Ben Nuttall

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Thursday, 30 July 2009

Alps Trip 2009 (3. Austria)

This is post 3 of 3 in a series on my Alps Trip. See Posts 1 (South France) and 2 (l'Alpe d'Huez).

That night was our last night with the group as Miles and I were headed North-East to Austria while the others headed home after a couple more days of biking. We went for a nice meal at the resort, which we decided to splash out on. Miles and I opted for a two-person minimum set meal which turned out to be a plate full of raw meat (chicken, duck and beef steak) which we hat to cook for ourselves on a stove they provided us with. It came with a bowl of mashed potato and a load of veg and went down well ... once we’d cooked it. The following morning, Miles and I bid farewell and headed to Austria. We drove through Italy (Torino & Milano), witnessed the crazy drivers and paid the expensive tolls and we finally made it to our destination: a campsite in Prutz, near Landeck in Austria. The campsite was full of kayakers and we were greeted by one who was on his own looking for people to go boating with. His name was Andy, he was from London and he took us down three local rivers the next day which was brilliant! It was more independent learning as we were paddling as peers, no-one in charge, just the three of us taking it one bend at a time, instead of the way we’d been doing it so far where someone was leading and we were following – I actually had to consciously look after myself now which is the best way to learn. We soon realised that the Austrian rivers were massively high volume – big wide rivers with huge waves, which we’re not used to in the UK as most rivers are either big and wide but flat with no waves, or thin, steep and creeky. We met up with some other UK guys for the third river that day and all went ok.

A couple of days later we headed to the Ötz valley to met up with a Bavarian kayaker by the name of Bijon he met in New Zealand. Bijon was working for German rafting company in Austria over the summer, taking groups of German people rafting in Austria and Switzerland. We joined them at the rafting base for their BBQ and chatted with the Germans. Our tactic: Don’t mention the war. Miles mentioned it once but I think he got away with it. Seriously though, we enjoyed their company and they seemed to enjoy ours, buying us drinks and talking to us about all sorts. Obviously we don’t speak German but they all speak English, so that’s the way it was. After the Germans went off we head upstairs for a little rafting guides’ party – had a great chat with a German guy called Norman. Then we had to sleep on the floor in the drying room full of wetsuits and things, in the room with me was a New Zealander who we were told snores really badly – I thought I’d risk it and be alright but by the early hours I couldn’t believe the amount of horrendous noise he was snorting – it was nothing like I’d ever witnessed before. I had to move, and even when I did I couldn’t sleep because I’d been woken up. The next morning I saw the guy I’d been chatting to at the party, Norman. He saw I was wearing my trademark Blogger t-shirt and asked if I was a blogger. “Yes I am” I said, beaming with pride. This reminded me of how I like to be thought of as a “Blogger”. We talked about blogs for a while and later on got on the office computer and showed each other our respective blogs. Norman-slow-motion.

We drove to Switzerland the next day to tag along on two of their rafting journeys – Miles as the safety kayaker, while I joined five of the Germans in the raft with Bijon yelling instructions at us in German. This proved somewhat difficult as I didn’t understand what he was saying unless I heard the words for left, right, forwards and stop which were easy to remember once he told me – the more complicated instructions (more urgent ones such as “Everyone get down in the raft and hold on tight”) were tricky so whenever everyone else would dive somewhere I would just copy their actions which meant I was slightly delayed – this was rather problematic as these instructions carried a matter of urgency and failure to comply often meant the risk of tipping the raft! I asked Bijon what those instructions were in German so I would remember to do so when he shouted them, which helped a lot – I managed to follow these orders without delay. I had a great time rafting, as it was a whole new experience to be on the water in such a big inflatable craft with other people rather than single man kayak where you are completely in control and responsible for yourself. The water was much harder, higher and potentially problematic than I could probably deal with, so it was a good option to go rafting instead that day.

That evening we attended a party at Bijon’s house – not a cool rafting party full of drunk European student girls, but a family party for his housemate’s Dad’s something’s birthday party – a middle-aged woman’s birthday party. We ate their food and chatted with their family a bit (at this point every Auntie and Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa, Niece and Nephew had turned up) before heading off to a cool rafting party full of drunk European student girls. We chatted away and got speaking to a range of different people from the local rafting companies and ended up in someone’s halls-of-residence-esque summer rafting guide accommodation where they proceeded to smoke lots of weed while we tried not to look too out of place, although we certainly were. I was really tired at this point from the lack of sleep the previous night and all the rafting of the day so being laid on a bed in a room full of weed smoke, I was dozing off. We soon left and slept at Bijon’s house.

The next morning we were awarded with Bijon’s famous pancakes. This was something I’d been looking forward to – the only thing I knew about Bijon was that, according to Miles, if you were on a night out with Bijon, you could end up in the remotest field or desert and Bijon would somehow locate the ingredients and make pancakes. I’d spent two or three days with Bijon and still no sign. The first thing I saw of him that morning, Bijon was on the phone to one of his pancake contacts arranging for the delivery of flour. Flour arrived shortly in the arms of another stoner. Here they were at last! Bijon’s pancakes! And they were fantastic. This day was our last day before heading back so we decided to hook up with Norman and the flour guy to go kayaking. They took us for a run of the Oetz, which was the scariest kayaking experience I’ve ever had. I was seriously terrified as it was massive pushy water with hidden holes and all sorts – all immediately upon putting on to the river. I’ve never been forced to use support strokes quite so frequently and urgently. I was having to work my very hardest every second just to keep the boat upright! So many times I nearly went over. I got through the worst of it to find there was a harder and more unpredictable section coming up. That’s pretty much how it was for the next three hours: me thinking “Phew, I’m glad I got out of that bit alive” and then slowly discovering there was more around the next bend. We got to a rapid that the guys we were with said was called the ‘Constructa’, named after a German washing machine brand – because that’s what it would feel like if you got stuck in it! We got out to portage a deathly weir and were at the end before long. A huge sigh of relief. I’d wanted to do one last river before we left, something that would push my limits. That was what I was looking for and I’m glad we did it. We bid farewell to Norman and the Flour guy and headed to France!

We decided to stop at Fontainebleau on the way back through France. Font is an amazing place – a vast forest full of bouldering opportunities, it’s just South of Paris. We drove there from Austria, passing through Switzerland and Liechtenstein. We arrived at Font at about 4am, no idea where exactly we needed to be for the bouldering, so we ended up sleeping in the McDonald’s car park beside the van, with the intention of using the free Wifi when it opened. We woke up at about 8, then realising that McDonald’s didn’t open till 10 we stayed in the van and read our books for two hours. At 10 they opened up and we hopped straight inside, checked online to see where the spots were and shortly after that we headed off to find somewhere to climb. We stayed there a while, had a bit of a climb and I jumped around the rocks a bit and then we headed off in plenty of time to catch our ferry. We ended up arriving at Dunkirque (after popping into Belgium to look for war graves) seven hours early so it was worth us paying a little extra to get on an earlier ferry. I finished my book on the ferry (America Unchained by Dave Gorman – a fantastic story about a coast-to-coast road trip across America, avoiding the chain stores and only buying from independent gas stations, shops and hotels) and started my next one. We were home (as in Sheffield) an hour before we were supposed to leave France, which was an achievement. What was even more of an achievement was that I returned alive with all my kit in tact, albeit a little more second-hand-looking.

Labels: Alps, Alps Trip 2009, Featured, Kayaking, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 18:17

Alps Trip 2009 (2. l'Alpe d'Huez)

This is post 2 of 3 in a series on my Alps Trip. See Posts 1 (South France) and 3 (Austria).

That day shook me up a bit, but the next river we did in France was fairly easy-going, and the next was big but not as scary. Then we had two days away from water as we headed up to l’Alpe d’Huez which is a ski resort in the Winter; mountain biking in the Summer. The first day was mostly driving, and when we arrived late afternoon Miles hired a downhill mountain bike – Miles is really into his biking so he knew which one he wanted straight away – and paid €120 for a day and a half. He rode it on the purpose-built dirt track near the centre for the rest of the afternoon (this involved him jumping it off the roof of a hut and putting a few scratches in the protective body armour he’d been loaned). We were too tired from the drive to bother putting up our tent that night. Mistake. The worst storm I’ve ever witnessed. We thought we’d be ok under a tarpaulin shelter hung up from John’s van. Mistake. We would have been ok if it had been mild rain. It wasn’t. We were ok while it was raining (at which point Miles decided he was better off sleeping in the back of the van) but then it started pouring underneath the van and wetting my sleeping bag and thermarest. Hmm. Time to join Miles in the van, I thought. But unfortunately the back of the van was full of our stuff (literally full) so with a few things taken out was just enough room to fit one person laid across the bags – this meant I was stuck with the only available option – sleep across the two front seats. Brilliant. Whichever way I turned I had something sticking in me – the gear nob or the hand brake or whatever. At least I was dry.

