In 2015 I was fortunate to be invited to Venice for a few days with my sister, Rachel, and her husband. He was on a work trip and so they were both paid for, but it meant I was in the Generator Venice Hostel whilst they stayed in a five-star hotel. The hostel was pretty good though, and one of…
The sudden hot spell just after Easter 2015 happened to coincide with a bike touring holiday in Scotland with a close friend, so we had an incredible week cycling in the sun instead of Scotland’s usual mist and rain. The route was around the Eastern edge of Skye then across to the top of Uist and back on the Western…
After backpacking for the last few nights and camping at Col de l’Aup Martin and Vignemale we decided to settle down in La Bérarde for a rest day. Of course a rest day doesn’t mean resting, it means hiking to Glacier de la Pilatte, roughly 6 miles up the valley from the village. La Berarde sits at a friendly altitude…
The second overnight hike was up to Lac du Muzelle and back down the following day. One of the best bits of advice I can give for getting comfortable hiking and camping in the mountains is to do a couple of overnight trips up to the top of a valley. Camp as high as you can whilst still having water…
For the first overnight walk we left the car in Vallouise and walked up to and past Reserve Biologique des Deslioures, where we camped in the valley beside the river. As you can guess from the name, the reserve had plenty of butterflies which I spent ages trying to photograph. The second day was mostly taken up by the huge…
We arrived in the French pyrenees to find the mountains covered in cloud, obscuring the peaks and making us wonder if we had made the right decision. We camped at a nearby campsite in Cauterets and spent the day procuring supplies for the hike into the mountains and walking around the local town. The cloud had lifted from the mountain…
In 2011 we did our last bike touring trip as a family through Jura in France (all future family holidays were to be backpacking). It had lots of waterfalls, grottos and quite a few lakes, using a few records I’ve written up a quick account for you to enjoy. I somehow lost a chunk of the photos so these are…