Late '08 update

The best part of 6 months seems to have passed since we last posted anything to this blog, so you could be forgiven for thinking we'd been doing nothing since our holiday in Italy. However we've actually been flat out, and that's why we've not had much of a chance to fill you in on our activities. That and the fact nothing we've done seems to match the holidays we had in the first half of the year. Still it's not been all bad, so here's an update on what we've been up to.

August passed without much excitement, although we made a trip to Devon to go surfing. The conditions were dreadful though, so we agreed that maybe the beach weekends weren't a very good use of resources, and we might be best to avoid them until we're living nearer a good beach.

At the beginning of September we had a week up in Nothumberland, which despite it's proximity to Newcastle is a far less spoilt area of the country than many others we've visited. We have a saying 'just because it's old, doesn't mean I want to see it', and we like to think it's helped us avoid many boring museum visits on our travels. We're not totally anti-history though which was helpful as there's an awful lot of history in Nothumberland, including this very long pile of stones left by some guy called Hadrian. In September the previous year we'd been in Istanbul, which now seemed a very long way away, and we reflected on just how big his empire had been to have encompased everything between the two places and more.



Although it was relatively cool and a bit damp at times, we managed to go on some nice walks including one where Vonny forgot her coat, and had to wear the rain cover from Chris' backpack to try and stay dry. On the way we saw these amazing prehistoric stone carvings in the middle of nowhere, apparently no-one seems to know what they were for.



It wasn't all rain however and we had some lovely weather the day we walked to Lindisfarne. Most people get to the island by car, which is a shame given that there is a pilgrims route marked across the estuary that people have been using for hundreds of years. In the picture below Vonny is standing on the causeway that connects the island with the mainland, which is covered with water twice a day. Despite numerous warning signs people do try to drive across it when the tide is in, and have to wait in the elevated refuge while their cars are innundated by the sea.



If you've got time you might also want to have a look at these pages from The British Library who hold the Lindisfarne Gospels. As well as a bit of history there is the opportunity to view various parts of them in high resolution through their 'turning the pages' option. You might need to download an add-on for your browser.

We seemed to have a good run of places to stay, including one that had roaming ducks. Our suspicions were that they were quite tame as one of them decided to sit on our camping stove while we were eating our dinner in order to take advantage of the residual warmth. That's the bird equivalent of putting your head in the lion's mouth. However towards the end of the week we had to cut our holiday short as the forecast was for very heavy rain, so we headed down to spend a day in York. We ended up in a Travelodge as it was raining far too heavily to camp comfortably, and we were glad we did. The next day it wasn't raining but the river Ouse was only just within it's banks and we heard on the radio that the campsite with the ducks had been flooded, and the campers had been rescued by the fire brigade.

We had a great day though including a visit to York Minster, although Chris had a bit of a grumble about there being an admission charge given the Church of England is the fifth wealthiest charity in the world, with assets of over £5.5 billion. We also managed to fit in a trip to the National Railway Museum, which we thought was good as like all the best museums (such as Big Pit) it has free entry and relies on people enjoying their visit and making donations.



A few weeks after we got home we were away for a weekend in the New Forest. This time it wasn't for a relaxing break however, but to run the New Forest Marathon

We'd both started our training just after our cycling trip in June, although the need to build a foundation on which to train had required us to take our running shoes to Amsterdam and on our bike trip in June, as well as every subsequent holiday. This was especially true of our trip to Auronzo, where doing runs and big walks became a balancing act, and we had to miss the best weather for ferrati for the whole visit as we were due to run 15 miles around the lake. All that exercise had it's benefits though as we were able to gorge oursleves on ice cream and pizzas while we were there and still lose weight.

Training became a lot easier once we returned home from Italy with week-day runs fitting in nicely before work and the long ones falling on Saturdays, when we had little else to do. Shortly after we got home Vonny realised that being constantly on the go for the previous few months meant she was too exhausted to continue training for the full distance, so she switched to the half marathon but kept running further than that most weekends. Unfortunately there isn't a 3/4 marathon option though as it would have suited her quite nicely. Chris just managed to keep up with the full schedule, although the way he went about it ultimately didn't serve him too well on the day. Having done his long training runs in the cool of the early morning, along the river and with frequent water stops, the conditions of the race came as a bit of a shock. The course was hilly, the day was hot, and the water was infrequent and in containers that couldn't be carried along the route. He completed it in around 4:04, which was a bit disappointing as he'd had his heart set on a sub 4 hour time, but if anything the sense of achievement was greater given the extra effort it took to get to the finish line.