Anyway, morning came and it was time for me to hire a bike for the day. I wasn’t as keen or extreme as Miles so a simple cross-country bike was sufficient. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be as much as Miles’ ... and when he said it was only €22 I jumped for joy (on the inside) and handed him the tiny amount of mickey mouse money he demanded and feeling rather pleased for myself went to purchase my gondola (ski lift) ticket. We decided to do an easy blue route to get started. It started with going down a steep hill and immediately coming up the next hill. Sara said not to put my brakes on while I was on the hill and to wait till I was over the other side, so I held the handlebars without resting over the brakes – but when I got to the top on the other side I needed to brake quickly and so reached for the left brake and slammed it on. Mistake. On bikes in the UK, the left brake is for the back, the right for the front. I’ve only been on a bike once (last year – see Happy New Year 2009) since I was a kid but my instinct told me which brake was which. Unfortunately they have them on opposite sides in Europe. Crash! I hit the wrong brake – the front – and went flying through the handlebars and skidded with the bike. I cut my side up which stung a bit but I was more frustrated with the French than in pain. I got back on and continued with the route. The next route we chose was marked as a red on the map, but when we got up there (right up there, this one started much higher up the mountain) it was clear that it had recently been downgraded from a black. Not good for a novice. We ran it anyway. I fell off a lot.

Then we planned to do a longer route which was a concoction of several other red routes, on which we somehow got very lost due to poor French mapping and ended up doing many more dodgy routes than intended and ended up in a little French town in the wrong valley (Sardonne), and pushing for time (we needed to get the last gondola back and return our bikes to the hiring shops by 5pm) we got onto the right track, which turned out to be a really good one that ran through a dense woods! I had a great time, rode hard and fell off even harder! In fact at one point I fell off and skidded down the steep cliff away from the path, with my bike thrown even further down. It was impossible to get myself back up it carrying my bike as I was knee-deep in leaves. The path continued to my right as I looked back at it from below, so I edged my way to the side, trying with all my might to drag the bike with me – and after a ten minute struggle I managed to get myself back on the path. The chain had got caught up in branches or something and wouldn’t go so I had to adjust it a few times to get it to work, but then I was off – to catch up with the others. I’d been shouting them to let them know I was stuck and that I’d be further behind, they’d been shouting back to me to ask if I was alright, but neither of us had heard each other. Anyway I finally caught them up and they’d been waiting for me (Sara worrying whether I was still alive or not) and started to walk back.

We were in a real rush now so Mark & Miles sped off towards the nearby village in attempt to make it for the last bus back to the gondola which would take us back to where we started. Sara and I continued on, stopping to ask for directions on the way. It’s funny how Sara launched into her only-slightly-broken French which only confused the (we think German) couple she was talking to, but when I asked Sara something (obviously in English) they butted in and said “We speak English” which made it a bit easier for us to communicate rather than us all trying to speak an unnatural language. We eventually made it to the village, Allemond (at this point I was aching all over), and as Mark & Miles weren’t waiting at the bus stop we presumed they had made it in time for the bus and we had missed them. There was another bus about 45 minutes later so we waited for that, knowing it wouldn’t get us back in time for the last gondola, so we were thinking we’d have to get a taxi or something back to our vans. With so much time to wait I wandered into the town to find a boulangerie for what turned out to be the best two pastries (almond covered and filled croissant & pain au chocolat) I’ve ever had!

I’d turned my phone on when we stopped, in case Mark got back to the van and tried to ring me, and luckily he did. He’d seen a missed call on Sara’s phone (which she’d left in the van – I was the only one with a phone with me on the bike trip), which was from right at the beginning of the day when I was waiting for them after hiring my bike, but he’d thought it was more recent. He phoned me and I said we were at the bus stop in Allemond and could he come and pick us up. He arrived somewhat later with Miles in the van and both their bikes on the back. This puzzled us as we thought they’d got the bus and the gondola back and dropped Miles off to return his hired bike (as this was one of the main timing issues), but when quizzed, Mark explained that they hadn’t made it to Allemond as they took a wrong turning and ended up in the wrong village! And that Mark had hitched a lift from “some crazy-driving French guy” back up to l’Alpe d’Huez, quickly ran back to the van, phoned me and come to collect us (picking Miles and the two bikes up on the way). So when we finally all got back safely to l’Alpe d’Huez, we were a little worried about the bike hire shops, presuming they’d be closed by that time (it was about 6:30). Miles had promised to return his by 5pm, but my guy hadn’t given a time (although I presumed it would have been the same, and we presumed they would close soon after 5, maybe 6). Anyway, when we got there we saw that both shops were still open, so that I would be fine as we hadn’t agreed a time, and Miles should be ok being a little bit late. Miles was hiding in the back of the van, and got Sara to tell the guy he’d been in an accident and taken to hospital, which was why she was late bringing it back for him. He was fine and didn’t mind and gave her his driving license (Miles had left his driving licence as deposit, but my cheaper bike hadn’t required a deposit).

I took mine back, gave it to the guy, he didn’t really say anything at first of acknowledge that I was there. I pointed out that I was returning his bike and he took it from me, sill saying nothing. I said “Ok?” and as he wheeled it off, still not really saying anything, I presumed everything was ok and that I had been excused. I said “Ok then, thank you. Bye.”, just to confirm that I was going to go. He finally said “Ok. Bye bye.” Then after a few seconds said “No wait … no bye bye!” ... he was calling me back. He pointed at the bike and said “Broken!” Hmm. I don’t know much about bikes but I was pretty sure that bike wasn’t broken. I had just been riding it fine. “Sorry?? What’s the problem?” I asked. “Broken!” he said. I tried to convey my look of confusion to him in order to get some more information out of him about his allegations, which seemed to work as he pointed to the centre of the back wheel where the chain can be notched onto the gears. I gave him my confused look again and he said “Derailer!”. At this point I urged the others to join me to try to work out between us what he was trying to say. He pointed again and repeated “Derailer!” and the others knew what a derailer was. I didn’t. He was claiming it was bent. I couldn’t tell if it was or not. The others said it seemed to look a little bent but looked ok, until he shifted it into a really high gear which when he demonstrated how the chain would always fall off when the wheel span in this high gear, because the derailer was bent. Miles suggested bending it back but he explained how this was not possible. He wanted me to pay €32 for a replacement derailer. He hadn’t taken a monetary deposit or kept my passport or anything, yet he demanded a sum of money which was more than I had paid to hire the bike. I didn’t think this was fair. Surely it’s part of the cost of having a hire business, that eventually the equipment depreciates with use and needs fixing or replacing, and I think it’s unfair to put blame for damage on one person unless through reckless use. I wasn’t going to pay him for a repair on something he’d hired to many people before me. I told him this and said I was going to go. He said he was going to phone the police. I went to sit in the van with Mark and the others to ask them what they thought. John arrived on the scene and he said that derailers break really easily, if you hit a rock or something they can break, and that he breaks two or three a year. Well I was still against the idea of him charging me for wear-and-tear but thought that as it wasn’t a huge sum of money, I’d probably knocked it one of the many times I’d fallen off, and it was not worth the risk of any epic Alpine police chases with us in our Volkswagen Transporter with kayaks on the roof rack, so I decided to pay up. I wasn’t happy about it but even at €54, mine was still less than half the price of Miles’ bike so I could hardly complain. The annoying thing is I felt cheated. If he’d have charged me €54 at the start of the day I’d have paid up and felt lucky it was much cheaper than Miles’, but the fact that he’d claimed damages and demanded a further payment put a downer on the whole thing. But these things happen.

Labels: Alps, Alps Trip 2009, Featured, Kayaking, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 17:09

Alps Trip 2009 (1. South France)

This is post 1 of 3 in a series on my Alps Trip. See Posts 2 (l'Alpe d'Huez) and 3 (Austria).

They say that you can learn more from two weeks in the Alps than you can kayaking a whole year in the UK. I can vouch for that after 3,298.7 miles, 8 countries, 13 rivers, 5 mountain bike trails, 2 rafting trips and half a day at Fontainebleau.

