks waiting for the craft to chug by. We hit gongoozle gold, arriving just in time to watch one boat coming down the locks and another coming up. A wider central lock allows them to pass each other at the halfway point. Right of way belongs to whoever gets there first apparently!

One comes up as the other goes down

The sluices are cranked opened at the red and white posts

The next lock is ready to be filled

The passing lock

Foxton Locks is a marvel of engineering, joining two canal systems which were separated by a 75ft/23m drop. With a well practised crew on board, to fast crank the sluices, steer the narrow boat through and then close the sluice behind them, the trip through the 10 locks can take around 45 minutes. In the demanding industrial age, that was deemed too lengthy, and a massive steam-driven boat lift was built on the side of the locks. It could winch four boats at a time from top to bottom much faster, but sadly, still not fast enough to compete with the steam trains, less than two decades later – whose superior speed and capacity rendered the boat lift redundant and it was removed. Happily, the locks are still busy and host many narrow boats and even more gongoozlers every day.

It is a tight fit for the narrow boats

Going under the bridge into the canal

Foxton Locks can be a busy little intersection

Geoff closing the last of the Foxton Locks

Foxton Locks is now a grade 1 listed structured – deemed to be so historically and architecturally important that it is fully protected. It is only used for pleasure these days, but it is still a real sight to see. We would not have known about this fascinating place if it had not been for a fellow traveller – Rachel Kerr – with whom we had swapped travel tips with in a carpark in the Lake District a few weeks ago – thanks again Rachel.

We stayed not far from the Locks at Barford Top, a livery yard and small campsite run by the lovely Wendy and Maurice. They gave us the most generous, cheery and chatty welcome to their home atop a hill, with spectacular views across the valleys.

White horse in the field

Cows in the fields

The summery evenings were punctuated with lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the occasional burping horse chewing on the fence and the sound of our own voices – bliss.

White horse at sunset

Tractor at sunset

Geoff and the barbeque

The misty morning changed the outlook entirely, but was equally beautiful.

Misty morning across the valley

Spiders web and tractor

We headed off to visit friends in Wales, but took a detour to do one more thing that is as quintessentially English as bucolic country scenes and brilliant engineering feats – a row on the river at Oxford.

Beware crazy Italians on punts

Getting spoiled!

Heading under the final bridge

That was quite a work out

Coming next – even more Englishness in one of the country’s most famous “black and white” villages, living in gypsy wagons and flying high over Hereford. Stay tuned!