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The race took place on a Sunday and the next day rather than resting Chris was up to City University for the first day of his course of study towards an MSc in Information Science. Don't ask what Information Science is; he's already spent one term learning that the most debated topic in the discipline is 'what are we actually studying?'. Ultimately he's just pursuing the bit of paper you get at the end of it though so he's content to not bother himself with semantics. Fortunately the course so far has been relatively interesting with one module in particular being quite useful, looking at how information is encoded and transferred within and between computers. Thanks to that module there's even a bit of javascript being used in this blog and a few of the pictures are now links to other pages. Things have come a long way from our first posting 4 years ago.

While Chris has been studying in the evenings Vonny has been doing her best to entertain herself with Yoga and baking. When we left Chesham we couldn't go back to eating supermarket bread having feasted on the output from the local bakers Darvell's, so we've been baking our own since moving to London. A colleague of Vonny's suggested a good bread book a while ago so since then we've been enjoying a wide variety of sourdough, wheat leaven and fruit breads thanks to Andrew Whitley's book Bread Matters. We never knew this when we lived there but Chorleywood is apparently famous for it's unfavourable contribution to bread making in the UK. By using lower-grade flour and additives the manufacturers can make bread faster and keep costs down, the quality of the bread they're making doesn't seem to get much consideration. None of that rubbish for us.



At the beginning of November we had a break from London while Chris had a scheduled 'reading week'. We headed to Valle Gran Rey on La Gomera, which is one of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of Africa. The island isn't popular with the multitudes of British tourists who go to Tenerife, Fuerteventura, La Palma and Gran Canaria, so it was just us, the locals, and the German tourists. It's always been a popular haunt of German hippies and has kept much of the original vibe, so is a pretty laid back spot.

What really struck us was the diversity of the landscape on the island. The terrain was arid and incredibly rugged, and we were amazed that people had managed to scrape out an existence there for so many years. In many places you could still see the cultivation terraces they had used to grow their crops, often on very steep slopes that must have taken an enormous amount of effort to transform.



The centre of the island was in stark contrast to its surrounds, being completely covered with lush rainforest and constantly shrouded in mist. The laurisilva forest is a remnant of what used to fill much of the Mediterranean basin until around 10,000 years ago.



The island has a very interesting indigenous culture which has developed in response to the landscape. There is a whistling language called El Silbo Gomero which the locals used to communicate across the deep ravines which scour the island. It was apparently in danger of dying out so the local schools now teach it as part of the curriculum to ensure it's continued survival. You can find out more and listen to a sample here. Needless to say wolf-whistling isn't very popular on La Gomera, as a slightly wrong note could change the meaning of the message from 'you're hot' to 'hey fattie'.

The shepherds on the Canary Islands use a long staff called a salto del pastor when walking over the difficult ground. It's like a combined pole-vault and firemans pole used to get across small gaps or down rocky steps. If you're interested you can view a short video showing how it's done on this page (opens in a new window). Having looked at some of the related videos two storeys seems to be about the maximum height they can cope with. We had to make do with just walking up and down the hills the old fashioned way, although on occasions it was nice to have a bit of firm ground under our feet.



Down at the coast the water was warm and the beaches were relatively quiet, and we were able to wander around like it was summer whilst the people back home suffered temperatures not far above freezing. The water was warm enough to swim so we took a dip on a couple of occasions to give ourselves a few memories to look back on once we returned to the cold of London.



Since getting home time seems to have raced on and we've made it all the way to Christmas having barely had the chance to blink. Teaching for Chris finished in mid-December and having run out of small assessments to do he has to get stuck in to a few large essays which need to be completed by the end of January, hence this blog being written now when few other distractions are left. Vonny is continuing to busy herself at work and is enjoying seeing her sister Anika once a week now she is studying in London as well. We don't currently have any plans for holidays in 2009 as it's difficult to know in advance what Chris' work load will be like and when he can afford to take a few days off for a break. The big fall in the value of the pound has hit hard as well, and as we get dangerously close to parity with the euro we're thinking it was good we managed to get so much travel in while it was cheap. If we do end up going anywhere interesting we'll put some details up here for you, although as usual it might take a while for us to get around to it.

Best wishes to you all for 2009.