Miles and I set off from Sheffield at about 1pm on the Monday (after quickly setting up our new website Adventure-Psychology.co.uk which we got stuck on the side of the van before we left), headed South for Dover, stopping off at a guy called Ted Piper’s house in Henley-on-Thames for a cup of tea and a chat. You know how they say everyone knows everyone in the world through 6 people? Well there’s a theory within the UK kayaking community that everyone in kayaking knows Ted Piper through 1 person. There’s a thread on UKRGB forums that proves it. By the way, Ted Piper got really ill (viral meningitis) while kayaking in Northern Norway earlier this year and had to be flown home immediately – without his car – so if anyone fancies driving it back to the UK for him before the roads close for Winter, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

Anyway, we got to Dover in perfect time for our 10pm crossing and were at Dunkirque (cheaper than Dover-Calais) by midnight (now 11pm in France time, woah – time travel!) and on the aforementioned Ted Piper’s advice, planned to avoid the toll roads through France. This just happened to pass through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. By about 6pm (with practically no sleep) we were at our destination – Bourg Saint Maurice in the South of France, near the Italian boarder. We met up with the others who had been there a few days already: Mark, Sara, John & Nicola, all of whom have been boating all around Europe (and some in Nepal) many times before. Miles has only boated in New Zealand and the UK and I have never boated abroad!

The next day we did our first Alpine river, which was continuous class three/four whitewater. The biggest and hardest I’ve ever paddled! We went down a gorge to a place you can only get to by kayak (or raft) which was an interesting experience. The next few days we did some medium-hard stuff. In the UK if we want to go kayaking we need high water levels, and for that to happen you need a lot of rain and horrible weather, whereas in the Alps you need lots of sun and heat to cause the glaciers to melt and pour down the mountains into the rivers! This also means that the water is clean and pure! It’s brilliant! UK rivers are horrible and full of guk, making them a murky brown colour.

It was immediately noticeable that the standard class of river was much higher and more consistent than in the UK. Rivers are graded from one to six: one being still flat water; two is moving water with few or no obstructions; three involves slight manoeuvring to avoid complications; four is potentially dangerous water with complicated flow which can require inspection; five requires inspection and mistakes will lead to severe danger and potential injury; and six is usually unpaddleable where a mistake would certainly lead to severe danger, serious injury and possibly death. It is possible for danger to occur on any class of water (even one – such as simply drowning) and kayaking is certainly a dangerous activity at any level and precautions must be taken to prevent danger, and where danger occurs, safety and rescue must be put into effect. It was apparent that Alpine rivers were very fast flowing due to a higher gradient in the mountains and gorges and that the class of water was consistent throughout. So in the UK, a class four river would most likely be two/three for the majority with a few odd features at class four, whereas in the Alps it seemed that the gradings were accurate for the whole river, so a class four might actually be 3+/4 throughout, pushing on 4+.

One of the rivers we did towards the end of our first week, the Guisane, started off with a very scary class four rapid section which we thoroughly inspected and almost decided to portage (walk round and get on after it) but Miles & John ran it fine and we went for it. It actually tipped me over towards the end and I went down the final wave upside-down but managed to roll back up fine. The river continued to push my limits and was very continuous in its pace and difficulty, which proved to be a bit much for me, especially on what seemed to be an off day for me. I got tipped awkwardly and failed to roll back up and saw my boat get washed away downstream while I swam to the side and got out. The boat luckily got pinned on a rock not far away, so we analysed the situation and got Miles positioned downstream of it and we threw rocks at it to try and free it from being pinned against the rock, which after a few good throws, worked! Unfortunately with the speed of the water Miles was unable to stop it and it ended up drifting further. I climbed to the road side and ran along to catch it up – after a good few minutes’ jogging I spotted the green boat against the clear water – it had got pinned on another rock so I got myself down to the side of the water and waited for the others, in their boats, to catch up and get it free for me. John managed, after a few attempts, to hook a line onto the grab handle and we set up a pulley system (with an actual pulley – something I’ve never seen in kayak rescue! Brilliant!) to release the boat and reel it in, which worked fine.

Just before the end of the river I went down a rapid at a slightly bad angle and got stuck in a hole (note: holes are nasty bits of backwashing water caused by water pouring over a rock – if you get stuck in they’re hard to get out of whether you’re in a boat or swimming, and should be avoided at all costs!), flipped over a couple of times (that’s what they do – they just flip your boat over repeatedly – it’s like being in a washing mashine!) before popping my spraydeck and getting out – fortunately I didn’t get stuck in it after that and managed to swim to the side with my boat but my paddles got thrown to the other side and got swept away. I saw Miles catch up with them and throw them onto the side. I later found that they’d hit the side and fallen back into the water. He’d tried a second time but they’d disappeared from view when they dropped. Hmm.

In rescue situations there’s an order of priority: first comes yourself; second comes other people; third comes boats; fourth comes paddles and other smaller equipment. I’d got myself out, there was no-one else in danger, I’d got my boat out, then I started looking for my paddles (at this point I was still under the presumption that they were on the side where Miles had thrown them) and when I started asking the others I began to realise they were probably floating off down the river. Hmm.

I climbed up the side onto the road and dragged my boat up with a rope then ran down the road, peering over the edge to the water to look for my paddles. I ran a fair distance without seeing anything that resembled paddles. Luckily this was where the river smoothed out and became a lake so the water was pretty much still which meant they would probably be floating here. They weren’t. I looked all around, even saw what I’m almost certain was the re-used coke bottle, half full of water, I had loose in the back of my boat – it was floating in the lake, not moving, so I guessed my paddles should be somewhere nearby. They weren’t. Hmm.

It got to the point where I’d almost started mourning for them. I wasn’t prepared to accept that they were gone (sorry, did I mention they were brand new – I bought them for this trip – not cheap at £130 although you can pay a lot more for paddles), but after a good search and people starting to hint that they would be stuck under a rock somewhere and that I’d never find them, I’d just about given up. I’d lost them. Brand new £130 paddles – my first decent set! And they’d lasted less than a week! I was gutted. Mark started telling me about when he lost a set in Nepal and how annoying it is, but these things happen. Thinking about that was the peak of my mourning – but I thought I’d better just check one more time. I couldn’t see anything (but the coke bottle) in the lake part so I walked back up with John to where Miles had thrown them where they had first gone out of sight – checking by the rocks on both sides. Nothing. It was annoying that they were completely black – if the blades were bright coloured I may have been able to spot them better. I reached the point as far upstream as they could have been, stopped, turned around and began to pace back with my head hung in misery. John offered comforting words to try and soften the pain of my loss, which caused a pang which was tantamount to the aforementioned peak of my mourning. John dipped his hand into a nearby pool behind a big rock – and he pulled out my set of paddles – like they were being withdrawn from a Mary Poppins-esque handbag of Alpine water. I was surprised to see them, but didn’t let out any emotion. I just stared at them in his hand. They were back! I hadn’t lost them at all! This was fantastic. I was relieved! But for some reason this situation called for some sort of humour – I can’t remember exactly what my confused brain conjured up at the time but I seem to remember it being something along the lines “They’re not mine, but they’re sort of similar. They’ll do.” – I thanked and congratulated John and we headed back up to where the others were stood. Phew!

Labels: Alps, Alps Trip 2009, Featured, Kayaking, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 16:48

Sunday, 27 July 2008

Pyrenees 2008

I have just returned from a WVU Summer Trip to the Pyrenees! The Pyrenees are the mountains that border France and Spain - we were on the Spanish side, staying at a lovely campsite in the picturesque town of Torla in a valley on the outskirts of the Ordesa National Park.

My journey there was rather easy-going; Neil and I caught the 6am coach from Sheffield to London Stanstead Airport and flew to Santander, then caught a bus to Bilbao, where we stayed the night in a cheap hotel. A funny thing occurred when we got to the hotel; we checked in and got sorted downstairs and got in the lift to the floor where our room was. The lift contained a sticker giving the name of the Swiss engineering company that made the lift mechanism, a company called Schindler. Neil cleverly pointed out that we were in Schindler's Lift (see picture here). We had an excellent kebab each that night for tea (nothing like the greasy ones we have in fish & chip shops at home!) and awoke the next morning to find it pouring with rain! We had arranged to meet the rest of the group that morning when their ferry got in, and they picked us up in our 60 year old ex-RAF minibus Spiney.

