Limestone, Yorkshire Puds and Rugby

Three go for a stroll down a country lane

We drove down to Yorkshire to meet our friends Ele and Steve last weekend. The plan, since they live in Bristol, was to meet halfway. Unfortunately for them, it was half-term holidays in England with associated motorway chaos. So our 3 1/4 hr drive was a bit shorter than their 5 1/2 hr drive - unlucky, guys.

I used to work with Ele at PDP, and was pleased to find when I arrived at Dalesbridge that she is as mental as ever, despite having a chest infection. Her mum's family is from around that area so she knew the cool places to go.

The accomodation was bunkhouse-style (4 bunk beds) and reminded us of school camps! Lots of fun (if a little noisy from the neighbours and the plumbing - nothing the earplugs couldn't fix).

On Saturday we went for a bit of a stroll. The weather was beautiful for October and a great day for exploring some traditional English landscapes and local geological features.

Gordale Scar is a sharp gorge with a waterfall. Scrambling up through the gorge was more challenging than we'd expected (English hillwalking, anyone?) and particularly sterling efforts were made by Ele (breathing difficulties) and Sylvia (still only one serviceable arm).

Another characteristic of that area is limestone pavements. According to Steve, a great way of crossing boggy ground. It was disturbing how many of the big bits of rock actually moved though, and made quite a noise banging against one another. At one point we were making a bit of a racket - Sylvia pun - "We could start a rock band".

Cool drystone walls too - as you can see in the photo.

The rugby world cup final on Saturday night was great fun, Sylv and I were the only ones there supporting South Africa. Ele and Steve are quite into their rugby and I'm sure that if Steve had been the video match official then England would have got that try ;-)

Sylvia and I were constantly amused by place names like "Gayclops" (a gay guy with one eye?) and "Giggleswick". But on Sunday we had lunch with Ele's Mum and Gran at Giggleswick and had a great time (and great meal). Ele got a hard time from the staff for not liking carrots and swede ("Oh look, the girl who doesn't like carrots and swede finished them all. Or did you give them to someone else?") and her coughing ("Cough it up! It could be a gold watch"). But it was a yummy and traditional Yorkshire Sunday roast, with Yorkshire puds and all. I had to ask Neil why he had never cooked Yorkshire puds in all the time I lived with him, and he responded that maybe it was because we didn't have proper pud tins - apparently most of the flavour comes from never washing them.

I was feeling greedy so had a cheese selection for dessert, I hadn't expected so much though! Must have been several hundred grams of cheese, including some local varieties (Wensleydale, and Stilton from a bit further afield). Fortunately I had some help to eat it all so didn't suffer from cheese dreams.

A very narrow (historic) bridge in Yorkshire

The afternoon found us feeling lazy and sleepy, so we took it easy on the drive back to Edinburgh, stopping off for a couple of hours in the Lake District on the way home.

Thanks Ele and Steve for a great weekend :-)

Three Munroes in One Day

A Munro is a mountain over 3000', and the sport of climbing munros is called 'Munro Bagging'. While I wouldn't want to be known as a Munro Bagger (since there are lots of worthwhile hills less than 3000') I suppose if you're going to do one...

It was nearly four, but we didn't climb the Devil's Penis because we might have ended up quite shagged. The final list was Beinn Bhrotain, Monadh Mor and Cairn Toul. While three 3000' mountains in one day might sound impressive, of course there was only about 300 or 400 m of drop between each one, I think I worked out that we ended up doing about 1,500 m of climb in our day.

We climbed more than three peaks, but there are some complex rules about how much vertical drop, and horizontal distance, there must be between any two peaks for them to both be considered Munros. Our three are all in the Cairngorms, within striking distance of the Brown's house in Braemar - the strike in question being a 1 1/4 hr scenic bike ride up the Dee river.

As you can see from the photos, we had a bit of cloud about and compass navigation was required a couple of times. It's quite a barren landscape when you can't see much but the views certainly improve with a good opening in the clouds.

By the time we got to the bottom of the Devil's Penis, we knew we were already short on time - following our descent, we had a 6 km walk/run back down the Dee to where we'd stashed the bikes, so regrettably would have to leave the ascent of that protuberance for another day. As it was, we just got back in time to watch Scotland beat Italy in the World Cup, and for a yummy dinner cooked by Sylvia :-)

Mhairi gazes longingly at the Devil's Penis

Fortunately we stopped long enough on our slog back down the river to catch this view! This is the route followed by the Lairig Ghru, the route from Braemar to Aviemore throught the Cairngorms.

Go Black!

Well, actually silver, since the All Blacks played in their alternate strip against Scotland in Edinburgh. This blog entry is being written in the aftermath of New Zealand's early dismissal from the World Cup. In the interests of not rekindling anyone's pain, rugby will be mentioned no further in this post.

Lots of friends came to Edinburgh from all over the UK and beyond for the game, in fact the vast majority of kiwis that I know in the UK were here. Andrew Macklan and Mark Mayo stayed with us for the weekend, and we also caught up with (hope I haven't forgotten anyone): Tim and his mate Cocksy, Mike and Heather, Eyk and Tim, JP and Bernie, and Cynthia. Also Ed and Abbie, who have just moved to Edinburgh and happened to arrive that weekend! Some of these people are in the fuzzy photo below, taken at an Indian restaurant where we had a good discussion with the owner on the footpath outside the restaurant over the bill.

Here are some more photos of some other dodgy characters.

We all had a great weekend and it was fun to catch up with so many friends at once. Mark and Andrew particularly enjoyed spooning on our lounge floor.

(Photo credit Mark Mayo for the stadium photo)