High wire act

Acknowledgements:
First of all there are a lot of people who helped to make our trip great, and it would only be right that we gave them a mention here. First are our colleagues Paola and Roberta. Paola Pucci, who's home town is Auronzo di Cadore (where we stayed) gave us lists of places to visit for food and drink, and people to visit and say 'ciao' too, as well as contact details for family members we could get in touch with if we needed anything. Roberta answered Chris' questions about Italian language and encouraged his learning, as well as tipping us off to the 'spritz' in Venice. Gianni Pais Becher globe-trotting mountain guide, writer and linguist extraordinaire, and his son Giuseppe were always forthcoming when we requested information about ferrati and the weather. Flavio Vecellio and his wife at Camping Europa made us feel welcome and put up with our appalling attempts at Italian. Giovanni at La Stua and a good friend of Paola's managed to engage us in conversation even though we didn't speak Italian and he didn't speak English. The folk at La Pineta supplied us with great pizzas and those at Gelateria D'ambros fed us the greatest ice cream on the planet. Everyone else we encountered is also worthy of our gratitude for their friendliness and patience, and our thanks goes out to them all. We can say without doubt that this part of the world was the most welcoming place we have ever been. Grazie mille.

Needless to say we've been on holiday in Italy again, more specifically The Dolomites, although this time there was no skiing or bicycles, just a bit of via ferrata. If you remember the Italian lesson from our skiing blog, you may be able to deduce that via ferrata means 'iron way'. Essentially it's fixed protection on high mountain walks in the form of cables, ladders and bridges, which allows the likes of us to visit areas that are normally only accessable to crampon-clad ice-axe-swinging mountain types. Equipped with a safety harness, helmet and special device to stop us snapping in half should we be unfortunate enough to have a fall, we were able to walk, scramble, and climb our way over the mountains which was great fun, and very rewarding.

The origins of the ferrati lie in the mountain war of the First World War, or grande guerra as it is known in Italy. As the Italian and Austrian forces fought each other, both attempted to occupy the higher ground in order to gain a strategic advantage over the other. The ferrati were constructed, often at night, in order to provide some form of security to soldiers accessing these high positions. Once all the high peaks had been occupied (and they stayed occupied year-round) both forces took to tunnelling through both rock and ice to build up supply lines and undermine the enemy.



Thousands of metres of tunnels were dug through the mountains, and through the Marmolada Glacier, within which remains from both the war and the fighters are still being found. Ultimately with both sides firmly entrenched the war became one of those most pointless of battles, a war of attrition; and as the fighting continued the mountainous conditions took their toll, ultimately claiming more lives than the fighting itself. In the Mountain War avalanches claimed a staggering 60,000 lives.

Many ferrata have been built subsequent to the war, although the first one we did - Monte Peralba, was an original. Just before we started climbing we saw a strange animal that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a badger, which we later discovered was a Marmot - the first of many we encountered. On the way up we got rained and hailed on, but by the time we reached the top it was a fine day again - an introduction to the strange weather patterns that would hamper our outings for the following week. On the way we saw remnants from the war, including some old buildings and this barbed wire, still lying where it was cleared to, 90 years after the fighting stopped.



The following day we had made some other plans, although we finished them early and were frustrated to sit around in the sun suffering the baking heat of the valley that Auronzo sits in, although it was a good excuse to gorge ourselves on the fantastic local ice-cream. We were even more frustrated the next day though as we set off early to Cima Del Cadin, which was supposed to be an outstanding ferrata with a long section of ladders. However after walking to the refugio from the chairlift and having a quick lunch, we only managed to get to the bottom of the ladders before the cloud closed in. We thought it would be worth trying to go up in case the cloud cleared. Unfortunately we met a huge group of Czech climbers coming down, and with Vonny stuck at a point where passing wasn't easy, and thunder starting to echo around the valley, we decided to ease the traffic flow and head down.



Realising that a bit of practice in passing might be in order, we did an easy ferrata which took in a walk behind a waterfall near Cortina. It made for an easy day as we switched over and under each other whilst maintaining our connection to the wire; and despite our proximity to an enormous torrent of water, we stayed dry.



With renewed confidence in our ability, and simmering with frustration that the days were passing without us ticking off many routes, we decided to take the chairlift up to the top of the Cristallo mountains. It wasn't cheap, so we had high expectations as we ascended in what we suspected was the world's oldest cable car, which was made up of little red and yellow pods that looked like cold and flu pills. Once we arrived at the top we had just enough time to scramble into the refugio before the rain set in. It was a most inauspicious start to what was supposed to be a big day, but after an hour we managed to sneak out and set off on a short walk through the clouds which took in the longest ferrata bridge in The Dolomites. Our altitude was over 3000 metres, so we were wearing all the clothes we had - which felt strange given the sun we'd been enjoying on the previous days.