We drove across Spain for a few hours before getting to the campsite in Torla and pitched our tents and rather than cook for ourselves we decided to go for pizza again (the village of Torla is rather limited in what it can offer). The next day a group of us decided to check out the surrounding area so we went for a walk up out of the valley. Later on in the afternoon we needed to take a rest from walking and take shelter from the sun - this was the siesta! The Spanish always close their shops and take a break from whatever they are doing for a few hours in the peak of the heat, and we could see why! It was unbearable to walk in, especially with a rucksack. That night we decided to go for a pizza because it was Harriet's birthday, and we gave her a surprise when we got back to the campsite by laying out cake, candles and balloons!

That day we had been sat at the side of a river putting sun cream on, and then decided to go for a swim in the river, and since I had my socks on when I put cream on, before we decided to go swimming, I managed to burn my feet when stood on the island in the middle of the river, and the next day they were raw red and sore! I was actually hobbling about for about four days, struggling to walk properly and in pain when I did. I was constantly bathing them with moisturising aftersun lotion. I've never been badly sunburnt and this really hurt - it felt like the skin was being stretched across my feet.

We went swimming again the next day. The river was made up of water that had flowed directly from the melted snow at the top of the mountains, so even in the heat of the Spanish sun, was absolutely freezing! It was the coldest I've ever swam in and actually made you lose the ability to speak clearly out of shock, it was so intense that when we jumped in we needed to swim straight to the island and get out of the cold, but after a couple of minutes of major shivering you were ok again. We tended to swim to the island and stay there for ages, which meant it was a horrible feeling knowing the only way back was to swim again - there was actually no other way - I looked for an alternative route back by stepping on smaller rocks but they were too far apart to step between and too slippery to jump between, so you had to submerge yourself and bear the cold again! That night we cooked for the first time, we made an awesome pasta dish with herby tomatoey sauce with chopped veg.

That night there was the worst storm I've ever witnessed. The rain was pelting down on the tent all night, thunder was pounding away and lightning was striking immensely. At one point I looked out of the tent and it was pitch black, all you could see was the street lamps down the road through the middle of the campsite, and all of a sudden the lightning struck in the sky and you could see everything as clear as day, but only for a split second. The next day my feet were still burnt and I was still hobbling and we had quite a relaxing day and spent some time at the river again. The coldness of the water became more bearable each time you went in, so we were more comfortable with it now and less hesitant at getting in. We had meatballs and rice that night and had bought some cubes of stock to add to the pot and for some reason Bob put in 8 cubes (the pan was for 3 of us) so the meal was the saltiest thing I'd ever tasted - it was horrible but we needed to eat to keep our strength up for the walking we'd planned for that night.

We headed up to the bus station in the village to catch a bus up to the higher part of the mountains in the national park, where we planned to walk further up and spend a night in a hut, and we paid and got on the bus with the driver ready to take us up, when some fat park ranger woman came and shouted at the driver and told him he wasn't allowed to take us up at that time, so we had to ask for our money back, but apparently this isn't possible so they sellotaped our tickets back together and said we could use them another day. Not put off by this we changed our plans slightly and walked to another hut we knew we could get to by walking.

There was just us (about a dozen from the group) and two American chaps on the bus, and they asked if they could join us so we walked up to the hut with them. After a few hours' walking (by which time it was getting late and rather dark) we arrived at a hut the size of a small garden shed, so we had to sleep outside. We stayed up a while and had a chat with the Americans, who turned out to be 21-year-old backpackers called Brad and Hunter with no course of direction or plans for the next few days. We enjoyed their company very much and asked the usual English-American questions (some serious, some just taking the mick out of Americans or their accent). They suggested we play a game where it had something to do with naming things in certain categories (we laughed at their pronunciation of the word 'categories') such as breakfast cereals but Sasha pointed out that we don't have the same cereal brands as them, and came out with "your cereals are probably called 'Dude Flakes' or something" which we all thought was pretty funny. Later on when it was time to sleep we set out our sleeping bags, thermarests, bivvy bags and suchlike, and they said they had brought "towels, sheets and stuff" to sleep in/on. Oh dear. We ended up lending them bits of our kit to use for the night. We had a really fun night, it was great hanging out with those guys. If you're reading this now, Brad and/or Hunter, post a comment below or send me an email!

I went to the Tourist Information at one point as I needed to find out how I was to get from Torla to Santander (the best part of 300 miles) on my own by public transport. The woman spoke a little English and was baffled by the majority of my questions, but grasped that I was requesting bus timetable information so she wrote down a single departure time from Torla to one of the nearby towns. When she then realised I had found this information rather inadequate, she wrote down a few more similar ones for buses to different nearby towns. Either she thought that's what I was trying to find out or was just trying to get rid of me to one of the nearby towns. Maybe she was trying to point me in the direction of people who spoke better English than she did in other Tourist Information centres. Anyway, I finally got something useful out of her: a website for the bus company, then and she wrote down a phrase in Spanish, pointed to it and said "Google". Now she was talking my language! Luckily, and rather usefully, the TI had four computers for tourists to use. I had to wait a while because they were always full of teenagers watching videos YouTube. During my free 15 minutes I successfully managed to find out that the website she gave me was in Spanish (and made in Flash so could not be translated using Google Translate) and the Google phrase she gave me led to that very same website and nothing else of any use to me whatsoever. Brilliant. I left it there for the time being and thought I'd give it a few days.

The next few days we spent doing walks and treks in various places in the area. One day a group of us drove round the windy roads in the valleys going right into the heart of the Pyrenesian mountain ranges in Emma's ex- Post Office red van! It was a mission getting round the bends and down the roads on the cliff faces that were scarcely big enough for a car, especially with me leaning over Emma to take photos out of the window while she was driving! I've never seen so many photographic opportunities in one place before! I was having a right time with my point-and-shoot (what an apt description) camera leaning over left and right at every turn. Honestly, there were breathtaking views every way you turned. It was unbelievable!

A few days had passed since my feeble attempt to plan my way home, so I decided to give it another bash. I asked the woman for some help but that was hopeless yet again, so I went back on the computer and did some of my own Googling, I found a site that listed the Summer timetable for one of the journeys I wanted to take. I translated it using Google Translate (this one was text-only - woo!) and found some bus times, and found some more for other journeys and worked out which route to take back to Santander. I planned to get a lift to Jaca and get a bus from there to Pamplona, then another bus to Santander. I got the times for these journeys and they were both rather infrequent services so I had to get the one at 6:30am from Jaca, so I would either get a lift really early from the campsite, or dropped off the night before. I told the TI woman that I had found buses I could get and that I needed to make sure I got on these buses so that I was at the airport in time to check in, but she had no idea what I was saying and thought I wanted to buy plane tickets from her. I tried again and she got the gist and told me I could buy tickets at the bus stations. I wanted to see if I could book them in advance (I couldn't afford to take any chances, I didn't want to risk missing my plane!) but she just said to buy them at the station.

One day we decided to use the bus tickets we'd have left over (albeit sellotaped back together by the ticket desk woman) and spend a day in the higher parts of the mountains in the national park, which turned out to be good fun where we generally chilled out, had a picnic and messed around taking pictures of us doing silly things. I did a few backflips off a thick log, we all jumped off it together, then I climbed a big tree and the others followed me up there and I took photos from high up.

We finished up at the river (as we did most days) and went for a swim. By this time we were much more comfortable with the cold water and had got to the stage of jumping in off high rocky platforms on the sides, and flipping off them! I did a few backflips and some others did some frontflips.

The following morning I woke up and got ready to go out for the day, and after breakfast (bread & honey, which was pretty much all we ate for breakfasts and lunches each day - unless we pushed the boat out and felt like doing some serious damage to the budget we were living on and opted for salami instead of honey) I was told that the plan had changed for simplicity (this was the day before I was due to fly home) - The new plan was to go out for the day, ending up at the French border, then I was going to be driven to Jaca, spend the night there and catch my bus in the morning. They said I had 20 minutes to pack my bags and take my tent down.

