Days not Homeless: 5 Years, 6 Days ...and loving every second of this alpine adventure!
No idea why it had taken us so long to make it to Egypt but we're already raring to go back! This occasion was just a week long vacation to get us away from the cold of the Alps and for me to enjoy (if there is any enjoyment!) recovering from hip replacement surgery....
Would the Sahara be any different from Wadi Rum in Jordan's Arabian Desert or the Namib Desert town of Sossusvlei in Namibia? With Andrea's five day Christmas break we had enough days to find out, the only issue being whether we head to Erg Chebbi on the main tourist...
Still recovering from a frostbitten toe and finger the probability of us actually making it to the top of North Africa was looking slim, made worse by the fact that from Marrakesh the Atlas Mountains looked totally white. This wasn't the sign I was looking for in the...
Prior to arriving in Morocco a month sounded like plenty of time, a time that was unfortunately already cut in half. Being alone for the first two weeks I only got to spend time in the populated Marrakesh and Fes areas so when Andrea arrived it was time to spread our...
Whilst Marrakesh is known for its massive influx of tourists the city of Fes would turn out to be far lower key, a good thing as spending the past four nights in the blue city of Chefchaouen was all about narrow streets full of Asians and their selfie sticks! No need...
Exactly 133 days after arriving on the African continent we were sadly saying our farewells. Cape Town had been our arrival city and was now our departure point back to Europe and the US. We both agreed that we could have spent another few weeks here! Other than the...
Malawi was looking like another of those countries where we may have been leaving the moment we arrived, with daily reported power cuts, poor Internet and a US Government website declaring that a letter of approval was required for Americans - we needed good Internet,...
Quite possibly the best bit of travel advice we've been given was to add South Luangwa to our list of African destinations. Coupled with the Cape Epic mountain bike race this was the only thing planned in advance and definitely the costliest of anything we did whilst...
Our arrival into Kigali's small but modern airport late in the evening made us slightly apprehensive, mostly due to us having no idea as to the safety nor location of our accommodation. That was good enough reason to take the Ivuka Art Gallery transportation. Twenty...
Lake Bunyonyi and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park provided us an exciting insight into Uganda, a country that even in the six days we visited offered so much. We had planned to move beyond the extreme southwest corner but for two reasons had to reconsider - firstly...
During our time in Bwindi National Park in Southwest Uganda my wife Andrea and I made the decision to visit two community orphanages/ primary schools in an attempt to gain an insight into the conditions the local children have to endure; we were not prepared for what...
All we knew about Rwanda prior to our arrival was that at some point not too long ago they had suffered through a genocide and that more recently their Mountain Gorilla permits had been raised from $750 per person to $1500; something to do with wanting to attract a...
Although premium lodges and high-end tourism are the norm in this landlocked country we did manage to survive on somewhat of a budget. We had already visited for a full hour whilst heading from Namibia to Zimbabwe, a brief encounter that included a dead zebra and...
It was now time to leave Namibia behind, the last week spent on the narrow strip of land in the extreme north of the country known as the Caprivi Strip. We had pretty much based ourselves out of the eastern most points biggest town, Katima Mulilo, due to the fact that...
Upon our arrival into Namibia’s main Hosea Kutako International Airport all we knew for sure was that we were going to be spending our first two nights at a decent airbnb in a decent part of the city, a perfect location for the short 5 minute walk to Joe’s Beerhouse;...
Sunday March 18th had come around far too quickly and although only a short 20km prologue day there were still nerves in abundance! The relatively late 10:27.55 start time didn’t help. Were we prepared? Everything was packed away into the very nice looking Cape Epic...
Going back two years I missed out on the Absa Cape Epic with Team CoreCo due to hip surgery, the following year timing and other events messed things up, bringing us to 2018. After receiving the green light from a very understanding wife I hit the submit button for...
No idea why it had taken us so long to make it to Egypt but we're already raring to go back! This occasion was just a week long vacation to get us away from the cold of the Alps and for me to enjoy (if there is any enjoyment!) recovering from hip replacement surgery....
After what felt like an eternity it was a random email from a good friend in the US that prompted a plan of attack for the remaining 8 state highpoints. Unfortunately they were spread far and wide and included four that required some level of technique and multiple...
Our Route des Grandes Alpes map from Cluses to MentonCol d'Izoard DescentCol de Turini DescentSt Martin VésubieValbergArvieuxRoute des Grandes Alpes Day 1: Cluses to Le Grand-Bornand to Beaufort-sur-Doron Col de Romme, Col de la Colombiere, Col des Aravis, Col des...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
Unable to take a rental car into Albania on a prior roadtrip through Europe we made it a mission to discover what would turn out to be a gem, and not one of those expensive gems! EasyJet supplied the direct flight from Geneva to Tirana, public transport was dirt...
Unable to take a rental car into Albania on a prior roadtrip through Europe we made it a mission to discover what would turn out to be a gem, and not one of those expensive gems! EasyJet supplied the direct flight from Geneva to Tirana, public transport was dirt...
Not quite what we had planned regarding a big Swedish adventure, our 3 week Kungsleden hike turning into a city break in Stockholm. Oh well, it was still fun, and we got to explore another scenic European city. With EasyJet flying the dirt cheap route directly from...
The thought of travelling for two days to visit family in New Zealand without adding on a South Pacific island trip was now only a thought! After spending a little over a week in Niue on our previous trip where would we go this time? Whilst my mum had already been to...
With a few hundred Euros in TAP Portugal credit and no real idea of where to go that didn't involve connections and long flights we decided to just head somewhere warm and that we'd never been to before. The Algarve sounded like that destination. Unfortunately the...
Approaching Greenland ice shelf from the air was humbling, the size of the glaciers tumbling into the sea, the iceberg’s with their turquoise underwater colours, the sheer expanse… and we were barely north of Greenland's narrowest point - there was a hell of a lot...
So here it is, time for another fairly long bike-packing adventure following the length of the mighty Rhine river. The other getaways I was toying with were either a north south traverse of Iceland on foot or a photography shoot in the Faroe Islands - for both it was...
Over eighty days of skiing under my belt, it was time for Andrea and I to head to warmer climates. We had spent some time in the French island of Corsica a couple of years ago and now it was time for the Italian island of Sardinia. We had zero plans; just the desire...
Not what we had initially planned but more than happy that crap high mountain reports ruined our early spring 4000m peak bagging adventure! What was a loosely organised Monte Rosa trip, overnight turned into a well oiled Haute Route ski tour (thanks for demanding a...
Andrea heading home to visit family for a little over 3 weeks made the perfect excuse to make my third trip to Nepal. This time would be kind of strange as it wouldn't involve the Icefall, the Lhotse Face, nor the summit of Everest! I had to find something different...
Not entirely hopeful that we would have time to attempt a second Dolomites high route we hadn't planned or reserved anything for Alta Via 1. Having a copy of the GPX route downloaded to Gaia and a list of the more popular refuges was the extent of it. Whilst winging...
Planning a long hike during Covid was not as easy as we anticipated. Our, or at least my first option of the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland was pretty much closed - we needed a plan B. We had never really thought too much about the Dolomites but after reading...
Outside of Cape Epic in South Africa the Swiss Epic in Graubünden, Switzerland, is probably the big destination mountain bike race of the Epic series. Being one of the qualifiers for the Cape Epic, the two-person-team five day event is hugely competitive, packed with...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
Whilst Mont Blanc comes in at the highest mountain in western Europe its normal "Goûter" route is one of the easiest in the Alps. The 4810m snow covered summit looms over Chamonix, the lower glaciers of Bossons and Taconnaz winding their way down from the upper...
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