After returning to the refugio we set off along the ridge in the opposite direction, heading towards Cima di Mezzo. We'd only gone about 200 metres when we heard the rumble of thunder and Vonny suggested we think about heading back. Chris wasn't too keen on the idea and voiced his theory that at altitude, without many geographical features to block it, sound could travel vast distances and the thunder could actually be a very long way away. It was a theory that was accepted so we moved on, only to receive a massive electrical shock through the cable after another 20 metres, which left us with a burning hair smell and numb hands. Given there were no power lines or generators on top of the mountain we could only suppose that lightning had struck near the cable and the charge had travelled through it to us. It was a narrow escape which we put down to the cable being earthed every 10-20 metres, and we headed straight back to the chairlift, thankful to be alive.

Undeterred we set off the following day to do the Paterno ferrata, which is probably one of the most popular in the region. The peak in the background of this photo, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, is one of the most photographed in The Alps.



The ferrata goes through a steep and dark 600m tunnel dug during the war. There are occasional windows offering views like this one.



Once we'd finished the first section we took a bit of a wrong turn, however it worked out okay as we continued along a ridge without any other climbers on it, which made a bit of a change from the motorway of the previous section. Click on the photo below for a great action shot of Vonny - the kind of thing that gets mothers worrying.



One of the fantastic things about this holiday was that we were right up on top of the mountains, when we'd normally be gazing up at them from below. Admittedly we encountered problems that normally wouldn't have bothered us so much, like the weather, however we got so much out of being in an environment that is normally beyond our reach, and of course the view down was fantastic (although a constant reminder of how far we had to go until we could relax).



The Paterno ferrata was enough to finish Vonny off, as she was getting more tired with every day, and this was supposed to be a holiday after all. We decided that Chris would go and do some ferrati on his own, the first being a remote walk back to Auronzo from the neighbouring village of Padola. After being dropped off by Vonny (who took a trip to Austria to fill in the day) he didn't see another person for 5 hours. That's got to be the longest period of isolation outside of our house that either of us has had since we left New Zealand back in 2002. Unfortunately he lost a contact lens just after leaving the car, so everything was two-dimensional for 5 hours, and that's not a great thing when you're trying to walk downhill on rough ground.

The following day it was another solo trip for Chris, this time the Michielli Strobel ferrata. This was exactly the kind of climbing he'd been looking for, with steep faces and not too much walking. Needless to say when you're using both hands to hold on, taking photos presents it's own problems, however a few came out okay. That's the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo in the background.



Unfortunately it was to be the last ferrata, as the weather packed up that afternoon and wasn't going to get any better for a few days. After a last pizza and packing ourselves full of ice cream we headed back towards the airport, stopping in the town of Belluno for a bit of a look on the way. It was quite nice, with lots of very old frescos on the buildings.

Although we dropped the car at the airport, we weren't quite ready to head home, as we'd planned two days in Venice - which seemed sensible given we were in the region and hadn't been there before. Everything people had told us about Venice turned out to be true; it was crowded to a standard that even Londoners couldn't comprehend, very expensive, and the food was awful. However the moment we walked out the door of the railway station it looked exactly like it did in the pictures, and that made it unique. It's rare to find a place that lives up to the hype so instantly.



We just wandered around the city, doing a walking tour which got us away from the crowds for a short while. Venice would make a great place for an orienteering competition, as the twisting combination of canals and streets means it's a huge maze that takes absolute concentration to navigate. Of course if you're not in a hurry you could just do what we did and take a chance by following someone who looks like they know where they are going - not the guy in this picture!



We eventually made it to Piazza San Marco, and it was so busy it made Trafalgar Square look like a desert. It was hard to work out what all the fuss was about, as although the buildings were nice to look at, the architecture was dreadfully unbalanced. We even saw a man with tā moko there, which shows the place draws visitors from all corners of the globe.



As we mentioned in the intro, we did our best to partake in the regional drink, Spritz. It's basically wine and carbonated water with a dash of campari. If you've ever tried the chinese herbal remedy Astra Forte you've got an idea of what it tastes like - dreadful, but strangely addictive.



Despite our issues with the weather, we seemed to have timed our trip in the mountains brilliantly for the alpine plants that were flowering. We took a few photos of them and you can view them on Flickr by clicking on this link. Those pictures with a stoney background were plants growing right up near the top of the peaks we climbed, often in very inhospitable conditions.

All up it was a fantastic trip, and we really enjoyed the people, as well as the activities and the scenery. Although it's the third time we've been to Italy this year, it felt like the first time we actually interacted with Italian people (outside of work of course :-). We found everyone to be helpful, friendly, and generous. It is certainly a place worth visiting, and there's a very good chance we'll be going back again some time. For now however it's to be our last trip to Europe - our colleagues are asking when we'll start coming to work regularly, which is a sure sign our extended absences have been noted.