I got a bag ready with what I'd need to take home with me on the plane, and packed the rest into my bags that would go in the trailer and come home the week after. I had to be quite selective with what I would take on the plane because you're not allowed fluids over 100ml (as I found out on the outward journey and was forced to throw away my bottles of shampoo, shower gel, sun cream, aftersun, shaving foam and diaderent as well as razorblades...) and nothing sharp or potentially dangerous, and my bag had to be under certain dimensions, so I was rather limited, and I needed quite a bit of my gear when I got home because I was going to the Trace Gathering (see next post) and needed some stuff for camping, but had to leave most of it behind and cope without. Anyway, I took my tent down and loaded all my bags in the trailer and we headed off to the Via Ferrata (literally the 'Iron Road' - a mountain route which is equipped with fixed cables, ladders, and bridges) and had great fun on the course, where you attached yourself (by means of a harness with a sling and a carabina) to a cable, climbed up the vertical face of the mountain, sometimes with help of iron steps or ladder sections, until you reached the end of that piece of cable and before unclipping the carabina, you would attach a second carabina on the next cable, then unclip the one before (thus ensuring you were ALWAYS clipped on, to ensure that if you fell off while switching cables you were still attached and would never be able to fall completely, as your harness would hold you) and climb ahead. The cables were only ever a few metres as most, so as to minimise the distance it was ever possible to fall in the event of you slipping or falling back.

We had great fun doing the course and Richard attached the Unit's helmetcam to his helmet so it would video record people ahead of him doing the route, and we filmed some cool stuff and some silly stuff and he kept asking people questions about what they were doing in an interview-style manner, which was quite funny. Unfortunately, he realised later on that the camera must have been knocked in the bag and stopped recording right at the beginning, so we hadn't captured anything! Gutted! Nevertheless, he caught some good footage of people jumping into the river at the end of the course - there was a rock you could climb up to and jump off into a big deep stream, and we all jumped in.

After this we all drove to the French-Spanish border where we spent the afternoon together. A group of us walked up a hillside to where the border line continued (it was marked out with stones all the way along) and we messed around up there for a while, hopping into France and back into Spain. We then walked down the hill to go to a shop where everyone else was, and on the way down I had laid down in the long grass to take this photo of a flower and got up and jogged down to catch up with the others. When I got to the bottom I realised my wallet was missing, it must have fallen out of my pocket either when I laid down to take the picture or as I jogged down the banking. I panicked. Partly because it had a considerable sum inside (over €150) but also because I hate the thought of losing my cards and stuff. I got stressed out looking for it because I had no idea where to look, everywhere looked the same (long grass with purple flowers) and I wasn't sure which way I walked down. The guys I was with asked me where I dropped it and what it looked like, and the honest answer I gave couldn't have been more ridiculous: "It's either in France or Spain and it's camouflage". I was thinking maybe I ought to buy a new wallet (hoping I didn't have to) that was a more visible colour. Anyway, Bob found it so I hugged him and bought him a big bottle of San Miguel.

After this I bid farewell to the group and got dropped off in Jaca. Luckily the bus station was still open so I managed to buy a ticket for the bus to confirm the first step on the road to Santander! I was ahead of the game. This was around 8pm and my bus wasn't till 6:30 the next morning so I had some time to kill and to find somewhere to sleep. I wandered around the town for a bit to see what was about. I ended up going into the cathedral, which was open to tourists, and taking a look around the statues, paintings and ceilings for a while then just sat down in the pews, cleared my mind and sat alone thinking deeply about life. Then I wandered down some streets to find some food, most places I stopped at had menus full of dishes but all in Spanish so I had no idea what they were (I know enough French and German to get by in these situations but was never taught Spanish!) so I would take a peek and move on, confused. Around 10:00pm, I eventually found one, that had pictures of plates of food on the wall outside (numbered), so I thought "perfect" and before I had time to turn around, a waiter asked me politely, in English, if I would like to eat. He showed me the choice inside and told me what they all were, in English, and gave me the price list, pointed to show the different prices for indoor or outdoor (indoor was cheaper, which was my preference anyway!) and gave me a minute to make my mind up. I ordered a "Number One / Número Uno" (I know that much Spanish) and within two minutes I had a plate of pork chops, freshly-fried egg, chips and red peppers and a coke in front of me. I was so very happy. This waiter treated me so well and made me feel at home, when I was feeling rather alone and a little worried about how the next day would turn out, whether or not I'd make it to the airport (250+ miles away) on time for my flight, all by myself.

I ate my meal while watching some basketball, then the start of a football match between Barcelona and Hibernian, then ordered a coffee and pulled out my book and began to read. I continued to sit and read for quite some time, and at 2:15am, the waiter apologised and politely informed me that it was closing time, so I thanked him and put my book away and went to pay the bill, which was about €8 which was incredibly cheap for a full meal, a coke and a coffee, especially to say I had been there for over four hours! He asked where in England I was from, what I had been doing on holiday, that sort of thing. I told him I was from Sheffield, that I'd been in the Pyrenees and that I was flying home the next day. He was very nice and we had a short chat and I left. I sat on a bench right outside and finished my book (I was only a couple of chapters from the end). I'd not had much chance to read while I was away, but I got through half of the book in that restaurant and was ready to start the next one on the coach in about four hours' time! I wandered around and found a place to fill my water bottle up; it was a grassy area with weird statues and there was a water tap in the middle, so I went up to it and started rummaging through my bag when I heard a noise getting progressively closer, I looked around to see a rotating sprinkler getting towards the place I was standing, so I hopped out of its path, trying to avoid the next one along, and quickly dived in and filled up in the 30 seconds before it got back to me! Then I headed over to the bus station, hoping that it was still open so I would have somewhere to kip for the next few hours, and it was - so I found myself a corner, got my sleeping bag out and set about 5 alarms on my phone!

It was rather hard to get to sleep on the hard floor but I kept my eyes closed, and all of a sudden I heard a car pull up just outside the sheltered section of the station I was laying in, I looked up to see a police car with a couple of local bobbies staring at the heap in the corner, and when I looked up they stared for a minute or two while saying soemthing to each other but then seemed to be ok with the situation and drove away. I think I eventually got to sleep at around 4:00am but made sure I was awake and up at 6:00 and got ready for the bus. I started my book on that journey, and took some cool sunrise pictures from the coach. I arrived in Pamplona just after 8am and I was feeling a combination of sickness, tiredness and hunger, but with an overwhelming urgency to purcahse my bus ticket to Santander. I joined a queue that had no-one being served at the end of it, waited there a while until the ticket desk woman opened up and gave the usual "Do you speak English?" opener and receieved the usual negative response. The word "No" is common between the English and Spanish languages. I had my intended journeys written down with teh times of departure and arrival underneath the place names, so I pointed to it as I had done the previous night in Jaca. She knew what I was saying and told me, in Spanish, that the bus was fully booked. Oh dear.

From my research I knew that that service was rather infrequent and I knew the next one would get me to Santander too late. I had to find another way to get there. By train, maybe? I needed to talk to somebody English who could provide me with the information a person would need in my position. I forgot all about the sickness, tiredness and hunger and made a sharp exit from the bus station. I needed Tourist Information. Luckily I saw a sign just a couple of minutes out of the station that vaguely pointed to the TI, so I took off in that general direction and walked for about 10 minutes, just when I began to think that I was heading nowhere, I happened across another signpost to the TI! I followed it further and saw the building - it had its shutters down. I went up to the shutters and saw some information on the wall next to it. The opening times stated 10:00am. There was an English-looking person with a large rucksack also looking at the very same piece of text. I said hello and asked if he was English. He was Australian. Close enough. We had a chat and told each other our stories. His name was Max and he had been travelling around Europe for a few months with various family and friends and now he was on his own (just like me). He told me he was about to start a pilgrimage which could be started at any point on this route marked out by signposts, with hostels along the way for other pilgrims to meet up in the evenings and walk together during the daytime. He was waiting for the TI to open so he could sign up to the pilgrimage (registered pilgrims get discount at hostels along the way), so he had about 90 minutes to kill before he could sign up. This was perfect. He was the friendliest guy I've ever met and he was ever so helpful to me. It was great that he had all that time to kill and I was there to provide him with a way of killing it! I informed him of my predicament and he was more than willing and able to offer me help. I suggested we found out about trains, and since he had just come from the train station he led the way. I was a little more calm now, and we had a great chat about our trips and our lives. We got to the station and I asked the guy if he spoke English (I was wasting my time as usual) and simply said the name of the place I wanted to get to: "Santander?". Apparently there are no trains from Pamplona to Santander. I looked at the map and thought to ask if there was a train to Bilbao, which would be a step in the right direction, at least. Apparently there are no trains from Pamlona to Bilbao. Apparently there are no trains from Pamplona to anywhere to the West of it. I panicked. I had to try the bus station again, to see of I could at least get to a place (preferably a bit closer to Santander) with a reasonable hub for transport! We headed back and chatted some more. It was 9:30am before we got there so Max left for the opening of the Tourist Information. If you're reading this, Max, thanks ever so much for your help and I hope your pilgrimage went well and you had a great trip! Leave a comment below or send me an email!

Luckily there was a bus to Bilbao at 11:15am so I had a fair wait, but at least I had a ticket. I remembered I was hungry and went for a croissant and a coffee around the corner. I got my bus fine and had a kip on the way to Bilbao. I arrived there at about 1:10pm and joined a queue to get a ticket to Santander. The LED timetable board in the station said there was one at 2:00pm so I knew I could be there in plenty of time. I was behind two German women who were also buying tickets to Santander, so when they were refused tickets I got a little worried, but fortunately this was simply because we had been in the wrong queue, the next queue was also the wrong queue but the third (it was 1:30pm by this point) was the right queue! They bought their tickets and I was hoping they hadn't just filled the coach and stranded me in Spain, but luckily they hadn't. The woman was printing my ticket after taking my money, and I decided to ask if the bus stopped at the airport (not in English or Spanish, but the universal language of silly hand signals - you should have been my aeroplane signal!) and she suddenly stopped and exclaimed "You want airport!?" and told me that was a different bus, the next one was at 3:30pm and arrived at 4:50pm, which was just about in time for me to check-in. She ripped up my ticket and printed another. Sorted. I actually had a ticket in my hand that would take me to the airport on time to catch my flight home. All day there had been that air of uncertainty, but finally my fate was sealed. I was going to London! Maybe even Sheffield, if things kept on working out!

I spent the next two hours wandering around Bilbao. There wasn't enough time to do anything fun, but I occupied myself and took a few pictures around the city. I caught the bus and got off at the airport. Then something hit me. My bag was considerably bigger than the one I had come in, because I needed more of my gear and sets of clothes for the Trace Gathering. I couldn't check-in with a bag that was bigger than the allowed dimensions, I needed to compress it somehow, but then there was the question of weight - if they saw it and thought it looked too heavy they would weigh it and it would probably be too heavy. I'm not sure what the procedure is for this; on the website it says they have the right to refuse your admission to the plane if your hand luggage is too big or too heavy, but I think it's more likely that they'll make you send it in as checked luggage and charge you for it. I didn't want either of these things to happen to me. I had a plan. I went into the airport toilet before I checked in. I emptied my bag and took all of the clothes and put them all on, on top of what I was already wearing! Then I got hold of all the things I could pass off as things that people would usually carry loose in their hands, like both of my books, my notepad, food, and suchlike, shoved some in my pockets and carried the rest in my hands. I checked-in at the desk, then went through the scanning machine wearing three pairs of socks, two pairs of boxer shorts, two pairs of shorts, a pair of jogging bottoms, a t-shirt, two football shirts and a hoodie, nothing beeped (I'd remembered to take my camera from around my neck, nothing beeped, no questions asked. As soon as I got round the corner I took most of it off because I was boiling! I shoved everything back in my bag and waited for passport control and then boarding.

The flight was fine and I arrived at Stanstead in good time. I got through immgration in no time and went to the National Express coach place at the front of the airport. It was 7:55pm and I had two hours to wait before my coach, but I managed to get on one at 8:00pm (I booked on a later one in case I got held up). The coach took me to Golders Green in London, where I was to wait for the next coach to take me to Sheffield. The one I had booked onto was at midnight, and I was there at 9:00pm. I looked at the timetable and found that there was a more direct coach to Sheffield at 10:00pm so if the coach had free seats and the driver was reasonable I'd be able to get on that one and be in Sheffield by 1:00am, but otherwise I'd have to get the later one and not get to Sheffield till 4:00am! I waited and read some more of my book and at about 10:30pm the coach showed up and the driver let me on. I read my book for most of the journey (and almost finished it, which was pretty cool, starting and finishing a book in one day) I was at Sheffield station by 1:30am and got picked up and took home, where I slept for a very long time. I chilled out at home for the weekend, sorted the hundreds of photos I'd taken, and uploaded them to my Flickr. Then I got ready for the Trace Gathering, with half of my kit still in Torla, so I was planning to borrow a tent, stove, etc. from friends when I arrived!

Browse my Pyrenees photoset here.

Labels: Featured, Scouting, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 22:33

Sunday, 10 February 2008

Winter Runaround / The Bone of Contention

The Winter Runaround is a Scouting competition for 14-25s where teams of 4-7 travel across South Yorkshire by means of public transport with pre-purchased travel passes, with the aim of competing bases at Scout headquarters all over the county in order to earn points.

The Bone of Contention is a challenge trophy (a bone on a wooden plaque) which started as a Venture Scout challenge whereby one Venture Unit (the challengers) would propose a challenge to the present holders of the Bone in order to attempt to win it from them, and since it was won from my Venture Unit about 5 years ago when I started, its location has been unknown.

This is the story of how these two pieces of information came together one Saturday in February 2008.

I entered the Winter Runaround with team mates David Webster, Rob Batley, Dom Sharpe and Andrew Webster, and since more than one of our number are over 18 we had to enter the Network competition (18-25) rather than the Explorer one (14-18). We were given our travel passes and at 08:00 we were off! We started at Woodseats, our own HQ on Helmton Road, and completed the base there and earning our first points before heading off to Tickhill via bus, train, bus. We completed the activity on the base there and some more points and continued with our travels.



Throughout the day we visited bases in Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster. We caught dozens of trains, buses and trams and sprinted between bus stops and bases at every opportunity in order to be most efficient with our timing. We had the route planned out to-the-minute and allowed for complications or changes of plan with alternative routes. Having an Internet-enabled phone was very useful as we could check train and bus times with ease, plan the next move as we'd know what time we got in and where we needed to be and at what time. All in all it was a very hectic day of dashing off in all directions, sticking together as a team and solving problems (involving mental and physical activity) at bases to earn points.



The highlight for me was when we caught a train to Barnsley, then a bus out to near where the base was, sprinting down the road to the base and completing the task (getting the day's best score on that base), sprinting back up the road and catching the same bus we'd just got off (the driver had finished his route and turned back on the return journey), and the driver asked if we were lost but we told him why we were heading back the way he had just brought us
and he was rather impressed with the timing. We then arrived at the bus/train interchange with 20 minutes before our train to the very last base (having decided to miss out the other Barnsley one due to us pushing for time) so we decided to risk it and sprint up to where the other Barnsley base was and try and complete the task and make it back to the station in time, and we found it on very vague directions, completed the task getting half the maximum points (and more than most on that base) and rushing off with five minutes to get back for our train, and catching it to the next base. We managed to complete the task on that base (which meant we'd made it to all ten bases over South Yorkshire and earned points on each) and make it to the finish point in Chapeltown with an hour to spare.



Then after a final activity at the finish point, gaining even more points, all the teams returned (some late with points deducted) and were together for food and drink before the results were confirmed.

Back to the Bone of Contention...

I've been trying to track the Bone for months now, and the last I heard it was in possession of a guy called Charlie who ran a Unit somewhere. At one of the bases in Barnsley, I noticed that the lads helping run the base were wearing hoodies depicting the name and nature of their Unit (as is the trend) and I could see that they were members of Charlie's Angles Explorer Unit (that's Angles, not Angels) and I knew that this was where the Charlie with the Bone was based, so I enquired as to whether Charlie was there, and he was the guy I happened to ask, so I further enquired as the the location of the Bone of Contention, and he said he gave it to Sharon (the organiser of the Winter Runaround) that very morning, so I made a mental note to locate Sharon later on and ask her what was what.

When we made it to the finish point and had eaten, I found Sharon and she told me that the Bone was now a Network challenge and - most relevant of all - that she would be giving it to whichever Network team won the Winter Runaround.

Labels: Featured, Scouting, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 18:19

Sunday, 20 January 2008

Place de Chevreuse - Parkour Pilgrimage Preview

Labels: Featured, Lisses, Parkour, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 02:34

Saturday, 12 January 2008

Us On BBC Inside Out

Labels: Featured, Parkour, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 17:15

Tuesday, 30 October 2007

Spontaneous Cambridge Visit

I'm currently sat in a pub called The Eagle, it's round the corner from King's College Chapel of the University of Cambridge, I'm waiting for the food we just ordered. I'm writing this blog post on my new mobile phone. Damn right I'm on Blogger on my phone. I love technology. Anyway, here's my story ... this morning my Mum woke me up to tell me she was going to Cambridge for a spot of sightseeing, and did I want to come along? I thought, "I want to go to Cambridge", and so I went along for the ride.

I thought it would be interesting to see the University (not in the way I was interested to see Manchester Met and Leicester De Monfort earlier this month, I'm sorry to disappoint but I'm not in the Oxbridge academic caliber), and have a look round the city I know to have an excellent parkour scene and home of TCT (The Cambridge Traceurs), although with only having spontaneously arranged to go on the sopt this morning, I hadn't had time to arrange to meet up with anyone for training. We had a bite to eat and a look round the shops before hopping on the open top tourist bus that took us round all the colleges and other city sights. We had a great day learning about the history and traditions of the University and got to see the beautiful city. As the trip was coming to an end, I went into a public toilet in a shopping centre and as I went to wash my hands I noticed a guy who entered sporting baggy jogging wear, I thought to myself "That guy looks like Owen" (one of the Cambridge Traceurs, but continued to wash my hands as I dismissed the idea as a trick of the mind, as I assumed I was seeing what I wanted to see due to the parkour mindset, but as I went to dry my hands I caught a glimpse of his face, and I knew it was him.

"Owen?", I said. He hadn't heard me but as he got closer my certainty rose.
"Owen? ... Owen?" On the third time he looked up and removed his earphones.
I said, "Owen Covill, right? Parkour?"
"Yeh", he replied, presumedly rather confused.
"I met you at the Trace Gathering. I'm from Sheffield. I'm a friend of Jin's" He looked surprised.
"Woah ... are you here training?", he asked,
"No, I'm just here with my parents checking out the city, just decided to come this morning"
"Oh right, well I'm just meeting Phil, you remember Phil?"
"Philly D, yeh."
"Wanna come and join us for training?"
"Love to" I went to find my Dad and explained, I arranged to meet back with my parents in an hour, went off with Owen and we warmed up round the corner and waited for Phil.

I had a great session, even though it was only an hour or so, we did some stuff on some scaffolding, where a middle-aged woman looked shocked that I was about to jump accross some of it, and between us we explained that even though it looked dangerous to her, we were well-practised and did things safely, then thanked her for her concern and carried on. We moved on to the spot outside King's College Chapel on Trinity Street, a famous (amongst practitioners) parkour spot, and conveniently where I'd arranged to meet my parents, without knowing what or where it was. I noticed a nice cat-pass precision that I recognised from Cambridge videos, and wanted to do it, and after a few run-ups trying to get my head round it, my Dad turned up and said we were going for something to eat before going home, so I asked Owen if he knew anywhere nice to eat nearby, and he directed us to The Eagle, just around the corner. My parents set off but I'd asked for five more minutes to play. I had to see if I could get the cat-precision. I weighed it up, conquered the mental barrier and knew I could do it. I rather enjoyed it.

Before I left I got a picture of the three of us (for't blog):



So that's how I got to be sat in The Eagle, typing this blog post on my phone. I'm at home now finishing it off and checking for spelling mistakes due to the predictive text...

Lots of weird things happening to me lately. Secret Messages to and from Lisses involving people from all over Europe, conflicts with angry drunken smokers, me completely randomly bumping into a fellow traceur in a public toilet in Cambridge ... what next? Subscribe to my RSS feed to find out as soon as possible! RSS and Atom. Better still, use Live Bookmarks in Firefox.

Oh and Owen, my Mum says thanks for recommending The Eagle, she really enjoyed the meal!

Labels: Featured, Parkour, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 18:36

Monday, 3 September 2007

Trip to Lisses 2007

For those of you who don't know, Lisses is a suburb of Paris and it is where Parkour began. David Belle, the founder of the French discipline, lived there and began to develop the art of movement from his background in gymnastics, athletics and martial arts.


La Dame Du Lac

Me, Danny and Scott met up in Sheffield bus station and got the coach to London, where we met up with Sam and Kai and got the Eurostar to Paris, where we got a couple of trains (which were double decker, might I add!) to Evry Courcouronnes and tried to find our way to the hotel in Lisses. After an hour or so of walking through the Parisian suburbs in the dark, I was starting to get a little concerned, we went on...and on...and on...until suddenly Danny shouted out in ecstacy "it's there - the Dame Du Lac!" which I took me be a good sign immediately, seeing as we'd been told that the hotel was a short walk from the Dame. (Note: the Dame Du Lac (Lady of the Lake) is a man-made architectural climbing structure in the Park Du Lac (Park of the Lake), which is commonly used to practise parkour on)


La Dame Du Lac

We eventually found the hotel and sorted our rooms out, showered and went out in search for food, the venture lasted hours and we found nowhere open (this was a Sunday evening) so we went back to the hotel, depressed and starved, and treated ourselves to one of Sam's cereal bars each. Not a great start. Our first day of training started with going to the Dame Du Lac and seeing it in daylight in all its magnificent glory for the very first time. There was something bothering me all day; I wasn't in the mood for training, I felt tired, aggravated and my ankle wasn't comfortable with me doing much else than walking. The first day passed and I was surprisingly depressed to say I was in Lisses.


Ville De Lisses

The second day came and after a warm up and a jog round the town I felt fresh and rearing to go! After doing a few cat pass precisions I'd seen the day before I was feeling incredible, exactly the way I knew I should have felt. The whole day's training was great. The next few days went by and we hit all the spots around the town we were aware of and we were all simply in awe at how perfect the place was, it's like it was meant to be that parkour was created and practised there - everything about Lisses and its surrounding areas is perfect for practising parkour movements and performing natural training; the architecture of the flats, the streets, the rocks and trees that were positioned as though they were meant to be used for this purpose, the forest which has about a dozen different man-made training resources placed around the course of the path - pull-up bars, monkey bars, balance beams, stepping-stone tree-stumps - like a £40-a-month gym membership all made from wood and free for anyone to use anytime day or night!


Lisses flats

After a few days of being undecided whether I'd make it to the top of the Dame, I conquered my fear and went for it, I was shaking like mad when I got to the platform at the top and Sam and Scott met me up there, I felt awesome for having made it but had an anxious scared feeling of being up there and having to come down, as I knew it would be even harder to get down than come up. Both up and down are a huge mental challenge. I'd even go as far to say doing it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, purely on the mental block factor. Oh and it was bloody windy up there! Anyway I took it carefully and slowly and obviously since I'm sat here telling you about it I made it down no problem. I went back up again the next day, which was much easier, as was coming down, although I still had to be cautious and take it easy. The day after I went up twice more, each time felt more comfortable. I only went up the left hand side, so next year I think the challenge will be to try out one or two of the alternative routes.

Half way through the week we went into Evry and saw that the spots there were next to the station we walked to the hotel from on the first night (it took us about 30 minutes this time, the more direct route!), and we found the University spot next to the Cathedral (which is the weirdest looking Cathedral I've ever seen! See picture below). Anyway, Evry has the sickest spots! Just two massive areas next to each other with a whole range of jumps, vaults and combinations to try out! I managed to do the famous cat pass precision with the three walls where you clear the middle wall, and I also made a sizey level cat pass precision next to it.


Evry Cathedral

One night we decided to go and check out the forest, and did some light conditioning on the man-made structures, we did cat crawls, balances, precisions, runs across the tree stumps, and literally "hung out" on the monkey bars. We returned the following afternoon to see what it was like by daylight and had great fun on the exercise equipment, and even joined on the back of a French running group's workout session!

One day when we started at the Dame, as I was walking along the side of the lake I spotted a dead fish floating at the side of the water, and decided I wanted to "fish" it out, so I reached in with sticks and things to try and lure it closer to the edge for me to pick up out, and after a good fuve minutes' hard work trying to get it close enough to get hold of it, I managed to get it in my hand, then I decided to take it with me up to the top of the Dame. I put it in a carrier bag, put it in my pocket and set off for the top! I left it up there for someone else to find it amazed shock and confusion, and the next evening I was talking to the Portuguese guys from the hotel about how I hate Urban Freeflow and it turned out 3 of them were part of UF, which sounds like it could have been awkward but they understood my reasoning, and anyway, one of them mentioned they'd been to the Dame that afternoon, so I asked if he'd been to the top and he said he couldn't go to the Dame without going to the top, and I asked if there was anything up there and he said in exclamation "Yeh! There was a FISH up there!" and I laughed and said I put it there. He said he thought a bird had flown it there or something. Adventures with me with the fish are featured in the video. I have to say I think I'm the first person to have taken a fish up to the top of the Dame Du Lac.


Me with a fish on top of the Dame Du Lac

On our last day of training, the Saturday, we trained in Lisses in the morning and I managed to pull off a laché-type manoeuvre that I saw Dave do in the Northern Parkour Lisses Trip 2006 video, which you'll see in the video at 01:50. Then we headed into Evry and bumped into some local traceurs we'd trained with earlier in the week, then saw a couple of guys who train in Evry with the Yamakasi. I was telling one of them about the guy who Danny and Paul met last year who claimed to be Yann Hnautra (co-founder of the Yamakasi, as seen in their films) and that they met him again this year, and he said that they were aware of the fake, and just then, a bulked up guy came round the corner and he said "oh, here's Yann". It was the real Yann. His wife came along with their 2 year-old son and I asked him if his son does parkour and he said he does a bit. Yann played with his son and then got his guitar out and started performing like a busker.

During a bit of training with the guys we'd met earlier, Danny had done a cat pass precision and the guy we were with liked it and tried it a few times before making it, and Danny turned to us all with a smug look on his face and said "I'm better than the Yamakasi" and we all burst out laughing and explained that this guy wasn't part of the Yamakasi, he just trains with them, he's been training just a few years like us as opposed to the 20 years the Yamakasi have been practising!

I tried to find the secret message at the Dame, featured in the post before this one, and discovered that it had been replaced by the guy who found it with his own message, so I took it home as a keepsake and replaced it with my own message. Cool, eh?


Me on the school roof in Lisses - note the customary Blogger t-shirt

We were gutted to have to leave on the Sunday, but it had been such a rewarding trip - we'd all learned so much, achieved so much and experienced so much, it was everything we hoped it would be and more. The only disappointment for me was that we didn't meet and train with many other people. We briefly trained with the local French guys, the Portuguese UF guys, one Polish guy and the Yamakasi followers, but no-one else, not even from the UK. I was expecting the place to be flooded with traceurs from all over Europe. I was hoping that David Belle would come home from the Airwaves Parkour Event in Berlin and be out training in Lisses, but we heard from the guy in Evry that he was visiting his sister in Iceland after the thing in Berlin :(. Maybe next year I'll get to meet him...

We had to head off early on Sunday morning to give us plenty of time to get to Paris to get the Eurostar back to London, so we didn't get chance to train in Lisses before departing. We were lucky with the trains and got to Paris with 3 hours to spare so we did some buildering and skimmed rocks on the river until it was time to go. We then had a couple of hours spare in London before our coach so we trained around imax and South Bank which made me realise how much I'd love to go to train in London, it truly is a great place for parkour. We got so carried away with training that the time flew and when I checked the time we only had half an hour before our coach left, so we had to run for a taxi...or get the Underground...or anything to get there as soon as we could, and after 15 minutes of trying to work out the quickest way, and then realising there was a huge queue for taxis, we ran through and bought Underground tickets, sprinted to get on a tube, it was only a few stops (Piccadilly to Victoria) but included a changeover, and what didn't help was that there was a closure on the stop we needed to get to, so we had to go an extra stop before changing, and then when we finally got to Victoria, a couple of minutes after the coach departure time, I saw the coach to Sheffield down the road, sprinted to catch up with it at the traffic lights and asked if we could get on, but they'd filled it up, I guess they sold our seats off. We went into the station to see if we could get on another coach and we could get another one an hour later but we had to pay £15 each for the tickets, which was more than we'd paid online for the return journey! We managed to get home on that next coach no problem.


La Dame Du Lac at Night

Enjoy the video:



If anyone would like any advice about a trip to Lisses, such as where and how to get the train from Paris to Lisses,or info on the hotel or whatever, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Edit: I've posted the best of my photos from the trip to my Flikr Account. Check them out: flickr.com/bennuttall

Labels: Featured, Lisses, Parkour, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 15:11

Friday, 3 August 2007

Trace Gathering 07

This week, Fieldhead Campsite in Edale in the Peak District held host to 115 or so traceurs for the Trace (or TRACEur) Gathering 2007. An absolutely brilliant few days of hanging out with over a hundred people who live for parkour - camping together, talking about parkour, and training in the most amazing natural areas of the Peak District.



Day One, Tuesday, we all arrived at the campsite at different times, pitched up and then just hung around playing catch with a ball, trying to catch frisbees in our mouths, etc. before all heading to the local play park for some getting-to-know-eachother light training. It was great fun, we had one of those "let's see who can make the cat pass past the line"-type exercises which are always fun, and there was a tricking demonstration from Daniel Ilabaca, who was watched by many awestruck contingents, often interrupted by someone who would think "oh, I can do that trick almost a millionth as well as him, I'll show him my feeble attempt".



Day Two was the first full day of training. My group, led by Daniel, started at Padley Gorge (which, by the way, Jason told me last year he loves and thinks is better than Lisses!), and after getting ice-cream (chocolate knickerbocker glories) moved onto Higger Tor and surrounding peaks. Danny (Sheffield) and Paul (Manchester) were in my group that day, which was cool.

On the long trek to Higger Tor a few of us listened to what Daniel had to say - it was so inspiring hearing him talk about his philosophy on life, youth, and passing on the message of parkour to anyone who was looking for the thing that was formerly missing from his life until he found it in the art of movement and related activities. He's such a sound guy and I felt privileged to be training with him and that I had the chance to listen to what he had to say.



The day finished by us being sorted into new groups for the following day and then a presentation by Jin's Dad about their charity: New Foundations, who provide medical and surgical services to areas of the Niger Delta where there is currently no present provision. We raised £581.76 for the cause.



Day Three started off with an oddly-coordinated warm-up led by Jason at Grindleford Station. Oh and a few weeks previously I'd been asked about doing some filming for the BBC and I'd told the guy about the gathering and he expressed interest in joining us and filming so I got him in touch with Jason, and anyway, he turned up to meet us at the station, which was a promising start.

I was meant to be in a group with Shane and Scott (one of the guys I'm going to Lisses with), but in deciding which way would be less boggy, two groups got mixed up, and I was with no-one I knew, which sucked at first, as I was stuck with a big bunch of people who interact with others on WorldWideJam, which for some unknown reason I've always been rather skeptical towards, anyway, these guys all knew eachother and had no intention of including me in their discussion, so I was doing my own thing on Higger Tor and then joined in with Blake (from the Saiyans), Brad Moss (the guy who was part of 'The Freerunners' on Britain's Got Talent) and Moses, who had travelled all the way from Austria just to train with us, I got really into the stuff they were trying and we got on really well and I ended up training with them for the rest of the day. The guys from the BBC found us up there and filmed some parkour. We then headed back to Padley Gorge and had some fun on the rocks and in the trees and headed back to the campsite.



I think it's worth mentioning that it was very useful getting on the train with over a hundred traceurs, as the conductor has no chance of getting round you all, and often decided not to bother charging anyone. What we did was wait to see which end the conductor was positioned, and get on at the opposite doors and create a barrier of more gullible traceurs between ourselves and the conductor in case he made the attempt of getting blood from a stone.



After tea and a rest at the campsite I headed to the park again to do some parkour with the Manchester guys who had decided to drive home that night as no training was planned for the last day. We got there and quickly realised we had neither the energy, manoeuvrability nor the motivation to do any physical work so we went for a session of "let's film amusing things for Paul's video" which mainly involved purpose bails. Then pretty much everyone from the campsite arrived at the park for Jason and Dave's conditioning session, which turned out to consist of 30 push-ups followed by "that's it for conditioning" and everyone pounding on Jason and almost successfully removing his trousers.



Day Four consisted of nothing more than packing up our tents and stuff, saying goodbye and going home. Shane had gone home the night before so me and Danny bode our farewells to those remaining, mostly Trace Reps. I wished Jin an awesome year, as he's going to China as part of his Uni course in a couple of weeks, I spoke to Moses about my plans to travel next Summer and hopefully pay him a visit and train with him in Austria, I spoke to Blake as I had a great time training with him and I'm certain it won't be the last time, I thanked Daniel, Dave and Jason and left for the station to get the train back to Sheffield.

Many thanks to Jason and Dave for organising and running an awesome week of meeting people and training in a fantastic atmosphere. Also thanks to all the Trace reps who made it what it was. Roll on TRACE 08!

Most of the photos courtesy of Shane Rounce. Check out his photographic display at Flickr. For the rest see the photo collection at TraceHQ.

There's more to come on TRACE 07 - there'll be a feature in the Sheffield Star soon and I should have more info on the BBC thing - all I know at present is that it's for a programme called Inside Out and should be shown in September. They're also filming some more parkour in Sheffield soon.

Also, check out my new 'About' page.

Labels: Featured, Parkour, Travels

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 14:35

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